Psion in its days was known for "adopting" inventions and improvements to its products from other people without as much as a thank you if they could get away with it. That is IMHO a much graver misdemeanour than defending the indefensible and appears to be a return to old form. It doesn't inspire trust in a company - choosing this route is pathetic and makes me wonder just how much in trouble they are financially.
In this case, just inform Psion in writing that
a - you don't use the term commercially for your products and their complaint thus doesn't apply b - you use it as described by Intel, not by Psion and you will naturally reconsider matters when Intel has been successfully barred using the term. I don't think they are quite ready to take on Intel, that's why they start with the "little people" first and see if this flies.
AFAIK they aren't able to censor the world from using words, only when commercially in relation to a product (if not I would like to hear arguments why).
I'm positive they've had trouble getting someone to represent them now more and more evidence is available that they have been rigging the system. Lawyers are always up for money, but they're not stupid..
Sensor: target acquired, moving at Mach 2.1134, vector x/y (whatever). Now rebooting. Shooter: Windows has detected new hardware, do you want to "Search on the Internet" (etc).
Was there any *specific* reason to turn them into sitting ducks, or just general malice or incompetence?
.. most people act on what information is available to them at the time. This is a combination of what they know, what they assume and what they fear and experience. Your problem is, you are unlikely to know the extend of either of those things.
The best thing is to query the exact events that you disagree with and ask for motivation, ESPECIALLY if it's second hand like a news report or interview - I've been exposed to the glaring deficiencies in both.. IMHO, you should start from the assumption that the person's actions made sense to them in their personal context, and at that specific time. That doesn't imply an immediate judgement of "right" or "wrong" (and things are never quite that binary anyway) - your question(s) illustrate that your opinion differs and you would like to discuss this.
Only when you have a dialogue and context can you assess if you're dealing with an issue - or that you misunderstood the issue. Oh, and in case you missed it, people have feelings too. The aim is generally to get on with each other as it's so much more constructive..
That is, of course, wholly my opinion, carefully shaped out of the debris of too many fast conclusions. QED, I'd say:-).
AFAIK, LedgerSMB might be worth looking at. The people working on it had to clean up an awful lot of stuff and the last time I looked documentation wasn't too high on the list yet, but those problems appear worth conquering as it's multi-{user/company/currency}, low on resources and with a web interface. I think the bit that made me pause was the LaTEX based forms (and that I had no time), but I'm going to look at installing it in the new year..
The article is vague because a journalist has 100 words to describe a 1000 word concept, and as far as I can see it's "sponsored" by a party that hasn't done the thinking (notice that nobody of the hardware supplier speaks in this piece), and the specific supplier is only now starting to go to market. I have a background in security in various guises and have come across this product in my work - I suggest you keep an eye on them (and pray they put some more decent explanations on their website - at present it's clearly a startup and their public docs, well, basically suck). There's a lot going on behind the scenes AFAIK, and it's Swiss. They tend to be almost neurotic about doing things right:-).
Anyway, NFC. I am uncomfortable with NFC because it's a transmission, that invariably means a hard to control electronic footprint of unknown size (the main reason I dislike the EU RFID passport spec as well - no shielding). I've had various people try to talk me into NFC, but I grew up with electronics and radio transmissions, and I have seen enough of early and later Tempest work to be exceptionally wary of broadcast (I don't use WiFi, Bluetooth or wireless keyboards either). It depends on how much money you want to spend how far away you can access such facilities, and I prefer not to find out the hard way that someone has just improved the range by using, for instance, a better antenna. We've already done this with RFID.
Having said that, maybe you could combine an access mechanism with NFC (and RFID for that matter, I think that's in the spec) so that it won't broadcast until it has your permission. But that partly removes the benefits, I guess.
You're right, though - this stuff is much harder than appears at first glance. There are a lot of variables to manage..
What is sheer idiocy is storing them in a central database like the US and UK do - I agree with you 100%.
