Note that O'Reilly has their own electronic book service called Safari. Most of their own books, and those of a few affiliated publishers, can be completely read online and fully searched. It's very handy considering reference material can become outdated so quickly. So rather than spend $100 on 2 paper books you can look at 5 at a time for one year of their service. And you can change what's on your "bookshelf" every month.
They have a lot to gain by people getting used to electronic books.
I've been a huge fan of Civilization since it first came out. I've always thought the AI of the computer players is relatively good, especially how each has certain characteristics which differentiate them and give them strengths and weaknesses. But AI in strategy games doesn't seemed to have advanced drastically in the last 15 years. What do you imagine the next big advances in game AI will be? When will games really learn how you play? When will we not be able to tell the difference between a human and computer competitor?
All of the businesses in my area (suburban NYC) are in multiple online listings. So I've found only very good info in Google's local search. And the maps and directions have never been incorrect for me. Apparently they have much better data for my location than many others.
What Google will keep offering is new ideas based on search, not better search. For example, they added local searching and tied it to maps. Mapquest and Yahoo offered it sooner, but Google did it better. They tied their search engine to email. Now they're adding printed books. One day they'll come up with a much more accurate way to search. But for now they can keep innovating on the fringes of the search itself.
When the bandwidth becomes high enough, every app can be downloaded quickly. Every client app can become part of a service. They can all dial home to see if you've paid your app bill this month. I think software-as-a-service companies have had this vision for a long time. It just hasn't taken shape.
There'll always be a place for the operating system.
Desktops are used mostly for internet-based activities: e-mail, web browsing, file sharing... The local computer's OS is not as relevant as it used to be. Microsoft needs their OS to be important to the user to prevent switching in the long term. Whether it's dependance on client apps or a more proprietary web, they want people to want Windows. They're afraid that when the dependance drops, so will the customers.
The last time it was Netscape. So they cut the legs out from under them. The good news is they can't do the same to Google. They've already set the default home page to MSN. But people still go to Google.
Shortage is IBM's mainframe skills... IBM is running on its last generation of mainframe employees.
I'm not sure where you get your info, but a few weeks ago I met a handful of young IBM workers from their mainframe department. They each work in different teams and told me there are both young and old. There's simply an age gap due to the 10 years of not hiring in the NY state area. But there are plenty of young employees working on ancient systems. These weren't kids installing linux, either. They were talking Z/OS and encryption.
This definitely sounds like one of the most altruistic actions of a company I've ever heard. This will certainly lead to some happier employees. But it can also lead to more college professors having IBM experience, which could lead to students better educated to work at IBM. Not only does it help the industry, in the very long term it can come back to help IBM. This seems like fantastic foresight on IBM's part.
Another reason his statistics are useless: He ignores all past unfixed vulnerabilities. Before Microsoft forced the removal of the pages from the internet last year, there were 20+ documented old IE bugs. Many of these existed for over a year and still may not be fixed today. Mentioning 10 recent announcements is irrelevant when there are twice as many older vulnerabilities which still haven't been fixed.
Your #1 point is definitely the most important. There is no way to know exactly how vulnerable IE is. At least with an open source browser we don't have to believe the word of one closed group.
For decades Microsoft has been telling developers what they consider to be best practices: color combinations, window behaviors, button actions, etc. However, they contradict them with their own software. The best example is the file open/save dialog. They tell developers to use the one built into the OS so every app is consistant. Yet with each release of Office they use custom dialogs so they don't match any other.
So should they keep changing the UI? Maybe. But they frustrate users when every app on the same system acts differently. Generally the desktop should determine the UI characteristics and the apps should share them. Upgrade the desktop and the UI for all apps gets updated. The hodge-podge of user interfaces presented by Windows confuses and frustrates users.
The first rule of good user interface design is to be consistant.
Yeah, cause hacking never resulted in the creation of any large software companies... Microsoft thinks there's no way to profit from hobbyists. How was it their company got started again?
Two idle windows computers prevented all of our Mac and Linux desktops from connecting out to our ISP. These two computers which sit around just for testing knocked out two of our routers (or maybe just the DSL modem). We pulled them off the network and now everything's fine.
I used to complain when I used Windows. But it causes me problems even when I'm never using it! Hence my sig.
Aside from the fact you don't own all of the information pertaining to you (the fact you drive a car of a certain color, for example), this isn't theft. How are they preventing you from profitting from it? They sell the information about you. Is there anything preventing you from selling the same information? No.
