Have they gotten rid of that "integrated desktop"?
Yes. I think that was everyone's single biggest complaint about StarOffice. They have also gotten rid of the "memory hog" problem with 5.2, which was that it loaded all five applications into memory and used up about 64MB of physical RAM whenever you wanted to load it.
Their big new feature is using an open XML format for documents. I also believe they have killed the problem where StarOffice took over all of your email clients, other text editors, etc.
I think this version of StarOffice is honestly the first one that will be a real competitor to MS Office, but I think it will really only be used by small businesses and individuals. Large corporations are already dependent on Outlook/Exchange/macros to do their work, and I don't see any large corporations switching off of those anytime soon (especially since there is no real groupware solution that Sun offers that compares with Exchange.)
But would you have liked this movie...
on
Review: Zoolander
·
· Score: 0, Troll
...if not for the disaster that happened?
I saw this movie last night. Although it was funny, it wasn't absolutely a golden, five-star comedy. In fact, had it not been for the disaster, I wonder if this movie would have even gotten away from the panning that seems to follow actors like Will Ferrell around.
As it stands, this movie was the first pure comedy to come out after the disaster, and as Katz points out, maybe people just needed to laugh. I really don't think that this movie would have gotten such rave reviews otherwise -- as one reviewer put it, "Under normal circumstances, Zoolander is the kind of movie I would recommend giving a pass to in theaters and waiting for the video release."
Oh, and BTW Katz, this statement isn't true: "Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), the four-time Male Model of the Year winner..." Zoolander only won three times; he went up on stage by mistake to claim his "fourth".
It looks like Microsoft wants to join as well, so it might not actually be a Passport "competitor".
From the article: "Microsoft Corp., which said last week it would expand its own Passport Net identification system to other enterprises, is in talks to join the alliance."
This debate has been around for a long time. In particular, things to note are:
Britain has considered introducing a system whereby a key to decrypting the encrypted data has to be sent to the government. Here is more information from a dissenting group of privacy advocates in Britain.
Microsoft has been accused of doing this (and I remember hearing about one time where they actually lost a server containing their only key.) There was a lot of debate over that; you can read some more abuot Microsoft's key structure here.
Here is a long but rather interesting viewpoint of the debate about crypto.
Don't forget (and please, tell your less technically-inclined friends) that crypto is NOT just used to send secret terrorist information. It is used by major retailers on the Internet to encrypt sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers.
A hypothetical example of my biggest personal fear regarding crypto follows:
An overzealous government tries to stomp out terrorism by requiring crypto backdoors. For the sake of argument, let's say it is the United States. Now, there are millions of hackers out there. A lot of them are smart enough to realize that if the government required keys to be kept in a central location, a hack of this location would be the biggest hack EVER. It would contain ALL keys to credit card numbers used by major Internet retailers. It would contain sensitive healthcare information. It would contain numerous trade secrets sent by company representatives.
Before we go any further, let's say that it was hacked. Now Joe Consumer knows his personal information was sent to Amazon.com. Amazon was required to give the key to decrypting it to the government. Now some terrorist has it. The government blames rogue hackers. "Well, whatever," Joe thinks to himself. "All I know is that they got my information from the Internet. I'm certainly not going to buy anything from there again."
You see, in this (albeit alarmist) scenario, the government has facilitated what could possibly be the biggest terrorist attack EVER, and ruined e-commerce in the process.
As an offhand note, do you think the government would use a system like Passport to do this? If so, we're in for a really tough ride. Just something to think about.
P.S. While I abhor the thought of keeping data in one place, I do support the idea of basic security regulations so that I know that when I purchase things online, my data IS actually being encrypted instead of being sent via plaintext email to the site owner.
I work in the CMS group at a large tech company. (Key word: large.) We use ATG and Documentum to form ours, but there are many others depending on your needs... Interwoven, CVS, etc.
Here are the major features you should have in this system:
Easy management of content by non-technical people (yes, this wasn't one of your original goals, but if you're going to work on a content management system, do it right and enable forms-based publishing so not everyone publishing to your site has to know HTML/scripting.)
Version control, which CVS covers. Look at Documentum for more of this type of stuff.
