All right. Why does everyone think image has sold his soul, just because he works at Microsoft? C'mon! Even if Microsoft does have a policy of posting pro-MS messages to various forums, do you think everyone would be involved?
Microsoft is a huge operation. Its left hand doesn't know what the right is doing; and the FUD-spreading directives don't necessarily come from Mr. Gates himself. My bet: there are a few departments who really push employees to push MS. Other departments (especially development, I'd suspect) probably don't.
There are some great people who work at Microsoft; people who's stock options aren't big enough to buy their souls.
The problem with MS isn't their people, it's their development model. Development is in constant chaos; goals shift regularly, people on the same development team can't share code, and a lot of their testers don't know anything at all about coding. The one thing that can save Microsoft is changing their development model. If they open up their code internally, so even secretaries can download it; if they modularize their code so installation of the kernel is independent of installation of the GUI; if they encourage their developers to mingle, exchange ideas, and party together; if they open up development internally, they could make some kick-ass programs, and still have a closed development model.
But they won't. Microsoft is deeply afraid one person could learn too much about Windows, and move on to another company. Development is more like revolutionary cells, where nobody knows anything about any of the other cells.
But in any case, there are a lot of great, intelligent, open-minded people at Microsoft. And MS is not evil-- just stupid, like any beaurocracy-bound corporation.
This opens up a whole new world of possibility. I'm sure this is being done regularly, but:
Seems like it would be easy to assassinate the character of a computer program or company using trojans, virii, bombs, and worms. For instance, what would happen if a Word macro started uploading directory structures to some very, very large software company? (This is exactly what MS did with the one of the MS-W95 betas-- not as a Word macro, but as part of the MSN dialup.)
What would happen if this macro also had logic to upload particular files? For instance, if it were designed to download a file based on registration ID, and upload files specified therein?
I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS! I do not like or agree with any destructive use of computers. However, it seems like a simple and efficient means of character assassination. Assuming people even cared.
C'mon! Doesn't Apache predate all commercial web servers? I mean, at it's roots. The first web servers were *all* free software. The commercial companies cloned the free software!
God. Next thing you know, Microsoft will have invented the internet...
Innovative free software: Mosaic, NCSA web server, Gopher, Archie, e-mail (in general),...
Oooo, I'm spitting mad. Claiming We're just a bunch of cloners....
Research is not just, "Reading what other people think." The only thing you can glean from other people's web sites is-- what they think.
Name one system that has been proven to crash catastrophically because of Y2K. So far, all the sytems that have shown Y2k effects have been fixed in a matter of days. (For instance, credit cards with the ending digits '00' couldn't be used until the problem was fixed. That took less than a week to fix.)
So actually, all the evidence points to a slightly troublesome transition into the next millenium. (No, I don't consider 2001 to be the start of the third millenium-- since our dating system is arbitrary, our lables can be arbitrary, also. But, you can bet I'm gonna party extra-hard for *both* new years.)
The only real question is: how much will the psychological impact of Y2k have society? That is, will there be bank runs, rioting, mass-suicides? Will the stock market survive our millenialism?
The computer problem is not that big a deal. And all real "research" indicates as much.
Actually, in usability studies, MS-Windows consistently looses to OS/2 and MacOS. In many instances, it looses to Unix.
Here where I work, we use X-Terminals on the desktop. Our programs are very easy to use, and the desktop is locked down. Although we have a few people who would prefer PCs on their desktops, most of the comments we recieve are along these lines: "The system here is so much easier to use than the one at my last workplace."
More money is spent on MS-Excel and MS-Word classes than internal training. This is the entire, ambiguous 'TCO' people talk about so much. PCs have a notoriously high total cost of ownership.
And there have been file managers for X-Windows for many, many years.
This doesn't address the home users, but MS made most of its money off businesses, not home users.
But in any case, this is all old news. And the only people who will gain from a class-action suit is the lawyers. And if there's a group of people I hate more than I hate Microsoft, it's lawyers.
Get Solaris x86. Get xBSD. Get Linux (as many different version as you can get hold of). Get a machine you can play with for months on end.
Install Solaris. Nuke it, and install it again. Nuke it, and install xBSD. Nuke it and install it again. Go back to Solaris. Then nuke it and install Linux. Repeat.
Install Linux on that machine. Get another machine and install Solaris. Network Solaris with Linux-- use the automounter. Learn NIS, and get it working. Nuke the whole thing and install xBSD on one machine, and Solaris on the other. Then Linux/xBSD.
Then throw NT into the mix. Install them all so that NT thinks your Linux/xBSD/Solaris box is another NT box. Then get a Mac and do the same thing.
Then install all your operating systems on the same machine, so you can boot into any one of them. (This will require a large hard drive.)
Then pick your favorite two systems, and set one up to be a server. Get Apache working on one, and call that your server. Write a script that monitors disk space, e-mails a list of sysadmins (the list should be kept in a separate file) if disk space crosses some threshold (also specified in the configuration file). Write it in shell+awk; then write it in Perl.
