Gee, I don't know: It is that whole guy with an AK pointed to my head telling me that I really like the government deciding that it owns everything and what I can and cannot do facist sort of aspect thing that I think just might be bad.
Perhaps you meant socialism or democratic socialism?
Do you have any idea how long it took me to get my programs runnning the way I like them? That "personal" data is spread across a registry that, in this case, was probably not good enough to backup and just restore.
I would fault windows design for that... My configuration data is stored in my home directory with the rest of my data.
I've NEVER reformatted a computer unless it was a new hard drive. NEVER. My job is to keep four different schools' computer networks (all mixed 95, 98, 2K and XP) up and running, everything from mouse cleaning to network installation. I've NEVER had to reformat any of the PC's."
Yes, and as you say... you have never had a virus either at your school. OK..at least not any you know about. Try taking a box that has been infected with 20 known viruses the way most unprotected home broad band users PC's are. Now what? You cannot vouch for any file on the machine since they are all subject to having been trojaned. If you are going to run a hash crypt against every executable on the computer then maybe you can get away with not reinstalling and call the computer properly fixed. But finding and replacing all questionable files (while reading the disk from a known OS that cannot be moving the trojaned content around) will take a hell of a lot longer than just reinstalling the whole OS. Virus scanners do not count-- they fix known viruses. They do little for the unknown. A broad band unprotected windows box is a petri dish for viruses and the like and it is much more probable that it has unknown exploits on it than a secured machine with no known exploits. I would not trust anything on the users machine until the disk is formatted and cheched for boot sector viruses. Even the users data is really suspect. You can always hide viruses in windows data and the scanners will, once again, only catch known viruses.
Personally, I run 98, on my main desktop machine, ever since 98 was launched and before that 95 was on my previous main desktop machine that WAS STILL WORKING 5 years later when I decommissioned it.
The 98/95 uptime claims are unrealistic for most users. The registry is a pile of crap. Even Micro$oft tech support admits 98 needs to be installed every 6 months to a year because it craps all over itself. Once you make so many updates to that registry you are going to have a slow computer. You can restore the registry with tools, yes. But this is hardly something the average user, or even tech, wants to be responsible for. This is an OS design flaw with a crappy work around.
"People like this poor unfortunate person don't know that their PC is not an appliance. It's not Plug and Play (no matter what MS or Linus may tell you) but it *should* be by now.
Now we are on to something. But I would submit: no the computer should not be an appliance! It should be a computer, most users should be using an appliance NOT a computer! Appliances like DVR's or TV internet access points are what users need. But they are just now starting to exist. That is because Micro$oft and Intel have figured out that they can sell us an expensive $1000+ box, $1000's in software, technical support, consulting, hardware upgrades, and user "education". All instead of just selling us a simple appliance that does a few things well and integrates with other electronic devices.
But they will not sell them to us unless they get market dominance and some way to sell us something else (ala X-box, take over the market and sell us games). There is not much money in appliances. Where are the pointless hardware cycle upgrades due to built in obselesance? The software and hardware incompatibilities that require consultants and purchases to fix? The mindless dummy "training" (ok click on start->shutdown)? Where is the money that this hoared up industry requires to appease Wall Street stockholders?
Its nowhere in an appliance model. You just buy a new one when the old one gives out. Not much money in that. Industry people have never wa
I see no other reason to own one. Self-defense isn't a legitimate answer. Kick your assailant in the balls, run like hell. That'll get you out of most situations much faster than taking 15 seconds to draw your gun, cock it, turn off the safety, and fire. By that time, he'll already be all over you, and you're fucked.
Actually, it only takes 1.5 seconds to draw and fire on a target 5 yards away. That is with a concealed holster on, under clothes. It is called practice and a clue.
And that came in very handy against the druggie who got all upset at the Walmart--because I would not give him any money. Not content to kick and hit my car which he was standing in front of (blocking my access to), he proceeded to threaten me. He learned a lesson. I had to draw on him. I am greatful that I did not have to fire, but am gratefull that he choose to victimize me instead of all the women with small children who were in the parking lot. You are foolish to think that you can "kick them in the balls" and run like hell. You are obviously not handicapped, small, or in the presence of children. You obviously, and incorrectly assume, that your attacker is not armed-- with a knife, gun or something else-- and is not drugged up to the point where they feel no pain. I don't think you would have fair so well in most self-defense situations.
Star Office 5.2 certainly has its failings. Most are all because of baggage it carries from its commercial days, some are because it is very difficult to reverse engineer the most screwed up proprietary format on earth: Microsoft's.
The following assumptions you make, however, speak volumes about your attitude:
Look a it this way: who knows more about office suites, college students who write two papers a year, or people who work 40 hours a week in a business?
