The problem, as I see it, is that this BIOS can *ONLY* boot Linux, since you flash the kernel image into the boot ROM. This would mean you couldn't dual boot (even different versions of Linux) without reflashing your BIOS every time.
The only way OS/2 could have "caught up" was if Windows became stagnant and was never improved.
In order for something to copy something else, the something else has to exist first, thus the copy is *ALWAYS* going to have play catch up, unless the original never improves.
When Intel comes out with a new kind of processor (say the PII) it took competition years to catch up. AMD can be said to have actually gotten ahead of Intel recently, But that's only because Intel's product hasn't changed much in many years (except for speed and minor improvements like MMX/SSE)
But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft?
Of course, and for the most part, that's been the case. It's just that Linux didn't have the market clout (ie, users didn't demand it enough) until recently to make that a viable choice (Interesting side-note, Jackson claimed that Linux couldn't be a viable choice to Windows "in the forseeable future", yet OEM's started carrying it less than 6 months later)
Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish?
Of course, except that OEM's have always been able to install alternate browsers. What they couldn't do was remove IE (thus the argument was that the OEM couldn't replace IE with Netscape, but it could augment IE with Netscape).
Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Well, that's a slippery slope. The OEM's are a licensed distributor of a MS product. The OEM's purchase Windows for the sole purpose of reselling it, and they advertise their products as carrying the official windows product.
Imagine if you made a product, say a car engine. And General Motors bought your engine in order to sell it in their cars, but instead of using your engine as you provide it, they replace it's parts (rings, spark plugs, pistons, gaskets, etc..) with substandard parts that will fail in 2 weeks. Further, suppose they did this while trumpeting the fact that they're using a licensed engine from you. The end user would gain a very poor opinion of your products because GM messed with it before it got to the consumer.
You, as a liscensor have a right to dictate what the licensee can and can't do with your engine, especially when they are using your name to help sell their product.
.
Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
I think you mean use the same functions of Windows that MS uses in their applications. If that's the case, then yes. However, it's not been proven that this is the case (at least recently. There was a lot of hubbub back in the Win 3.1 days about Excel and Word using undocumented API's, however several authors (including Andrew Schulman) delved into the issue showing that the undocumented functions were holdovers from the Windows 2.x days, and that alternate documented functions existed in Windows 3.1 that were equivelant and in some cases even more efficient). Yes, there are lots of undocumented function in Windows, but most of those are for the use of Windows itself, not applications such as Word.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the Wine developers haven't published any comprehensive lists of undocumented functions used by Word or Excel or other MS apps (most of the undocumented API's appear to be shell and common control related, with some minimal kernel related stuff.)
The problem with conversion, much like translation between two languages (such as English and Japanese) is that not all concepts can be expressed precisely in both formats. Any conversion will lose information if that information is not supported.
Man, if I had a dime for every comment taken out of context and a dollar for every outright fabrication on that page you link to, I'd be as rich as bill gates.
For instance, the page claims that Gates says that MS software doesn't have any significant bugs. The real quote is "Windows doesn't have any significant bugs that any significant number of users want fixed".
Those are two very different statements, and the pages claim is quite misleading. There are literally hundreds more on there...
While it's true that most users only use about 10% of the features of Word, they don't all use the *SAME* 10%.
Deleting any given feature that's "fluff" to you, will probably piss off 10% of the user base. There are even a lot of people that *LIKE* the damn paperclip.
This is something that geeks don't often realize. Form is as important as Function in order to be successful. You can't succeed if people don't want to use your stuff because it's ugly.
That 800MB includes swapfile, driver databases (that's aobut 100MB alone and can be deleted if you keep your CD handy), graphics, sounds, cursors, and a bunch of other data files.
Re:You must not do anything interesting on them
on
Microsoft's DNS Down
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· Score: 1
Hmmm.. your comments lead me to believe you've never even USED Windows 2000.
For instance, if you're not an adminsitrator, running any program called setup.exe causes a dialog to pop up asking if you'd like to install as Administrator or as the current user. There's no way to "forget" to become one.
Second, you seldom need to reboot when installing new software, but lots of software just pops up a "reboot" message anyways.
Third, there is in fact a "Home" directory, and has been even in NT4. It was in Profiles then, and it's under Documents and Settings now. Applications default to your "home" directory (My Documents) so long as they don't specify a specific directory (which most apps don't do).
If you're going to pretend you know something, you shouldn't make comments which immediately give away your lack of knowledge.
