I'll be building a new house in the next year or so - have the lot, but no consensus with my bride on the house.
Anyhow, the one thing I consistently regret in my current home is cabling a thing is a huge pain. I finally updated my home network with wireless, but no drivers when I'm running on the Linux side. I added a satellite dish, I had to do some nasty drilling / drywall patching. When I build, I'll be running a generous amount of empty low voltage conduit everywhere. You never know when you have to run fiber, speaker wire, etc.
Even if he was funding terrorist, looks like they are going to nail him for visa violations. Sounds an awfully similar to how they nailed Al Capone for 'tax evasion' rather than any of the things people thought... I doubt they will touch anything that would even bring first amendment issues into play.
I'm just hoping I don't wait too long to buy them. I framed up some pets.com paper shares as gag gifts a while back - post dot bomb - in another couple years this could be even better!
I looked into switching over to SUSE, but they offer no developer support. This is critical because as an ISV, we need someone we can go to if we run into Linux problems that we can't figure out or that we don't have the experience to solve. We can't possibly sell a product to customers and then have them go to the internet to figure out how to solve their problems
Figured I'd respond to one of your comments as I went through porting some software to Linux on the zSeries this summer. If you are an ISV, SuSE has a lovely technology partner program that gives you what you need - ISO's of all the platforms, developer support, training - for a very reasonable EUR 1580 per year. A fabulous deal even if you only have three or four developers as this is not a 'per box' fee.
The rules for ISV's are not the same as those for 'normal' customers trying to run your apps in production land....
I travel with two or three laptops, four to six laptop battery packs (total), collection of hard drives, an iPaq, blackberry, mobile, and digital camera. When they ask, "do you have any electronics?" I'll chuckle and reply most of them... for the most part, this is a none issue. A couple things did cause me some grief, however.
I created a homemade external battery pack for my iPaq a few years back. Pulled out the soldering iron and parted it together to run off a collection of rechargeable 'd' cell batteries. Apparently, someone in the security line freaked when they saw it - but only had minimal delays.
I occasionally go to a firing range and do a little pistol shooting. I was using a tradeshow laptop bag to hold my weapons and expended brass. My main bag broke, so I emptied the pistol bag (being very careful to not accidentally pack any ammunition) and ran to the airport. Missed the flight because my bag lit up when they swabbed it. No trouble other than talking to a bunch of people... but still, what a pain.
One of the things that seems to trip up the security folks - especially in EMEA - is how long I keep a laptop and how many people have access to it. I usually get to trade up laptops every quarter (and schlep off the older, but now fully configured box to one of the other Sales folks). Since these laptops are really mobile dev servers (IMHO), when I respond, "do you mean physical access to the laptop, or from a remote access standpoint?" Always gets them...
..send a letter to SCO denying them all rights to use that code
Infortunately they can't, as they have already released the code under the GPL.
They can if SCO violated the GPL. Following the GPL is what grants you permission to redistribute the copyrighted contributor's code. There are some strings attached.
I'm typing on a 31-bit version of SuSE s/390 Linux right now. Turns out they abstracted the OS from the hardware - not sure what is really running under the covers, but as far as the OS is concerned - I've only got 31 bits...
Personally, I never wear a suit. The only image I project in a suit is that I'm not comfortable. In business casual, I tend to project a much more credible image. For day to day work, I tend to be more casual. The impressions have been made and now I'm there to WORK, since I'm not an actor, I don't need a costume.
In my earlier days, I lead several peasant rebellions to drop business casual dress codes at some large shops - which were successful, I might add. My option was similar: I'm more productive when I'm comfortable, and there was a snowball's chance in hell that they would actually let us in the same wing as a customer or anyone else who 'mattered'.