That is one single point of failure: change the record and you are indeed screwed. However, have them as means to access a local resource (like a biometric card that holds the prints as a has ON THE CARD ITSELF and doesn't send them onwards) is a good idea.
There's also the use of biometrics. For identification it sucks, because of the granularity you WILL get eventually identical results (as an example, if I use hair color as metric I will start to get repeats after I've done about 5 people - and here too I have some people that do not register at all because they're bald). This is also why big databases are simply useless. It's as useful as assuming that everyone called George Bush is/was a president..
However, for authentication it works as you need a much lower granularity to guarantee exclusivity. All I need to confirm is that for a given situation there is a high probability that I have indeed the right physical person. That works, because I pair that with a username or account.
And here endeth today's lesson. Sorry if it was a bit lecturish, but the distinctions above are critical to evaluate the use of biometrics in context. Whoever wants to store biometrics in a big database needs to explain to me first why he thinks treating me as a criminal in advance of a crime is acceptable. And that's the same question YOU should ask - as that precedes all this "if you don't have anything to hide you won't mind" nonsense that is spouted so often as an argument why it might be acceptable. It isn't.
Have a look here to get an idea of what he's suggesting: [http://shafee.net/blog/?page_id=295]
All you need to do is to generate the numbers and then throw out the ones that fail the checksum and viola, you have a list of valid numbers. What you don't have is the details to go with it, which is why it's a joke.
Having said that, CC security IS a bit of a joke. I know of a *perfectly* safe CC that goes beyond the "card present" requirement for security and does not need a secure terminal infrastructure because the card itself is safe. And it doesn't need installation (i.e. it doesn't matter if the system used for transmission is edge-to-edge infested with every trojan and MITM attack known to man), nor does it have postal theft risk as it does not need pre-customisation like an "ordinary" CC does.
It does, however, still need some time to be distributed so I don't expect that thing to make a dent in CC fraud until well into 2010. If VISA and Mastercard accept it to start with..
The iPhone was IMHO hugely overhyped - there are (IMHO) too many things that get in the way of a decent user experience (no multitasking, always go via home key, lack of cut & paste). So far, for me the most useful phone was the Sony Ericsson P1i, but they killed UIQ so no idea what's going to happen there.
It starts, of course, with what you want from a phone. I had to search for a simple, big button & readable display phone for my dad who needs a few phone numbers and SMS, but really NOTHING more. I need a phone to sync calendar and todo in addition plus a password vault and speaker phone ability. This would make an "OK" for the iPhone but after comparing (I have one from work) I have gone back to the P1i. I looked at the Nokia Communicator which could do with an upgrade, and the new Prada phone is interesting as well (I could go on:-).
I personally now have a new feature I need and it is coming: Dual SIM. In a simple, small, suit compatible flip phone. A bit like the the grand daddy of them all, the Motorola V3i, but more capable. And, going full circle, with a USABLE user interface. And then I just choose which one I use on the basis of what I'm about to do..
Umm - note that I mentioned before that I consider anti-virus a mere plaster over more fundamental problems.
When I use a Windows system for sensitive things, surfing and email is out of the question, even with NoScript installed, and about the only things that come onto the system are anti-virus updates (separate downloads as files) and USB sticks with Truecrypt archives (autorun is obviously disabled). It prints via USB only, doesn't have services installed that check for updates, harddisk (truecrypt) encryption is enabled, no Skype, etc etc etc. In principle, it's almost never near a network connection, and when it is, traffic is logged. And the original "from scratch" build is stored in an Acronis True Image backup which gets blasted over the system once a project has been completed.
However, Windows Update is in itself a risk. At every turn Microsoft tries to ram their Windows Genuine A**reaming down your throat (sorry for the mixed-up visuals) because to them you're guilty until proven innocent, and then only for some time. I have a choice for Windows: forego updates that could possibly make it safer (let's assume that is possible) but could backdoor the system which may very well happen by default, or leave it unpatched and risk some of the earlier gotchas creating a vulnerability.
