I submitted this as an article as well, but I must have been slightly behind the other guy.
I have two major problems with this. First of all, yeah, it's tiny (the length of a credit card and less than an inch thick.) However, what happens when it gets dropped on the floor? For now, hard-drive based players are bulky for a reason -- tiny laptop drives are FRAGILE and need to be protected! The spindles won't hold up to much abuse, and MP3 players are subjected to a large amount of abuses on a daily basis, from being shoved in a backpack to being put in a pocket while the person is running. How well does the Apple player stack up?
Secondly, the Apple player is competing with many others on the market. Steve Jobs makes it sound like Apple is the only player in the arena, but in reality, there are several. Sure, Apple is the only one doing Firewire, and Firewire offers a faster transfer rate. But that's all for moot if my player pukes once I throw it in my bag.
If you're interested in finding a really tiny player, check out the Flash-memory based ones. Flash memory is getting a lot cheaper. MyDivaPlayer.com is offering a 128MB player that also accepts Flash memory for $135 after discount. Plus, these things are about half the size of the iPod. Flash memory players can be neat as well -- infinitely expandable storage, rewriteablity, and most players automatically plug-n-play as removable drives on Windows systems. Plus, you can do voice recording and cart around lots of other files as well, so the players double as mini Zip disks.:) Sure, hard-drive based players do this as well, and they have a much higher storage capacity -- but they are much more bulky and require careful care and feeding.
MS licensed Roxio's Easy CD Creator...
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MSN Forces Outlook POP
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Once again, because this bears repeating, Microsoft licensed Roxio's Easy CD Creator for Windows XP. Roxio is NOT going to go out of business because people aren't buying Easy CD Creator. Furthermore, 99% of people already get the CD burning software of choice with their burner, and relatively few buy it at the store, so your point doesn't hold much water anyway.
From the article: "Lawsuits filed against Napster, Scour, Aimster, MusicCity, Kazaa and Grokster have shut down some of these file-swapping gathering points, but the practice remains as popular as ever."
I can't imagine what this list is going to look like in a year. Somewhere, sometime, there will be a breaking point, where either the RIAA gives up, or something happens whereby music piracy is stopped completely. This cat-and-mouse game cannot continue forever. How many more networks are we going to shuttle people to before the RIAA wins because music piracy is impossible? Remember, every time the RIAA shuts one service down and there is a mad rush to tell people to just use client XYZ to connect to a new network, more and more people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to buy that Pink Floyd CD now."
I think the future has to be that the RIAA allows music for download at relatively cheap prices. Enough people have already gotten fed up with downloading the client-of-the-week and finding a server that is a) open and b) has lots of good stuff on it. Right now, the RIAA is slowly strangling "piracy" with their endless lawsuits, but it can never be completely stopped until they offer a competing service. Until then, the lawsuits are going to continue, and that list is going to become ridiculously long.
"do we need all that prettyness and niceness eating cpu cycles on a webserver?"
If Sun ever wants to compete with Microsoft's point-and-click server GUI, the answer is a wholehearted YES. That's the big reason why Sun bought Cobalt... they needed a server with a point-and-click interface. Think about it: as a small business owner with 3 employees, none of whom are very technical, which solution would you buy? A solution that requires you to keep a UNIX sysadmin at least part-time, or a system that allows your secretary to set up distribution lists in her spare time by going to a website? The second group is what Microsoft markets to, and Sun needs an offering that can compete. That's why they are simplifying things with web-based tools and now with GNOME.
Slashdot did a story on this a while back. Click here to see what the Sun GNOME group had to say about KDE vs. Gnome. Essentially, as a highly-moderated post put it, it came down to the fact that GNOME was C-based, and the Sun GNOME team was more familiar with C than with C++.
-- Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party)...To the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call."
It looks like you can also receive up to $500 in damages if they do call your cell phone (though I don't know if they can be held liable if you claim it is your home phone number.)
"I (as joe computer buyer) didn't sign or agree anything beyond that flimsy click-through contract at startup..."