A degree doesn't guarantee that you have a brain, only that your parents had enough money to buy you one. Yes, people of lesser means can work their asses off to get a degree from a good college, but that doesn't mean everyone with such a degree has earned it.
Filtering based on degree doesn't limit you to only qualified people. Qualified people have experience, and that should be the filter.
The above is true to some extent. No, technology doesn't change engineering process, but software engineering process has changed radically in the last 20 - 30 years. 30 years ago, Top down and structured analysis and design was king. Today, most people coming out of college have never even heard of it.
We're still trying to figure out the best way to build software, unlike most of the mature engineering fields that have had anywhere from 100 to 1000 years of practice.
Engineering is about discipline, but it's hard to be disciplined when the industry changes it core methodologies every 5 years.
Being a good engineer doesn't require a degree or even formal education. It requires someone capable of learning. In some states (and countries) you are required to have a degree (and experience, and a number of other things) in order to use the "Engineer" title, which is fine by me for the most part, but don't make the mistake of assuming that someone that hasn't been to college isn't educated in the processes of engineering.
Lots of engineers screw things up, and lots of non-engineers get things right.
Yes, this means that Red Hat will probably never become a billion-dollar business. Guess what, mr. Clueless: THEY DON'T INTEND TO!
Unfortunately, Red Hat is no longer in control of that, their shareholders are. Red Hat now has an obligation to their shareholders to make as much profit as it can, and are legally liable if they do not.
Good thing I'm a history buff, otherwise this blanket bullsh$t statement might convince me. I dunno, but it seems that carriage/cart makers could be considered 'open source', in that their product will work with any 'operating' system out there: horses, donkeys, mules, oxen, people. Worse, in times past, trade secrets just didn't exist... yes, everybody knew how to make everyone elses products! Heck, even today, an industry as huge as life insurance is based on a few simple tables that everyone has access to.
The thing you nice analogy fails to take into account was that in days gone by, your local blacksmith, or wagonbuilder didn't compete with his neighbor in the next town. Today, people are competing with people in other countries, on other continents, with a limited knowledge pool.
What most people fail to keep in mind about non-competes is that they are only illegal if they fail to compensate the (ex)employee.
A non-compete that says "You can't work anywhere that competes with us" is illegal. One that says "You are not allowed to work with competing companies, and if you are unable to find gainful employment in your field because of the non-compete then we continue to pay your salary for the length of the noncompete." is.
If your story is true, you have a Grade A malpractice lawsuit on your hands. If the doctor did the tests but refused to look at them, he's in violation of his ethical responsibilities.
He doesn't have to tell YOU what they say, but he has to look at them and determine if this is serious situation.
Something to keep in mind is that many postal workers are in fact ex-military people. Honorably discharged military personel get preferential treatment in civil service and since many of them have very few actual skills they can use in the workplace they depend on the government to train them. These are people that have been in conflicts and have pulled triggers before, and have been told that this is the way to solve problems. It's no wonder they go "postal" later in life when they realize their life has been wasted.
It has nothing to do with movies. And the movie industry is doing nothing but feeding the demand by the population. People don't go to movies they don't want to see.
Not to mention Thomas Jefferson's famous quotes. Here's one of my favorites:
In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. A gun was an everyday implement in early American society, and Jefferson recommended its use. "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407
Jefferson believed that the active use of gunmanship was what kept a mind sharp. Perhaps that explains why the US tends to be on the bleeding edge of everything.
Ahh.. See, here is the problem with the Linux "We must appeal to all" model.
By installing everything one might need at install time, they overburden the user. The user is overwhelmed (ever heard of someone being "whelmed"?) and doesn't know where to begin. However, if the Linux distribution came bare-bones, with everything else just sitting on a CD, the user could install each app individually, and become familiar with the apps as they install them.
Yes, you *CAN* do this with Linux, but you have to know what you're doing to do it. Kind of defeats the purpose.
ODBC came first, and is, for all intents and purposes, the closes thing to a SQL driver standard that exists.
DAO was really just the first go at an object oriented ODBC.
ODBCDirect was in response to the poor performance of ODBC.
RDO was a mistake.
OLE DB (despite it's crappy name) is actually a very good system.
ADO is merely a COM interface on top of OLE DB to create data collections and the like. For all intents and purposes, ADO uses OLE DB, as will ADO+)
RDS - Anything with the word Remote in it is a mistake, dont' use it (at least from MS).
Re:What you don't know about .Net
on
Perl and .NET
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· Score: 1
You're making the cardinal sin of judging the final products speed and memory requirements by it's beta. Chances are,.NET currently has a 4:1 debug/code ratio or more.