Instant publishing so people can push content NOW and dated publishing so that people can push press releases out on Friday at 8AM without actually having to touch the system on Friday.
A large database on the backend that can handle all of these features, and at least two frontend servers: one for staging and one for released content.
This may sound like major overkill, but trust me, it's not. Put it this way: if you implement a solution using CVS (command-line tools) and rsync, you've just created a barrier to entry for publishing on your site. You want the marketing people to be able to push their cute little Flash/PPT/PDF presentations out NOW without having to log into a command-line system, and you want those same marketing people to do that without having to know anything besides Flash/PPT/PDF. You want publishing on your site to be easy and straightforward so that you, the sysadmin, can focus on the backend stuff without having to deal with marketing whining that they can't seem to get their new PDF on the site.
Spend the extra money and go with a content management system from the companies that do this for a living, and then you can rest easy and do the things you really want to do in your job while letting the website content manage itself.
There has been much discussion on some of our internal mailing lists about the best router. Some involve setting up an older computer or puchasing a new router. Well, I didn't want to clutter up my house with another PC, and I didn't want to spend $110+ on a router, so I used my existing Windows 2000 PC. It's easy to set up. Here are the details:
You will need:
-- Ethernet cards for each of the computers
-- At least one computer running Windows 2000 (recommended for stability)
-- A crossover cable or (preferably) a 10/100 Ethernet hub
Here is the easiest way to do this.
Install Ethernet cards into both of your computers.
Connect one PC to the modem. (If you have an Ethernet-based modem, you'll need two Ethernet cards in the computer connected to the modem.)
Connect both computers to the hub, or, if you're using a crossover cable, connect them together using that.
Make sure your Internet connection is up and running on the computer connected to the modem.
Assuming you're using Windows 2000, the next steps follow like this:
Right-click on My Network Places and click Properties. Right-click on your ethernet adapter and hit Properties. Click the tab labeled "Sharing" and click "Enable Internet Connection Sharing". (If you're using dual Ethernet cards in this system, you should right-click on the adapter connected to the outside world. TIP: rename your adapters so you know which is which; "External" and "Internal" are good choices.;)
That's it! Both your computers should now be connected to the Internet. Total cost: two ethernet cards at $10-$20 each and a Netgear 4-port 10/100 hub at $40 for $80 maximum.
I recommend installing Windows 2000 (or heck, Windows XP Pro) if you're going to be doing file/print sharing and networking. Windows 2000 in general is a much better product than Windows 9x for network-intensive applications. Whatever you do, if you enable file/print sharing, do yourself a favor and make sure that both computers have the same OS, as you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run. (It is possible to do it with 2000 and 98, but it's a lot more of a hassle than with both computers running the same variety of Windows.)
You can also do the above using Linux, but I already had the Windows 2000 computer, and Linux's version of ICS isn't that easy to set up. Windows 98 and ME also have the Internet Connection Sharing option.
If you want to do specific routing such as setting internal static IPs or setting up network printers, you're much better off going with a server OS. I've used Windows 2000 Server to do this. However, for your basic home networking setup, W2K Pro works wonderfully.
I don't understand why this should go to court. Someone took his own time and spent it to make Lego's hardware better. If Lego simply bought the modification for x dollars, wouldn't the problem be solved?
Look at game mods, for example. Game companies let people create modifications for their games and then they BUY the best ones, repackage them, test them, and ship them, therefore accepting responsibility for tech support. This would solve Lego's problem of "If it -- or any other third-party OS -- becomes widely used, Lego would have trouble vouching for the reliability of its product and providing tech support."
Okay, next. Lego offered the hackers a job. Why offer them a salary when you can simply pay them so much for the alternative OS and use it as the basis for your next robots, or offer it as a free, supported, "advanced users only" download?
The only problem I see with the above is what happens when the hackers continue to improve the OS. Do you keep paying them, or not? That would be something Lego would have to work out with them. However, I still see no reason for them to drag these people into court. These people believed in something and made it better -- they weren't trying to undercut Lego, and they are not selling alternative hardware (which Lego freely admits is its core business.) So what's the problem here?
"There is definitly no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their CD. If this was a promotional CD I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."
Ahem...