The business side is where the money is at, however. Yes, the high powered technologist made a buck or two, but I think we can all recount the hoards of over paid project managers who could not double click a mouse if their life depended on it. What I've seen is a propeller head may show confidence in their skills and wear the ponytail/sandals - and the business will look at them and consider the flexible dress to be adequate compensation. I suspect most corporations look at academics the same way. (buying the soul of a physics PhD is surprisingly cheap)
Anyhow, the point is this: Evil will triumph, because good is dumb. (love that spaceball's quote) When I go out, I'm almost always in a suit. The business side usually pushes a bit to make sure there is some substance, finds it, and then gets hit up for an unholy amount of money. They feel comfortable and I'm laughing all the way because they want the charade so badly. Most folks miss that developers who put on a costume and act like the PHB's minions make a fair bit of coin.
I'll second the frustration on UI. As one of those who will browse slashdot with alternative devices - an ipaq or blackberry, the amount of kruft above the postings is infuriating. Why, for the love of god, do I need to scroll through a list of related stories in addition to all the other postings in that section before I get to the posts. "Light" rendering would imply I don't want to wear ridges in my thumb scrolling. Even with a 1400x1050 laptop, there is a good chance I'll have to scroll down to see the posts.
Good thing I am stuck at an airport and board out of my mind.... Posting with a thumbpad seems is one way to burn up a few hours.
You're basing you decision on whether or not it can run Seti@home?? I don't see how something like that could possibly be a deal breaker...
This is not as bonehead as it seems. I'm still digging though a bunch of C++ code that compiles on the 64-bit zSeries Linux, but segfaults on this platform. Something as silly as an Apache module - go figure - that works just fine on x86 and ppc. When 'normal' stuff does not run transparently, it makes you start second-guessing everything. A deal breaker if reliability is a must... never forget the first in get to coat the 'bleeding edge'.
Of course, you're still screwed, because a single outlet will only give you 15 amps (or 20, if you got good power). Which is not enough for a serious rack.
Oh, do I rue the day my wife brought home a 10amp vacuum cleaner... though she is still laughing at me for having to adding a circuit because I got a "deal" on an HP laserjet.
why would CableTV bother to provide battery backup for their stuff?
Actually, I believe they do have a battery pack. In the part of Minneapolis I call home, ice or wind storms will break a power line now and then. My net access is via a cable modem, which hangs off my UPS with some other gear. Last time my fridge was dead, but my net connection alive. An hour or so later we passed one of the road runner trucks parked next to a box and found they were running a generator... not that it mattered by morning.
I agree, however... why? Might be a service level thing, but I would not give them that much credit.
I'll agree on the T40's - they are lovely, durable machines. Just a word of warning on the T40p with the 64M ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 video... I've had a devil of a time getting it to work. Xwindows seems to run just fine, but there is a five second delay or so accepting keyboard input. Seen the same issue with SuSE, Fedora, and a few other distributions. No idea where the problem is.
Anyhow, phenomenal battery life, nice screen, good tactile feedback, and fairly thin and light. Well worth a little extra money if you pack the thing around. T41's are starting to ship, so they might get cheaper...
I've had a few different Dell laptops, and they all traveled poorly. That, or they were just junk. The screens ghosted around the edges on four different machines I had. Lost my 'i' key on another. With a second battery pack it had an OK road life, but it was heavy and thick. Ran most Linux distro's fine.
A couple years back I had a couple slot loading DVD's fail. The second seemed like a mechanical problem, so I opened it up and found a floppy disk, scraps of paper, and some thin plastic toys that belonged to my two year old. Same errata with my bride's drive. YMMV
I need to maintain a lab of computers that dual-boot to Linux and WinXP, and RH9 is the best desktop Linux solution out there currently.
SuSE also was doing educational pricing on the Desktop Pro version - which has the crossover thing bundled with it. Worth looking at if you have a mix of software. Not the same as the free 8.2 download.... but as long as you _have_ to pony up cash, it is a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll be building a new house in the next year or so - have the lot, but no consensus with my bride on the house.
Anyhow, the one thing I consistently regret in my current home is cabling a thing is a huge pain. I finally updated my home network with wireless, but no drivers when I'm running on the Linux side. I added a satellite dish, I had to do some nasty drilling / drywall patching. When I build, I'll be running a generous amount of empty low voltage conduit everywhere. You never know when you have to run fiber, speaker wire, etc.
