I have yet to hook anything up to my Windows machine that didn't work 100%
Hmm, you must have been lucky and never tried to use an AGP video card in a Windows 95 system, or plugged in most anything USB in a Windows 2000 system. If you don't have a driver disk for everything, they don't work.
On Ubuntu on the other hand most everything works without downloading any drivers with few exceptions.
Yeah, I tried Ubuntu Feisty for awhile and could not get my parallel port scanner to work at all, no matter what I tried, even though the SANE website said it was supported.
It pays to know what is not supported. I have a parallel port scanner. I knew I needed to run to Goodwill an pick up a USB scanner for $9.95. I plugged it in and it just works. I aloso had to be picky about which wireless card I used.
Is this like not being able to install extra sensors on your car's alarm system because you have not yet activated your OnStar service?
No this is like adding a DVD player to your Onstar equipped vehicle and having Onstar invalidated because the new component isn't activated with Onstar.
I had to call Microsoft thirteen times over the course of 2 weeks to get it working again.
I never would have gotten that far. After the 4th try, I would have moved to the where do I return for a refund route. In the meantime I would be moving on to something else. By the way, the new version of Open Office was just recently released.
most stable MS OS ever... oh, the list just goes on....
The endless search for drivers for USB thumb drives, etc.
My Thinkpad T21 came with Windows 2000. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I have yet needed a driver. My Cannon flatbed scanner works, all my printers work. No driver downloads were needed. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting area of a tire shop using their wireless. Even my D-Link wireless card works.
I graduated high school when calculators ran on 4 AA batteries and would run for up to 8 hours. They were just under $150 for one that could add subtract multiply and divide and the big bonus, a percent key for the morons who couldn't move the decimal point two places.
I found the traditional slide rule large and bulky and often I would try to use the wrong index so my answer was off the scale off the other end (those who use them know what I'm talking about) so I was the owner of a circular slide rule. It fit my shirt pocket and had a pull out sheet with common conversions of weights and measures. I used the table as much as I used the slide.
One of the biggest uses for it was a sanity check of my math. If my math was out in left field for some stupid thing, the slide rule would quickly show my answer wasn't in the ball park.
A popular mis conception is a 65 watt laptop power supply draws 65 watts. A 350 watt desktop power supply draws 350 watts. A 550 watt power supply draws 550 watts. These numbers is mostly WRONG. The wattage a power supply draws is equal to the amount of power drawn from the supply plus the loss in conversion (efficiency) of the supply. The wattage stamped on the box is simply the capacity of the supply. A 550 Watt supply is supposed to be able to provide 550 Watts out. If the supply is 90% efficient, the total power supplied out the DC side is 550 Watts. The 550 Watts is only 90% of the AC power the supply draws.
Most of the time most computers draw far less than the peak power rating of the supply. Many computers draw only 1/2 to 2/3rds the supply rating. They use a little more for intensive activities such as writing DVD's and de-fragging the hard drive.
Many supplies lie about their rating and simply melt down in smoke if they are loaded to the stated capacity. (check the reviews)
The thing is, a simple set of lightbulbs wired between phases could tell you if it's safe to switch, or a relay that's powered by the difference could keep the switch from happening.
That is so 1960's and still permits an untrained operator to close the breaker way out of phase. Anything more modern has a phase detection relay which interupts the breaker loop if either the phase is too far out or the speed isn't close enough which could cause sever phase bounce. An additional measure is modern generators have a reverse current relay so if a generator gets a push instead of providing power, it relays out. The reverse current relay quickly drops machines dropped online way out of phase if they lag in phase. This relay and overcurrent relays contributed to the great NY blackout from a few years ago. A line overloaded and relayed out. The overload took the plants close to the overload behind in phase. When the overload suddenly cleared, the behind phase generators got a push to catch up, they as a result relayed out. Their push was a load on the grid and then suddenly they dropped off. This sudden load and loss of load cascaded up the line.
To prevent this type of outage, some of the system parameters can be bypassed while gyrations are settled. This is the severe torque load seen on the test generator in the video. A non by passable over current device and proper sized reverse current relay could have saved that plant as it would not have gotten slingshot boosted from a high current out of phase condition. Limiting the amount of reverse current and limiting the total current goes a long way to protecting a plant. These hard limits should never be under software control. Adjustable soft limits within safe operating parameters should be allowed, for example for a little line phase and speed bounce permitting reverse power of say 2% of capacity and under speed of 1% and tripping if reactive power is greater than 50% of capacity are permissable and may be adjusted to anticipate transients such as scheduled plant maintenance.