"There is definitely no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their software. If this was demoware I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."
"I'm ready to dig into the configuration settings, create shell scripts, or whatever, so that he never knows he's on Linux -- he logs on and the emulator presents him Windows in full-screen -- but which emulator? Looks like none of them is up to it on our modest (400 MHz Duron) hardware."
Seize the opportunity! "Honey, our son really needs his own computer. Why don't we just give him our old one? I can buy that new 1GHz Dell that's marked down to only $800...!"
"And that is the key to economical server centric computing with Linux. The PCs used for workstations can be obsolete, amortized, depreciated, recycled or free."
Obviously you do not live in a small town. Let me relate a quick story about one small business (my parents') that showcases why $25 computers often don't cut it.
My parents live in a small town in Indiana, and work in an even smaller town of 1200 people. My dad is the only lawyer in the town and my mom does the deeds and land transactions for the town.
They have an office with about 5 people. Of those 5, my mother and my dad's secretary have a computer, and there is a third computer for another person to use (usually the secretary's kids.) My dad is a complete technophobe who still refuses to touch a computer. My mother and my dad's secretary can use the Internet and Microsoft Word. I was their network/systems admin until I moved to California a couple of years back.
Their three computers are all specials of the month bought at various places I used to work. That means they have three generic computers that tend to break often since they are all more than a couple of years old, and have to put up with abuses ("Netscape stopped responding, so I unplugged the computer...")
When I left, they quickly sought out the only computer person in town, who refuses to support the computers well because they didn't come from his store. He routinely blames my mother for mistakes that obviously are not her fault. Often the computers are down for a day or more as he struggles to figure out what the problem would be.
To fix the persistent issues between this guy and my mother, I have agreed to get a quote from IBM for a new set of computers that would be all the same. Then they could call an IBM rep whenever they have problems, and get a quick and easy answer to their problems without having to worry about this guy complaining that "well, I have to charge you $100 for that 4MB video card because you didn't buy the computer from me."
The other reason my mom wants to go with IBM is that they have really cool-looking black computers and flat-panel monitors to go with them. The front office will now have a computer with a flat-panel monitor that people will see when they walk in. We are also going to get my dad an IBM laptop.
I think the author of this article forgot that in a lot of situations, a $25 X-terminal will not cut it. Sure, if you're staffed with a Linux guru, that would be an easy solution. But don't forget that your Linux guru would probably cost you $50,000 a year (or more!) to keep on staff. It doesn't make sense for offices like my parents' to do something like that. They want the 800 number support from a company like IBM or Dell, and they are definitely willing to pay the $1500 per computer to get it, if it means fewer support calls to the local guy.
"The current problem is version differences, they've switched about half the staff over to Windows 2000 servers, leaving the other half on Novell. Thus, no one can access anything as the servers dont have access to the databases any more because the techs are ID10Ts."
I think you said it yourself... the problem here is not Windows itself, but rather a lack of planning as well as poor deployment by your network administrators. Put everyone on Linux, and that problem still won't be solved... unless, of course, you get good sysadmins to go with the transition.
Perhaps this can be considered a naive post, but why use Ogg Vorbis? I understand the ideological reasons behind using something completely free as opposed to patented, but does Ogg offer anything more than that? Where is the superior encoding? Where are the smaller files? This I don't see.
Let's face it. Most of us don't pay for ANYTHING related to MP3s. Napster (now WinMX -- free. Programs to rip MP3s from a CD -- free. Players -- free. Okay, so if we're not paying anything outrageous to do ANYTHING associated with MP3s, why are we so concerned about something that is ideologically free?
The thing that was great about the Napster era was that EVERYONE had it. You could find everything from the most obscure song to the latest Top 40 crap, all in one place and all in one format. All your friends were on Napster, so you could browse hard drives and download the songs you liked from them. This was as good as it got; the high times of music sharing... controversial, but it opened up so many avenues for hearing what really good music was, and instituted a revivial of sorts of older but great classic music.
Now the market has been split among different Napster "clones" -- WinMX, Audiogalaxy, BearShare, Gnutella, Morpheus, etc. Now you have to sign on to at least one of those to find what you want, and it's often low-quality. However, at least you don't have to download 15 different players to get it all.