I work 40 hours a week, I also attend school full time. Lets see, at work I send email and write design documents- in Star Office or LaTex. I write about 4 a year. Most of the people I work with just send emails- accountants use SpreadSheets. At school I write lengthy documents for all my classes which must conform to APA, MLA specs. I also use StarOffice. I think that people like you spend 30 minutes with starOffice, cuss it cause you can't figure it out right away and go back to WinDOZe. It seems that you forget how long it took to figure out how to use that bloated piece of code: but yes you know it now, and so have assumed it to be more productive on a permanent basis. Yes, StarOffice is truely bloated and has problems, but it does not deserve the reputation it gets. And it is changing dramatically. As I see it, and I switched from Office 2000 to StarOffice: The only reason to still use Office is because you need the Macros and can't convert the information to Star Office without them. That is it, the rest is bull shiz. The vast majority of people will eventually have to learn something like StarOffice, as companies will not tolerate the 40% rate hike every year by Microsoft.
I find your remarks about the Gimp to be baffling as well. The Gimp does not do pre-press work, go buy PhotoShop. Want to do visual work for the web, ect.-- use the GIMP-- it has scripting capabilities that are even better than what you get with Photohop. But of course you would actually have to learn to use it-- and that is the real issue. People are lazy! Do not even presume to tell me that Adobe is easy for a novice. It is "AdobeHell" and that is what you see when you first use a piece of software developed with a different user interface methodology. All I know is that the GIMP is in the stable of every Hollywood animation studio along with 3-d stuff like Maya- and is replacing Photoshop as Linux takes over for Windoze and IRIX. Let us see a naysayer, like the guy on CNET or the "expert" for the Gardner group make a background like the one's out of Shrek, or out of Final Fantasy? When they do, then come back and tell us that all this is not good enough. Until then, they should shut up with the FUD, as it obvious that I am more of an expert than they- having actually undertook such endeavors.
For example, one of the new recruits in my company has just graduated from a university where they were only taught Java. Consequently, he doesn't know what a pointer is, he doesn't know what linking object files means and he doesn't know anything about memory allocation.
Yes I have heard of a school like this, it is called Arizona State University. Because they do not teach Unix until the 400 level, require only one C class, and teach everything in Java-- most of their graduates cannot maintain jobs in the industry. They are simply worthless for anything besides MCSE type admin jobs.
Example 1: I remember one girl, a senior at ASU, who had to ask my friend (who does not know Java) which buttton to use to compile in her new windozs IDE! SHEEZ!
Example 2: A computer science student from ASU makes fun of the school I attend. He states that is not a real university. I ask him if he knows any C or C++, or assembly, or even if he even knows how to use a command line. Answer: No. He has graduated (from a COMPUTER SCIENCE course!) so I ask him what he does for a living: Answer: He drives a water truck. I am a Junior and have a position as a Programmer Analyst. Sheez! I have had about 10 conversations with ASU students in CS that have gone just about like that.
I could continue with stories of stupid ASU students, but will not continue to bore you.
Needless to say-- I do not go to ASU. Unfortunately, I am forced to pay through the nose to go somewhere else-- as I am unable to relocate.
So you know where I am comming from: I have worked in the past for State Farm and for Motorolla. I currently work as a Programmer Analyst for a small but inovative development company. In your comments you state that to the average Corp, the ability to modify software means precisly dick!
I find this not only illogical, but untrue when it comes to corporate-infastructure systems.
All systems that I am programming are web based. This means that the company already has programmers hired to support and maintain the app-- hired either internally or externally. The ability of the programmer to view the code to the entire system is invaluable when working with complicated N-tierd applications. Having source code is not desirable, it is essential. When working on web-enabled programs the lines between system administration and support become blurred to the point that the system architecture IS the application.
A system running a web server, a transaction manager, distributed applications, and a database to support them-- become integrated just like the components inside a car are integrated with each other. By having all of the source, you eliminate guess work and "calls to support", to figure out why database xyz, or webserver Q does not do what it claimed to do. As you stated, lost time == lost revenue
Should you have to call someone for hardware support, or software advice-- I can recommend IBM. They have 24-7 mission critical support-- just like HP (and from my experience with them at State Farm, IBM's OS390 and AIX teams have slightly better support than HP-UX, which is far better than Sun's. With Linux running on OS-390 support or scalibility are no longer an excuse.) But we don't like IBM, then try VA linux (or a whole host of others). VA had a major customer who ran into a bug in the linux kernel--VA flew out a design team who studied the problem and came out with a KERNEL patch within a WEEK! Sun can't even admit that they have bugs in the UltraSparc II Cache-- but this hardware reseller patched the freaking OS kernel! Let's see Dell do that to Win XP! Let me hear of someone calling up MicroSoft and not getting put on hold for $120 an hour. Let me hear of them actually getting listened to, and then let me hear of Microsoft responding by patching windows98 so that it doesn't crash, or that feature-API XYZ works as the book from Microsoft press said it would!
