I work with pro audio, and let me clue you in on the range of human hearing...
We can hear as low as 20hz and as high as 20,000hz (20k). However, most people perceive stuff above 16k as some sort of noise, but they can't really make it out or get a directional location on it.
The human voice has a smaller range... around 85hz for a really good male bass singer up to 1.1k for a really good female soprano.
That's not the whole of it though, because you get into things about even/odd harmonics, plus the fact that one octave around 20hz doesn't take many additional cycles to hit the next octave, but it takes thousands of cycles around 20k to jump an octave.
Human hearing isn't linear by any means. We are nearly deaf at the lower end of the scale; that's why we often "feel" bass -- not because when its loud enough to hear it is also felt, but more like to get enough energy so that our ears can even hear it you have to put out a LOT of power. But I digress...
I don't know why all you non-US people are whining about our use of A/C:)
First of all, modern architects are VERY aware of how to build houses to be more naturally cool. Things like extra insulation in the attic, double-paned windows, etc can help keep the house better insulated.
This translates into a lower electric bill, which is a major concern. In fact, we are looking at getting another couple of inches of insulation blown into the attic in this house to help cut down on the amount of time we have to run the A/C.
Also note that all modern A/C systems use R-134a, which has about -zero- negative effects on the environment. Granted, it takes time to switch everything over, but it is happening.
A/C has changed the way we live. There is no sense in wishing it hadn't, because it is here to stay. Much better to make the best of the situation, with more energy-efficient units and houses with better insulation.
*P.S. temperature has nothing to do with 'catching a cold', as some posters here have seemed to imply. A cold is a virus.
GlobalMaxTCPWindowSize:DWORD = 256960 This should be a multiple of MSS, which is generally MTU - 40. Best results - pick a multiple of MSS lower than 16-bit (65535) times a scale factor that's a power of two. In other words, pick any multiple of MSS as long as it's under 65535, them multiply that by any power of two to arrive at the TCP Window size (RWIN).
Tcp1323Opts:DWORD = 1 This enables RFC 1323 options, which allows for a TCP RWIN greater than 64k. If you don't do this, most of the other settings are bunk as they will be limited by the 64k RWIN value.
EnablePMTUDiscovery:DWORD = 1 Enables automatic discovery of the MTU for your line, with the MSS set appropriately. You can set this to "0" to force your own value (see below).
TcpMaxDupAcks:DWORD = 2 (range from 1 to 3) Number of duplicate ACKs recv'd for the same seq number of sent data before fast retrans is triggered.
NOW on to the MTU: it must be set on a per-interface basis. Find your TCP/IP interface associated with your NIC under Parameters\Interfaces\
MTU:DWORD = 1500 (probably... depends on your provider.)
On an unrelated note, you can force IE to hit up a web server with more connections than normal, which can help web pages load more concurrently.
it's under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Internet Settings\
First is HTTP1.1+ servers, the other is HTTP1.0 servers. Specifies the max # of connections IE will open to a single web server in the process of downloading a page.
No, because most companies reserve the "right" to change the terms of the EULA, without notification, at ANY TIME.
The whole concept of the EULA is so silly... I really hope it gets tossed out of court ASAP. Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
I am talking about cameras and production equipment. While you can get a good analog camera for $5k to $10k, the bottom-end HDTV camera will run you at least $34k. You have to replace all your decks and production gear as well. Plus if you take to film to do post-production, you either need some really expensive digital filming stuff, or some really expensive HD recorders (or similar type items).
It's not surprising that stations aren't rushing to replace their equipment.
The real problem with these things is the same problem with HDTV sets: They are way overpriced.
It's not like we are talking about rocket science. It is perfectly possible to sell a basic tuner for less than $100 for XM or Sirius. If they did that, they'd sell a lot more units. They could even do like the cell phone people and say if you sign a 12 month contract you can get model X tuner for $100 or whatever. You can't just throw this stuff out there and hope people will buy it.
Same thing with HDTV: WHY would I spend $2000 for a really cheapo set? It's not like they cost oh-so-much more to engineer or manufacture. Plus studios are getting gouged on the production-side. Why outfit your whole setup for HDTV when it will cost you more than 10x a comparable analog setup? Frankly, I'm surprised that GE hasn't just designed their own line of cameras, TVs, etc and started selling them for slightly above cost; that would be cheaper (think in terms of outfitting all of NBC for HDTV) than buying the stuff from anyone else.
When you want something to reach critical mass quickly, you have to offer the equipment at bargain-basement prices to get people on-board. The cell phone craze didn't really take off until you could get el-cheapo phones for $100-$200, depending on how long you signed a contract for.
"If every person who received a copy of BitKeeper from McVoy were able to use it however they wanted, examine all the source, modify it as desired, and then copy and sell the result, then BitKeeper would be free software."
But that model doesn't work. Assume I need to sell the software for $50/pop to make my morgage and be able to eat. Now you, who are just doing software work part time, only need to sell it for $10/pop to make it worthwhile. Then the next guy has a full time job and is just monkeying around with a few improvements. He sells it for $1.00
In the RMS model, all software eventually degenerates into completely free (as in no one can make any money off the software).
In the RMS vision of the world, the ONLY software that ANYONE gets paid to develop is software written specifically for large companies who need a specific business package. This presents two problems:
1. Much of the software that we use (free or no) isn't useful to most corporations 2. Most of the software corporations are interested in is only useful to other corporations.
RMS freely admits that programmers are worthless in his vision of reality. The only thing that matters to him is the principle of user freedom. He chooses to completely ignore the programmer.
The best analogy I can think of right now is a book. You spend two years of your life working tirelessly to write a book. You begin to sell it (physical and/or ebook - it doesn't matter), but RMS is now in charge. That means anyone can take your book, copy it, change it, and place their name on it. Then they can sell it for less. So joe blow adds a few illustrations, changes a few words, and sells the book for half of what you are charging. Now he is profiting immensely for a total of 5 hours of effort, whereas you spent TWO YEARS of your life on this book. Time you could have spent playing with your kids, or earning a PhD, or whatever. TIME THAT IS GONE FOREVER. And what do you get for your trouble? Thanks to RMS you get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Repeat ad nauseum and eventually someone changes the book a little bit and gives it away for free. You have collected a total of $10 from the original joe blow, and now the book is freely distributed and you get nothing. THAT IS NOT FAIR.
RMS does not have any answer for that situation, other than "too bad!"
I, for one, refuse to support an organization like the FSF as long as a nutcase like him is involved. He claims that principle is the most important, and that his principle is the only valid one to abide by. I say turn that on him and the FSF: If you don't believe that the GPL is the answer to all our ills and that all software must be completely and totally free (no compensation for programmers), then you should withdraw your support for the FSF. Remember: according to RMS, it is more important to throw the baby out with the bathwater than anything else. You are unimportant. Your ideas belong to everyone else. You get nothing for your hard work. The only important thing is that users have the right to benefit from the fruit of your labors freely.