Sure, Linux has its problems too. But for MY purposes (let's be precise here, YMMV) it works better, safer and allows me to work more efficient because there's also no sales characters telling the developers that all of it MUST look different with the next release so there is a reason to buy it. I precisely like that things do NOT change - I have enough to do (he says, typing away at Slashdot:-) without having to work out where the %&%$ designers stuck all the features this time.
But that's a debate in itself.
I've considered buying a Mac, but I'm slowly starting to get the feeling that is merely a change of control freak with a clearly better marketing department. Unsure if that is really a way *forward*..
It's not a "doing it wrong" - it's one of those things that suddenly develops for no apparent reason, and disappears again in the same fashion. I have to use anti-virus because I sometimes have the displeasure of handling sensitive data in Windows and I also can't afford to have the network blacklisted as spam source..
Grin, I have had an active Zimbra machine for well over a year, and I'm just moving all the data over to a commercial Zimbra provider because it's both cheaper and safer (the lot I work with operates under both data protection and bank secrecy in a country where these terms still mean something). And I have had that box run Citadel for a while as well to test. And I've used OpenExchange for over 2 years..
The problem I have is the golf course effect. You have a couple of high level people who take design decisions that they should not take, but you are powerless to argue. When your new setup non-Exchange is being tuned, every hiccup is a disaster and proof that the "old system was better" and people are tasked to deploy Exchange. The fact that a mobile Exchange - Outlook link sucks seven road to Paris, that the server needs a lot of work and that the whole assembly costs bags more money is ignored.
Microsoft KNOWS decisions are not made on technical merit but on perception, why do you think they blow so much money on marketing? Vista shows you must really screw up badly before you break that approach.
Besides, if decisions were really made on the basis of technical merit I am very uncertain we would be running Windows at all..
At this very moment in time there is nothing I can pull in from the Net which I can run for a while as Exchange replacement without a large amount of work on the client side - MS has built the barriers quite well.
As long as there isn't a USABLE Exchange replacement we won't be able to lose it in the server room - management is addicted to Outlook (even though the 2007 version suffers the same productivity obliterating GUI) and its ability to share calendars. And AFAIK there is NO plug-n-play replacement out there.
Next up: Outlook. Without an API compliant replacement that integrated what Outlook put together you've got no hope. Mobile phones sync to it (including the Jesus phone), calendaring is integrated and there is over the air sync available as well. And it sucks VERY badly on networking (which you find when you make the mistake to use it on EDGE or 3G) - but it works for management. End of story.
I would LOVE to nuke the Exchange setup and move that last bastion to Ubuntu as well, but no chance..
Come on, with so many networkable games around this is not a question that will arise:-).
However, it assumes you like the Citadel model. I'm not so happy with it, but that's personal taste - I am certainly impressed by its ability to interact with other Citadel servers.
Or, translated: I'm 100% with you. When I started using Linux it came on 14 or so floppies (Slackware) and after the then customary kernel compile it ran like greased wombats on an average PC where "I'll have it clocked by the local radio station" was still a good joke. It was fast and worked. Hell, even 95 was on occasions quite usable.
Now I have systems that have to be designed by radio engineers because they clock so fast the speed of light is actually becoming a design consideration and I have to wait 5 minutes to get a usable Windows system. And then my bandwidth gets nuked because the anti-virus (a plaster over a decade old design problem) needs updating.
The real amazement in computer evolution is how we came to consider this crap as acceptable value for money..
"Hi, I'm the Army and my laptop is now 4 weeks late, can you please write down my customer reference and then give me your GPS coordinates?"
"Um, huh? We're at {address}, does that help?"
"Yeah, no proble, wait a sec.. {click}".