You also state that retraining is not free. What better way to avoid retraining than by basing as many of your apps as possible on web interfaces! Customers and workers only have to learn the web interface (if they do not already know it), and then training costs are forever minimalized! When using free GNU-sytle software to deploy these systems, you can deploy an OS, a web-server, a database, even a transaction manager at no upfront cost-- further cost savings which will off-set the one-time cost of re-training users on a web-interface!
You state that if it ain't broke don't fix it. I am a firm believer in Business Process Reengineering. I think that the people who pioneered computer science, the Web, Unix and most items of progress were not satisfied with your trite quote. They were dreamers who wanted things that worked better, not just good enough to satisy the pointy-haired boss. But if you find that commercial software does in fact meet a need-- such as Novell service directories or Microsoft Office-- then use it if you have it. However, don't forget that other options are going to be continously available to you-- thanks to Free Software-Open Source Software.
Without these priciples at work, a businesses choices would consist of:
1. Gambling on a closed sourced application that has proprietary file formats that may get "goobled" up by a different company-- forcing you to loose or painfully convert your data. OR
2. Choosing a closed source app that has proprietary formats that will introduce a new version at regular intervals, with lots of new bugs, ahem, features--which will render the current proprietary format obsolete--forcing another painfull conversion. In either case you will face massive retraining costs as well as the cost of purchase.:-)
In closing, in a large number of cases, open source- or GNU solutions are not only cheaper, they are of higher quality. If you want a office suite or a niche app, then closed source may be the best bet for now, but if you are a real Fortune 500 company-- your needs go beyond that.What you need is a scalable, flexible and reliable system-- in other words, what you need is a system based on GNU-like tools and principles that let you harness the power of the community as an asset. Such a system is far more likely to be free of security holes and bugs and is infinately more extensible and supportable than a closed source solution.
FUD like this is a ridiculous troll-- but one that must be responded too, so that the curious newcomers (maybe even someone in business management) don't get caught by lies like these.
Ok, I know that many of you think that the movie AntiTrust was pretty stupid-- but it gave me an idea. At the end of the movie, the "evil" companies source code is flashed across a TV screen...
If some enterprising news corespondent at... say CNN Headline news.. were to explain how important "Free Speach" is (they seem to care alot about that in the TV industry, when it applies to them at least..) and then display the code to DEcSS, then uhmmm...
We would have the MPAA suing its own corporate mega-media members for copyright infringment and arguing against those companies' "Right to Know"-- Which is what a traditional media outlet thrives on. I think people backing the MPAA would think twice as this would hit them in the pocket book...They should not be allowed to have it both ways!
I do not think that most people responding here have used an Agenda. I have a developers edition and here are my results with it:
1. Yes it is slow. This is not because the processor is slow but because the thing runs X with a hand-recognition system. This burns RAM. X is great, but the modified window manager-hand recognition system is always going to slow the thing down. There is some work underway to fix this problem through the more efficient use of RAM. To really fix this requires (in my uniformed opinion): A integrated window manager with the hand-writing recognition built in and/or more RAM. The apps run very quick-- once they are loaded and the FLASH-Trashing is done. More work on the window manager would also help other X implementation bugs (screen redrawing to big).
2. Agenda hurts themselves by realeasing this with an older image of the software-- a very buggy one. You must flash the sucker with a new image. This solves numerous problems (not all). I attribute these fixes to the fact that this is a Open Source project-- and has a Source Forge home page (I forget it, but you can link to it of Agenda's developers site).
3. This is the only PDA that I have seen that out of the box you can Telnet into, run BASH, micro-emacs, vi, soon Perl, currently Python, ect. Since it runs X- it runs tons of simple games-- which also run plenty fast after they get done loading. The apps are also open source. If anyone does not like them-- make your own.
4. The screen quality is not the hottest-- but I paid 179 dollars for something with 66 MHZ proc, 8 Megs RAM, 16 Flash, and IRDA. I can telnet to it over the IRDA, I can run BASH-- I can program for it in C, C++ and soon Java (Kaffe is ported to it soon), I can print to my IRDA printer.
5. Battery life: The agenda does not last a mere 8 hours. This guy (in the article) is full of crap. Mine has been running for weeks on the same set of alkalines. It will last only 5-7 hours of Continous use. This article presents some good facts, but the author shows extream carelessness and ignorance.
6. He is correct about the Palm sync stuff, where is this? I sure I can find it if I look through open source sites, but it should come with it, as well as be available on the web site. Until then, I can always telnet and copy stuff.
Bottom Line is if they: increase Ram, increase screen quality, and make it wireless enabled--maybe add a handspring syle port on the back of it-- I would be more than willing to pay mucho cash. The OS is not at present an issue for me-- its 2.4.x.