First of all, if you attempt to set a blank admin password for SQL Server it gives you a warning that doing so is a very bad idea. None the less, you'd be surprised at how many are blank (or just use sa/sa). The article makes it sound like the default sa password is blank - this is NOT the case. Also, although you cannot disable the sa account, you can rename it during setup.
Secondly, as has already been pointed out here, your database server should not be exposed to the net in general. There is usually very little reason to do so. If you need to let other machines access the SQL box from abroad, create an IP Security filter that only allows port 1433 for a specific subnet or ip address.
Don't complain that you got rooted when your login is root/root.
I doubt they are losing as much as some people tend to think. When you realize how old the P3 chips are, MS is probably picking them up at quite a steal. Manufacturing costs and all factor in, plus a hard drive, but still. I bet they were close to breaking even at $299 (given the dropping price of components). I imagine they will be breaking even with the XBox at $199 even in one year (assuming that RAM continues to tumble and AMD's new 64-bit chips push P3 prices down even further.)
There are still a few companies doing good tech support. With all the comments here about crappy support, I figure I ought to weigh in with who is doing a good job.
1) Adaptec. I bought a DTC SmartRAID VI Century controller off eBay. The card is probably a few years old, but I have no idea. I got the sucker into my machine and the card wouldn't finish its POST. I tried all sorts of things, but couldn't get it resolved. So, I called adaptec (which bought out DTC a while back.) After a little while on hold, I got a tech support guy. He was very helpful and walked me through some steps and troubleshooting. (The problem ended up being that on my mobo, if video was set to AGP init first, the BIOS didn't init PCI devices properly. I have dual videocards, so I set my PCI to init first. Wierd I know...) Anyway, they were very helpful. They didn't care that the card was old, or where I got it, etc. They just helped me with my problem. You can bet that future SCSI card purchases will be Adaptec cards for me.
2) Maxtor. Where I work, we get dead hard drives on PCs from time to time. Maxtor has always been the best... I call, explain that I am a tech, and tell them what the problem is. They don't give me the scripted run-around about this or that. They acknowledge that I know plenty about PC systems and have already determined that the drive is bad. They immediately issue an RMA.
As far as software goes though, the only good experience I've had was with Microsoft support. They tend to do a good job, at least in my experience. All the rest I've ever talked to are pretty much a joke.
Chrysler had a working gas turbine engine system. See here: http://www.turbinecar.com/turbine.htm
Now, this thing could run on anything that burned... even tequila:) So, it would seem to be a natural stopgap for hydrogen. One could easily construct a pumping system that could use gas or hydrogen (or just have dual pumping systems feeding injectors at the same location.) In either case, you have a car that is perfectly capable of running on gasoline or hydrogen.
Microsoft has gotten the message. If you were on the Windows.NET server beta, you'd have gotten the memo;)
Essentially, Windows.NET server ships with absolutely NOTHING enabled by default. This does present a problem to the typical Microsoft "its so easy just plug it in" sort of thing, but that is solved by an improved "configure your server wizard". The first time the server boots up, the user can explicity select what to install and/or turn on, and ONLY what they select gets installed/turned on.
The individual components themselves have improved as well. IIS 6 by default will serve only static HTML files, and installs no sample files or other stuff. You have to manually run the IIS security wizard to turn on things like ASP, CGI, etc. If you install a new ISAPI filter or something of the like, you have to manually enable it. Nothing gets turned on unless YOU the admin turns it on.
The other thing is that IIS 6 is a complete ground-up rewrite; no code from IIS 5 was used in its creation. Its gone through a complete code review to (hopefully) eliminate any buffer overflows or other bugs. There are other improvements as well... for example, the easy ability to run each website being hosted under a separate security account, typically with minimal access to anything.
Microsoft isn't stupid; they see that their biggest PR problem right now is security and they are doing something about it. True, they should have jumped on this a long time ago, but late is better than never.
This code will compile under both because it is trivial C++ code (essentially.)
Both langauges have a common heritage, which results in some similarities.
But take a program that's a million lines and you'll spend more time rewriting then starting from scratch, no matter which direction you go. (of course you can compile java the language to the CLR, so why rewrite?)
"It seems worth pointing out that it is "illegal" (in the sense that that Microsoft owns the law) to do this on Linux. Really. Not kidding. Read the license."
Now, let's look at Microsoft's license. (original in italics, my comments normal.)
MICROSOFT SHARED SOURCE CLI, C#, AND JSCRIPT LICENSE
This License governs use of the accompanying Software, and your use of the Software constitutes acceptance of this license.
You may use this Software for any non-commercial purpose, subject to the restrictions in this license. Some purposes which can be non-commercial are teaching, academic research, and personal experimentation. You may also distribute this Software with books or other teaching materials, or publish the Software on websites, that are intended to teach the use of the Software.
You may not use or distribute this Software or any derivative works in any form for commercial purposes. Examples of commercial purposes would be running business operations, licensing, leasing, or selling the Software, or distributing the Software for use with commercial products.
OK, so the license covers the software only, not works which take advantage of it. You can only use it for non-commercial purposes... well, the source code anyway.
You may modify this Software and distribute the modified Software for non-commercial purposes, however, you may not grant rights to the Software or derivative works that are broader than those provided by this License. For example, you may not distribute modifications of the Software under terms that would permit commercial use, or under terms that purport to require the Software or derivative works to be sublicensed to others.
OK, so I can make modifications to the software AND give them away, so long as I don't try and sublicense it or make the license terms broader than they already are. Fair enough?
You may use any information in intangible form that you remember after accessing the Software. However, this right does not grant you a license to any of Microsoft's copyrights or patents for anything you might create using such information.
Here is a very important point: Looking at this code does NOT in any way restrict your contribution to other Open Source projects or business use. The only thing is that it doesn't grant you use of their copyrights/patents, which you don't have in the first place. you cannot restrict yourself or generate any harm by looking at this source code. I know many of you are doing a double-take, but look at the license.
In return, we simply require that you agree:
Not to remove any copyright or other notices from the Software.
That if you distribute the Software in source or object form, you will include a verbatim copy of this license.
That if you distribute derivative works of the Software in source code form you do so only under a license that includes all of the provisions of this License, and if you distribute derivative works of the Software solely in object form you do so only under a license that complies with this License.
That if you have modified the Software or created derivative works, and distribute such modifications or derivative works, you will cause the modified files to carry prominent notices so that recipients know that they are not receiving the original Software. Such notices must state: (i) that you have changed the Software; and (ii) the date of any changes.