Actually, you did. If you bought an OEM version of Windows (i.e. your computer came with Windows), your software package has a sticker on it that says "For distribution with a new {your computer manufacturer's name here} PC only." You are legally not allowed to resell OEM bundled software on eBay. (This goes for other companies besides Microsoft as well... usually, you are not allowed to resell virus scanners, etc. if they came with your PC.) And don't discount that "flimsy click-through contract" either; your click-through constitutes a legally binding signature, and you can be held liable if you break anything in that contract, even if you didn't bother to read it.
I just followed your link and found the FAQ for the Apple flat panel monitors. According to the FAQ, the monitors can only run with a Power Mac G4 or G4 Cube.
It is incredibly disappointing to see a company come up with great technology and then not devise some sort of adapter for the majority of computers (PCs and older Macintoshes.) I am honestly surprised that Apple wouldn't sell some sort of Apple --> DVI/USB adapter. Guess I'll have to stick with the PC digital monitors. What a shame.:\
I see a mention of a 56K modem, but no mention of an ethernet card. Perhaps ESR didn't have enough money to get the "ultimate network connection" to go with his "ultimate Linux box"?
eBay sells IBM Model M keyboards by the truckload. I picked up 10 for $50 shipped, and have since been handing them out to my friends left and right for my purchase price. There are still 5 or 6 sitting in my garage...
What's interesting is that there are two very different schools of thought on this. I have friends who absolutely love the Model M's and wouldn't dream of typing on anything else. I have other friends who prefer more silent keyboards. (The Model M does tend to keep SO's awake when you're typing late at night, but those of us who use it understand that we have to make certain sacrifices to use the keyboard of the gods.;)
"Today's flatscreens also have a really coarse dot pitch with sharp square pixels. As far as I'm concerned, that puts them out of the running for the ULB. I do a lot of writing and, not infrequently, my own typesetting; I want to be able to preview two pages of Postscript at actual size and have the fonts look good."
I'm sorry, but has this guy ever seen a high-end flat panel? I personally own an SGI 1600SW, and not only do you not see the pixels, but you can also preview two Postscript pages side-by-side with its 1600x1024 widescreen aspect ratio. Of course, SGI stopped selling it (*sigh*). But there are other excellent flat panels out there, like the Samsung line that lets you run a TV signal in and do picture-in-picture. I've seen the Samsung ones up close, and they have wonderful image quality. Apple also makes some excellent flat panels (does anyone know whether there is an adapter to run them on PCs yet?)
All I'm saying, is while there are still plenty of reasons to run CRT's, in a "cost-is-no-object" type of article, you should at least consider the high-end flat panels.
P.S. I've seen the dual 1600SW setup, and it is STILL, to this day, the only monitor setup that ever made me speechless with its absolute beauty.
Since the parent post didn't go into details about how to make your editor of choice the source code viewer for IE, I thought I would explain. It's easier than you think, and doesn't require registry hacking.
(The following instructions work for Windows 2000; if you're using 98, please adjust slightly.:)
1. Go to Tools/Folder Options in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Click the "File Types" tab.
2. Scroll down until you find HTML, PHP, or the file type you are currently viewing in your browser.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Edit the "Edit" type, or create a new type called "Edit."
5. Browse until you find the application you want. (I use EditPlus, which does source code highlighting for PHP/JSP/Perl.) Make sure the "Use DDE" box is unchecked.
6. Click OK until you are out of all of the dialog boxes.
7. Make sure the Edit button is showing in IE's toolbar. If it's not, make it show up by right-clicking on an empty area of your toolbar and clicking "Customize."
8. Open a new browser window and go to a URL that ends in.html or whatever file type you just edited.
9. The "Edit" button should show up, and you should be able to edit the page in your preferred editor. (Note: for Slashdot, you have to edit/create a file type in Windows for.pl.)
The real advantage of this is that you can set different types of files to open in different editors. For instance, I set HTML to open in Dreamweaver, but I set PHP to open in EditPlus.
It really seems that Sun has resorted to "Ah, yes, that sounds like a good idea, but it can't work under {Microsoft|Oracle}".
Witness the Liberty Alliance. Basically, what Sun was saying was "well, a global authentication mechanism really is needed. We just can't have Microsoft doing it, because Microsoft is the evil empire."