Learn how to script in Perl, shell (BASH and CSH, especially) with all the candy (awk, sed, grep, etc), and some elective scripting language.
Once you've done all that, you'll know whether you *want* to be a sysadmin or not. The only thing you're missing is a bunch of users yelling at you because their printer doesn't work (usually their fault) or calling to request a print job killed.
Then, if you still love playing with computers, buy a used SGI or Sparc 5. Set those up as your servers, and install as many different types of clients as you can.
And if you *still* love playing with computers, seek help.
Seems to me they are comparing one service with an identical service: 3 FTP boxes (with more scattered around in other departments) serving up a portion of 6GB/day, vs. 1 FTP server serving up a total of 700GB/day.
Funny how that works.
MS has *other* servers (at least 20) that serve up the "active" content-- a few web servers, some MS-SQL7.0 servers, etc. Now, a lot of these will be redundant servers, sharing the burden, but they are there mostly to take over from a BSODed server.
Go back and read MS's page again. Note how they almost *brag* about how many machines they use. Also note, the three FTP machines are *only* FTP machines.
Good point. The Microsoft file servers serve up the greatest bytes around. They use only the choicest ones; and they are seasoned "to perfection" with select zeros.
They are then braised lightly in a red wine and garlic sauce, wrapped lovingly in an IP wrapper, and carefully carried to your computer, where they are presented with a flourish and much fanfare.
BASIC is bad. Sure, all your friends will say, "Just try it. It's a rush. It really isn't addicting." So you try it. Just a little at first-- a few "PRINT" statements, maybe a "FOR..TO" loop to print your name 30 times.
And that's when you're hooked.
Next thing you know, you're doing HIRES graphics and "GOTO". And then your "friend" offers you Pascal. "Why not?" you think-- BASIC didn't hurt you.
So now you're doing "DO..WHILE" loops and using procedures. And you can't help yourself-- next thing you know, you're doing C and assembly.
Finally, you end up doing hard stuff: C++, Java, LISP. And once you start down that road, there's no turning back.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone else notice his comment on the URU fingerprint device? "It appears to be foolproof. I couldn't circumvent its security."
Doesn't he belong to L0PHT or something? Or was it CotDC? And he calls himself a cracker!
All right. Why does everyone think image has sold his soul, just because he works at Microsoft? C'mon! Even if Microsoft does have a policy of posting pro-MS messages to various forums, do you think everyone would be involved?
Microsoft is a huge operation. Its left hand doesn't know what the right is doing; and the FUD-spreading directives don't necessarily come from Mr. Gates himself. My bet: there are a few departments who really push employees to push MS. Other departments (especially development, I'd suspect) probably don't.
There are some great people who work at Microsoft; people who's stock options aren't big enough to buy their souls.
The problem with MS isn't their people, it's their development model. Development is in constant chaos; goals shift regularly, people on the same development team can't share code, and a lot of their testers don't know anything at all about coding. The one thing that can save Microsoft is changing their development model. If they open up their code internally, so even secretaries can download it; if they modularize their code so installation of the kernel is independent of installation of the GUI; if they encourage their developers to mingle, exchange ideas, and party together; if they open up development internally, they could make some kick-ass programs, and still have a closed development model.
But they won't. Microsoft is deeply afraid one person could learn too much about Windows, and move on to another company. Development is more like revolutionary cells, where nobody knows anything about any of the other cells.
But in any case, there are a lot of great, intelligent, open-minded people at Microsoft. And MS is not evil-- just stupid, like any beaurocracy-bound corporation.
Bill Gates is evil.
This opens up a whole new world of possibility. I'm sure this is being done regularly, but:
Seems like it would be easy to assassinate the character of a computer program or company using trojans, virii, bombs, and worms. For instance, what would happen if a Word macro started uploading directory structures to some very, very large software company? (This is exactly what MS did with the one of the MS-W95 betas-- not as a Word macro, but as part of the MSN dialup.)
What would happen if this macro also had logic to upload particular files? For instance, if it were designed to download a file based on registration ID, and upload files specified therein?
I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS! I do not like or agree with any destructive use of computers. However, it seems like a simple and efficient means of character assassination. Assuming people even cared.
I just wonder if we'll see this sort of thing.
"Clone web servers?"
C'mon! Doesn't Apache predate all commercial web servers? I mean, at it's roots. The first web servers were *all* free software. The commercial companies cloned the free software!
God. Next thing you know, Microsoft will have invented the internet...
Innovative free software: Mosaic, NCSA web server, Gopher, Archie, e-mail (in general),...
Oooo, I'm spitting mad. Claiming We're just a bunch of cloners....
Unless you are Rob Malda posting as AC, it isn't your space to waste.
The ideal computer just didn't fly. It had apps, support, ease-of-use, and a great and stable multi-tasking OS, in 1989.