Standard formats are part of the computer industry, like it or not. (Just try sending a StarOffice file to your coworkers; you'll get the idea quickly enough.) MP3 is the standard for audio, and honestly, 99.99999% of the people using it find nothing wrong with it. We're not paying for anything associated with MP3; the convenience is that everyone else also has it; and the quality is pretty good, especially at 192k or above. I'm sorry, but I just don't see any reason to switch to something more obscure that just puts up one more barrier to me trading great music with my friends. More to the point, I GUARANTEE you that almost every computer user feels the same way.
On a side note, and since I'm damned curious, does anyone know what happens to a domain registered through NSI once it expires? How many days does it sit idle, and if they do sell them, where?
Well, from my experience, they go into what you call "limbo" for 30-90 days, during which Network Solutions sends out about 1 email and snail mail per month reminding the registered owner that this is his/her "!!!FINAL NOTICE!!!" and that his/her domain is about to expire. During that time, the registered owner can't transfer the domain to another party without paying NetSol $35 to drag it back out of limbo and into registered status. IMHO, this is utter bullshit, as NetSol sends out so many emails and snail mails before the actual registration period is up that if the owner hasn't renewed it, it's time to let everyone else have a fair shot.
Here's the best part: next, after the domain is actually expired, NetSol gets a week to foist it onto those people who pay for its newly expired domains newsletter. If there are no takers THERE, then it finally moves on to the rest of us. *sigh*
NetSol has a (mostly uninformative) FAQ about it here.
In addition to OEM-specific drivers, some Toshibas won't let you wipe with anything but a Toshiba reinstall CD. My Toshiba Portege 3480CT won't load the CDROM drivers in Win2000 setup unless you install from the Toshiba CD. I was leery of doing this at first, but it seemed to work out fine in the end -- after all, Windows 2000 works well, and there were minimal manufacturer-installed programs (mostly just shortcuts in the Start Menu to setup programs located on the CD.)
I tend to do the wipe-first-then-install on desktops, but with laptops there is so much that could go wrong. I wiped my boss's Fujitsu laptop (which came with Win98) and we put Win2000 on it -- there is still an "unknown device" in the Control Panel, even after we downloaded all requisite drivers from Fujitsu. Everything seems to work fine, but as always, be careful and YMMV, especially with proprietary hardware such as Compaq Deskpros and laptops.
I will miss Napster's feature of seeing what else a user has on their hard drive - If someone actually has Etta James' "Out of The Rain" or Gavin Bryars' "Jesus Blood Never Failed me Yet", I want to see what else they have. Probably stuff worth acquiring...
Try WinMx. Yeah, it only works on Windows, but it has all the features you wished Napster had... hotlist, enqueueing in Winamp, etc. Plus, it has this really neat feature that auto-displays your speed as "14.4k" when two or more people are downloading from you. The UI is way too complicated, IMHO, but they have enough MP3s on their network for me not to care.
The important battle was the one that got IT managers looking at alternatives instead of blindly choosing a Microsoft product.
The important battle was one that got Microsoft's internal documents out on the Internet for all to see and read. These showed how Microsoft's goal was domination with IE. (Never mind that, in the end, they did make a better browser than Netscape.)
The important battle got Linux thousands of headlines and millions of dollars in IPO money and venture capital.
The important battle was the one that got the phrase "open source" in the vocabulary of millions of people.
The important battle was the one that IBM joined -- Linux as a viable server alternative.
The other important battle was the one that got embedded Linux rolling. I love my TiVO, and I don't have to worry about anything dealing with regular Linux -- I can just sit back and let it record for me. That's what consumers want, and Linux delivered.
Folks, it ain't over. Linux has the mindshare now. Linux has IBM. Microsoft has been forced to make a really stable OS (2000) to compete.
Competition is a good thing. Microsoft sees the threat on its horizon. Even if Linux dies (which I don't think it will), Microsoft will have changed dramatically. Microsoft now is competing on features and stability, not on "well, everyone buys our product anyway, so we can afford to make it crappy."