THAT THE SOFTWARE COMES "AS IS", WITH NO WARRANTIES. THIS MEANS NO EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR ANY WARRANTY OF TITLE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. ALSO, YOU MUST PASS THIS DISCLAIMER ON WHENEVER YOU DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE OR DERIVATIVE WORKS.
THAT MICROSOFT WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RELATED TO THE SOFTWARE OR THIS LICENSE, INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT THE LAW PERMITS, NO MATTER WHAT LEGAL THEORY IT IS BASED ON. ALSO, YOU MUST PASS THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY ON WHENEVER YOU DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE OR DERIVATIVE WORKS.
That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software or anyone's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically.
That your rights under the License end automatically if you breach it in any way.
Microsoft reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this license.
OK, to sum up:
You agree not to remove copyright notices. You also agree to distribute the license with any derivative products, etc. You agree not to distribute the software or modifications with a license that is broader or incompatible with this one. You must include a notice that your code is not Microsoft original code, and when it was modified.
So far, that all sounds fairly reasonable to me.
You also have to agree that Microsoft provides no warranties on the software, and that derivative works don't have any warranty (because that would make MS liable.) This is standard in the software industry, so no surprise there.
An odd provision comes next: if you sue anyone over patents that you think apply to the software or anyone's use of it, you lose your license automatically. Basically, you can't sue anyone for using your patents related to this software or any modifications whatsoever. This doesn't really protect Microsoft, as you can still sue them, you just can't use their code. However, it does protect consumers of your modified code, in that you cannot come along a year later and sue them all saying your derivative includes software patents that you own and would now like to collect royalties on.
Lastly, but not least, if you violate the license you lose it, and Microsoft reserves the right to kick you to the curb if they don't like you.
Well, honestly... I don't know where the magic "you cannot use this sourcecode on linux or on/with any GPL stuff" phrase is, but perhaps I misread the license somehow.
The point of this new data store isn't necessarily faster searches, although that is one part of it. The idea is to have a common data storage mechanism, used by all programs.
The underlying technology is to replace the NTFS filesystem driver with SQL Server, with a few tweaks. SQL Server already supports using a RAW partition as a data store, so essentially you just have to move the transaction log and descriptive info for the databases into a specific area of the disk. Add a little bit of bootstrap code to ntldr, and slap the SQL Server stuff into the startup driver list, and it's a done deal.
The next step is creating an NTFS compatibility layer -- it would allow you to mount tables as drive letters or network shares. A lot of the information wouldn't be useful when viewed in that fashion, but it would give you a way to run older programs.
Once all your data is in a common data store and can be manipulated as such, it opens up a world of new possibilities. The change will be long and slow; no need to kid about that. It will take years for all the 3rd party programs (and even Microsoft's own apps) to catch up and start taking full advantage of it. It's the same situation Plug & Play was in back in 1995; it sorta worked sometimes, but you couldn't really take full advantage of it. But here in 2002, you really can expect to grab a piece of hardware and slap it in your box without hassles. It took some time, but it eventually paid off.
But... are you having trouble, as I did, thinking of ways to make use of this common data store? Part of that comes from the fact that we've been conditioned and trained to think of data storage in terms of files; it's hard to shift gears... to think outside of the "filesystem" box so to speak.
For one thing, I could see someone emailing me a project. Not some word documents, an excel spreadsheet, and a database zipped into a ZIP file; they just email me the project. When I get it, and open the message, the project opens up presenting me with the various documents (linked to the database of phone numbers for example), and a little yellow stickynote window that has the project leader's actual email text. I didn't have to deal with unzipping the data, rearranging it, then opening the documents separately. Since the "rows" are linked, they open and act as a unit until I tell them to do otherwise.
It gets better though... imagine if I could run a query such as "SELECT f.*, s.filename FROM Folder1 f INNER JOIN folder2 s ON f.datetime = s.datetime"
It can get even more useful because you now have full SQL syntax available to you for manipulating the filesystem, with queries that are lightning fast. Throw in some Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, etc and I can see real possibilities.
This is an even bigger crock then I had first imagined. Sun is claiming all kinds of ridiculous things.
First, they claim that Microsoft has effectively monopolized (through illegal actions) the OS market for Intel machines, the web browser market, and the Office suite market.
While they may have engaged in questionable activities regarding the OS, the web browser is a core part of the computing experience today, just like a graphical user interface, TCP/IP and network connectivity, etc (all of which were separately purchased products at one point in the x86 history.)
Sun is also claiming that they tried to monopolize (using illegal tactics) the workgroup server OS market. This one is absolutely silly and absurd. Until some recent blunders by Novell, Microsoft did have hefty competition. However, I doubt anyone can argue that there is anything which is better than Microsoft's solutions for the workgroup and small business market. Maybe some products that offer the same functionality (open source or not), but certainly nothing that is head-over-heels "better".
Next, Sun claims they illegally tied IE to the operating system. As noted above, web browsing is now an essential part of the PC expierence; it only follows naturally that it should be included as part of the OS.
Now, here is where Sun really flies off the deep end and displays the true motivation behind the suit, which is Larry's obession with trying to beat Bill Gates and his highly successful company.
Sun claims that Microsoft broke the law by illegally tying their client OSes to their Server OSes. (I.e. somehow they tied it up so that Windows XP Pro only works with Windows XP Server and that such a situation is illegal and unfair.)
That's funny... SAMBA and Novell seemed to get along just fine. What did Sun expect? should Microsoft have gone with the awful NFS and NIS forever, abandoning any notions of directory services? What about the impact that would have had on existing installations of SMB? Besides; as I mentioned above, SAMBA does fairly well.
I won't deny that Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro are "tied" into Microsoft's Active Directory and so on, but what else did they expect? There is nothing here that hurts consumers; just the opposite in fact. A Win2K server with all Win2K clients is an excellent network to administer with Active Directory and Group Policy objects. Once again, we have the issue of what is really essential? I would argue that this kind of functionality is in fact essential to Operating Systems in general.
Sun also claims that Microsoft has illegally tied IIS into its server OSes. This one strikes me as really odd, because IIS isn't installed by default, it is simply included on the CD. In fact, for NT 4.0, you had to get a separate CD or download to install it; it wasn't even part of the standard distribution.
I've saved the most absurd for last... they are claiming that Microsoft illegally tied the ".NET framework to its PC and workgroup operating systems." Hilarious. Simply hilarious. What I find funny is that Microsoft is developing the.NET runtime for *BSD if I remember correctly.
Of course they are probably just mad that Microsoft isn't shipping a Java runtime in Windows XP; well, what did they expect? They sued Microsoft (the maker of the world's best Java runtime at that point) and forced them to stop distributing their runtime with the OS or developing any new versions.
