We did $7.1 trillion in sales last year, excluding special charges.
Is it just me or is there's something inherently weird in a thread between two ACs claiming millions of dollars in sales handled by a database for possibly non-existant companies in nebulous countries.
I'll ignore the obvious karma whoring that is apparently working for you today - but are you saying that Postgres is a better quality database than Oracle?
Creative's drivers have been getting better. My bad experience goes back to the first few versions of the drivers they released for W2K (under the new driver model), which took them a while to get just right. WRT the W98 drivers, to be honest I had far less problems but then again I was using an SBLive! card on that machine (we're talking three years ago) and the cards on my two W2K boxes are both Audigy Platinum.
You can go with the basic drivers that ship with the OS, but in my experience they're rather subpar compared with the Creative ones. Output capabilities really do change, especially if you're using EAX or 5.1. Assuming your machine is fine, etc. you should be able to download the latest and greatest from here depending on whether you have the Live! or the Live! basic and have everything work OK. If anything, make sure you DO NOT install the OS drivers over the OEM ones - the other way around should work (if you already did).
[Hey... instead of 'Ask Slashdot', now it's just 'Ask a Slashdot user':)]
*grin*. You know, if you ever need more help, head out to news://msnews.microsoft.com/, subscribe to the OS-specific newsgroups and ask around. Look for the MVP folks in there. You won't be disappointed.
It's one thing to shoot your mouth off on slashdot about a technology or operating system; quite another to develop a workstation image plan to mitigate the staggering instability of said technology and have your job depend on how appropriately designed and well executed that plan is.
I guess we'll just have to take your word on this, eh?
Or did you think that the BSOD is a cultural meme because of widespread socioeconomic envy toward Bill Gates?
Kudos for getting all that into a single sentence.
My experience with Windows effectively ended years ago
Define "years ago". As in Windows 3.1? Windows 95? Personally I use Windows 2000 and I've experienced just one or two irrecoverable crashes, mainly due to a) buggy Creative drivers, and; b) crappy Creative drivers.
Disgusting software errors never happen on Mac OS X or Linux in my experience
They do happen in Linux and BSD, as well as in Windows 2000 and XP, essentially because the people who write them (and write software for them) are not and will never be perfect. The OS can compensate only to a certain extent.
So this must be an alternate alternate universe you hang out in.
but if the hardware breaks, that can still cause problems
Yeah, no kidding. But if I was to take your post seriously I'd probably be suckered into thinking that Linux and OS X can recover gracefully from a catastrophic hardware error. I nearly fell for it!
If you tilted it, it hung. I gave up after a dozen reboots.
... would be followed by the now ubiquitous and much-cliche'd "well, it's Windoze, by M$. what did you expected?? HAHAHA, OMFG!!! LInux ROXORZ" comment.
But, it's running Linux, so it must be the hardware. Yeah, it's probably the hardware.
yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing an MS product....
Or the many, many years spent on making wild-ass and offtopic associations between things like spam or two-headed llamas and Microsoft. And then posting them here for our continued amazement.
These arguments that.NET allows "other" languages, is pure BS. Does.NET allow IL like C++? NOPE!
I don't think you understand what IL is. It's not bytecode, at least not in the Java sense. You can certainly write an front-end compiler to generate IL from C++ or Haskell or Scheme or FORTRAN or whatever you want. In fact, VC++ 7 does precisely that if you use the managed C++ extensions to write.NET assemblies instead of normal PE binaries.
Further, IL is not C# specific - the notion that a language has to "behave like C#" to function within the.NET CLI/CLR is laughable at best and FUD-ish at worst. It is completely language agnostic. As a matter of fact, you can write entire.NET assemblies using nothing but IL - sorta like writing GUI applications in ASM. Not that you would *want* to do that, but at least you *can*. IL is fully documented.
There are a few good books by Wrox, O'Reilly and MS Press that deal exclusively with IL - I'd suggest you give at least one a cursory look before posting things like these.
In any large system there's bound to be some amount of redundant code that can sometimes cause subtle errors, like slow memory leaks. These conditions develop over the lifetime of the code. Analyzing the code *as a whole* provides information about these types of situations and how to fix them, which more often than not is not trivial.
"Dead" or unreachable code is almost always caused by patches or fixes to an existing codebase and it's always good to detect and get rid of it because it may point to other problems in the application (in my experience), or is simply dead wood that should be removed.
Not really =) The fact that the bug is unintentional (and I've never heard of an intentional bug, but still) is irrelevant because it's still a potential exploit. The fact that it's cause by a malloc error is irrelevant, because it's still an exploit.