It was the NeXT.
Easier? No.
Better for everyone involved? Yes.
Uhmm...
Research is not just, "Reading what other people think." The only thing you can glean from other people's web sites is-- what they think.
Name one system that has been proven to crash catastrophically because of Y2K. So far, all the sytems that have shown Y2k effects have been fixed in a matter of days. (For instance, credit cards with the ending digits '00' couldn't be used until the problem was fixed. That took less than a week to fix.)
So actually, all the evidence points to a slightly troublesome transition into the next millenium. (No, I don't consider 2001 to be the start of the third millenium-- since our dating system is arbitrary, our lables can be arbitrary, also. But, you can bet I'm gonna party extra-hard for *both* new years.)
The only real question is: how much will the psychological impact of Y2k have society? That is, will there be bank runs, rioting, mass-suicides? Will the stock market survive our millenialism?
The computer problem is not that big a deal. And all real "research" indicates as much.
Actually, in usability studies, MS-Windows consistently looses to OS/2 and MacOS. In many instances, it looses to Unix.
Here where I work, we use X-Terminals on the desktop. Our programs are very easy to use, and the desktop is locked down. Although we have a few people who would prefer PCs on their desktops, most of the comments we recieve are along these lines: "The system here is so much easier to use than the one at my last workplace."
More money is spent on MS-Excel and MS-Word classes than internal training. This is the entire, ambiguous 'TCO' people talk about so much. PCs have a notoriously high total cost of ownership.
And there have been file managers for X-Windows for many, many years.
This doesn't address the home users, but MS made most of its money off businesses, not home users.
But in any case, this is all old news. And the only people who will gain from a class-action suit is the lawyers. And if there's a group of people I hate more than I hate Microsoft, it's lawyers.
- Tony
Get Solaris x86. Get xBSD. Get Linux (as many different version as you can get hold of). Get a machine you can play with for months on end.
Install Solaris. Nuke it, and install it again. Nuke it, and install xBSD. Nuke it and install it again. Go back to Solaris. Then nuke it and install Linux. Repeat.
Install Linux on that machine. Get another machine and install Solaris. Network Solaris with Linux-- use the automounter. Learn NIS, and get it working. Nuke the whole thing and install xBSD on one machine, and Solaris on the other. Then Linux/xBSD.
Then throw NT into the mix. Install them all so that NT thinks your Linux/xBSD/Solaris box is another NT box. Then get a Mac and do the same thing.
Then install all your operating systems on the same machine, so you can boot into any one of them. (This will require a large hard drive.)
Then pick your favorite two systems, and set one up to be a server. Get Apache working on one, and call that your server. Write a script that monitors disk space, e-mails a list of sysadmins (the list should be kept in a separate file) if disk space crosses some threshold (also specified in the configuration file). Write it in shell+awk; then write it in Perl.
Learn how to script in Perl, shell (BASH and CSH, especially) with all the candy (awk, sed, grep, etc), and some elective scripting language.
Once you've done all that, you'll know whether you *want* to be a sysadmin or not. The only thing you're missing is a bunch of users yelling at you because their printer doesn't work (usually their fault) or calling to request a print job killed.
Then, if you still love playing with computers, buy a used SGI or Sparc 5. Set those up as your servers, and install as many different types of clients as you can.
And if you *still* love playing with computers, seek help.
-Tony
Seems to me they are comparing one service with an identical service: 3 FTP boxes (with more scattered around in other departments) serving up a portion of 6GB/day, vs. 1 FTP server serving up a total of 700GB/day.
Funny how that works.
MS has *other* servers (at least 20) that serve up the "active" content-- a few web servers, some MS-SQL7.0 servers, etc. Now, a lot of these will be redundant servers, sharing the burden, but they are there mostly to take over from a BSODed server.
Go back and read MS's page again. Note how they almost *brag* about how many machines they use. Also note, the three FTP machines are *only* FTP machines.
Cool, huh?
>
Good point. The Microsoft file servers serve up the greatest bytes around. They use only the choicest ones; and they are seasoned "to perfection" with select zeros.
They are then braised lightly in a red wine and garlic sauce, wrapped lovingly in an IP wrapper, and carefully carried to your computer, where they are presented with a flourish and much fanfare.
BASIC is bad. Sure, all your friends will say, "Just try it. It's a rush. It really isn't addicting." So you try it. Just a little at first-- a few "PRINT" statements, maybe a "FOR..TO" loop to print your name 30 times.
And that's when you're hooked.
Next thing you know, you're doing HIRES graphics and "GOTO". And then your "friend" offers you Pascal. "Why not?" you think-- BASIC didn't hurt you.
So now you're doing "DO..WHILE" loops and using procedures. And you can't help yourself-- next thing you know, you're doing C and assembly.
Finally, you end up doing hard stuff: C++, Java, LISP. And once you start down that road, there's no turning back.
So Just Say No to BASIC.