THUMP........ zzzzzssssSSSSSSSHHH *BLAM*
"OK, you have two options: I see this laptop in one week, or we'll start zeroing in. If you don't know what that is, imagine the crater that was your car park slowly moving towards your building. Have a nice day, and don't fall over bits of cars on the way out."
Sometimes you just wish..
Having said that, it can't be a fun job being on the phone to customers who are angry, especially since you can't do anything about it..
If you think about it, quite a few systems have screens you only need when something's gone wrong.
If you have a screensaver on a tech display that picked up the vital statistics from somewhere you would have the display, but also the use of the screen when something blows up with autmotic resumption when you stop working on the system. In principle should the screensaver simply be the remote display (so you could choose what to display where, or even build a collection of stats for one screen). The main disadvantage is, of course that this won't "save" much screen:-), and you may need a permanent copy somewhere that won't vanish when you touch the keyboard..
A good decade ago I had a 30 user PowerLAN setup (yes, ARCnet:-), and the server screen was a simple, ASCII based set of graphics showing server load, network load and disk capacity in log based bars (more sensible than straight linear representations), and other relevant data in numbers. I still think that was one of the most sensible server displays ever but it did a good job of burning in the CRT when we forgot the powersave:-)
I've had a bad short term memory since a fairly serious accident (I was close to losing any chance to ever become ambidextrous:-)). That doesn't make me an expert, but it does give me an idea of what it feels like to suddenly find your braincells to underperform without the help of serious quantities of alcohol.
First off, it's like a muscle, it needs exercise. Try to do without tools if you can because they'll diminish the exercise your brain needs, but obviously don't be too strict (stress because you may forget something is a self-fulfilling prophecy:-)). Two classic examples to demonstrate: how many people still remember phone numbers now we have mobile phones that do that? And how many still bother to calculate in their heads rather than on a phone or calculator?
Secondly, few people learn strategies for remembering which means you may add some knowledge to the mix and improve matters. Books like Mindgym (BBC press) or quite a few ones that Tony Buzan (of mind mapping fame) has written describe METHODS by which to remember. The idea is that you cover the lowering performance by more efficient use of what works.
And focus on mainly forgetting bad things, this would certainly be bad news:-)
I think the definition of mainstream is an interesting one. I know MS likes to wave that as a reason why it gets so much more "hack attention" but that argument is by now so debunked I don't have to bother.
A simple question is, for instance, why it has taken all the way to Vista before users don't run admin by default or at least have to give extra permission (typically the good concept got butchered, but let's assume they did it right).
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE MS to get its act together, but for a company that buys up all the talent in the market their return on investment there is seriously poor.
MS has supplied bad code for so long that an entire market has evolved around keeping that creaky wagon a bit safe. A bit like some dominant car manufacturer supplying cars without brakes, thus creating a whole aftersales market for brakes, parachutes, airbags and wall padding..
In other words, NO track record whatsoever (nil, nada, zilch) of writing anything that actually fixes the problem they have created themselves (which figures, if they ever fixed the OS properly they would no longer be selling hope - that's the whole Vista vs XP problem), and someone is supposed to trust THEM to get it right? I bet there are plans to charge for this "feature" as well at some stage.
(shakes head in disbelief that people continue to fall for this)
Any idea how many times they resold your email address as live and equipped with a user who can be fooled? You're smarter now (at least, I'd hope) but you have flagged yourself as someone willing to follow through on spam. You do that with the wrong people (that is, the ones that haven't been arrested yet) and you'll earn someone cash by showing you don't just reply, you actually part with money..
I'd hold back on the Songs of Praise for now - remember that it started with them spamming you. That data has to come from somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Psion in its days was known for "adopting" inventions and improvements to its products from other people without as much as a thank you if they could get away with it. That is IMHO a much graver misdemeanour than defending the indefensible and appears to be a return to old form. It doesn't inspire trust in a company - choosing this route is pathetic and makes me wonder just how much in trouble they are financially.