This was exaclty what I was wondering. This idiot wasted RMS' time by sending him 10 emails about "open source" stupidity for a ps2. RMS must recieve 1000's of emails a week. The fact that he actually kept up a conversation with this idiot, (who kept ignoring that RMS is a primarily a political figure and not a software consultant for propritary licenses of API's on game consoles) shows how stupid he actually is. It is actually a tribute to RMS that he kept writing the guy back at all. I would not have wasted my time, and no I don't always agree with RMS, but I do realize that he is a important political figure (a lobyist for free software). To ask a lobiest to compromise on his position, whilst he is busy advocating it to everyone else, would be to undermine his work. So why did this idiot keep bothering him with open source details when the answers were easily available elsewhere?
From a hacker standpoint, if you ask a question, I tell you where to go for an answer (that you could have figured out on your own)-- and then you ask me the same question again 10 times, I am going to tell you to go to hell for wasting my time! I am a hacker, therefore I do not do tech support! Poor RMS has had to put aside hacking for lobbying, or he would have flamed this guy long ago.
1. Do you feel that Microsoft is actually a monopoly? Do you agree with the breakup of Microsoft? Does you organization accept campaign money from Microsoft?
2. Do you feel that the MPAA is infringing on the rights of consumers? Do you feel that organizations like this are trashing copyright law and leaving consumers with no freedom?
3. Do you feel that large multinational corporations are ruining our nations soverignty? Do you feel that they should only exist when they benefit the public, as the Constitution states, or should they be allowed to exist as long as they turn a profit and are good for the "economy"?
4. What are your views of Shell, Mobil, and other oil-companies exploitation/extermination of African Tribes to steal the oil their land rests above, as well as their support of dictator-police states in Nigeria?(see boycott shell home page
)
5. Do you agree with the current U.S. policy of forcing Israel and Palestine to the peace table? Are we forcing them before they are ready? Do you think that excessive medelling by the U.S. could cause an all-out war there?
6. What is your position on internet regulation? How, where, and when should the internet be censored or regulated? Do you support internet "taxes"?
7. Do you support more work visa's for IT? Do you feel that the IT shortage is due to too few people qualified, or too few people willing; due to Dilbertesque management tecniques and a lack of a willingness to train people? What is your policy regarding these Visas?
8. Do you beleive in corporate welfare? If there is a seperation of church and state, then is there an inplied sepearation of corporation and state? Do you feel that taxpayer funds should be used to support the building of ball-parks, rec facilities and other ammenities, that will be owned by private business and not publically available? Do you feel that these rich business people have other outlets to get investment, or are they so "needy" that they must be bankrolled by the government, at the expense of education and other public responsibilities?
9. Do you think the the FBI Carnivore system is a violation of Citizens search and siezure rights? Do you think it is constitutional for such a system to be implemented? If you would make any changes to the Carnivore program, what would they be?
10. Do you feel that any of the above issues actually warrants your attention, or that they are just small issues that have no impact on your election? Do you feel that any of the above issues could alter the course of Democracy in this country? Do any of you have a pulse?
Perhaps these questions should be asked to all Presidential canidates, not just the Dem and Repub nominees?
Actually there are many bikes that are made exclusively of Chineese Ti. It, however, is known to be manufactured by the Chineese military on the same machinery that they make thier nuke missles on. Really amazing that the US buys their crap, gives them the tech to make the missle capable of killing us and then supports them by buying more of their crap. I guess they had to do that, so they could have an excuse to fund BS like Star Wars missile defense! Absolutely amazing.
When it comes to bicyles, cheap Chineese Ti frames (i.e. Airborne bicycles) generally are O.K. if you do not mind the moral implications of buying machines made by political slave labor, to less exactling specs on hardware used to make nuclear missles pointed against the free world, with the manufacturing waste being dumped into the water supply of the most populous nation on earth.
As for me, steel is where it is at (Ritchey steel is as light as most Ti bikes. Just going to show that engineering beats wonder material)! Aluminum is good too, My Gary Fisher Supercaliber frame is just 3.2 pounds, which is as light if not lighter than many wiggly Ti bikes.
If you want Ti, get a real bike. Us Ti bikes, such as the top end Mongoose pro (yes most Mongoose bikes suck, but this is an exception) are much stronger because the material's grain is microscopically aligned (Proprietary Sandvick process I think?). This greatly strenghens the material. Boeing won't even touch Ti that has not gone through this process.
No I would not take Commander Taco into the board room, but how about Dell? I remember a couple of months back how there entire IT department was sick of MIckeySoft and went behind managements back and installed LINUX and Samba (unfortunately nothing about Apache). The management congratulated them on how they solved all the reliability problems that were costing them so much money and asked them how they did it. Because of that Dell now sells Linux corporate solutions. Or how about the article a month ago explaining how most of Mickeysofts money making services do not, and indeed cannot run on NT, but how they run on UNIX systems? That might be interesting. A comparision of the latest kernel and Apache 2.x based system will also yield different conclusions, as has already been pointed out. But what about free BSD and AOL server, which is free last I heard? It keeps AOL up and I know that Yahoo runs, or used to run it. If it handles that much traffic reliabily then for sure it is a better bet than NewTerd- Idiot Misinformation Server.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, I don't know: It is that whole guy with an AK pointed to my head telling me that I really like the government deciding that it owns everything and what I can and cannot do facist sort of aspect thing that I think just might be bad.