What about Java? Originally promised as the end-all, be-all of programming languages, it has since dwindled into a niche of server-side programming. JSP only came about because ASP did. Sun had XML for years (in fact, Sun employees did invent XML) before Microsoft finally ponied up a strategy for using it with.NET.
Jxta? What is Jxta? "Peer-to-peer protocols"? Jxta came about because of Napster, but I don't see any applications using it yet...
Now, Oracle has requested national IDs, and Sun again jumps on the bandwagon, this time with McNealy claiming that he wanted to use them for national IDs all along. It's true, Java smart cards have been in the works for a while, but I don't think McNealy originally created them for a national ID system.
The future of Sun really worries me. Back in 1996, when anti-Microsoft sentiment was just starting to take off, Sun really was the leader. A lot of people thought that Sun might be their only chance for keeping everything from becoming a Microsoft product. But so far, they have failed to produce anything that lives up to their numerous claims. Java has been moderately successful, but not in the realm in which Sun originally intended (client-side applications.)
I really wish Scott McNealy would stop making these privacy-bashing claims and go back to making the great servers that made Sun famous. Why has Sun taken so many tangents lately? It really seems like Sun's core server business has suffered because McNealy's wish is for Sun to be an overpowering empire, not just an awesome server company. I really wish Sun the best, but as their prospects for profitability dim and they announce layoffs, I think now is the time for Sun to become refocused -- and McNealy needs to emphasize that, instead of just spouting off about smart cards and how Java is going to rule the world.
"...while businesses like VISA, AMEX and others poll their databases and link these data together, federal agencies do NOT. If they did, 6 of these 19 terrorists would have been CAUGHT at entry and the attack would likely NEVER happen since they were sought for in some counties in US."
And exactly how would a Java/Oracle/.NET/AOL/{insert company here} card have prevented this?
"Oracle planed to donate database software for the purpose of creating the global ID."
Aw, now, shucks, Larry. We all know that you're such the humanitarian, but to know that your donation would not help you financially in any way, now that just warms my heart...
Milk is not better for you than Coke, because, from an evolutionary standpoint, mammals have internal mechanisms that prevent them from properly digesting lactose after they are a certain age. It's a natural weaning process. This is discussed in most evolution/natural science college classes. The reason 30% of our population is able to digest milk is that that percentage of the population had ancestors in northern Europe who were goat herders -- those ancestors needed to be able to digest milk at any time. Yes, almost all of the people who are able to digest lots of milk at any age are white and originally from Europe.
The milk commercials, however, neglect to tell people this, and instead label the vast majority of our population "lactose intolerant", like it's some kind of disease or something. (They even sell a "cure" in the form of Lactaid and other pills!) Americans/Europeans also don't often realize that sending milk in CARE packages to other countries makes people sick more often than not.
I know this is a little offtopic, but it's an important fact that most people don't realize, and the brainwashing of those damned milk commercials doesn't help. I would also like to state that I agree with the poster's main point. The commercials for milk even prove it: TV sells you what you want to hear and not necessarily what is the truth.
"We should have a file typing system that incorporates the creating company/software package into it, like how UPC symbols list COMPANY/PRODUCT_NO so both Jiffy and Food Lion can both sell peanut butter and the register knows the difference. That way Joe Shmoe can double-click on his RealMP3 and it won't open in WMP."
The problem with that is that you would have to have 20 different programs to play your MP3s. Many programs play MP3s; I wouldn't want to have to download RealPlayer just so I can play a "RealMP3" that someone had on their website.
Imagine telling someone on a 56K that they have to download 8 different JPEG viewers because Photoshop wrote proprietary information into one, and Photo Editor wrote proprietary information into another, etc.
We already have proprietary formats; it's not easy for a.doc file to be opened in anything but Word, so basically, the problem has been dealt with by specifying certain formats as "open" and certain formats as "proprietary."
From Salon: "The power of "default" settings lies in users' ignorance and inertia. There are millions of Windows users who barely know what "right-clicking" is.
The remedy Salon suggests? "It would probably take one of Microsoft's developers a short afternoon to build a simple, forthrightly labeled control panel that sits right on every user's desktop and asks, in plain English, 'Which program would you like to open Web pages? Or text files? Or MP3 audio files? Or photo files?'"