In this case, just inform Psion in writing that
a - you don't use the term commercially for your products and their complaint thus doesn't apply
b - you use it as described by Intel, not by Psion and you will naturally reconsider matters when Intel has been successfully barred using the term. I don't think they are quite ready to take on Intel, that's why they start with the "little people" first and see if this flies.
AFAIK they aren't able to censor the world from using words, only when commercially in relation to a product (if not I would like to hear arguments why).
AINAL (etc), and the usual disclaimers apply.
If it can really handle that sort of charge speed we're heading towards a way to store lightning.
Now THAT would be cool (figuratively speaking, of course :-)
I'm positive they've had trouble getting someone to represent them now more and more evidence is available that they have been rigging the system. Lawyers are always up for money, but they're not stupid..
Windows in a sensor-to-shooter link.
Sensor: target acquired, moving at Mach 2.1134, vector x/y (whatever). Now rebooting. Shooter: Windows has detected new hardware, do you want to "Search on the Internet" (etc).
Was there any *specific* reason to turn them into sitting ducks, or just general malice or incompetence?
.. most people act on what information is available to them at the time. This is a combination of what they know, what they assume and what they fear and experience. Your problem is, you are unlikely to know the extend of either of those things.
The best thing is to query the exact events that you disagree with and ask for motivation, ESPECIALLY if it's second hand like a news report or interview - I've been exposed to the glaring deficiencies in both.. IMHO, you should start from the assumption that the person's actions made sense to them in their personal context, and at that specific time. That doesn't imply an immediate judgement of "right" or "wrong" (and things are never quite that binary anyway) - your question(s) illustrate that your opinion differs and you would like to discuss this.
Only when you have a dialogue and context can you assess if you're dealing with an issue - or that you misunderstood the issue. Oh, and in case you missed it, people have feelings too. The aim is generally to get on with each other as it's so much more constructive..
That is, of course, wholly my opinion, carefully shaped out of the debris of too many fast conclusions. QED, I'd say :-).
AFAIK, LedgerSMB might be worth looking at. The people working on it had to clean up an awful lot of stuff and the last time I looked documentation wasn't too high on the list yet, but those problems appear worth conquering as it's multi-{user/company/currency}, low on resources and with a web interface. I think the bit that made me pause was the LaTEX based forms (and that I had no time), but I'm going to look at installing it in the new year..
The article is vague because a journalist has 100 words to describe a 1000 word concept, and as far as I can see it's "sponsored" by a party that hasn't done the thinking (notice that nobody of the hardware supplier speaks in this piece), and the specific supplier is only now starting to go to market. I have a background in security in various guises and have come across this product in my work - I suggest you keep an eye on them (and pray they put some more decent explanations on their website - at present it's clearly a startup and their public docs, well, basically suck). There's a lot going on behind the scenes AFAIK, and it's Swiss. They tend to be almost neurotic about doing things right :-).
Anyway, NFC. I am uncomfortable with NFC because it's a transmission, that invariably means a hard to control electronic footprint of unknown size (the main reason I dislike the EU RFID passport spec as well - no shielding). I've had various people try to talk me into NFC, but I grew up with electronics and radio transmissions, and I have seen enough of early and later Tempest work to be exceptionally wary of broadcast (I don't use WiFi, Bluetooth or wireless keyboards either). It depends on how much money you want to spend how far away you can access such facilities, and I prefer not to find out the hard way that someone has just improved the range by using, for instance, a better antenna. We've already done this with RFID.
Having said that, maybe you could combine an access mechanism with NFC (and RFID for that matter, I think that's in the spec) so that it won't broadcast until it has your permission. But that partly removes the benefits, I guess.
You're right, though - this stuff is much harder than appears at first glance. There are a lot of variables to manage..
What is sheer idiocy is storing them in a central database like the US and UK do - I agree with you 100%.