In doing so, they shot themselves in the foot. You cannot honestly ask any company to ship their competitor's product with their own. That is an absurd idea at best.
The bottom line is that this just seems like more sour grapes from Sun and a cheap attempt to try and cash in on the bandwagon. Sun has been milking political sources behind the scenes throughout this whole antitrust situation for their own benefit. What scares me the most though is the idea that they might be successful. I would dred to live in a world where Sun controlled the desktop and server.
If living in a Microsoft world is bad, then living in Sun's vision of the same world must be HELL.
--quote-- ...the suit is also seeking access to the APIs used by Microsoft software and the IE source code. Would be interesting to see if there are "hidden interfaces" exposed in the Windows API. --/quote--
1) IEXPLORE.EXE is just a few UI components with the core HTML browser control dropped onto the form. If you want the Windows HTML renderer, you'll have to dig a bit deeper.
2) Thousands of people already have the source code. This include Universities, developers, and large companies. I have access to the source code if I want it. I honestly don't see what the BFD this is; the source is already out there.
This is just another attempt for a loser to try and cash in. If you can't beat them at their own game, file suit.
I don't see anyone bemoaning Byan vines' loss of marketshare when Microsoft started shipping WFW/NT4. No one seems to miss Trumpet Winsock (or any of the other TCP/IP stacks you had to pay for) when Microsoft shipped TCP/IP standard on NT4/Win9x.
Yet when Microsoft beats Netscape into the ground by putting their browser to shame and making IE one of the best browsers in the world, everyone is up in arms.
Wrong. You cannot remove IE at all. While it is true that you can hide the browser interface... that is, you can delete IEXPLORE.EXE and unregister the components... but the core rendering engine remains.
That HTML engine is what powers Outlook Express, Explorer folder browsing/searching/etc, Control Panel and associated applets (like Add/Remove programs), the Help system, etc.
You can pretend the browser isn't there, but the core browser components are still powering the User Interface (and various 3rd party programs.)
The only version of Windows that can have the browser interface AND core components removed is Windows 95, because it was a true bolt-on after the fact. But I certainly wouldn't go back to Win95 from 2000/XP.
Quote: "They want the source, they want IE out, and they want other versions of Windows available at a lesser cost without the unwanted "features" Windows buyers pay for."
1) Source -- fine. If you wanna take a look, it doesn't bother me. Almost everything is well documented on MSDN anyway; it really won't help me that much to see the source code (in fact, I have access to the source legally right now.) There are no hidden APIs or other magic things to be found. Just a lot of boring code.
2) I've already established that the core HTML engine would be impossible to remove without ditching the entire UI and starting it over from scratch. This would also break tons of 3rd party enhancements and plugins for the interface that rely on the current standard, as well as screw over all the 3rd party apps that don't wanna take the time to write their own web browser so they use the available COM components.
3) While adding features has driven some companies out of business, it has also HELPED consumers by far. In 1994, you had to BUY a TCP/IP stack to get on the Internet with Windows. These days, it's standard... in fact, Windows 2000 Server's CIFS protocol and Active Directory run exclusively on TCP/IP. Are we to cry a river for Trumpet which can no longer sell their IP stack to hordes of Windows users? Or how about we bemoan the reduction in the market for dialup terminal applications since Microsoft started including Hyperterminal. The fact is that the OS needs to include more and more features in order to deliver better value to consumers and force the 3rd party marketplace to advance. You people seem to forget that capitalism requires that companies live and die as the markets change. That's life; deal with it.
By default, the.NET framework will not run untrusted code and allow it to do anything of note.
You will notice that the host EXE being sent over email is native x86 code, NOT MSIL. Therefore, it has no security permissions of note.
If you were to attempt to write a pure-C# virus and mass-email it, you wouldn't get very far as the user would actually have to tell the framework to grant execute permissions to the downloaded code.
I even have to grant permissions to the files I myself write with Visual Studio.NET; they won't execute by default.
Lastly, Outlook 2000 w/security patches and Outlook XP both automatically disallow the user to download or execute EXE attatchments, period. Unfortunately, this makes it a hassle having to ZIP all EXE files before sending them (and VBS files, etc.), but that's a small price to pay to protect us from idiot users. My only complaint with Outlook security is that Outlook Express does not do this by default.
I think Microsoft is doing a better job these days; they still have things to address of course. Sometimes I think people just misunderstand though... calls for the removal of VBScript are like asking *nix distributors not to ship Perl with their installs; its kind of silly.
Fortunately, with XP Home, you don't have a bunch of home users running as Admin all the time; I think that's a big key right there.
What is needed is a subscription network. As many will no doubt point out, paying $5/mo to a bunch of sites adds up.
There needs to be a network. Users who want to subscribe to sites can go into the network and click a checkbox for all the sites they want, at a low price per site (more along the lines of $1/mo or something.) Then the total charge is added up and run through their CC once. This would help reduce credit card and processing charges for the individual sites; they'd just get a check every month from the network for all their subscribers.
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD
on
What is .NET?
·
· Score: 2
Please be aware that you can purchase a copy of any single visual studio tool, such as VB for really cheap. You are then eligible for the upgrade price on Visual Studio.
Right now at least, starting from scratch, it is cheaper to pickup VB 6.0, then buy the VS.NET upgrade.
Re:I honestly can't figure out
on
What is .NET?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
You obviously didn't read the article.
Microsoft themselves is developing a runtime for FreeBSD. When I say 'runtime' here I mean the CLR and the *BASIC* class libraries. You see, that is the standard that Microsoft has released to the EMCA as a standard, soon to be certified by ISO. It is completely open, non-patented, etc. Anyone can develop a compatible implementation.
However, a few key components are Windows-only: ADO.NET (universal data access) and WindowsForms (the GUI toolkit.) That is where Mono comes in with the development of compatible class libraries on Linux. Please understand: **the interfaces are the same as the Microsoft interfaces**, even though the implementation details are different.
Microsoft is fully aware of the Mono project and is taking no efforts to stop them. It doesn't really matter if they wanted to. The CLS (Common Language Specification) is part of the OPEN STANDARD. This is the definition of how classes and datatypes interact among languages and the IL; unless Microsoft managed to get a copyright on all the method names in WindowsForms, they can't stop me from creating a compatible implementation because I am simply using the CLS to write my classes that run on the CLR to provide objects for use by.NET programs.
(Short Version: go back and actually read the article, then try posting again.)
Slashdot Mirror
I work with pro audio, and let me clue you in on the range of human hearing...
We can hear as low as 20hz and as high as 20,000hz (20k). However, most people perceive stuff above 16k as some sort of noise, but they can't really make it out or get a directional location on it.
The human voice has a smaller range... around 85hz for a really good male bass singer up to 1.1k for a really good female soprano.