So these users, who the author seems to think are too stupid to know what right-clicking is, now have to know
the difference between a text file (*.txt) and a Word file (*.doc) and which program goes with which extension (no, wait, which program they want to use to open which file types!)
Microsoft isn't even the real perpetrator of these things. It's companies like Real, which have programs like RealDownload (click here and here for examples) that really go overboard with the registered file types thing. RealDownload attaches itself to your web browser in such a way that the only way to stop it from popping up every time you try to download a file is to uninstall it. It also comes preinstalled on a bunch of OEM computers, so people are afraid to uninstall it. That's just one example...
There are lots of horrible pieces of software in the Windows world: spyware like the stuff that comes with BearShare and Morpheus, the Real "suite" of products that tries to take over your computer; AOL, which tries to eat your TCP/IP stack for lunch and replace it with its own TCP/IP stack. Instead of focusing on how Microsoft is horrible because it HAS registered file types, let's focus on programs (Microsoft ones included) that abuse their privilege and try to force you to use them for everything under the sun.
Finally, please continue to educate our user base, instead of just assuming they are "ignorant" and unable to take control of "where they want to go today" (and what program they want to use to do that.)
It's a good thing I sold my 60GB Deskstar to my ex-boyfriend for $200...;)
Re:The Microsoft approach to life
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Pocket PC 2002
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· Score: 2
I don't know why you would want to pay $650 when you can buy a very good laptop for little more.
Two words: INSTANT BOOT. My laptop takes 3-4 minutes to boot. I cannot tell you how many times I have been just standing around when a great idea hits me. I itch for a Pocket PC because then I could just take the Pocket PC out, use the voice recorder to record my ideas, and stick it back in my pocket.
I really want a Jornada 720, which has the keyboard as well, so I can do spreadsheets. It also takes the IBM Microdrive 1GB so I can carry all my MP3s around. Plus, it's smaller than my laptop, so I wouldn't have to carry around a separate bag...
It is the Palm killer. Here's why:
on
Pocket PC 2002
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I used to work at a very Linux-oriented company, with a guy who absolutely hated Windows. He ran Linux on everything, and had a Palm.
One day he got an iPaQ to replace his Palm Pilot. "Oh, are you going to run Linux on it?" I asked him. "No," he said, "I am running Windows CE."
When I asked him why, he said it was simply easier to develop software for Windows CE handhelds. Palm forces you to buy a developer kit, but you can use standard Microsoft tools to develop for Windows CE. Windows CE 3.0 even has the source code available.
Palm has a large legacy base, but they've missed the boat both with development tools and with color screens and MP3 playback. Why should I buy a Palm when I can buy a handheld PC that I can use as an MP3 player, voice recorder, and have wireless Internet access in full color to boot?
Personally, I would think that rewriting from scratch would make IIS more dangerous. At least Microsoft is plugging the security holes. I would think that rewriting it from scratch might cause more new exploits, whereas fixing the old version makes it more secure with every revision.
This article, on the other hand, shows that Microsoft is trying hard to actually make its product better, instead of just saying "Here it is. New version. Use it or be forever left behind..." like they did with Office XP. I think this goes to show what a company in a non-monopoly position will do to succeed. (No one has a monopoly in web servers, and Microsoft isn't even the leader...)
This is a good thing, and it's the right choice for Microsoft. Please don't call for a rewrite, or in two years we'll all be complaining about the root exploits discovered in the new IIS...
In the discussion forums, the guy who posted these results admits, "I ran the tests on a thinkpad."
I'm sorry, but what does this prove? Linux runs better on a laptop? Is he comparing Linux, the server OS, to Windows 2000 Pro, the consumer OS? What version of Windows XP is he running?
These tests are really subjective, not only because pipes aren't really used in Windows, but also because he used a laptop to test it (and didn't give details of the Windows OSes he was running.) If anything, I wish he would have used some bigger iron (a Xeon-based system, perhaps, or some of IBM's middle-of-the-line servers.)
I think the best conclusion we can draw from this is that Linux may indeed be a better OS than Windows in some ways, but that this test doesn't prove it.