Perhaps you meant socialism or democratic socialism?
Do you have any idea how long it took me to get my programs runnning the way I like them? That "personal" data is spread across a registry that, in this case, was probably not good enough to backup and just restore.
I would fault windows design for that... My configuration data is stored in my home directory with the rest of my data.
I've NEVER reformatted a computer unless it was a new hard drive. NEVER. My job is to keep four different schools' computer networks (all mixed 95, 98, 2K and XP) up and running, everything from mouse cleaning to network installation. I've NEVER had to reformat any of the PC's."
Yes, and as you say... you have never had a virus either at your school. OK..at least not any you know about. Try taking a box that has been infected with 20 known viruses the way most unprotected home broad band users PC's are. Now what? You cannot vouch for any file on the machine since they are all subject to having been trojaned. If you are going to run a hash crypt against every executable on the computer then maybe you can get away with not reinstalling and call the computer properly fixed. But finding and replacing all questionable files (while reading the disk from a known OS that cannot be moving the trojaned content around) will take a hell of a lot longer than just reinstalling the whole OS. Virus scanners do not count-- they fix known viruses. They do little for the unknown. A broad band unprotected windows box is a petri dish for viruses and the like and it is much more probable that it has unknown exploits on it than a secured machine with no known exploits. I would not trust anything on the users machine until the disk is formatted and cheched for boot sector viruses. Even the users data is really suspect. You can always hide viruses in windows data and the scanners will, once again, only catch known viruses.
Personally, I run 98, on my main desktop machine, ever since 98 was launched and before that 95 was on my previous main desktop machine that WAS STILL WORKING 5 years later when I decommissioned it.
The 98/95 uptime claims are unrealistic for most users. The registry is a pile of crap. Even Micro$oft tech support admits 98 needs to be installed every 6 months to a year because it craps all over itself. Once you make so many updates to that registry you are going to have a slow computer. You can restore the registry with tools, yes. But this is hardly something the average user, or even tech, wants to be responsible for. This is an OS design flaw with a crappy work around.
"People like this poor unfortunate person don't know that their PC is not an appliance. It's not Plug and Play (no matter what MS or Linus may tell you) but it *should* be by now.
Now we are on to something. But I would submit: no the computer should not be an appliance! It should be a computer, most users should be using an appliance NOT a computer! Appliances like DVR's or TV internet access points are what users need. But they are just now starting to exist. That is because Micro$oft and Intel have figured out that they can sell us an expensive $1000+ box, $1000's in software, technical support, consulting, hardware upgrades, and user "education". All instead of just selling us a simple appliance that does a few things well and integrates with other electronic devices.
But they will not sell them to us unless they get market dominance and some way to sell us something else (ala X-box, take over the market and sell us games). There is not much money in appliances. Where are the pointless hardware cycle upgrades due to built in obselesance? The software and hardware incompatibilities that require consultants and purchases to fix? The mindless dummy "training" (ok click on start->shutdown)? Where is the money that this hoared up industry requires to appease Wall Street stockholders?
Its nowhere in an appliance model. You just buy a new one when the old one gives out. Not much money in that. Industry people have never wa
I had a dog once. She was my favorite bitch.
I knew a guy whose mother had him out of wedlock. What a bastard.
I saw a guy get his skin burned by a flamming faggot once.
Jesus rode an ass all the way into town.
Scrooge McDuck is very niggardly.
I see no other reason to own one. Self-defense isn't a legitimate answer. Kick your assailant in the balls, run like hell. That'll get you out of most situations much faster than taking 15 seconds to draw your gun, cock it, turn off the safety, and fire. By that time, he'll already be all over you, and you're fucked. Actually, it only takes 1.5 seconds to draw and fire on a target 5 yards away. That is with a concealed holster on, under clothes. It is called practice and a clue. And that came in very handy against the druggie who got all upset at the Walmart--because I would not give him any money. Not content to kick and hit my car which he was standing in front of (blocking my access to), he proceeded to threaten me. He learned a lesson. I had to draw on him. I am greatful that I did not have to fire, but am gratefull that he choose to victimize me instead of all the women with small children who were in the parking lot. You are foolish to think that you can "kick them in the balls" and run like hell. You are obviously not handicapped, small, or in the presence of children. You obviously, and incorrectly assume, that your attacker is not armed-- with a knife, gun or something else-- and is not drugged up to the point where they feel no pain. I don't think you would have fair so well in most self-defense situations.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
Sorry that bad things befell you... even more sorry that worse things are going to befall all of us.