If you write software in C, you need to follow a certain set of rules to prevent things like these from happening. If you were writing something like CVS in Java, you'd have less things to worry about and you'd probably be more productive, but that doesn't mean that having a huge runtime saves you from having to think about security. Further, larger swaths of the application domain are taken away from you (nee runtime) so you're at the mercy of hackers who find an exploit in the Java IO package and you still need to wait for Sun to patch it.
But the bottom line is you'll never have a 100% exploit-proof application, period. It doesn't matter what you write it with. What you need to do is choose the right tool for the job, follow standards and guidelines, incorporate security into your design from the start and do your best. And then have a plan to deal with the eventual exploit. Because, believe me, you'll have one if your software is used widely enough, as is CVS.
Since you can't cause a buffer overrun/overflow in something like Java or.NET, maybe that's a good choice to write stuff in.
Or maybe not - someone will find a way to exploit those and anything alse that catches on.
It's impossible to protect non-trivial software from *everything*. You might as well get on with your life, plan for exploits and how to deal with them. Anything else is just a pipe dream.
Welcome to Slashdot. I'm The Bungi, and this here below (or above, see Preferences) is zcat_NZ. Oh, and futher down there I see Mr. Anonymous Coward, who is a *very* prolific poster.
So, you were saying about you personally know some Microsoft kernel-level developers who've worked on XP and W2K and so that validates your entire post?
Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe.
Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux
Windows 95 was not an OS because it sat atop a 16-bit protected mode bootloader (I can nitpick that to heck but still). Ditto Win 98 and ME. But Windows NT/2000/XP are as much an OS as BeOS, Linux, QNX and BSD are. The fact that they have a CLI doesn't make them any less an operating system.
And a shell doesn't an OS make. If anything, I'd argue for Microsoft to make it easier to write a shell replacement. I've never found one that is as as stable and complete as the default, and writing shells for Windows is still a bit of a black art, unlike Linux which completely separates the kernel from the windowing system and doesn't have a shell by itself.
Cringely writes good stuff, but this time he's planted his foot firmly in his mouth.
No, but that's not the point here. First off, if "Klerck" knows that you have a 4 year old son and a 5 year old daughter, you're doing something wrong. That's not the kind of thing that you want to post here, even in normal conversation about whatever. It's natural to want to post a link to pictures of the new baby and whatnot, but IMO Slashdot is not the kind of place for that. Not because it's "offtopic", but because you're opening youself up to these sort of things.
Second, don't let it get to you. He does it because he wants it to get to you. If you get pissed, then he wins - and you're still pissed so you've gained nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
Ladies and gentlemen, the world of commercial PC-based games trembles. Head for the exits - women and geeks last.
Is it just me or is there's something inherently weird in a thread between two ACs claiming millions of dollars in sales handled by a database for possibly non-existant companies in nebulous countries.
I'll ignore the obvious karma whoring that is apparently working for you today - but are you saying that Postgres is a better quality database than Oracle?
You can go with the basic drivers that ship with the OS, but in my experience they're rather subpar compared with the Creative ones. Output capabilities really do change, especially if you're using EAX or 5.1. Assuming your machine is fine, etc. you should be able to download the latest and greatest from here depending on whether you have the Live! or the Live! basic and have everything work OK. If anything, make sure you DO NOT install the OS drivers over the OEM ones - the other way around should work (if you already did).
[Hey... instead of 'Ask Slashdot', now it's just 'Ask a Slashdot user' :)]
*grin*. You know, if you ever need more help, head out to news://msnews.microsoft.com/, subscribe to the OS-specific newsgroups and ask around. Look for the MVP folks in there. You won't be disappointed.
I guess we'll just have to take your word on this, eh?
Or did you think that the BSOD is a cultural meme because of widespread socioeconomic envy toward Bill Gates?
Kudos for getting all that into a single sentence.
Win9x and ME are consumer-oriented pieces of crap. Windows 2000 is the best thing that has come out of Redmond, period.
Define "years ago". As in Windows 3.1? Windows 95? Personally I use Windows 2000 and I've experienced just one or two irrecoverable crashes, mainly due to a) buggy Creative drivers, and; b) crappy Creative drivers.
Disgusting software errors never happen on Mac OS X or Linux in my experience
They do happen in Linux and BSD, as well as in Windows 2000 and XP, essentially because the people who write them (and write software for them) are not and will never be perfect. The OS can compensate only to a certain extent.
So this must be an alternate alternate universe you hang out in.
but if the hardware breaks, that can still cause problems
Yeah, no kidding. But if I was to take your post seriously I'd probably be suckered into thinking that Linux and OS X can recover gracefully from a catastrophic hardware error. I nearly fell for it!
If you tilted it, it hung. I gave up after a dozen reboots.