Firefox reports the page in your link as a reported forgery. I like Firefox. I'm surprised it has not made it to the scrubit filtered DNS yet. Will, it's time to fill in another phishing page with garbage. Woo Hoo!
1 I don't have an eBay account. They are all phish. I love seeding their database with garbage. 2 Filtered DNS. Phishing sites are quickly reported and filtered. Most of my attempts to feed their database garbage results in a "this page has been scrubbed" page instead.
don't be so sure... someone would had to have actually BOUGHT one of these in order to make sure they can play mp3s.
Not true. There are some Zunes out there. I met a friend of my daughter who has one. I asked about it. She liked it, but she didn't buy it. Her uncle who works for Microsoft gave it to her. And yes, they do play MP3's. I asked if she bought anything from the Zune store. Nope, just playing MP3's.
The reason that Robertson' business didn't succeed is that the record companies are getting tired of dealing with third-party vendors selling their music.
Exactly.
some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried.
They knew exactly how to bury Anywhere CD and used it.
In my link to the Styx stuff, I found out that the results didn't contain what I thought it did. This example is of just the newer Live releases. If you are looking for the old classic Babe on the Grand Illusion album, you are out of luck. It is not carried at this time.
Before purchase, make sure the song is the one you want. If you want the studio release instead of the live concert, be sure to check first.
I was hoping they took care of the high price problem as well as the incompatibility issues. I thouhgt they had except when I went to look up one of the bands I enjoyed while much younger.
There are a couple golden oldies on the list, but most of them are newer stuff I never heard. Many of them are marked Explicit, so I know I never heard them on the radio. Just how do the explicit albums get popular to make the top 100? Peer to peer maybe?
Oldies on the list include; I Walk the Line I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd God Only Knows by The Beach Boys Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) by Stevie Wonder
Explicit stuff on the list include; Can't Tell Me Nothing [Explicit] by Kanye West I Got 5 On It [Explicit] by The Luniz Give It To Me [Explicit] by Timbaland In Da Club [Explicit] by 50 Cent The People [Explicit] The People [Explicit] by Common
I guess there is enough variety to satisfy most everyone.
Sadly it is priced to not under price iTunes. DRM free on the other hand and at the higher bit rate should shake up the apple position with the higher priced DRM free tracks. Competition is good.
Someday, they may get into my price range for back catalog stuff.
But are they going to sell this information (along with personal data) to 'marketers'?
As a proud tinfoil hat member, it's not that simple. It is to watermark your purchases so later when they show up on P-P they know who to sue. You might not be the one who posted them on P-P but the copies you put on your kids computer that got burned on a CD and traded at school will still cause you problems.
The above comment is speculation and might not be true. It could be FUD, or maybe not.
It seems just about everything that I listen to that is available somewhere is available here, so what am I missing?
Linux compatiblilty..
"Plus, our Amazon MP3 Downloader application"
It looks like you will need Windows or maybe an Apple to purchase the songs. Why the downloader? Probably to watermark the files with your user information.
It works if you change a 1 digit key which doesn't take long. What took me so long was the 3 hours on Google to find what key to change. After that, it connects to password protected workgroup SMB shares just fine.
The two tasks were simple for my Wife's new school laptop.
1 Copy the backup documents folder off a SMB share to the new Vista machine. Time to connect and transfer >3 hours. 2 Connect to an IPP printer on my LAN. Again a big Google search required. Time to connect first printer was about 2 hours. The second printer took just a couple minutes.
Both tasks were much easer to figure out for a noob in Ubuntu with a total learning curve and completed tasks of under 1 hour.
No doubt UMG would prefer to make the former cheaper, while maintaining the current pricing for the latter.
(Where former = older music, latter = new music)
No doubt UMG would prefer to keep the current price for the former, while increasing the price for the latter.
There, fixed that sentence for you.
Wistful thinking.. but I was hoping more in the line of "drop DRM, offer multiple formats such as MP3, FLAC, Ogg and WMA
at high quality for about half the price or less.
They could clean up the market with increased volume, better quality and elimination of almost all incompatibles.
I know it will never happen as long as they are trying to "Protect" their established traditional markets and the average selling price.
As long as they continue protecting the haystack from the cows, they have lost the sales entirely.
Obscure parable refrence is one of dogs guarding a haystack. The dogs can't eat the hay, but they guard it anyway. In this case, UMG can't use the music they are protecting (internal consumption) but must let others use it to be of any value. They could make a bundle if they backed down and sold from their huge haystack.