Star Office 5.2 certainly has its failings. Most are all because of baggage it carries from its commercial days, some are because it is very difficult to reverse engineer the most screwed up proprietary format on earth: Microsoft's.
The following assumptions you make, however, speak volumes about your attitude:
Look a it this way: who knows more about office suites, college students who write two papers a year, or people who work 40 hours a week in a business?
I work 40 hours a week, I also attend school full time. Lets see, at work I send email and write design documents- in Star Office or LaTex. I write about 4 a year. Most of the people I work with just send emails- accountants use SpreadSheets. At school I write lengthy documents for all my classes which must conform to APA, MLA specs. I also use StarOffice. I think that people like you spend 30 minutes with starOffice, cuss it cause you can't figure it out right away and go back to WinDOZe. It seems that you forget how long it took to figure out how to use that bloated piece of code: but yes you know it now, and so have assumed it to be more productive on a permanent basis. Yes, StarOffice is truely bloated and has problems, but it does not deserve the reputation it gets. And it is changing dramatically. As I see it, and I switched from Office 2000 to StarOffice: The only reason to still use Office is because you need the Macros and can't convert the information to Star Office without them. That is it, the rest is bull shiz. The vast majority of people will eventually have to learn something like StarOffice, as companies will not tolerate the 40% rate hike every year by Microsoft.
I find your remarks about the Gimp to be baffling as well. The Gimp does not do pre-press work, go buy PhotoShop. Want to do visual work for the web, ect.-- use the GIMP-- it has scripting capabilities that are even better than what you get with Photohop. But of course you would actually have to learn to use it-- and that is the real issue. People are lazy! Do not even presume to tell me that Adobe is easy for a novice. It is "AdobeHell" and that is what you see when you first use a piece of software developed with a different user interface methodology. All I know is that the GIMP is in the stable of every Hollywood animation studio along with 3-d stuff like Maya- and is replacing Photoshop as Linux takes over for Windoze and IRIX. Let us see a naysayer, like the guy on CNET or the "expert" for the Gardner group make a background like the one's out of Shrek, or out of Final Fantasy? When they do, then come back and tell us that all this is not good enough. Until then, they should shut up with the FUD, as it obvious that I am more of an expert than they- having actually undertook such endeavors.
For example, one of the new recruits in my company has just graduated from a university where they were only taught Java. Consequently, he doesn't know what a pointer is, he doesn't know what linking object files means and he doesn't know anything about memory allocation.
Yes I have heard of a school like this, it is called Arizona State University. Because they do not teach Unix until the 400 level, require only one C class, and teach everything in Java-- most of their graduates cannot maintain jobs in the industry. They are simply worthless for anything besides MCSE type admin jobs.
Example 1: I remember one girl, a senior at ASU, who had to ask my friend (who does not know Java) which buttton to use to compile in her new windozs IDE! SHEEZ!
Example 2: A computer science student from ASU makes fun of the school I attend. He states that is not a real university. I ask him if he knows any C or C++, or assembly, or even if he even knows how to use a command line. Answer: No.
He has graduated (from a COMPUTER SCIENCE course!) so I ask him what he does for a living: Answer: He drives a water truck. I am a Junior and have a position as a Programmer Analyst. Sheez! I have had about 10 conversations with ASU students in CS that have gone just about like that.
I could continue with stories of stupid ASU students, but will not continue to bore you.
Needless to say-- I do not go to ASU. Unfortunately, I am forced to pay through the nose to go somewhere else-- as I am unable to relocate.
Thanks JAVA!
So you know where I am comming from: I have worked in the past for State Farm and for Motorolla. I currently work as a Programmer Analyst for a small but inovative development company. In your comments you state that to the average Corp, the ability to modify software means precisly dick!
:-)
I find this not only illogical, but untrue when it comes to corporate-infastructure systems.
All systems that I am programming are web based. This means that the company already has programmers hired to support and maintain the app-- hired either internally or externally. The ability of the programmer to view the code to the entire system is invaluable when working with complicated N-tierd applications. Having source code is not desirable, it is essential. When working on web-enabled programs the lines between system administration and support become blurred to the point that the system architecture IS the application. A system running a web server, a transaction manager, distributed applications, and a database to support them-- become integrated just like the components inside a car are integrated with each other. By having all of the source, you eliminate guess work and "calls to support", to figure out why database xyz, or webserver Q does not do what it claimed to do. As you stated, lost time == lost revenue
Should you have to call someone for hardware support, or software advice-- I can recommend IBM. They have 24-7 mission critical support-- just like HP (and from my experience with them at State Farm, IBM's OS390 and AIX teams have slightly better support than HP-UX, which is far better than Sun's. With Linux running on OS-390 support or scalibility are no longer an excuse.) But we don't like IBM, then try VA linux (or a whole host of others). VA had a major customer who ran into a bug in the linux kernel--VA flew out a design team who studied the problem and came out with a KERNEL patch within a WEEK! Sun can't even admit that they have bugs in the UltraSparc II Cache-- but this hardware reseller patched the freaking OS kernel! Let's see Dell do that to Win XP! Let me hear of someone calling up MicroSoft and not getting put on hold for $120 an hour. Let me hear of them actually getting listened to, and then let me hear of Microsoft responding by patching windows98 so that it doesn't crash, or that feature-API XYZ works as the book from Microsoft press said it would!