Even if he was funding terrorist, looks like they are going to nail him for visa violations. Sounds an awfully similar to how they nailed Al Capone for 'tax evasion' rather than any of the things people thought... I doubt they will touch anything that would even bring first amendment issues into play.
Besides Debian, What distros have 2.6.x ?
Mandrake's cooker (beta for v10 release). First user distro that automagically configured my ATI Fire GL 9000 (onboard video chip in my t40p).
...you can live quite nicely without handling any physical money (or even checks) at all. Heck, don't most Slashdotters live that way already?
BTW, more money is out there in non-physical form than there is physical money.
You are married as well, I see....
I'm just hoping I don't wait too long to buy them. I framed up some pets.com paper shares as gag gifts a while back - post dot bomb - in another couple years this could be even better!
winder if a new DE will come out of this
It won't be KDE or Gnome - it will be WebSphere Portal applications w/Mozilla browser.
What desktop... (grin)
The great day of reckoning for SCO is the 11th.
It has been a long time for me, but CORBA might fit the bill.
I looked into switching over to SUSE, but they offer no developer support. This is critical because as an ISV, we need someone we can go to if we run into Linux problems that we can't figure out or that we don't have the experience to solve. We can't possibly sell a product to customers and then have them go to the internet to figure out how to solve their problems
Figured I'd respond to one of your comments as I went through porting some software to Linux on the zSeries this summer. If you are an ISV, SuSE has a lovely technology partner program that gives you what you need - ISO's of all the platforms, developer support, training - for a very reasonable EUR 1580 per year. A fabulous deal even if you only have three or four developers as this is not a 'per box' fee.
The rules for ISV's are not the same as those for 'normal' customers trying to run your apps in production land....
I created a homemade external battery pack for my iPaq a few years back. Pulled out the soldering iron and parted it together to run off a collection of rechargeable 'd' cell batteries. Apparently, someone in the security line freaked when they saw it - but only had minimal delays.
I occasionally go to a firing range and do a little pistol shooting. I was using a tradeshow laptop bag to hold my weapons and expended brass. My main bag broke, so I emptied the pistol bag (being very careful to not accidentally pack any ammunition) and ran to the airport. Missed the flight because my bag lit up when they swabbed it. No trouble other than talking to a bunch of people... but still, what a pain.
One of the things that seems to trip up the security folks - especially in EMEA - is how long I keep a laptop and how many people have access to it. I usually get to trade up laptops every quarter (and schlep off the older, but now fully configured box to one of the other Sales folks). Since these laptops are really mobile dev servers (IMHO), when I respond, "do you mean physical access to the laptop, or from a remote access standpoint?" Always gets them...
Infortunately they can't, as they have already released the code under the GPL.
They can if SCO violated the GPL. Following the GPL is what grants you permission to redistribute the copyrighted contributor's code. There are some strings attached.
I'm typing on a 31-bit version of SuSE s/390 Linux right now. Turns out they abstracted the OS from the hardware - not sure what is really running under the covers, but as far as the OS is concerned - I've only got 31 bits...
/ sl es/s390.html
http://www.suse.com/en/business/products/server
Personally, I never wear a suit. The only image I project in a suit is that I'm not comfortable. In business casual, I tend to project a much more credible image.
For day to day work, I tend to be more casual. The impressions have been made and now I'm there to WORK, since I'm not an actor, I don't need a costume.
In my earlier days, I lead several peasant rebellions to drop business casual dress codes at some large shops - which were successful, I might add. My option was similar: I'm more productive when I'm comfortable, and there was a snowball's chance in hell that they would actually let us in the same wing as a customer or anyone else who 'mattered'.
The business side is where the money is at, however. Yes, the high powered technologist made a buck or two, but I think we can all recount the hoards of over paid project managers who could not double click a mouse if their life depended on it. What I've seen is a propeller head may show confidence in their skills and wear the ponytail/sandals - and the business will look at them and consider the flexible dress to be adequate compensation. I suspect most corporations look at academics the same way. (buying the soul of a physics PhD is surprisingly cheap)
Anyhow, the point is this: Evil will triumph, because good is dumb. (love that spaceball's quote) When I go out, I'm almost always in a suit. The business side usually pushes a bit to make sure there is some substance, finds it, and then gets hit up for an unholy amount of money. They feel comfortable and I'm laughing all the way because they want the charade so badly. Most folks miss that developers who put on a costume and act like the PHB's minions make a fair bit of coin.
it's quite hard for 4 players to use the same keyboard and mouse.