Slashdot Mirror
I submitted this as an article as well, but I must have been slightly behind the other guy.
:) Sure, hard-drive based players do this as well, and they have a much higher storage capacity -- but they are much more bulky and require careful care and feeding.
I have two major problems with this. First of all, yeah, it's tiny (the length of a credit card and less than an inch thick.) However, what happens when it gets dropped on the floor? For now, hard-drive based players are bulky for a reason -- tiny laptop drives are FRAGILE and need to be protected! The spindles won't hold up to much abuse, and MP3 players are subjected to a large amount of abuses on a daily basis, from being shoved in a backpack to being put in a pocket while the person is running. How well does the Apple player stack up?
Secondly, the Apple player is competing with many others on the market. Steve Jobs makes it sound like Apple is the only player in the arena, but in reality, there are several. Sure, Apple is the only one doing Firewire, and Firewire offers a faster transfer rate. But that's all for moot if my player pukes once I throw it in my bag.
If you're interested in finding a really tiny player, check out the Flash-memory based ones. Flash memory is getting a lot cheaper. MyDivaPlayer.com is offering a 128MB player that also accepts Flash memory for $135 after discount. Plus, these things are about half the size of the iPod. Flash memory players can be neat as well -- infinitely expandable storage, rewriteablity, and most players automatically plug-n-play as removable drives on Windows systems. Plus, you can do voice recording and cart around lots of other files as well, so the players double as mini Zip disks.
Once again, because this bears repeating, Microsoft licensed Roxio's Easy CD Creator for Windows XP. Roxio is NOT going to go out of business because people aren't buying Easy CD Creator. Furthermore, 99% of people already get the CD burning software of choice with their burner, and relatively few buy it at the store, so your point doesn't hold much water anyway.
From the article:
"Lawsuits filed against Napster, Scour, Aimster, MusicCity, Kazaa and Grokster have shut down some of these file-swapping gathering points, but the practice remains as popular as ever."
I can't imagine what this list is going to look like in a year. Somewhere, sometime, there will be a breaking point, where either the RIAA gives up, or something happens whereby music piracy is stopped completely. This cat-and-mouse game cannot continue forever. How many more networks are we going to shuttle people to before the RIAA wins because music piracy is impossible? Remember, every time the RIAA shuts one service down and there is a mad rush to tell people to just use client XYZ to connect to a new network, more and more people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to buy that Pink Floyd CD now."
I think the future has to be that the RIAA allows music for download at relatively cheap prices. Enough people have already gotten fed up with downloading the client-of-the-week and finding a server that is a) open and b) has lots of good stuff on it. Right now, the RIAA is slowly strangling "piracy" with their endless lawsuits, but it can never be completely stopped until they offer a competing service. Until then, the lawsuits are going to continue, and that list is going to become ridiculously long.
"do we need all that prettyness and niceness eating cpu cycles on a webserver?"
If Sun ever wants to compete with Microsoft's point-and-click server GUI, the answer is a wholehearted YES. That's the big reason why Sun bought Cobalt... they needed a server with a point-and-click interface. Think about it: as a small business owner with 3 employees, none of whom are very technical, which solution would you buy? A solution that requires you to keep a UNIX sysadmin at least part-time, or a system that allows your secretary to set up distribution lists in her spare time by going to a website? The second group is what Microsoft markets to, and Sun needs an offering that can compete. That's why they are simplifying things with web-based tools and now with GNOME.
Slashdot did a story on this a while back. Click here to see what the Sun GNOME group had to say about KDE vs. Gnome. Essentially, as a highly-moderated post put it, it came down to the fact that GNOME was C-based, and the Sun GNOME team was more familiar with C than with C++.
From Junkbusters:
"No person may
-- Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party)...To the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call."
It looks like you can also receive up to $500 in damages if they do call your cell phone (though I don't know if they can be held liable if you claim it is your home phone number.)
"I (as joe computer buyer) didn't sign or agree anything beyond that flimsy click-through contract at startup..."