In short, don't forget how far Linux has come, or how far it can go. Don't get caught up in these "anti-open-source" agendas; they are meant to take away from the real issue. Some of the best programs in the world are released as open-source, some are not. It's not the issue. The issue is that Linux/Apache/etc. has started to be taken seriously. This is a good thing.
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Have they gotten rid of that "integrated desktop"?
Yes. I think that was everyone's single biggest complaint about StarOffice. They have also gotten rid of the "memory hog" problem with 5.2, which was that it loaded all five applications into memory and used up about 64MB of physical RAM whenever you wanted to load it.
Their big new feature is using an open XML format for documents. I also believe they have killed the problem where StarOffice took over all of your email clients, other text editors, etc.
I think this version of StarOffice is honestly the first one that will be a real competitor to MS Office, but I think it will really only be used by small businesses and individuals. Large corporations are already dependent on Outlook/Exchange/macros to do their work, and I don't see any large corporations switching off of those anytime soon (especially since there is no real groupware solution that Sun offers that compares with Exchange.)
I saw this movie last night. Although it was funny, it wasn't absolutely a golden, five-star comedy. In fact, had it not been for the disaster, I wonder if this movie would have even gotten away from the panning that seems to follow actors like Will Ferrell around.
As it stands, this movie was the first pure comedy to come out after the disaster, and as Katz points out, maybe people just needed to laugh. I really don't think that this movie would have gotten such rave reviews otherwise -- as one reviewer put it, "Under normal circumstances, Zoolander is the kind of movie I would recommend giving a pass to in theaters and waiting for the video release."
Oh, and BTW Katz, this statement isn't true: "Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), the four-time Male Model of the Year winner..." Zoolander only won three times; he went up on stage by mistake to claim his "fourth".
It looks like Microsoft wants to join as well, so it might not actually be a Passport "competitor".
From the article: "Microsoft Corp., which said last week it would expand its own Passport Net identification system to other enterprises, is in talks to join the alliance."
"The Network Is The Computer"?
This debate has been around for a long time. In particular, things to note are:
A hypothetical example of my biggest personal fear regarding crypto follows:
An overzealous government tries to stomp out terrorism by requiring crypto backdoors. For the sake of argument, let's say it is the United States. Now, there are millions of hackers out there. A lot of them are smart enough to realize that if the government required keys to be kept in a central location, a hack of this location would be the biggest hack EVER. It would contain ALL keys to credit card numbers used by major Internet retailers. It would contain sensitive healthcare information. It would contain numerous trade secrets sent by company representatives.
Before we go any further, let's say that it was hacked. Now Joe Consumer knows his personal information was sent to Amazon.com. Amazon was required to give the key to decrypting it to the government. Now some terrorist has it. The government blames rogue hackers. "Well, whatever," Joe thinks to himself. "All I know is that they got my information from the Internet. I'm certainly not going to buy anything from there again."
You see, in this (albeit alarmist) scenario, the government has facilitated what could possibly be the biggest terrorist attack EVER, and ruined e-commerce in the process.
As an offhand note, do you think the government would use a system like Passport to do this? If so, we're in for a really tough ride. Just something to think about.
P.S. While I abhor the thought of keeping data in one place, I do support the idea of basic security regulations so that I know that when I purchase things online, my data IS actually being encrypted instead of being sent via plaintext email to the site owner.
...a content management system (CMS).
I work in the CMS group at a large tech company. (Key word: large.) We use ATG and Documentum to form ours, but there are many others depending on your needs... Interwoven, CVS, etc.
Here are the major features you should have in this system:
This may sound like major overkill, but trust me, it's not. Put it this way: if you implement a solution using CVS (command-line tools) and rsync, you've just created a barrier to entry for publishing on your site. You want the marketing people to be able to push their cute little Flash/PPT/PDF presentations out NOW without having to log into a command-line system, and you want those same marketing people to do that without having to know anything besides Flash/PPT/PDF. You want publishing on your site to be easy and straightforward so that you, the sysadmin, can focus on the backend stuff without having to deal with marketing whining that they can't seem to get their new PDF on the site.
Spend the extra money and go with a content management system from the companies that do this for a living, and then you can rest easy and do the things you really want to do in your job while letting the website content manage itself.