If developers were willing to target a wine-like framework, it would be a _much_ easier problem to make Wine (or at least the Winething framework), and it would be much easier to make cross platform apps, particular for shops that are accustomed to Win32.
I have no desire to import Windows Exploits tm. into Linux with WINE. Linux applications is what I would rather have.
A starter list includes The Gimp, Open Office, Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flashplayer 9, etc.
The problems caused by applications miss-use of the Registry in Windows is the biggest mess I want to dispense with. Rooting out malware from it is 95% of my Windows troubleshooting problems. Still broken on my Wife's XP pc is the photocopy software. It was working until we needed to edit a photo for e-mail. The bundled photo editor that came with the Dell was a limited trial. It took over the TWAIN driver breaking the photocopier. Using the photocopier simply launches the photo-editor instead of printing a copy. Removing the offending program did not fix the photocopier. Neither did removing and reinstalling the photocopier. Somewhere buried in Windows is some leftovers re-direct. It is probably buried somewhere in the registry where no documentation existing will allow me to fix it short of reinstall Windows from scratch. Windows simply can't find the photo editor any more and offers to help me find it. Obscure registry keys are a nightmare and are best left out of Linux.
I prefer a much simpler install remove route that works. I don't have that problem on my Linux box. SANE does not launch Gimp by default.
Where's the "sheeple" tag? How do I tag a/. article?
If there were a tag, it would be passing fad.
This is like Net Zero free internet. Wow Free internet!! Wohoo where do I sign up.
We all know the outcome. Too slow, too many disruptions, requires non-standard browser, etc. People talked about the advertisements just like the first cell phone calls were mostly "do you know where I am calling you from? I'm calling from my car phone!"
Don't be fooled by the early indicators. People rarely talk about the fact they are making a call from their car, or they are getting free internet. The commercials and freeloaders avoiding the commercials will soon place this in the same realm as Net Zero.
Netzero is still here, but I would hardly call it a roaring sucess. I had to do a Google search to see if they were still here. They are still here but they make no mention of the free advertising supported service. I think it is dead.
Mainstream a Linux desktop, and by mainstreaming, I mean make it commercial. Make it so Joe Notageek, and his grandmother, can install it with less clicks than it takes to install Windows. Provide apps for it.
Linpire installed on Wal*Mart machines with free and paid software repositories.. Desktop only.. Check Suse - Check Red Hat - Check Ubuntu - Check Freespire - Check
The only way to take down Microsoft, or make them improve their ways is through serious competition. And, I means s e r i o u s.
Firefox - Check Ubuntu - Check Apple OSX Check
Notice MS starting to get serious about security? Notice MS notice that not all developers are MS developers? They thought they owned development. They thought they could be lax on security due to the lack of competition. They thought they could round up the pirates and make them pay with WGA and the BSA. BSA backfired in a big way in Russia. As the result of a BSA raid, the entire Russian school system is going Linux. They are starting to see that they are no longer the Monopoly they were once upon a time. They are starting to adopt or die.
Mainstream a Linux server. Yes, I know there a lots out there, but again, only a few companies are really commercial.
The few companies will adjust to the market as needs grow and change. It is just how the free market works. Don't advocate over supply.
Getting the industry to create a logo for Windows apps that are compatable under a WINE or other emu system would be great.
Get a hint. Let me fix it.
Getting the industry to create Linux, Mac and Windows applications would be great.
Fixed it for you. Getting rid of the need for WINE is the goal. WINE is a patch for applications not yet ported. Native apps don't have to be spoon fed serial ports, USB ports, cut and paste, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I have yet to hook anything up to my Windows machine that didn't work 100%
Hmm, you must have been lucky and never tried to use an AGP video card in a Windows 95 system, or plugged in most anything USB in a Windows 2000 system. If you don't have a driver disk for everything, they don't work.
On Ubuntu on the other hand most everything works without downloading any drivers with few exceptions.
Yeah, I tried Ubuntu Feisty for awhile and could not get my parallel port scanner to work at all, no matter what I tried, even though the SANE website said it was supported.
It pays to know what is not supported. I have a parallel port scanner. I knew I needed to run to Goodwill an pick up a USB scanner for $9.95. I plugged it in and it just works. I aloso had to be picky about which wireless card I used.
Is this like not being able to install extra sensors on your car's alarm system because you have not yet activated your OnStar service?