Actually, you did. If you bought an OEM version of Windows (i.e. your computer came with Windows), your software package has a sticker on it that says "For distribution with a new {your computer manufacturer's name here} PC only." You are legally not allowed to resell OEM bundled software on eBay. (This goes for other companies besides Microsoft as well... usually, you are not allowed to resell virus scanners, etc. if they came with your PC.) And don't discount that "flimsy click-through contract" either; your click-through constitutes a legally binding signature, and you can be held liable if you break anything in that contract, even if you didn't bother to read it.
I just followed your link and found the FAQ for the Apple flat panel monitors. According to the FAQ, the monitors can only run with a Power Mac G4 or G4 Cube.
It is incredibly disappointing to see a company come up with great technology and then not devise some sort of adapter for the majority of computers (PCs and older Macintoshes.) I am honestly surprised that Apple wouldn't sell some sort of Apple --> DVI/USB adapter. Guess I'll have to stick with the PC digital monitors. What a shame. :\
I see a mention of a 56K modem, but no mention of an ethernet card. Perhaps ESR didn't have enough money to get the "ultimate network connection" to go with his "ultimate Linux box"?
What's interesting is that there are two very different schools of thought on this. I have friends who absolutely love the Model M's and wouldn't dream of typing on anything else. I have other friends who prefer more silent keyboards. (The Model M does tend to keep SO's awake when you're typing late at night, but those of us who use it understand that we have to make certain sacrifices to use the keyboard of the gods. ;)
"Today's flatscreens also have a really coarse dot pitch with sharp square pixels. As far as I'm concerned, that puts them out of the running for the ULB. I do a lot of writing and, not infrequently, my own typesetting; I want to be able to preview two pages of Postscript at actual size and have the fonts look good."
I'm sorry, but has this guy ever seen a high-end flat panel? I personally own an SGI 1600SW, and not only do you not see the pixels, but you can also preview two Postscript pages side-by-side with its 1600x1024 widescreen aspect ratio. Of course, SGI stopped selling it (*sigh*). But there are other excellent flat panels out there, like the Samsung line that lets you run a TV signal in and do picture-in-picture. I've seen the Samsung ones up close, and they have wonderful image quality. Apple also makes some excellent flat panels (does anyone know whether there is an adapter to run them on PCs yet?)
All I'm saying, is while there are still plenty of reasons to run CRT's, in a "cost-is-no-object" type of article, you should at least consider the high-end flat panels.
P.S. I've seen the dual 1600SW setup, and it is STILL, to this day, the only monitor setup that ever made me speechless with its absolute beauty.
Since the parent post didn't go into details about how to make your editor of choice the source code viewer for IE, I thought I would explain. It's easier than you think, and doesn't require registry hacking.
:)
.html or whatever file type you just edited.
.pl.)
(The following instructions work for Windows 2000; if you're using 98, please adjust slightly.
1. Go to Tools/Folder Options in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Click the "File Types" tab.
2. Scroll down until you find HTML, PHP, or the file type you are currently viewing in your browser.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Edit the "Edit" type, or create a new type called "Edit."
5. Browse until you find the application you want. (I use EditPlus, which does source code highlighting for PHP/JSP/Perl.) Make sure the "Use DDE" box is unchecked.
6. Click OK until you are out of all of the dialog boxes.
7. Make sure the Edit button is showing in IE's toolbar. If it's not, make it show up by right-clicking on an empty area of your toolbar and clicking "Customize."
8. Open a new browser window and go to a URL that ends in
9. The "Edit" button should show up, and you should be able to edit the page in your preferred editor. (Note: for Slashdot, you have to edit/create a file type in Windows for
The real advantage of this is that you can set different types of files to open in different editors. For instance, I set HTML to open in Dreamweaver, but I set PHP to open in EditPlus.
HTH,
Erica
What is going on with Sun lately?
.NET.
It really seems that Sun has resorted to "Ah, yes, that sounds like a good idea, but it can't work under {Microsoft|Oracle}".
Witness the Liberty Alliance. Basically, what Sun was saying was "well, a global authentication mechanism really is needed. We just can't have Microsoft doing it, because Microsoft is the evil empire."