There has been much discussion on some of our internal mailing lists about the best router. Some involve setting up an older computer or puchasing a new router. Well, I didn't want to clutter up my house with another PC, and I didn't want to spend $110+ on a router, so I used my existing Windows 2000 PC. It's easy to set up. Here are the details:
;)
You will need:
-- Ethernet cards for each of the computers
-- At least one computer running Windows 2000 (recommended for stability)
-- A crossover cable or (preferably) a 10/100 Ethernet hub
Here is the easiest way to do this.
Install Ethernet cards into both of your computers.
Connect one PC to the modem. (If you have an Ethernet-based modem, you'll need two Ethernet cards in the computer connected to the modem.)
Connect both computers to the hub, or, if you're using a crossover cable, connect them together using that.
Make sure your Internet connection is up and running on the computer connected to the modem.
Assuming you're using Windows 2000, the next steps follow like this:
Right-click on My Network Places and click Properties. Right-click on your ethernet adapter and hit Properties. Click the tab labeled "Sharing" and click "Enable Internet Connection Sharing". (If you're using dual Ethernet cards in this system, you should right-click on the adapter connected to the outside world. TIP: rename your adapters so you know which is which; "External" and "Internal" are good choices.
That's it! Both your computers should now be connected to the Internet. Total cost: two ethernet cards at $10-$20 each and a Netgear 4-port 10/100 hub at $40 for $80 maximum.
I recommend installing Windows 2000 (or heck, Windows XP Pro) if you're going to be doing file/print sharing and networking. Windows 2000 in general is a much better product than Windows 9x for network-intensive applications. Whatever you do, if you enable file/print sharing, do yourself a favor and make sure that both computers have the same OS, as you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run. (It is possible to do it with 2000 and 98, but it's a lot more of a hassle than with both computers running the same variety of Windows.)
You can also do the above using Linux, but I already had the Windows 2000 computer, and Linux's version of ICS isn't that easy to set up. Windows 98 and ME also have the Internet Connection Sharing option.
If you want to do specific routing such as setting internal static IPs or setting up network printers, you're much better off going with a server OS. I've used Windows 2000 Server to do this. However, for your basic home networking setup, W2K Pro works wonderfully.
I don't understand why this should go to court. Someone took his own time and spent it to make Lego's hardware better. If Lego simply bought the modification for x dollars, wouldn't the problem be solved?
Look at game mods, for example. Game companies let people create modifications for their games and then they BUY the best ones, repackage them, test them, and ship them, therefore accepting responsibility for tech support. This would solve Lego's problem of "If it -- or any other third-party OS -- becomes widely used, Lego would have trouble vouching for the reliability of its product and providing tech support."
Okay, next. Lego offered the hackers a job. Why offer them a salary when you can simply pay them so much for the alternative OS and use it as the basis for your next robots, or offer it as a free, supported, "advanced users only" download?
The only problem I see with the above is what happens when the hackers continue to improve the OS. Do you keep paying them, or not? That would be something Lego would have to work out with them. However, I still see no reason for them to drag these people into court. These people believed in something and made it better -- they weren't trying to undercut Lego, and they are not selling alternative hardware (which Lego freely admits is its core business.) So what's the problem here?
"There is definitly no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their CD. If this was a promotional CD I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."
Ahem...
"There is definitely no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their software. If this was demoware I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy."
Damn. :(
So will CDs come with end-user license agreements now?
In other news, AMD has changed its company name to Cyrix...
(BTW, the link above is actually a pretty interesting diatribe about why Cyrix's performance ratings stunk.)
"I'm ready to dig into the configuration settings, create shell scripts, or whatever, so that he never knows he's on Linux -- he logs on and the emulator presents him Windows in full-screen -- but which emulator? Looks like none of them is up to it on our modest (400 MHz Duron) hardware."
Seize the opportunity! "Honey, our son really needs his own computer. Why don't we just give him our old one? I can buy that new 1GHz Dell that's marked down to only $800...!"
"Problem is, he doesn't know shit about Linux or he'd be making real money doing admin work somewhere instead of selling clones with a 5% margin."
Hey, do you know the guy I'm talking about? ;)
Your comments are right on. :)
"And that is the key to economical server centric computing with Linux. The PCs used for workstations can be obsolete, amortized, depreciated, recycled or free."