That's not the whole of it though, because you get into things about even/odd harmonics, plus the fact that one octave around 20hz doesn't take many additional cycles to hit the next octave, but it takes thousands of cycles around 20k to jump an octave.
Human hearing isn't linear by any means. We are nearly deaf at the lower end of the scale; that's why we often "feel" bass -- not because when its loud enough to hear it is also felt, but more like to get enough energy so that our ears can even hear it you have to put out a LOT of power. But I digress...
I don't know why all you non-US people are whining about our use of A/C :)
First of all, modern architects are VERY aware of how to build houses to be more naturally cool. Things like extra insulation in the attic, double-paned windows, etc can help keep the house better insulated.
This translates into a lower electric bill, which is a major concern. In fact, we are looking at getting another couple of inches of insulation blown into the attic in this house to help cut down on the amount of time we have to run the A/C.
Also note that all modern A/C systems use R-134a, which has about -zero- negative effects on the environment. Granted, it takes time to switch everything over, but it is happening.
A/C has changed the way we live. There is no sense in wishing it hadn't, because it is here to stay. Much better to make the best of the situation, with more energy-efficient units and houses with better insulation.
*P.S. temperature has nothing to do with 'catching a cold', as some posters here have seemed to imply. A cold is a virus.
You can play with these settings to get the best performance, but in general these should help out some.
c es\Tcpip\Parameters
e ntVersion\Internet Settings\
Note that, at most, simply disable then re-enable the network adapter in question. No rebooting should be required to make any of this take effect.
Keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servi
GlobalMaxTCPWindowSize:DWORD = 256960
This should be a multiple of MSS, which is generally MTU - 40. Best results - pick a multiple of MSS lower than 16-bit (65535) times a scale factor that's a power of two. In other words, pick any multiple of MSS as long as it's under 65535, them multiply that by any power of two to arrive at the TCP Window size (RWIN).
Tcp1323Opts:DWORD = 1
This enables RFC 1323 options, which allows for a TCP RWIN greater than 64k. If you don't do this, most of the other settings are bunk as they will be limited by the 64k RWIN value.
EnablePMTUDiscovery:DWORD = 1
Enables automatic discovery of the MTU for your line, with the MSS set appropriately. You can set this to "0" to force your own value (see below).
TcpMaxDupAcks:DWORD = 2 (range from 1 to 3)
Number of duplicate ACKs recv'd for the same seq number of sent data before fast retrans is triggered.
NOW on to the MTU: it must be set on a per-interface basis. Find your TCP/IP interface associated with your NIC under Parameters\Interfaces\
MTU:DWORD = 1500 (probably... depends on your provider.)
On an unrelated note, you can force IE to hit up a web server with more connections than normal, which can help web pages load more concurrently.
it's under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
MaxConnectionsPerServer:DWORD = 20
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server:DWORD = 20
First is HTTP1.1+ servers, the other is HTTP1.0 servers. Specifies the max # of connections IE will open to a single web server in the process of downloading a page.
No, because most companies reserve the "right" to change the terms of the EULA, without notification, at ANY TIME.
The whole concept of the EULA is so silly... I really hope it gets tossed out of court ASAP. Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
I am talking about cameras and production equipment. While you can get a good analog camera for $5k to $10k, the bottom-end HDTV camera will run you at least $34k. You have to replace all your decks and production gear as well. Plus if you take to film to do post-production, you either need some really expensive digital filming stuff, or some really expensive HD recorders (or similar type items).
It's not surprising that stations aren't rushing to replace their equipment.
The real problem with these things is the same problem with HDTV sets: They are way overpriced.
It's not like we are talking about rocket science. It is perfectly possible to sell a basic tuner for less than $100 for XM or Sirius. If they did that, they'd sell a lot more units. They could even do like the cell phone people and say if you sign a 12 month contract you can get model X tuner for $100 or whatever. You can't just throw this stuff out there and hope people will buy it.
Same thing with HDTV: WHY would I spend $2000 for a really cheapo set? It's not like they cost oh-so-much more to engineer or manufacture. Plus studios are getting gouged on the production-side. Why outfit your whole setup for HDTV when it will cost you more than 10x a comparable analog setup? Frankly, I'm surprised that GE hasn't just designed their own line of cameras, TVs, etc and started selling them for slightly above cost; that would be cheaper (think in terms of outfitting all of NBC for HDTV) than buying the stuff from anyone else.
When you want something to reach critical mass quickly, you have to offer the equipment at bargain-basement prices to get people on-board. The cell phone craze didn't really take off until you could get el-cheapo phones for $100-$200, depending on how long you signed a contract for.
"If every person who received a copy of BitKeeper from McVoy were able to use it however they wanted, examine all the source, modify it as desired, and then copy and sell the result, then BitKeeper would be free software."
But that model doesn't work. Assume I need to sell the software for $50/pop to make my morgage and be able to eat. Now you, who are just doing software work part time, only need to sell it for $10/pop to make it worthwhile. Then the next guy has a full time job and is just monkeying around with a few improvements. He sells it for $1.00
In the RMS model, all software eventually degenerates into completely free (as in no one can make any money off the software).
In the RMS vision of the world, the ONLY software that ANYONE gets paid to develop is software written specifically for large companies who need a specific business package. This presents two problems:
1. Much of the software that we use (free or no) isn't useful to most corporations
2. Most of the software corporations are interested in is only useful to other corporations.
RMS freely admits that programmers are worthless in his vision of reality. The only thing that matters to him is the principle of user freedom. He chooses to completely ignore the programmer.
The best analogy I can think of right now is a book. You spend two years of your life working tirelessly to write a book. You begin to sell it (physical and/or ebook - it doesn't matter), but RMS is now in charge. That means anyone can take your book, copy it, change it, and place their name on it. Then they can sell it for less. So joe blow adds a few illustrations, changes a few words, and sells the book for half of what you are charging. Now he is profiting immensely for a total of 5 hours of effort, whereas you spent TWO YEARS of your life on this book. Time you could have spent playing with your kids, or earning a PhD, or whatever. TIME THAT IS GONE FOREVER. And what do you get for your trouble? Thanks to RMS you get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Repeat ad nauseum and eventually someone changes the book a little bit and gives it away for free. You have collected a total of $10 from the original joe blow, and now the book is freely distributed and you get nothing. THAT IS NOT FAIR.
RMS does not have any answer for that situation, other than "too bad!"
I, for one, refuse to support an organization like the FSF as long as a nutcase like him is involved. He claims that principle is the most important, and that his principle is the only valid one to abide by. I say turn that on him and the FSF: If you don't believe that the GPL is the answer to all our ills and that all software must be completely and totally free (no compensation for programmers), then you should withdraw your support for the FSF. Remember: according to RMS, it is more important to throw the baby out with the bathwater than anything else. You are unimportant. Your ideas belong to everyone else. You get nothing for your hard work. The only important thing is that users have the right to benefit from the fruit of your labors freely.