Oh come now - I've heard of a few offices playing that 'extreme programming' game with only one set of controls.
Which thinkpad are you installing on, btw?
I'll second the frustration on UI. As one of those who will browse slashdot with alternative devices - an ipaq or blackberry, the amount of kruft above the postings is infuriating. Why, for the love of god, do I need to scroll through a list of related stories in addition to all the other postings in that section before I get to the posts. "Light" rendering would imply I don't want to wear ridges in my thumb scrolling. Even with a 1400x1050 laptop, there is a good chance I'll have to scroll down to see the posts.
Good thing I am stuck at an airport and board out of my mind.... Posting with a thumbpad seems is one way to burn up a few hours.
You're basing you decision on whether or not it can run Seti@home?? I don't see how something like that could possibly be a deal breaker...
This is not as bonehead as it seems. I'm still digging though a bunch of C++ code that compiles on the 64-bit zSeries Linux, but segfaults on this platform. Something as silly as an Apache module - go figure - that works just fine on x86 and ppc. When 'normal' stuff does not run transparently, it makes you start second-guessing everything. A deal breaker if reliability is a must... never forget the first in get to coat the 'bleeding edge'.
Of course, you're still screwed, because a single outlet will only give you 15 amps (or 20, if you got good power). Which is not enough for a serious rack.
Oh, do I rue the day my wife brought home a 10amp vacuum cleaner... though she is still laughing at me for having to adding a circuit because I got a "deal" on an HP laserjet.
No question, time to talk with an electrician.
why would CableTV bother to provide battery backup for their stuff?
Actually, I believe they do have a battery pack. In the part of Minneapolis I call home, ice or wind storms will break a power line now and then. My net access is via a cable modem, which hangs off my UPS with some other gear. Last time my fridge was dead, but my net connection alive. An hour or so later we passed one of the road runner trucks parked next to a box and found they were running a generator... not that it mattered by morning.
I agree, however... why? Might be a service level thing, but I would not give them that much credit.
fire up a journal entry and we can take it off line...
I'll agree on the T40's - they are lovely, durable machines. Just a word of warning on the T40p with the 64M ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 video... I've had a devil of a time getting it to work. Xwindows seems to run just fine, but there is a five second delay or so accepting keyboard input. Seen the same issue with SuSE, Fedora, and a few other distributions. No idea where the problem is.
Anyhow, phenomenal battery life, nice screen, good tactile feedback, and fairly thin and light. Well worth a little extra money if you pack the thing around. T41's are starting to ship, so they might get cheaper...
I've had a few different Dell laptops, and they all traveled poorly. That, or they were just junk. The screens ghosted around the edges on four different machines I had. Lost my 'i' key on another. With a second battery pack it had an OK road life, but it was heavy and thick. Ran most Linux distro's fine.
A couple years back I had a couple slot loading DVD's fail. The second seemed like a mechanical problem, so I opened it up and found a floppy disk, scraps of paper, and some thin plastic toys that belonged to my two year old. Same errata with my bride's drive. YMMV
I need to maintain a lab of computers that dual-boot to Linux and WinXP, and RH9 is the best desktop Linux solution out there currently.
SuSE also was doing educational pricing on the Desktop Pro version - which has the crossover thing bundled with it. Worth looking at if you have a mix of software. Not the same as the free 8.2 download.... but as long as you _have_ to pony up cash, it is a thought.
Take out security cameras in a good chunk of downtown London....
Laser pointers nicely mess up video camera... It probably won't hurt the camera, but here is a fun read if you have a bit of time on your hands.
Mind you, I have not seen the third installment yet... but from the wild uncontrolled replication I'd cast Microsoft Outlook as Agent Smith.