Come back and complain when it reaches the release candidate stage instead of barely out of Alpha.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem, as I see it, is that this BIOS can *ONLY* boot Linux, since you flash the kernel image into the boot ROM. This would mean you couldn't dual boot (even different versions of Linux) without reflashing your BIOS every time.
And people think MS clobbering the MBR is bad...
The only way OS/2 could have "caught up" was if Windows became stagnant and was never improved.
In order for something to copy something else, the something else has to exist first, thus the copy is *ALWAYS* going to have play catch up, unless the original never improves.
When Intel comes out with a new kind of processor (say the PII) it took competition years to catch up. AMD can be said to have actually gotten ahead of Intel recently, But that's only because Intel's product hasn't changed much in many years (except for speed and minor improvements like MMX/SSE)
But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft?
Of course, and for the most part, that's been the case. It's just that Linux didn't have the market clout (ie, users didn't demand it enough) until recently to make that a viable choice (Interesting side-note, Jackson claimed that Linux couldn't be a viable choice to Windows "in the forseeable future", yet OEM's started carrying it less than 6 months later)
Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish?
Of course, except that OEM's have always been able to install alternate browsers. What they couldn't do was remove IE (thus the argument was that the OEM couldn't replace IE with Netscape, but it could augment IE with Netscape).
Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Well, that's a slippery slope. The OEM's are a licensed distributor of a MS product. The OEM's purchase Windows for the sole purpose of reselling it, and they advertise their products as carrying the official windows product.
Imagine if you made a product, say a car engine. And General Motors bought your engine in order to sell it in their cars, but instead of using your engine as you provide it, they replace it's parts (rings, spark plugs, pistons, gaskets, etc..) with substandard parts that will fail in 2 weeks. Further, suppose they did this while trumpeting the fact that they're using a licensed engine from you. The end user would gain a very poor opinion of your products because GM messed with it before it got to the consumer.
You, as a liscensor have a right to dictate what the licensee can and can't do with your engine, especially when they are using your name to help sell their product.
. Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
I think you mean use the same functions of Windows that MS uses in their applications. If that's the case, then yes. However, it's not been proven that this is the case (at least recently. There was a lot of hubbub back in the Win 3.1 days about Excel and Word using undocumented API's, however several authors (including Andrew Schulman) delved into the issue showing that the undocumented functions were holdovers from the Windows 2.x days, and that alternate documented functions existed in Windows 3.1 that were equivelant and in some cases even more efficient). Yes, there are lots of undocumented function in Windows, but most of those are for the use of Windows itself, not applications such as Word. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the Wine developers haven't published any comprehensive lists of undocumented functions used by Word or Excel or other MS apps (most of the undocumented API's appear to be shell and common control related, with some minimal kernel related stuff.)
Uhh.. you didn't need to deinstall IE in order to use Netscape.
The problem with conversion, much like translation between two languages (such as English and Japanese) is that not all concepts can be expressed precisely in both formats. Any conversion will lose information if that information is not supported.
Man, if I had a dime for every comment taken out of context and a dollar for every outright fabrication on that page you link to, I'd be as rich as bill gates.
For instance, the page claims that Gates says that MS software doesn't have any significant bugs. The real quote is "Windows doesn't have any significant bugs that any significant number of users want fixed".
Those are two very different statements, and the pages claim is quite misleading. There are literally hundreds more on there...
Advocacy should be factual, not dishonest.
While it's true that most users only use about 10% of the features of Word, they don't all use the *SAME* 10%.
Deleting any given feature that's "fluff" to you, will probably piss off 10% of the user base. There are even a lot of people that *LIKE* the damn paperclip.
This is something that geeks don't often realize. Form is as important as Function in order to be successful. You can't succeed if people don't want to use your stuff because it's ugly.
That 800MB includes swapfile, driver databases (that's aobut 100MB alone and can be deleted if you keep your CD handy), graphics, sounds, cursors, and a bunch of other data files.
Hmmm.. your comments lead me to believe you've never even USED Windows 2000.
For instance, if you're not an adminsitrator, running any program called setup.exe causes a dialog to pop up asking if you'd like to install as Administrator or as the current user. There's no way to "forget" to become one.
Second, you seldom need to reboot when installing new software, but lots of software just pops up a "reboot" message anyways.
Third, there is in fact a "Home" directory, and has been even in NT4. It was in Profiles then, and it's under Documents and Settings now. Applications default to your "home" directory (My Documents) so long as they don't specify a specific directory (which most apps don't do).