First of all, if you attempt to set a blank admin password for SQL Server it gives you a warning that doing so is a very bad idea. None the less, you'd be surprised at how many are blank (or just use sa/sa). The article makes it sound like the default sa password is blank - this is NOT the case. Also, although you cannot disable the sa account, you can rename it during setup.
Secondly, as has already been pointed out here, your database server should not be exposed to the net in general. There is usually very little reason to do so. If you need to let other machines access the SQL box from abroad, create an IP Security filter that only allows port 1433 for a specific subnet or ip address.
Don't complain that you got rooted when your login is root/root.
I doubt they are losing as much as some people tend to think. When you realize how old the P3 chips are, MS is probably picking them up at quite a steal. Manufacturing costs and all factor in, plus a hard drive, but still. I bet they were close to breaking even at $299 (given the dropping price of components). I imagine they will be breaking even with the XBox at $199 even in one year (assuming that RAM continues to tumble and AMD's new 64-bit chips push P3 prices down even further.)
There are still a few companies doing good tech support. With all the comments here about crappy support, I figure I ought to weigh in with who is doing a good job.
1) Adaptec. I bought a DTC SmartRAID VI Century controller off eBay. The card is probably a few years old, but I have no idea. I got the sucker into my machine and the card wouldn't finish its POST. I tried all sorts of things, but couldn't get it resolved. So, I called adaptec (which bought out DTC a while back.) After a little while on hold, I got a tech support guy. He was very helpful and walked me through some steps and troubleshooting. (The problem ended up being that on my mobo, if video was set to AGP init first, the BIOS didn't init PCI devices properly. I have dual videocards, so I set my PCI to init first. Wierd I know...) Anyway, they were very helpful. They didn't care that the card was old, or where I got it, etc. They just helped me with my problem. You can bet that future SCSI card purchases will be Adaptec cards for me.
2) Maxtor. Where I work, we get dead hard drives on PCs from time to time. Maxtor has always been the best... I call, explain that I am a tech, and tell them what the problem is. They don't give me the scripted run-around about this or that. They acknowledge that I know plenty about PC systems and have already determined that the drive is bad. They immediately issue an RMA.
As far as software goes though, the only good experience I've had was with Microsoft support. They tend to do a good job, at least in my experience. All the rest I've ever talked to are pretty much a joke.
Chrysler had a working gas turbine engine system. See here: http://www.turbinecar.com/turbine.htm
:) So, it would seem to be a natural stopgap for hydrogen. One could easily construct a pumping system that could use gas or hydrogen (or just have dual pumping systems feeding injectors at the same location.) In either case, you have a car that is perfectly capable of running on gasoline or hydrogen.
Now, this thing could run on anything that burned... even tequila
Works for me.
Microsoft has gotten the message. If you were on the Windows.NET server beta, you'd have gotten the memo ;)
Essentially, Windows.NET server ships with absolutely NOTHING enabled by default. This does present a problem to the typical Microsoft "its so easy just plug it in" sort of thing, but that is solved by an improved "configure your server wizard". The first time the server boots up, the user can explicity select what to install and/or turn on, and ONLY what they select gets installed/turned on.
The individual components themselves have improved as well. IIS 6 by default will serve only static HTML files, and installs no sample files or other stuff. You have to manually run the IIS security wizard to turn on things like ASP, CGI, etc. If you install a new ISAPI filter or something of the like, you have to manually enable it. Nothing gets turned on unless YOU the admin turns it on.
The other thing is that IIS 6 is a complete ground-up rewrite; no code from IIS 5 was used in its creation. Its gone through a complete code review to (hopefully) eliminate any buffer overflows or other bugs. There are other improvements as well... for example, the easy ability to run each website being hosted under a separate security account, typically with minimal access to anything.
Microsoft isn't stupid; they see that their biggest PR problem right now is security and they are doing something about it. True, they should have jumped on this a long time ago, but late is better than never.
What OS does it run? Windows Datacenter or Linux?
if (OS == Windows) { bash-it;} elseif (OS == Linux) { praise-it;}
Plus, is it open-source? RMS needs to know whether this submarine should be boycott'd or not.
This code will compile under both because it is trivial C++ code (essentially.)
Both langauges have a common heritage, which results in some similarities.
But take a program that's a million lines and you'll spend more time rewriting then starting from scratch, no matter which direction you go. (of course you can compile java the language to the CLR, so why rewrite?)
Well, let's look at your statements:
"It seems worth pointing out that it is "illegal"
(in the sense that that Microsoft owns the law)
to do this on Linux. Really. Not kidding. Read
the license."
Now, let's look at Microsoft's license. (original in italics, my comments normal.)
MICROSOFT SHARED SOURCE CLI, C#, AND JSCRIPT LICENSE
This License governs use of the accompanying Software, and your use of the Software constitutes acceptance of this license.
You may use this Software for any non-commercial purpose, subject to the restrictions in this license. Some purposes which can be non-commercial are teaching, academic research, and personal experimentation. You may also distribute this Software with books or other teaching materials, or publish the Software on websites, that are intended to teach the use of the Software.
You may not use or distribute this Software or any derivative works in any form for commercial purposes. Examples of commercial purposes would be running business operations, licensing, leasing, or selling the Software, or distributing the Software for use with commercial products.
OK, so the license covers the software only, not works which take advantage of it. You can only use it for non-commercial purposes... well, the source code anyway.
You may modify this Software and distribute the modified Software for non-commercial purposes, however, you may not grant rights to the Software or derivative works that are broader than those provided by this License. For example, you may not distribute modifications of the Software under terms that would permit commercial use, or under terms that purport to require the Software or derivative works to be sublicensed to others.
OK, so I can make modifications to the software AND give them away, so long as I don't try and sublicense it or make the license terms broader than they already are. Fair enough?
You may use any information in intangible form that you remember after accessing the Software. However, this right does not grant you a license to any of Microsoft's copyrights or patents for anything you might create using such information.
Here is a very important point: Looking at this code does NOT in any way restrict your contribution to other Open Source projects or business use. The only thing is that it doesn't grant you use of their copyrights/patents, which you don't have in the first place. you cannot restrict yourself or generate any harm by looking at this source code. I know many of you are doing a double-take, but look at the license.
In return, we simply require that you agree:
Not to remove any copyright or other notices from the Software.
That if you distribute the Software in source or object form, you will include a verbatim copy of this license.
That if you distribute derivative works of the Software in source code form you do so only under a license that includes all of the provisions of this License, and if you distribute derivative works of the Software solely in object form you do so only under a license that complies with this License.