You also state that retraining is not free. What better way to avoid retraining than by basing as many of your apps as possible on web interfaces! Customers and workers only have to learn the web interface (if they do not already know it), and then training costs are forever minimalized! When using free GNU-sytle software to deploy these systems, you can deploy an OS, a web-server, a database, even a transaction manager at no upfront cost-- further cost savings which will off-set the one-time cost of re-training users on a web-interface!
You state that if it ain't broke don't fix it. I am a firm believer in Business Process Reengineering. I think that the people who pioneered computer science, the Web, Unix and most items of progress were not satisfied with your trite quote. They were dreamers who wanted things that worked better, not just good enough to satisy the pointy-haired boss. But if you find that commercial software does in fact meet a need-- such as Novell service directories or Microsoft Office-- then use it if you have it. However, don't forget that other options are going to be continously available to you-- thanks to Free Software-Open Source Software.
Without these priciples at work, a businesses choices would consist of:
1. Gambling on a closed sourced application that has proprietary file formats that may get "goobled" up by a different company-- forcing you to loose or painfully convert your data.
OR
2. Choosing a closed source app that has proprietary formats that will introduce a new version at regular intervals, with lots of new bugs, ahem, features--which will render the current proprietary format obsolete--forcing another painfull conversion. In either case you will face massive retraining costs as well as the cost of purchase.
In closing, in a large number of cases, open source- or GNU solutions are not only cheaper, they are of higher quality. If you want a office suite or a niche app, then closed source may be the best bet for now, but if you are a real Fortune 500 company-- your needs go beyond that. What you need is a scalable, flexible and reliable system-- in other words, what you need is a system based on GNU-like tools and principles that let you harness the power of the community as an asset. Such a system is far more likely to be free of security holes and bugs and is infinately more extensible and supportable than a closed source solution.
FUD like this is a ridiculous troll-- but one that must be responded too, so that the curious newcomers (maybe even someone in business management) don't get caught by lies like these.
Ok, I know that many of you think that the movie AntiTrust was pretty stupid-- but it gave me an idea. At the end of the movie, the "evil" companies source code is flashed across a TV screen...
If some enterprising news corespondent at... say CNN Headline news.. were to explain how important "Free Speach" is (they seem to care alot about that in the TV industry, when it applies to them at least..) and then display the code to DEcSS, then uhmmm...
We would have the MPAA suing its own corporate mega-media members for copyright infringment and arguing against those companies' "Right to Know"-- Which is what a traditional media outlet thrives on.
I think people backing the MPAA would think twice as this would hit them in the pocket book...They should not be allowed to have it both ways!
I do not think that most people responding here have used an Agenda. I have a developers edition and here are my results with it: 1. Yes it is slow. This is not because the processor is slow but because the thing runs X with a hand-recognition system. This burns RAM. X is great, but the modified window manager-hand recognition system is always going to slow the thing down. There is some work underway to fix this problem through the more efficient use of RAM. To really fix this requires (in my uniformed opinion): A integrated window manager with the hand-writing recognition built in and/or more RAM. The apps run very quick-- once they are loaded and the FLASH-Trashing is done. More work on the window manager would also help other X implementation bugs (screen redrawing to big).
2. Agenda hurts themselves by realeasing this with an older image of the software-- a very buggy one. You must flash the sucker with a new image. This solves numerous problems (not all). I attribute these fixes to the fact that this is a Open Source project-- and has a Source Forge home page (I forget it, but you can link to it of Agenda's developers site).
3. This is the only PDA that I have seen that out of the box you can Telnet into, run BASH, micro-emacs, vi, soon Perl, currently Python, ect. Since it runs X- it runs tons of simple games-- which also run plenty fast after they get done loading. The apps are also open source. If anyone does not like them-- make your own.
4. The screen quality is not the hottest-- but I paid 179 dollars for something with 66 MHZ proc, 8 Megs RAM, 16 Flash, and IRDA. I can telnet to it over the IRDA, I can run BASH-- I can program for it in C, C++ and soon Java (Kaffe is ported to it soon), I can print to my IRDA printer.
5. Battery life: The agenda does not last a mere 8 hours. This guy (in the article) is full of crap. Mine has been running for weeks on the same set of alkalines. It will last only 5-7 hours of Continous use. This article presents some good facts, but the author shows extream carelessness and ignorance.
6. He is correct about the Palm sync stuff, where is this? I sure I can find it if I look through open source sites, but it should come with it, as well as be available on the web site. Until then, I can always telnet and copy stuff.