But, it's running Linux, so it must be the hardware. Yeah, it's probably the hardware.
Or the many, many years spent on making wild-ass and offtopic associations between things like spam or two-headed llamas and Microsoft. And then posting them here for our continued amazement.
You're confusing a language with its final binary executable representation.
Take a deep breath and think about what you're posting here. And then stop.
I don't think you understand what IL is. It's not bytecode, at least not in the Java sense. You can certainly write an front-end compiler to generate IL from C++ or Haskell or Scheme or FORTRAN or whatever you want. In fact, VC++ 7 does precisely that if you use the managed C++ extensions to write .NET assemblies instead of normal PE binaries.
Further, IL is not C# specific - the notion that a language has to "behave like C#" to function within the .NET CLI/CLR is laughable at best and FUD-ish at worst. It is completely language agnostic. As a matter of fact, you can write entire .NET assemblies using nothing but IL - sorta like writing GUI applications in ASM. Not that you would *want* to do that, but at least you *can*. IL is fully documented.
There are a few good books by Wrox, O'Reilly and MS Press that deal exclusively with IL - I'd suggest you give at least one a cursory look before posting things like these.
Actually, according to the Omnipotent Moderation Gods On Duty Tonight - it's offtopic *grin*
"Dead" or unreachable code is almost always caused by patches or fixes to an existing codebase and it's always good to detect and get rid of it because it may point to other problems in the application (in my experience), or is simply dead wood that should be removed.
Don't you get tired of this obsessive karma whoring?
It's also a concrete fact that there are only 6 of those polluting the Internet, so let's not go into comparisons.
[btw, your crapflooding is getting tiresome, especially when it's so stupid]
I'm sure that's a misdemeanor in most states.
Not really =) The fact that the bug is unintentional (and I've never heard of an intentional bug, but still) is irrelevant because it's still a potential exploit. The fact that it's cause by a malloc error is irrelevant, because it's still an exploit.
If you write software in C, you need to follow a certain set of rules to prevent things like these from happening. If you were writing something like CVS in Java, you'd have less things to worry about and you'd probably be more productive, but that doesn't mean that having a huge runtime saves you from having to think about security. Further, larger swaths of the application domain are taken away from you (nee runtime) so you're at the mercy of hackers who find an exploit in the Java IO package and you still need to wait for Sun to patch it.
But the bottom line is you'll never have a 100% exploit-proof application, period. It doesn't matter what you write it with. What you need to do is choose the right tool for the job, follow standards and guidelines, incorporate security into your design from the start and do your best. And then have a plan to deal with the eventual exploit. Because, believe me, you'll have one if your software is used widely enough, as is CVS.
Dropping C because it's susceptible to exploits is dumb, as is replacing it with some other technology that will eventually be hacked anyway.
Or maybe not - someone will find a way to exploit those and anything alse that catches on.
It's impossible to protect non-trivial software from *everything*. You might as well get on with your life, plan for exploits and how to deal with them. Anything else is just a pipe dream.
Hi shylock0,
Welcome to Slashdot. I'm The Bungi, and this here below (or above, see Preferences) is zcat_NZ. Oh, and futher down there I see Mr. Anonymous Coward, who is a *very* prolific poster.
So, you were saying about you personally know some Microsoft kernel-level developers who've worked on XP and W2K and so that validates your entire post?
WTF kind of crack are you on, dude?
Next time, log in or FOAD.
Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe.
Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux
Windows 95 was not an OS because it sat atop a 16-bit protected mode bootloader (I can nitpick that to heck but still). Ditto Win 98 and ME. But Windows NT/2000/XP are as much an OS as BeOS, Linux, QNX and BSD are. The fact that they have a CLI doesn't make them any less an operating system.
And a shell doesn't an OS make. If anything, I'd argue for Microsoft to make it easier to write a shell replacement. I've never found one that is as as stable and complete as the default, and writing shells for Windows is still a bit of a black art, unlike Linux which completely separates the kernel from the windowing system and doesn't have a shell by itself.
Cringely writes good stuff, but this time he's planted his foot firmly in his mouth.
Better return that Playstation 2. Your dad's gonna be pissed after he finds out you're flunking history.
Uh... is that a joke?
No, but that's not the point here. First off, if "Klerck" knows that you have a 4 year old son and a 5 year old daughter, you're doing something wrong. That's not the kind of thing that you want to post here, even in normal conversation about whatever. It's natural to want to post a link to pictures of the new baby and whatnot, but IMO Slashdot is not the kind of place for that. Not because it's "offtopic", but because you're opening youself up to these sort of things.
Second, don't let it get to you. He does it because he wants it to get to you. If you get pissed, then he wins - and you're still pissed so you've gained nothing.