What about Java? Originally promised as the end-all, be-all of programming languages, it has since dwindled into a niche of server-side programming. JSP only came about because ASP did. Sun had XML for years (in fact, Sun employees did invent XML) before Microsoft finally ponied up a strategy for using it with
Jxta? What is Jxta? "Peer-to-peer protocols"? Jxta came about because of Napster, but I don't see any applications using it yet...
Now, Oracle has requested national IDs, and Sun again jumps on the bandwagon, this time with McNealy claiming that he wanted to use them for national IDs all along. It's true, Java smart cards have been in the works for a while, but I don't think McNealy originally created them for a national ID system.
The future of Sun really worries me. Back in 1996, when anti-Microsoft sentiment was just starting to take off, Sun really was the leader. A lot of people thought that Sun might be their only chance for keeping everything from becoming a Microsoft product. But so far, they have failed to produce anything that lives up to their numerous claims. Java has been moderately successful, but not in the realm in which Sun originally intended (client-side applications.)
I really wish Scott McNealy would stop making these privacy-bashing claims and go back to making the great servers that made Sun famous. Why has Sun taken so many tangents lately? It really seems like Sun's core server business has suffered because McNealy's wish is for Sun to be an overpowering empire, not just an awesome server company. I really wish Sun the best, but as their prospects for profitability dim and they announce layoffs, I think now is the time for Sun to become refocused -- and McNealy needs to emphasize that, instead of just spouting off about smart cards and how Java is going to rule the world.
My two cents...
And exactly how would a Java/Oracle/.NET/AOL/{insert company here} card have prevented this?
"Oracle planed to donate database software for the purpose of creating the global ID."
Aw, now, shucks, Larry. We all know that you're such the humanitarian, but to know that your donation would not help you financially in any way, now that just warms my heart...
Milk is not better for you than Coke, because, from an evolutionary standpoint, mammals have internal mechanisms that prevent them from properly digesting lactose after they are a certain age. It's a natural weaning process. This is discussed in most evolution/natural science college classes. The reason 30% of our population is able to digest milk is that that percentage of the population had ancestors in northern Europe who were goat herders -- those ancestors needed to be able to digest milk at any time. Yes, almost all of the people who are able to digest lots of milk at any age are white and originally from Europe.
The milk commercials, however, neglect to tell people this, and instead label the vast majority of our population "lactose intolerant", like it's some kind of disease or something. (They even sell a "cure" in the form of Lactaid and other pills!) Americans/Europeans also don't often realize that sending milk in CARE packages to other countries makes people sick more often than not.
I know this is a little offtopic, but it's an important fact that most people don't realize, and the brainwashing of those damned milk commercials doesn't help. I would also like to state that I agree with the poster's main point. The commercials for milk even prove it: TV sells you what you want to hear and not necessarily what is the truth.
"We should have a file typing system that incorporates the creating company/software package into it, like how UPC symbols list COMPANY/PRODUCT_NO so both Jiffy and Food Lion can both sell peanut butter and the register knows the difference. That way Joe Shmoe can double-click on his RealMP3 and it won't open in WMP."
The problem with that is that you would have to have 20 different programs to play your MP3s. Many programs play MP3s; I wouldn't want to have to download RealPlayer just so I can play a "RealMP3" that someone had on their website.
Imagine telling someone on a 56K that they have to download 8 different JPEG viewers because Photoshop wrote proprietary information into one, and Photo Editor wrote proprietary information into another, etc.
We already have proprietary formats; it's not easy for a .doc file to be opened in anything but Word, so basically, the problem has been dealt with by specifying certain formats as "open" and certain formats as "proprietary."
The remedy Salon suggests? "It would probably take one of Microsoft's developers a short afternoon to build a simple, forthrightly labeled control panel that sits right on every user's desktop and asks, in plain English, 'Which program would you like to open Web pages? Or text files? Or MP3 audio files? Or photo files?'"
So these users, who the author seems to think are too stupid to know what right-clicking is, now have to know the difference between a text file (*.txt) and a Word file (*.doc) and which program goes with which extension (no, wait, which program they want to use to open which file types!)