No this is like adding a DVD player to your Onstar equipped vehicle and having Onstar invalidated because the new component isn't activated with Onstar.
I had to call Microsoft thirteen times over the course of 2 weeks to get it working again.
I never would have gotten that far. After the 4th try, I would have moved to the where do I return for a refund route. In the meantime I would be moving on to something else. By the way, the new version of Open Office was just recently released.
http://download.openoffice.org/
most stable MS OS ever... oh, the list just goes on....
The endless search for drivers for USB thumb drives, etc.
My Thinkpad T21 came with Windows 2000. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I have yet needed a driver. My Cannon flatbed scanner works, all my printers work. No driver downloads were needed. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting area of a tire shop using their wireless. Even my D-Link wireless card works.
I graduated high school when calculators ran on 4 AA batteries and would run for up to 8 hours. They were just under $150 for one that could add subtract multiply and divide and the big bonus, a percent key for the morons who couldn't move the decimal point two places.
I found the traditional slide rule large and bulky and often I would try to use the wrong index so my answer was off the scale off the other end (those who use them know what I'm talking about) so I was the owner of a circular slide rule. It fit my shirt pocket and had a pull out sheet with common conversions of weights and measures. I used the table as much as I used the slide.
One of the biggest uses for it was a sanity check of my math. If my math was out in left field for some stupid thing, the slide rule would quickly show my answer wasn't in the ball park.
A popular mis conception is a 65 watt laptop power supply draws 65 watts. A 350 watt desktop power supply draws 350 watts. A 550 watt power supply draws 550 watts. These numbers is mostly WRONG. The wattage a power supply draws is equal to the amount of power drawn from the supply plus the loss in conversion (efficiency) of the supply. The wattage stamped on the box is simply the capacity of the supply. A 550 Watt supply is supposed to be able to provide 550 Watts out. If the supply is 90% efficient, the total power supplied out the DC side is 550 Watts. The 550 Watts is only 90% of the AC power the supply draws.
Most of the time most computers draw far less than the peak power rating of the supply. Many computers draw only 1/2 to 2/3rds the supply rating. They use a little more for intensive activities such as writing DVD's and de-fragging the hard drive.
Many supplies lie about their rating and simply melt down in smoke if they are loaded to the stated capacity. (check the reviews)
The thing is, a simple set of lightbulbs wired between phases could tell you if it's safe to switch, or a relay that's powered by the difference could keep the switch from happening.
That is so 1960's and still permits an untrained operator to close the breaker way out of phase. Anything more modern has a phase detection relay which interupts the breaker loop if either the phase is too far out or the speed isn't close enough which could cause sever phase bounce. An additional measure is modern generators have a reverse current relay so if a generator gets a push instead of providing power, it relays out. The reverse current relay quickly drops machines dropped online way out of phase if they lag in phase. This relay and overcurrent relays contributed to the great NY blackout from a few years ago. A line overloaded and relayed out. The overload took the plants close to the overload behind in phase. When the overload suddenly cleared, the behind phase generators got a push to catch up, they as a result relayed out. Their push was a load on the grid and then suddenly they dropped off. This sudden load and loss of load cascaded up the line.
To prevent this type of outage, some of the system parameters can be bypassed while gyrations are settled. This is the severe torque load seen on the test generator in the video. A non by passable over current device and proper sized reverse current relay could have saved that plant as it would not have gotten slingshot boosted from a high current out of phase condition. Limiting the amount of reverse current and limiting the total current goes a long way to protecting a plant. These hard limits should never be under software control. Adjustable soft limits within safe operating parameters should be allowed, for example for a little line phase and speed bounce permitting reverse power of say 2% of capacity and under speed of 1% and tripping if reactive power is greater than 50% of capacity are permissable and may be adjusted to anticipate transients such as scheduled plant maintenance.
Firefox reports the page in your link as a reported forgery. I like Firefox. I'm surprised it has not made it to the scrubit filtered DNS yet.
Will, it's time to fill in another phishing page with garbage. Woo Hoo!
It's easy to tell them apart.
I have two ways to tell them apart.
1 I don't have an eBay account. They are all phish. I love seeding their database with garbage.
2 Filtered DNS. Phishing sites are quickly reported and filtered. Most of my attempts to feed their database garbage results in a "this page has been scrubbed" page instead.
http://scrubit.com/
There is no software to download or install. It's simply a free filtered DNS service.
Why haven't I seen any for Linux workstations sold by Wal-Mart?
Return on investment. The market segment is still too small to justify the cost of a national TV blitz.