Obviously you do not live in a small town. Let me relate a quick story about one small business (my parents') that showcases why $25 computers often don't cut it.
My parents live in a small town in Indiana, and work in an even smaller town of 1200 people. My dad is the only lawyer in the town and my mom does the deeds and land transactions for the town.
They have an office with about 5 people. Of those 5, my mother and my dad's secretary have a computer, and there is a third computer for another person to use (usually the secretary's kids.) My dad is a complete technophobe who still refuses to touch a computer. My mother and my dad's secretary can use the Internet and Microsoft Word. I was their network/systems admin until I moved to California a couple of years back.
Their three computers are all specials of the month bought at various places I used to work. That means they have three generic computers that tend to break often since they are all more than a couple of years old, and have to put up with abuses ("Netscape stopped responding, so I unplugged the computer...")
When I left, they quickly sought out the only computer person in town, who refuses to support the computers well because they didn't come from his store. He routinely blames my mother for mistakes that obviously are not her fault. Often the computers are down for a day or more as he struggles to figure out what the problem would be.
To fix the persistent issues between this guy and my mother, I have agreed to get a quote from IBM for a new set of computers that would be all the same. Then they could call an IBM rep whenever they have problems, and get a quick and easy answer to their problems without having to worry about this guy complaining that "well, I have to charge you $100 for that 4MB video card because you didn't buy the computer from me."
The other reason my mom wants to go with IBM is that they have really cool-looking black computers and flat-panel monitors to go with them. The front office will now have a computer with a flat-panel monitor that people will see when they walk in. We are also going to get my dad an IBM laptop.
I think the author of this article forgot that in a lot of situations, a $25 X-terminal will not cut it. Sure, if you're staffed with a Linux guru, that would be an easy solution. But don't forget that your Linux guru would probably cost you $50,000 a year (or more!) to keep on staff. It doesn't make sense for offices like my parents' to do something like that. They want the 800 number support from a company like IBM or Dell, and they are definitely willing to pay the $1500 per computer to get it, if it means fewer support calls to the local guy.
"The current problem is version differences, they've switched about half the staff over to Windows 2000 servers, leaving the other half on Novell. Thus, no one can access anything as the servers dont have access to the databases any more because the techs are ID10Ts."
I think you said it yourself... the problem here is not Windows itself, but rather a lack of planning as well as poor deployment by your network administrators. Put everyone on Linux, and that problem still won't be solved... unless, of course, you get good sysadmins to go with the transition.
Perhaps this can be considered a naive post, but why use Ogg Vorbis? I understand the ideological reasons behind using something completely free as opposed to patented, but does Ogg offer anything more than that? Where is the superior encoding? Where are the smaller files? This I don't see.
Let's face it. Most of us don't pay for ANYTHING related to MP3s. Napster (now WinMX -- free. Programs to rip MP3s from a CD -- free. Players -- free. Okay, so if we're not paying anything outrageous to do ANYTHING associated with MP3s, why are we so concerned about something that is ideologically free?
The thing that was great about the Napster era was that EVERYONE had it. You could find everything from the most obscure song to the latest Top 40 crap, all in one place and all in one format. All your friends were on Napster, so you could browse hard drives and download the songs you liked from them. This was as good as it got; the high times of music sharing... controversial, but it opened up so many avenues for hearing what really good music was, and instituted a revivial of sorts of older but great classic music.
Now the market has been split among different Napster "clones" -- WinMX, Audiogalaxy, BearShare, Gnutella, Morpheus, etc. Now you have to sign on to at least one of those to find what you want, and it's often low-quality. However, at least you don't have to download 15 different players to get it all.
Standard formats are part of the computer industry, like it or not. (Just try sending a StarOffice file to your coworkers; you'll get the idea quickly enough.) MP3 is the standard for audio, and honestly, 99.99999% of the people using it find nothing wrong with it. We're not paying for anything associated with MP3; the convenience is that everyone else also has it; and the quality is pretty good, especially at 192k or above. I'm sorry, but I just don't see any reason to switch to something more obscure that just puts up one more barrier to me trading great music with my friends. More to the point, I GUARANTEE you that almost every computer user feels the same way.
i love j00 all... esp you-know-who!
corky6921
So why is this called the "State of the Onion"? It obviously isn't a typo; it's in the article as well.
(Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to be loading now, or else I'd answer my own question.)
On a side note, and since I'm damned curious, does anyone know what happens to a domain registered through NSI once it expires? How many days does it sit idle, and if they do sell them, where?
Well, from my experience, they go into what you call "limbo" for 30-90 days, during which Network Solutions sends out about 1 email and snail mail per month reminding the registered owner that this is his/her "!!!FINAL NOTICE!!!" and that his/her domain is about to expire. During that time, the registered owner can't transfer the domain to another party without paying NetSol $35 to drag it back out of limbo and into registered status. IMHO, this is utter bullshit, as NetSol sends out so many emails and snail mails before the actual registration period is up that if the owner hasn't renewed it, it's time to let everyone else have a fair shot.
Here's the best part: next, after the domain is actually expired, NetSol gets a week to foist it onto those people who pay for its newly expired domains newsletter. If there are no takers THERE, then it finally moves on to the rest of us. *sigh*
NetSol has a (mostly uninformative) FAQ about it here.
In addition to OEM-specific drivers, some Toshibas won't let you wipe with anything but a Toshiba reinstall CD. My Toshiba Portege 3480CT won't load the CDROM drivers in Win2000 setup unless you install from the Toshiba CD. I was leery of doing this at first, but it seemed to work out fine in the end -- after all, Windows 2000 works well, and there were minimal manufacturer-installed programs (mostly just shortcuts in the Start Menu to setup programs located on the CD.)
I tend to do the wipe-first-then-install on desktops, but with laptops there is so much that could go wrong. I wiped my boss's Fujitsu laptop (which came with Win98) and we put Win2000 on it -- there is still an "unknown device" in the Control Panel, even after we downloaded all requisite drivers from Fujitsu. Everything seems to work fine, but as always, be careful and YMMV, especially with proprietary hardware such as Compaq Deskpros and laptops.
Oh, you mean 75 days...
I will miss Napster's feature of seeing what else a user has on their hard drive - If someone actually has Etta James' "Out of The Rain" or Gavin Bryars' "Jesus Blood Never Failed me Yet", I want to see what else they have. Probably stuff worth acquiring...
Try WinMx. Yeah, it only works on Windows, but it has all the features you wished Napster had ... hotlist, enqueueing in Winamp, etc. Plus, it has this really neat feature that auto-displays your speed as "14.4k" when two or more people are downloading from you. The UI is way too complicated, IMHO, but they have enough MP3s on their network for me not to care.
"Oh... uh... yeah..."
Yes it is. That's from my desktop computer.
The important battle was the one that got IT managers looking at alternatives instead of blindly choosing a Microsoft product.
The important battle was one that got Microsoft's internal documents out on the Internet for all to see and read. These showed how Microsoft's goal was domination with IE. (Never mind that, in the end, they did make a better browser than Netscape.)
The important battle got Linux thousands of headlines and millions of dollars in IPO money and venture capital.
The important battle was the one that got the phrase "open source" in the vocabulary of millions of people.
The important battle was the one that IBM joined -- Linux as a viable server alternative.
The other important battle was the one that got embedded Linux rolling. I love my TiVO, and I don't have to worry about anything dealing with regular Linux -- I can just sit back and let it record for me. That's what consumers want, and Linux delivered.
Folks, it ain't over. Linux has the mindshare now. Linux has IBM. Microsoft has been forced to make a really stable OS (2000) to compete.
Competition is a good thing. Microsoft sees the threat on its horizon. Even if Linux dies (which I don't think it will), Microsoft will have changed dramatically. Microsoft now is competing on features and stability, not on "well, everyone buys our product anyway, so we can afford to make it crappy."
In short, don't forget how far Linux has come, or how far it can go. Don't get caught up in these "anti-open-source" agendas; they are meant to take away from the real issue. Some of the best programs in the world are released as open-source, some are not. It's not the issue. The issue is that Linux/Apache/etc. has started to be taken seriously. This is a good thing.
when CmdrTaco agrees with Bill Gates...