Microsoft isn't even the real perpetrator of these things. It's companies like Real, which have programs like RealDownload (click here and here for examples) that really go overboard with the registered file types thing. RealDownload attaches itself to your web browser in such a way that the only way to stop it from popping up every time you try to download a file is to uninstall it. It also comes preinstalled on a bunch of OEM computers, so people are afraid to uninstall it. That's just one example...
There are lots of horrible pieces of software in the Windows world: spyware like the stuff that comes with BearShare and Morpheus, the Real "suite" of products that tries to take over your computer; AOL, which tries to eat your TCP/IP stack for lunch and replace it with its own TCP/IP stack. Instead of focusing on how Microsoft is horrible because it HAS registered file types, let's focus on programs (Microsoft ones included) that abuse their privilege and try to force you to use them for everything under the sun.
Finally, please continue to educate our user base, instead of just assuming they are "ignorant" and unable to take control of "where they want to go today" (and what program they want to use to do that.)
...that I would happen to be surfing the humor sites today and find this picture of a space shuttle!
Yes, I can see it now:
SCENE: the courtroom. A large lady is waving her arms madly. A skinny guy with glasses and unkempt hair is trying not to look scared of her.
LADY: You wrecked my car and killed my 3-year-old! (points to Exhibit A)
GEEK: Really, ma'am, I was just trying to check my email during the traffic jam... I got these cool new sunglasses and they run Pine...
GEEK sighs, realizing the situation is hopeless...
LOL! I'm FEMALE, thank you, and I'll take my pretty 16,000 color PDA without worrying about the status of my nonexistent penis. :)
--Erica
It's a good thing I sold my 60GB Deskstar to my ex-boyfriend for $200... ;)
I don't know why you would want to pay $650 when you can buy a very good laptop for little more.
Two words: INSTANT BOOT. My laptop takes 3-4 minutes to boot. I cannot tell you how many times I have been just standing around when a great idea hits me. I itch for a Pocket PC because then I could just take the Pocket PC out, use the voice recorder to record my ideas, and stick it back in my pocket.
I really want a Jornada 720, which has the keyboard as well, so I can do spreadsheets. It also takes the IBM Microdrive 1GB so I can carry all my MP3s around. Plus, it's smaller than my laptop, so I wouldn't have to carry around a separate bag...
One day he got an iPaQ to replace his Palm Pilot. "Oh, are you going to run Linux on it?" I asked him. "No," he said, "I am running Windows CE."
When I asked him why, he said it was simply easier to develop software for Windows CE handhelds. Palm forces you to buy a developer kit, but you can use standard Microsoft tools to develop for Windows CE. Windows CE 3.0 even has the source code available.
Palm has a large legacy base, but they've missed the boat both with development tools and with color screens and MP3 playback. Why should I buy a Palm when I can buy a handheld PC that I can use as an MP3 player, voice recorder, and have wireless Internet access in full color to boot?
Dataquest thinks so too.
Personally, I would think that rewriting from scratch would make IIS more dangerous. At least Microsoft is plugging the security holes. I would think that rewriting it from scratch might cause more new exploits, whereas fixing the old version makes it more secure with every revision.
This article, on the other hand, shows that Microsoft is trying hard to actually make its product better, instead of just saying "Here it is. New version. Use it or be forever left behind..." like they did with Office XP. I think this goes to show what a company in a non-monopoly position will do to succeed. (No one has a monopoly in web servers, and Microsoft isn't even the leader...)
This is a good thing, and it's the right choice for Microsoft. Please don't call for a rewrite, or in two years we'll all be complaining about the root exploits discovered in the new IIS...
In the discussion forums, the guy who posted these results admits, "I ran the tests on a thinkpad."
I'm sorry, but what does this prove? Linux runs better on a laptop? Is he comparing Linux, the server OS, to Windows 2000 Pro, the consumer OS? What version of Windows XP is he running?
These tests are really subjective, not only because pipes aren't really used in Windows, but also because he used a laptop to test it (and didn't give details of the Windows OSes he was running.) If anything, I wish he would have used some bigger iron (a Xeon-based system, perhaps, or some of IBM's middle-of-the-line servers.)
I think the best conclusion we can draw from this is that Linux may indeed be a better OS than Windows in some ways, but that this test doesn't prove it.