That is one single point of failure: change the record and you are indeed screwed. However, have them as means to access a local resource (like a biometric card that holds the prints as a has ON THE CARD ITSELF and doesn't send them onwards) is a good idea.
There's also the use of biometrics. For identification it sucks, because of the granularity you WILL get eventually identical results (as an example, if I use hair color as metric I will start to get repeats after I've done about 5 people - and here too I have some people that do not register at all because they're bald). This is also why big databases are simply useless. It's as useful as assuming that everyone called George Bush is/was a president..
However, for authentication it works as you need a much lower granularity to guarantee exclusivity. All I need to confirm is that for a given situation there is a high probability that I have indeed the right physical person. That works, because I pair that with a username or account.
And here endeth today's lesson. Sorry if it was a bit lecturish, but the distinctions above are critical to evaluate the use of biometrics in context. Whoever wants to store biometrics in a big database needs to explain to me first why he thinks treating me as a criminal in advance of a crime is acceptable. And that's the same question YOU should ask - as that precedes all this "if you don't have anything to hide you won't mind" nonsense that is spouted so often as an argument why it might be acceptable. It isn't.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7711698.stm ought to get you going ..
Have a look here to get an idea of what he's suggesting: [http://shafee.net/blog/?page_id=295]
All you need to do is to generate the numbers and then throw out the ones that fail the checksum and viola, you have a list of valid numbers. What you don't have is the details to go with it, which is why it's a joke.
Having said that, CC security IS a bit of a joke. I know of a *perfectly* safe CC that goes beyond the "card present" requirement for security and does not need a secure terminal infrastructure because the card itself is safe. And it doesn't need installation (i.e. it doesn't matter if the system used for transmission is edge-to-edge infested with every trojan and MITM attack known to man), nor does it have postal theft risk as it does not need pre-customisation like an "ordinary" CC does.
It does, however, still need some time to be distributed so I don't expect that thing to make a dent in CC fraud until well into 2010. If VISA and Mastercard accept it to start with..
The iPhone was IMHO hugely overhyped - there are (IMHO) too many things that get in the way of a decent user experience (no multitasking, always go via home key, lack of cut & paste). So far, for me the most useful phone was the Sony Ericsson P1i, but they killed UIQ so no idea what's going to happen there.
It starts, of course, with what you want from a phone. I had to search for a simple, big button & readable display phone for my dad who needs a few phone numbers and SMS, but really NOTHING more. I need a phone to sync calendar and todo in addition plus a password vault and speaker phone ability. This would make an "OK" for the iPhone but after comparing (I have one from work) I have gone back to the P1i. I looked at the Nokia Communicator which could do with an upgrade, and the new Prada phone is interesting as well (I could go on :-).
I personally now have a new feature I need and it is coming: Dual SIM. In a simple, small, suit compatible flip phone. A bit like the the grand daddy of them all, the Motorola V3i, but more capable. And, going full circle, with a USABLE user interface. And then I just choose which one I use on the basis of what I'm about to do..
I thought that this was pretty cut and dried
No, no, no, you're getting mixed up with freeze-drying. That's for coffee.
OK, OK, I'm going..
Umm - note that I mentioned before that I consider anti-virus a mere plaster over more fundamental problems.
When I use a Windows system for sensitive things, surfing and email is out of the question, even with NoScript installed, and about the only things that come onto the system are anti-virus updates (separate downloads as files) and USB sticks with Truecrypt archives (autorun is obviously disabled). It prints via USB only, doesn't have services installed that check for updates, harddisk (truecrypt) encryption is enabled, no Skype, etc etc etc. In principle, it's almost never near a network connection, and when it is, traffic is logged. And the original "from scratch" build is stored in an Acronis True Image backup which gets blasted over the system once a project has been completed.