That if you have modified the Software or created derivative works, and distribute such modifications or derivative works, you will cause the modified files to carry prominent notices so that recipients know that they are not receiving the original Software. Such notices must state: (i) that you have changed the Software; and (ii) the date of any changes.
THAT THE SOFTWARE COMES "AS IS", WITH NO WARRANTIES. THIS MEANS NO EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR ANY WARRANTY OF TITLE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. ALSO, YOU MUST PASS THIS DISCLAIMER ON WHENEVER YOU DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE OR DERIVATIVE WORKS.
THAT MICROSOFT WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RELATED TO THE SOFTWARE OR THIS LICENSE, INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT THE LAW PERMITS, NO MATTER WHAT LEGAL THEORY IT IS BASED ON. ALSO, YOU MUST PASS THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY ON WHENEVER YOU DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE OR DERIVATIVE WORKS.
That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software or anyone's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically.
That your rights under the License end automatically if you breach it in any way.
Microsoft reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this license.
OK, to sum up:
You agree not to remove copyright notices. You also agree to distribute the license with any derivative products, etc. You agree not to distribute the software or modifications with a license that is broader or incompatible with this one. You must include a notice that your code is not Microsoft original code, and when it was modified.
So far, that all sounds fairly reasonable to me.
You also have to agree that Microsoft provides no warranties on the software, and that derivative works don't have any warranty (because that would make MS liable.) This is standard in the software industry, so no surprise there.
An odd provision comes next: if you sue anyone over patents that you think apply to the software or anyone's use of it, you lose your license automatically. Basically, you can't sue anyone for using your patents related to this software or any modifications whatsoever. This doesn't really protect Microsoft, as you can still sue them, you just can't use their code. However, it does protect consumers of your modified code, in that you cannot come along a year later and sue them all saying your derivative includes software patents that you own and would now like to collect royalties on.
Lastly, but not least, if you violate the license you lose it, and Microsoft reserves the right to kick you to the curb if they don't like you.
Well, honestly... I don't know where the magic "you cannot use this sourcecode on linux or on/with any GPL stuff" phrase is, but perhaps I misread the license somehow.
The point of this new data store isn't necessarily faster searches, although that is one part of it. The idea is to have a common data storage mechanism, used by all programs.
The underlying technology is to replace the NTFS filesystem driver with SQL Server, with a few tweaks. SQL Server already supports using a RAW partition as a data store, so essentially you just have to move the transaction log and descriptive info for the databases into a specific area of the disk. Add a little bit of bootstrap code to ntldr, and slap the SQL Server stuff into the startup driver list, and it's a done deal.
The next step is creating an NTFS compatibility layer -- it would allow you to mount tables as drive letters or network shares. A lot of the information wouldn't be useful when viewed in that fashion, but it would give you a way to run older programs.
Once all your data is in a common data store and can be manipulated as such, it opens up a world of new possibilities. The change will be long and slow; no need to kid about that. It will take years for all the 3rd party programs (and even Microsoft's own apps) to catch up and start taking full advantage of it. It's the same situation Plug & Play was in back in 1995; it sorta worked sometimes, but you couldn't really take full advantage of it. But here in 2002, you really can expect to grab a piece of hardware and slap it in your box without hassles. It took some time, but it eventually paid off.
But... are you having trouble, as I did, thinking of ways to make use of this common data store? Part of that comes from the fact that we've been conditioned and trained to think of data storage in terms of files; it's hard to shift gears... to think outside of the "filesystem" box so to speak.
For one thing, I could see someone emailing me a project. Not some word documents, an excel spreadsheet, and a database zipped into a ZIP file; they just email me the project. When I get it, and open the message, the project opens up presenting me with the various documents (linked to the database of phone numbers for example), and a little yellow stickynote window that has the project leader's actual email text. I didn't have to deal with unzipping the data, rearranging it, then opening the documents separately. Since the "rows" are linked, they open and act as a unit until I tell them to do otherwise.
It gets better though... imagine if I could run a query such as "SELECT f.*, s.filename FROM Folder1 f INNER JOIN folder2 s ON f.datetime = s.datetime"
It can get even more useful because you now have full SQL syntax available to you for manipulating the filesystem, with queries that are lightning fast. Throw in some Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, etc and I can see real possibilities.
"Buy piracy doesn't hurt anyone. IT's not like they'll miss one copy..."
Right.
This is an even bigger crock then I had first imagined. Sun is claiming all kinds of ridiculous things.
.NET runtime for *BSD if I remember correctly.
First, they claim that Microsoft has effectively monopolized (through illegal actions) the OS market for Intel machines, the web browser market, and the Office suite market.
While they may have engaged in questionable activities regarding the OS, the web browser is a core part of the computing experience today, just like a graphical user interface, TCP/IP and network connectivity, etc (all of which were separately purchased products at one point in the x86 history.)
Sun is also claiming that they tried to monopolize (using illegal tactics) the workgroup server OS market. This one is absolutely silly and absurd. Until some recent blunders by Novell, Microsoft did have hefty competition. However, I doubt anyone can argue that there is anything which is better than Microsoft's solutions for the workgroup and small business market. Maybe some products that offer the same functionality (open source or not), but certainly nothing that is head-over-heels "better".
Next, Sun claims they illegally tied IE to the operating system. As noted above, web browsing is now an essential part of the PC expierence; it only follows naturally that it should be included as part of the OS.
Now, here is where Sun really flies off the deep end and displays the true motivation behind the suit, which is Larry's obession with trying to beat Bill Gates and his highly successful company.
Sun claims that Microsoft broke the law by illegally tying their client OSes to their Server OSes. (I.e. somehow they tied it up so that Windows XP Pro only works with Windows XP Server and that such a situation is illegal and unfair.)
That's funny... SAMBA and Novell seemed to get along just fine. What did Sun expect? should Microsoft have gone with the awful NFS and NIS forever, abandoning any notions of directory services? What about the impact that would have had on existing installations of SMB? Besides; as I mentioned above, SAMBA does fairly well.
I won't deny that Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro are "tied" into Microsoft's Active Directory and so on, but what else did they expect? There is nothing here that hurts consumers; just the opposite in fact. A Win2K server with all Win2K clients is an excellent network to administer with Active Directory and Group Policy objects. Once again, we have the issue of what is really essential? I would argue that this kind of functionality is in fact essential to Operating Systems in general.
Sun also claims that Microsoft has illegally tied IIS into its server OSes. This one strikes me as really odd, because IIS isn't installed by default, it is simply included on the CD. In fact, for NT 4.0, you had to get a separate CD or download to install it; it wasn't even part of the standard distribution.