Bottom Line is if they: increase Ram, increase screen quality, and make it wireless enabled--maybe add a handspring syle port on the back of it-- I would be more than willing to pay mucho cash. The OS is not at present an issue for me-- its 2.4.x.
From a hacker standpoint, if you ask a question, I tell you where to go for an answer (that you could have figured out on your own)-- and then you ask me the same question again 10 times, I am going to tell you to go to hell for wasting my time! I am a hacker, therefore I do not do tech support! Poor RMS has had to put aside hacking for lobbying, or he would have flamed this guy long ago.
Geeze, that seems fair if the richest 10% control have over 50% of the money to begin with.
1. Do you feel that Microsoft is actually a monopoly? Do you agree with the breakup of Microsoft? Does you organization accept campaign money from Microsoft?
2. Do you feel that the MPAA is infringing on the rights of consumers? Do you feel that organizations like this are trashing copyright law and leaving consumers with no freedom?
3. Do you feel that large multinational corporations are ruining our nations soverignty? Do you feel that they should only exist when they benefit the public, as the Constitution states, or should they be allowed to exist as long as they turn a profit and are good for the "economy"?
4. What are your views of Shell, Mobil, and other oil-companies exploitation/extermination of African Tribes to steal the oil their land rests above, as well as their support of dictator-police states in Nigeria?(see boycott shell home page )
5. Do you agree with the current U.S. policy of forcing Israel and Palestine to the peace table? Are we forcing them before they are ready? Do you think that excessive medelling by the U.S. could cause an all-out war there?
6. What is your position on internet regulation? How, where, and when should the internet be censored or regulated? Do you support internet "taxes"?
7. Do you support more work visa's for IT? Do you feel that the IT shortage is due to too few people qualified, or too few people willing; due to Dilbertesque management tecniques and a lack of a willingness to train people? What is your policy regarding these Visas?
8. Do you beleive in corporate welfare? If there is a seperation of church and state, then is there an inplied sepearation of corporation and state? Do you feel that taxpayer funds should be used to support the building of ball-parks, rec facilities and other ammenities, that will be owned by private business and not publically available? Do you feel that these rich business people have other outlets to get investment, or are they so "needy" that they must be bankrolled by the government, at the expense of education and other public responsibilities?
9. Do you think the the FBI Carnivore system is a violation of Citizens search and siezure rights? Do you think it is constitutional for such a system to be implemented? If you would make any changes to the Carnivore program, what would they be?
10. Do you feel that any of the above issues actually warrants your attention, or that they are just small issues that have no impact on your election? Do you feel that any of the above issues could alter the course of Democracy in this country? Do any of you have a pulse?
Perhaps these questions should be asked to all Presidential canidates, not just the Dem and Repub nominees?Actually there are many bikes that are made exclusively of Chineese Ti. It, however, is known to be manufactured by the Chineese military on the same machinery that they make thier nuke missles on. Really amazing that the US buys their crap, gives them the tech to make the missle capable of killing us and then supports them by buying more of their crap. I guess they had to do that, so they could have an excuse to fund BS like Star Wars missile defense! Absolutely amazing. When it comes to bicyles, cheap Chineese Ti frames (i.e. Airborne bicycles) generally are O.K. if you do not mind the moral implications of buying machines made by political slave labor, to less exactling specs on hardware used to make nuclear missles pointed against the free world, with the manufacturing waste being dumped into the water supply of the most populous nation on earth. As for me, steel is where it is at (Ritchey steel is as light as most Ti bikes. Just going to show that engineering beats wonder material)! Aluminum is good too, My Gary Fisher Supercaliber frame is just 3.2 pounds, which is as light if not lighter than many wiggly Ti bikes. If you want Ti, get a real bike. Us Ti bikes, such as the top end Mongoose pro (yes most Mongoose bikes suck, but this is an exception) are much stronger because the material's grain is microscopically aligned (Proprietary Sandvick process I think?). This greatly strenghens the material. Boeing won't even touch Ti that has not gone through this process.
No I would not take Commander Taco into the board room, but how about Dell? I remember a couple of months back how there entire IT department was sick of MIckeySoft and went behind managements back and installed LINUX and Samba (unfortunately nothing about Apache). The management congratulated them on how they solved all the reliability problems that were costing them so much money and asked them how they did it. Because of that Dell now sells Linux corporate solutions. Or how about the article a month ago explaining how most of Mickeysofts money making services do not, and indeed cannot run on NT, but how they run on UNIX systems? That might be interesting. A comparision of the latest kernel and Apache 2.x based system will also yield different conclusions, as has already been pointed out. But what about free BSD and AOL server, which is free last I heard? It keeps AOL up and I know that Yahoo runs, or used to run it. If it handles that much traffic reliabily then for sure it is a better bet than NewTerd- Idiot Misinformation Server.
Yeah, but you also need elevated data center flooring for it to be a true geek house.