However, Windows Update is in itself a risk. At every turn Microsoft tries to ram their Windows Genuine A**reaming down your throat (sorry for the mixed-up visuals) because to them you're guilty until proven innocent, and then only for some time. I have a choice for Windows: forego updates that could possibly make it safer (let's assume that is possible) but could backdoor the system which may very well happen by default, or leave it unpatched and risk some of the earlier gotchas creating a vulnerability.
Sure, Linux has its problems too. But for MY purposes (let's be precise here, YMMV) it works better, safer and allows me to work more efficient because there's also no sales characters telling the developers that all of it MUST look different with the next release so there is a reason to buy it. I precisely like that things do NOT change - I have enough to do (he says, typing away at Slashdot :-) without having to work out where the %&%$ designers stuck all the features this time.
But that's a debate in itself.
I've considered buying a Mac, but I'm slowly starting to get the feeling that is merely a change of control freak with a clearly better marketing department. Unsure if that is really a way *forward* ..
It's not a "doing it wrong" - it's one of those things that suddenly develops for no apparent reason, and disappears again in the same fashion. I have to use anti-virus because I sometimes have the displeasure of handling sensitive data in Windows and I also can't afford to have the network blacklisted as spam source..
Grin, I have had an active Zimbra machine for well over a year, and I'm just moving all the data over to a commercial Zimbra provider because it's both cheaper and safer (the lot I work with operates under both data protection and bank secrecy in a country where these terms still mean something). And I have had that box run Citadel for a while as well to test. And I've used OpenExchange for over 2 years..
The problem I have is the golf course effect. You have a couple of high level people who take design decisions that they should not take, but you are powerless to argue. When your new setup non-Exchange is being tuned, every hiccup is a disaster and proof that the "old system was better" and people are tasked to deploy Exchange. The fact that a mobile Exchange - Outlook link sucks seven road to Paris, that the server needs a lot of work and that the whole assembly costs bags more money is ignored.
Microsoft KNOWS decisions are not made on technical merit but on perception, why do you think they blow so much money on marketing? Vista shows you must really screw up badly before you break that approach.
Besides, if decisions were really made on the basis of technical merit I am very uncertain we would be running Windows at all..
At this very moment in time there is nothing I can pull in from the Net which I can run for a while as Exchange replacement without a large amount of work on the client side - MS has built the barriers quite well.
As long as there isn't a USABLE Exchange replacement we won't be able to lose it in the server room - management is addicted to Outlook (even though the 2007 version suffers the same productivity obliterating GUI) and its ability to share calendars. And AFAIK there is NO plug-n-play replacement out there.
Next up: Outlook. Without an API compliant replacement that integrated what Outlook put together you've got no hope. Mobile phones sync to it (including the Jesus phone), calendaring is integrated and there is over the air sync available as well. And it sucks VERY badly on networking (which you find when you make the mistake to use it on EDGE or 3G) - but it works for management. End of story.
I would LOVE to nuke the Exchange setup and move that last bastion to Ubuntu as well, but no chance..
Come on, with so many networkable games around this is not a question that will arise :-).
However, it assumes you like the Citadel model. I'm not so happy with it, but that's personal taste - I am certainly impressed by its ability to interact with other Citadel servers.
Apologies for the self quote:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1024039&cid=25711243.
Or, translated: I'm 100% with you. When I started using Linux it came on 14 or so floppies (Slackware) and after the then customary kernel compile it ran like greased wombats on an average PC where "I'll have it clocked by the local radio station" was still a good joke. It was fast and worked. Hell, even 95 was on occasions quite usable.
Now I have systems that have to be designed by radio engineers because they clock so fast the speed of light is actually becoming a design consideration and I have to wait 5 minutes to get a usable Windows system. And then my bandwidth gets nuked because the anti-virus (a plaster over a decade old design problem) needs updating.
The real amazement in computer evolution is how we came to consider this crap as acceptable value for money..
"Hi, I'm the Army and my laptop is now 4 weeks late, can you please write down my customer reference and then give me your GPS coordinates?"