Attempting to suppress a piece of information nowadays practically guarantees that it will be more widely disseminated than ever
And the effect has a name from when this was first noticed in a big way.
Streisand effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
don't be so sure... someone would had to have actually BOUGHT one of these in order to make sure they can play mp3s.
Not true. There are some Zunes out there. I met a friend of my daughter who has one. I asked about it. She liked it, but she didn't buy it. Her uncle who works for Microsoft gave it to her. And yes, they do play MP3's. I asked if she bought anything from the Zune store. Nope, just playing MP3's.
The reason that Robertson' business didn't succeed is that the record companies are getting tired of dealing with third-party vendors selling their music.
Exactly.
some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried.
They knew exactly how to bury Anywhere CD and used it.
In my link to the Styx stuff, I found out that the results didn't contain what I thought it did. This example is of just the newer Live releases. If you are looking for the old classic Babe on the Grand Illusion album, you are out of luck. It is not carried at this time.
Before purchase, make sure the song is the one you want. If you want the studio release instead of the live concert, be sure to check first.
I was hoping they took care of the high price problem as well as the incompatibility issues. I thouhgt they had except when I went to look up one of the bands I enjoyed while much younger.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/163856011
Note the banner on the top of the page. Top 100 Songs: 89 cents!
Here is the list;
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/dmusic/digital-music-track//ref=amb_link_5531872_1/103-2200715-4874201?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=ilm&pf_rd_r=13Y3V63RXKXRQFE4Z722&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=311420601&pf_rd_i=163856011
There are a couple golden oldies on the list, but most of them are newer stuff I never heard. Many of them are marked Explicit, so I know I never heard them on the radio. Just how do the explicit albums get popular to make the top 100? Peer to peer maybe?
Oldies on the list include;
I Walk the Line I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash
Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd
God Only Knows by The Beach Boys
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) by Stevie Wonder
Explicit stuff on the list include;
Can't Tell Me Nothing [Explicit] by Kanye West
I Got 5 On It [Explicit] by The Luniz
Give It To Me [Explicit] by Timbaland
In Da Club [Explicit] by 50 Cent
The People [Explicit] The People [Explicit] by Common
I guess there is enough variety to satisfy most everyone.
How about anything that is not top 100?
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_dm_hp_nav_lk/102-3010256-9360139?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=styx&Go.x=8&Go.y=9&Go=Go
Rats.... Still 0.99 per track.
Sadly it is priced to not under price iTunes. DRM free on the other hand and at the higher bit rate should shake up the apple position with the higher priced DRM free tracks. Competition is good.
Someday, they may get into my price range for back catalog stuff.
But are they going to sell this information (along with personal data) to 'marketers'?
As a proud tinfoil hat member, it's not that simple. It is to watermark your purchases so later when they show up on P-P they know who to sue.
You might not be the one who posted them on P-P but the copies you put on your kids computer that got burned on a CD and traded at school will still cause you problems.
The above comment is speculation and might not be true. It could be FUD, or maybe not.
It seems just about everything that I listen to that is available somewhere is available here, so what am I missing?
Linux compatiblilty..
"Plus, our Amazon MP3 Downloader application"
It looks like you will need Windows or maybe an Apple to purchase the songs. Why the downloader? Probably to watermark the files with your user information.
next to impossible to access work group resources
It works if you change a 1 digit key which doesn't take long. What took me so long was the 3 hours on Google to find what key to change. After that, it connects to password protected workgroup SMB shares just fine.
The two tasks were simple for my Wife's new school laptop.
1 Copy the backup documents folder off a SMB share to the new Vista machine. Time to connect and transfer >3 hours.
2 Connect to an IPP printer on my LAN. Again a big Google search required. Time to connect first printer was about 2 hours. The second printer took just a couple minutes.
Both tasks were much easer to figure out for a noob in Ubuntu with a total learning curve and completed tasks of under 1 hour.
No doubt UMG would prefer to make the former cheaper, while maintaining the current pricing for the latter.
(Where former = older music, latter = new music)
No doubt UMG would prefer to keep the current price for the former, while increasing the price for the latter.
There, fixed that sentence for you.
Wistful thinking.. but I was hoping more in the line of "drop DRM, offer multiple formats such as MP3, FLAC, Ogg and WMA
at high quality for about half the price or less.
They could clean up the market with increased volume, better quality and elimination of almost all incompatibles.
I know it will never happen as long as they are trying to "Protect" their established traditional markets and the average selling price.