I've saved the most absurd for last... they are claiming that Microsoft illegally tied the ".NET framework to its PC and workgroup operating systems." Hilarious. Simply hilarious. What I find funny is that Microsoft is developing the
Of course they are probably just mad that Microsoft isn't shipping a Java runtime in Windows XP; well, what did they expect? They sued Microsoft (the maker of the world's best Java runtime at that point) and forced them to stop distributing their runtime with the OS or developing any new versions.
In doing so, they shot themselves in the foot. You cannot honestly ask any company to ship their competitor's product with their own. That is an absurd idea at best.
The bottom line is that this just seems like more sour grapes from Sun and a cheap attempt to try and cash in on the bandwagon. Sun has been milking political sources behind the scenes throughout this whole antitrust situation for their own benefit. What scares me the most though is the idea that they might be successful. I would dred to live in a world where Sun controlled the desktop and server.
If living in a Microsoft world is bad, then living in Sun's vision of the same world must be HELL.
--quote--
...the suit is also seeking access to the APIs used by Microsoft software and the IE source code.
Would be interesting to see if there are "hidden interfaces" exposed in the Windows API.
--/quote--
1) IEXPLORE.EXE is just a few UI components with the core HTML browser control dropped onto the form. If you want the Windows HTML renderer, you'll have to dig a bit deeper.
2) Thousands of people already have the source code. This include Universities, developers, and large companies. I have access to the source code if I want it. I honestly don't see what the BFD this is; the source is already out there.
This is just another attempt for a loser to try and cash in. If you can't beat them at their own game, file suit.
I don't see anyone bemoaning Byan vines' loss of marketshare when Microsoft started shipping WFW/NT4. No one seems to miss Trumpet Winsock (or any of the other TCP/IP stacks you had to pay for) when Microsoft shipped TCP/IP standard on NT4/Win9x.
Yet when Microsoft beats Netscape into the ground by putting their browser to shame and making IE one of the best browsers in the world, everyone is up in arms.
:rolleyes:
Wrong. You cannot remove IE at all. While it is true that you can hide the browser interface... that is, you can delete IEXPLORE.EXE and unregister the components... but the core rendering engine remains.
That HTML engine is what powers Outlook Express, Explorer folder browsing/searching/etc, Control Panel and associated applets (like Add/Remove programs), the Help system, etc.
You can pretend the browser isn't there, but the core browser components are still powering the User Interface (and various 3rd party programs.)
The only version of Windows that can have the browser interface AND core components removed is Windows 95, because it was a true bolt-on after the fact. But I certainly wouldn't go back to Win95 from 2000/XP.
Quote: "They want the source, they want IE out, and they want other versions of Windows available at a lesser cost without the unwanted "features" Windows buyers pay for."
1) Source -- fine. If you wanna take a look, it doesn't bother me. Almost everything is well documented on MSDN anyway; it really won't help me that much to see the source code (in fact, I have access to the source legally right now.) There are no hidden APIs or other magic things to be found. Just a lot of boring code.
2) I've already established that the core HTML engine would be impossible to remove without ditching the entire UI and starting it over from scratch. This would also break tons of 3rd party enhancements and plugins for the interface that rely on the current standard, as well as screw over all the 3rd party apps that don't wanna take the time to write their own web browser so they use the available COM components.
3) While adding features has driven some companies out of business, it has also HELPED consumers by far. In 1994, you had to BUY a TCP/IP stack to get on the Internet with Windows. These days, it's standard... in fact, Windows 2000 Server's CIFS protocol and Active Directory run exclusively on TCP/IP. Are we to cry a river for Trumpet which can no longer sell their IP stack to hordes of Windows users?
Or how about we bemoan the reduction in the market for dialup terminal applications since Microsoft started including Hyperterminal.
The fact is that the OS needs to include more and more features in order to deliver better value to consumers and force the 3rd party marketplace to advance. You people seem to forget that capitalism requires that companies live and die as the markets change. That's life; deal with it.
By default, the .NET framework will not run untrusted code and allow it to do anything of note.
You will notice that the host EXE being sent over email is native x86 code, NOT MSIL. Therefore, it has no security permissions of note.
If you were to attempt to write a pure-C# virus and mass-email it, you wouldn't get very far as the user would actually have to tell the framework to grant execute permissions to the downloaded code.
I even have to grant permissions to the files I myself write with Visual Studio.NET; they won't execute by default.
Lastly, Outlook 2000 w/security patches and Outlook XP both automatically disallow the user to download or execute EXE attatchments, period. Unfortunately, this makes it a hassle having to ZIP all EXE files before sending them (and VBS files, etc.), but that's a small price to pay to protect us from idiot users. My only complaint with Outlook security is that Outlook Express does not do this by default.
I think Microsoft is doing a better job these days; they still have things to address of course. Sometimes I think people just misunderstand though... calls for the removal of VBScript are like asking *nix distributors not to ship Perl with their installs; its kind of silly.
Fortunately, with XP Home, you don't have a bunch of home users running as Admin all the time; I think that's a big key right there.
What is needed is a subscription network. As many will no doubt point out, paying $5/mo to a bunch of sites adds up.
There needs to be a network. Users who want to subscribe to sites can go into the network and click a checkbox for all the sites they want, at a low price per site (more along the lines of $1/mo or something.) Then the total charge is added up and run through their CC once. This would help reduce credit card and processing charges for the individual sites; they'd just get a check every month from the network for all their subscribers.
Please be aware that you can purchase a copy of any single visual studio tool, such as VB for really cheap. You are then eligible for the upgrade price on Visual Studio.
Right now at least, starting from scratch, it is cheaper to pickup VB 6.0, then buy the VS.NET upgrade.
You obviously didn't read the article.
.NET programs.
Microsoft themselves is developing a runtime for FreeBSD. When I say 'runtime' here I mean the CLR and the *BASIC* class libraries. You see, that is the standard that Microsoft has released to the EMCA as a standard, soon to be certified by ISO. It is completely open, non-patented, etc. Anyone can develop a compatible implementation.
However, a few key components are Windows-only: ADO.NET (universal data access) and WindowsForms (the GUI toolkit.) That is where Mono comes in with the development of compatible class libraries on Linux. Please understand: **the interfaces are the same as the Microsoft interfaces**, even though the implementation details are different.
Microsoft is fully aware of the Mono project and is taking no efforts to stop them. It doesn't really matter if they wanted to. The CLS (Common Language Specification) is part of the OPEN STANDARD. This is the definition of how classes and datatypes interact among languages and the IL; unless Microsoft managed to get a copyright on all the method names in WindowsForms, they can't stop me from creating a compatible implementation because I am simply using the CLS to write my classes that run on the CLR to provide objects for use by
(Short Version: go back and actually read the article, then try posting again.)
This appears to be quite serious... check out the list of vendors: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html#ven dors
It includes Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Sun, Novell, and many others. When it comes to SNMP bugs, it would seem that most vendors are created equal.