"Um, huh? We're at {address}, does that help?"
"Yeah, no proble, wait a sec.. {click}".
THUMP ........ zzzzzssssSSSSSSSHHH *BLAM*
"OK, you have two options: I see this laptop in one week, or we'll start zeroing in. If you don't know what that is, imagine the crater that was your car park slowly moving towards your building. Have a nice day, and don't fall over bits of cars on the way out."
Sometimes you just wish ..
Having said that, it can't be a fun job being on the phone to customers who are angry, especially since you can't do anything about it..
If you think about it, quite a few systems have screens you only need when something's gone wrong.
If you have a screensaver on a tech display that picked up the vital statistics from somewhere you would have the display, but also the use of the screen when something blows up with autmotic resumption when you stop working on the system. In principle should the screensaver simply be the remote display (so you could choose what to display where, or even build a collection of stats for one screen). The main disadvantage is, of course that this won't "save" much screen :-), and you may need a permanent copy somewhere that won't vanish when you touch the keyboard..
A good decade ago I had a 30 user PowerLAN setup (yes, ARCnet :-), and the server screen was a simple, ASCII based set of graphics showing server load, network load and disk capacity in log based bars (more sensible than straight linear representations), and other relevant data in numbers. I still think that was one of the most sensible server displays ever but it did a good job of burning in the CRT when we forgot the powersave :-)
I've had a bad short term memory since a fairly serious accident (I was close to losing any chance to ever become ambidextrous :-)). That doesn't make me an expert, but it does give me an idea of what it feels like to suddenly find your braincells to underperform without the help of serious quantities of alcohol.
First off, it's like a muscle, it needs exercise. Try to do without tools if you can because they'll diminish the exercise your brain needs, but obviously don't be too strict (stress because you may forget something is a self-fulfilling prophecy :-)). Two classic examples to demonstrate: how many people still remember phone numbers now we have mobile phones that do that? And how many still bother to calculate in their heads rather than on a phone or calculator?
Secondly, few people learn strategies for remembering which means you may add some knowledge to the mix and improve matters. Books like Mindgym (BBC press) or quite a few ones that Tony Buzan (of mind mapping fame) has written describe METHODS by which to remember. The idea is that you cover the lowering performance by more efficient use of what works.
And focus on mainly forgetting bad things, this would certainly be bad news :-)
I think the definition of mainstream is an interesting one. I know MS likes to wave that as a reason why it gets so much more "hack attention" but that argument is by now so debunked I don't have to bother.
A simple question is, for instance, why it has taken all the way to Vista before users don't run admin by default or at least have to give extra permission (typically the good concept got butchered, but let's assume they did it right).
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE MS to get its act together, but for a company that buys up all the talent in the market their return on investment there is seriously poor.
Let me see if I get this correctly.
MS has supplied bad code for so long that an entire market has evolved around keeping that creaky wagon a bit safe. A bit like some dominant car manufacturer supplying cars without brakes, thus creating a whole aftersales market for brakes, parachutes, airbags and wall padding..
In other words, NO track record whatsoever (nil, nada, zilch) of writing anything that actually fixes the problem they have created themselves (which figures, if they ever fixed the OS properly they would no longer be selling hope - that's the whole Vista vs XP problem), and someone is supposed to trust THEM to get it right? I bet there are plans to charge for this "feature" as well at some stage.
(shakes head in disbelief that people continue to fall for this)
Maybe not *that* nice..
Any idea how many times they resold your email address as live and equipped with a user who can be fooled? You're smarter now (at least, I'd hope) but you have flagged yourself as someone willing to follow through on spam. You do that with the wrong people (that is, the ones that haven't been arrested yet) and you'll earn someone cash by showing you don't just reply, you actually part with money..
I'd hold back on the Songs of Praise for now - remember that it started with them spamming you. That data has to come from somewhere.
You forgot to mention the pork barrel politics..