As long as they continue protecting the haystack from the cows, they have lost the sales entirely.
Obscure parable refrence is one of dogs guarding a haystack. The dogs can't eat the hay, but they guard it anyway. In this case, UMG can't use the music they are protecting (internal consumption) but must let others use it to be of any value. They could make a bundle if they backed down and sold from their huge haystack.
If developers were willing to target a wine-like framework, it would be a _much_ easier problem to make Wine (or at least the Winething framework), and it would be much easier to make cross platform apps, particular for shops that are accustomed to Win32.
I have no desire to import Windows Exploits tm. into Linux with WINE. Linux applications is what I would rather have.
A starter list includes The Gimp, Open Office, Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flashplayer 9, etc.
The problems caused by applications miss-use of the Registry in Windows is the biggest mess I want to dispense with. Rooting out malware from it is 95% of my Windows troubleshooting problems. Still broken on my Wife's XP pc is the photocopy software. It was working until we needed to edit a photo for e-mail. The bundled photo editor that came with the Dell was a limited trial. It took over the TWAIN driver breaking the photocopier. Using the photocopier simply launches the photo-editor instead of printing a copy. Removing the offending program did not fix the photocopier. Neither did removing and reinstalling the photocopier. Somewhere buried in Windows is some leftovers re-direct. It is probably buried somewhere in the registry where no documentation existing will allow me to fix it short of reinstall Windows from scratch. Windows simply can't find the photo editor any more and offers to help me find it. Obscure registry keys are a nightmare and are best left out of Linux.
I prefer a much simpler install remove route that works. I don't have that problem on my Linux box. SANE does not launch Gimp by default.
Where's the "sheeple" tag? How do I tag a /. article?
If there were a tag, it would be passing fad.
This is like Net Zero free internet. Wow Free internet!! Wohoo where do I sign up.
We all know the outcome. Too slow, too many disruptions, requires non-standard browser, etc. People talked about the advertisements just like the first cell phone calls were mostly "do you know where I am calling you from? I'm calling from my car phone!"
Don't be fooled by the early indicators. People rarely talk about the fact they are making a call from their car, or they are getting free internet. The commercials and freeloaders avoiding the commercials will soon place this in the same realm as Net Zero.
http://www.netzero.net/
Netzero is still here, but I would hardly call it a roaring sucess. I had to do a Google search to see if they were still here.
They are still here but they make no mention of the free advertising supported service. I think it is dead.
Mainstream a Linux desktop, and by mainstreaming, I mean make it commercial. Make it so Joe Notageek, and his grandmother, can install it with less clicks than it takes to install Windows. Provide apps for it.
Linpire installed on Wal*Mart machines with free and paid software repositories.. Desktop only.. Check
Suse - Check
Red Hat - Check
Ubuntu - Check
Freespire - Check
The only way to take down Microsoft, or make them improve their ways is through serious competition. And, I means s e r i o u s.
Firefox - Check
Ubuntu - Check
Apple OSX Check
Notice MS starting to get serious about security? Notice MS notice that not all developers are MS developers? They thought they owned development. They thought they could be lax on security due to the lack of competition. They thought they could round up the pirates and make them pay with WGA and the BSA. BSA backfired in a big way in Russia. As the result of a BSA raid, the entire Russian school system is going Linux. They are starting to see that they are no longer the Monopoly they were once upon a time. They are starting to adopt or die.
Mainstream a Linux server. Yes, I know there a lots out there, but again, only a few companies are really commercial.
The few companies will adjust to the market as needs grow and change. It is just how the free market works. Don't advocate over supply.
Getting the industry to create a logo for Windows apps that are compatable under a WINE or other emu system would be great.
Get a hint. Let me fix it.
Getting the industry to create Linux, Mac and Windows applications would be great.
Fixed it for you. Getting rid of the need for WINE is the goal. WINE is a patch for applications not yet ported. Native apps don't have to be spoon fed serial ports, USB ports, cut and paste, etc.
or face a "civil war" that could lead to total Linux annihilation."
You mean like Coke or Pepsi, Intel or AMD, Nike or Converse, Apple, or Microsoft?, Ubuntu or Suse, Yahoo or Google?
The soft drink market is doing well along with CPU's, athletic shoes, OS manufacturing, Linux, and search engines.
Linux isn't going away. It may fork, but it isn't going away any more than search engines or soft drinks.
It's funny because it's poisonous.
The groundwater is poisonous. The meteorite was just a hot rock.