If you're going to pretend you know something, you shouldn't make comments which immediately give away your lack of knowledge.
Configuration Management tools *ARE* used in OpenSource. CVS is a tool used for part of the Configuration Management process, as is make, imake, etc..
Ideally a complete CM tool includes a lot more, but that doesn't mean you're not using CM tools by using a subset.
You're missing the point, really.
A degree doesn't guarantee that you have a brain, only that your parents had enough money to buy you one. Yes, people of lesser means can work their asses off to get a degree from a good college, but that doesn't mean everyone with such a degree has earned it.
Filtering based on degree doesn't limit you to only qualified people. Qualified people have experience, and that should be the filter.
The above is true to some extent. No, technology doesn't change engineering process, but software engineering process has changed radically in the last 20 - 30 years. 30 years ago, Top down and structured analysis and design was king. Today, most people coming out of college have never even heard of it.
We're still trying to figure out the best way to build software, unlike most of the mature engineering fields that have had anywhere from 100 to 1000 years of practice.
Engineering is about discipline, but it's hard to be disciplined when the industry changes it core methodologies every 5 years.
Being a good engineer doesn't require a degree or even formal education. It requires someone capable of learning. In some states (and countries) you are required to have a degree (and experience, and a number of other things) in order to use the "Engineer" title, which is fine by me for the most part, but don't make the mistake of assuming that someone that hasn't been to college isn't educated in the processes of engineering.
Lots of engineers screw things up, and lots of non-engineers get things right.
What most people fail to keep in mind about non-competes is that they are only illegal if they fail to compensate the (ex)employee.
A non-compete that says "You can't work anywhere that competes with us" is illegal. One that says "You are not allowed to work with competing companies, and if you are unable to find gainful employment in your field because of the non-compete then we continue to pay your salary for the length of the noncompete." is.
That wasn't a troll. I was pointing out the flaw in the logic of the poster.
If your story is true, you have a Grade A malpractice lawsuit on your hands. If the doctor did the tests but refused to look at them, he's in violation of his ethical responsibilities.
He doesn't have to tell YOU what they say, but he has to look at them and determine if this is serious situation.
Why didn't you sue?
Hell, even in the nasty areas of Winnipeg you can get assaulted and murdered. It happens.
Something to keep in mind is that many postal workers are in fact ex-military people. Honorably discharged military personel get preferential treatment in civil service and since many of them have very few actual skills they can use in the workplace they depend on the government to train them. These are people that have been in conflicts and have pulled triggers before, and have been told that this is the way to solve problems. It's no wonder they go "postal" later in life when they realize their life has been wasted.
It has nothing to do with movies. And the movie industry is doing nothing but feeding the demand by the population. People don't go to movies they don't want to see.
Not to mention Thomas Jefferson's famous quotes. Here's one of my favorites:
In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. A gun was an everyday implement in early American society, and Jefferson recommended its use. "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407
Jefferson believed that the active use of gunmanship was what kept a mind sharp. Perhaps that explains why the US tends to be on the bleeding edge of everything.
Ahh.. See, here is the problem with the Linux "We must appeal to all" model.
By installing everything one might need at install time, they overburden the user. The user is overwhelmed (ever heard of someone being "whelmed"?) and doesn't know where to begin. However, if the Linux distribution came bare-bones, with everything else just sitting on a CD, the user could install each app individually, and become familiar with the apps as they install them.
Yes, you *CAN* do this with Linux, but you have to know what you're doing to do it. Kind of defeats the purpose.
Indeed, that's why MS has Windows Personal coming out (Whistler), which reduces the Win2k footprint even more.
BTW, for ATA/100 support you just install a new driver.
Er.. CLI is Common Language Infrastructure, not Interface. The CLI includes the CLR.
ODBC came first, and is, for all intents and purposes, the closes thing to a SQL driver standard that exists.
DAO was really just the first go at an object oriented ODBC.
ODBCDirect was in response to the poor performance of ODBC.
RDO was a mistake.
OLE DB (despite it's crappy name) is actually a very good system.
ADO is merely a COM interface on top of OLE DB to create data collections and the like. For all intents and purposes, ADO uses OLE DB, as will ADO+)
RDS - Anything with the word Remote in it is a mistake, dont' use it (at least from MS).
You're making the cardinal sin of judging the final products speed and memory requirements by it's beta. Chances are, .NET currently has a 4:1 debug/code ratio or more.
Come back and complain when it reaches the release candidate stage instead of barely out of Alpha.