I've found the average desktop user never puts a video DVD in their drive. I see it used for video watching often on laptops, but never desktops. I don't think the average home or "enterprise" user cares.
Make the cost of doing business the entire business. Sue the company out of existance and, if their company is set up in such a way that allows it, sue the spammer into bancruptcy.
C'mon people. At least try to read between the lines. He's not trying to make an exact prediction of what's to come. He talking like a dreamer of what could be. He believes it's possible and phrases it as straight fact to drive the point harder.
Lighten up. It's not a news article. It's an opinion, a different view of the world.
Both monitary policy and Microsoft are about controlling and manipulating information that people are allowed to have or apply.
The value of anything is merely what others are willing to give you for it. Money can be backed by gold because gold has a value to others. Money can be backed by the US government because the country has an intrinsic value to others.
Monetary policy has nothing to do with controlling information, only perception. Therefore the only correlation to Microsoft is that it's perception dictates its value (i.e. stock price).
So, because every company does exactly the same thing it should be ignored? If everyone's doing it there's no reason to investigate and ask questions? Lxer is merely trying to open peoples' eyes to a little of what's going on. But for you ignorance is bliss.
Hayden Christensen is a terrible actor. Ignoring script and storyline issues he isn't able to convey much emotion through the screen. One easy test of good acting: are you able to forget the actor is anyone but the character they are portraying? In this case I saw the actor more than the character. I'm completely shocked that he was able to get this role. I'd be surprised if he got it any other way than knowing someone big on the inside. He simply isn't able to pretend to be someone else.
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software... Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." - Bill Gates
Slashdot Mirror
Note that O'Reilly has their own electronic book service called Safari. Most of their own books, and those of a few affiliated publishers, can be completely read online and fully searched. It's very handy considering reference material can become outdated so quickly. So rather than spend $100 on 2 paper books you can look at 5 at a time for one year of their service. And you can change what's on your "bookshelf" every month.
They have a lot to gain by people getting used to electronic books.
I've been a huge fan of Civilization since it first came out. I've always thought the AI of the computer players is relatively good, especially how each has certain characteristics which differentiate them and give them strengths and weaknesses. But AI in strategy games doesn't seemed to have advanced drastically in the last 15 years. What do you imagine the next big advances in game AI will be? When will games really learn how you play? When will we not be able to tell the difference between a human and computer competitor?
All of the businesses in my area (suburban NYC) are in multiple online listings. So I've found only very good info in Google's local search. And the maps and directions have never been incorrect for me. Apparently they have much better data for my location than many others.
What Google will keep offering is new ideas based on search, not better search. For example, they added local searching and tied it to maps. Mapquest and Yahoo offered it sooner, but Google did it better. They tied their search engine to email. Now they're adding printed books. One day they'll come up with a much more accurate way to search. But for now they can keep innovating on the fringes of the search itself.
When the bandwidth becomes high enough, every app can be downloaded quickly. Every client app can become part of a service. They can all dial home to see if you've paid your app bill this month. I think software-as-a-service companies have had this vision for a long time. It just hasn't taken shape.
There'll always be a place for the operating system.
Desktops are used mostly for internet-based activities: e-mail, web browsing, file sharing... The local computer's OS is not as relevant as it used to be. Microsoft needs their OS to be important to the user to prevent switching in the long term. Whether it's dependance on client apps or a more proprietary web, they want people to want Windows. They're afraid that when the dependance drops, so will the customers.
The last time it was Netscape. So they cut the legs out from under them. The good news is they can't do the same to Google. They've already set the default home page to MSN. But people still go to Google.
Shortage is IBM's mainframe skills... IBM is running on its last generation of mainframe employees.
I'm not sure where you get your info, but a few weeks ago I met a handful of young IBM workers from their mainframe department. They each work in different teams and told me there are both young and old. There's simply an age gap due to the 10 years of not hiring in the NY state area. But there are plenty of young employees working on ancient systems. These weren't kids installing linux, either. They were talking Z/OS and encryption.
This definitely sounds like one of the most altruistic actions of a company I've ever heard. This will certainly lead to some happier employees. But it can also lead to more college professors having IBM experience, which could lead to students better educated to work at IBM. Not only does it help the industry, in the very long term it can come back to help IBM. This seems like fantastic foresight on IBM's part.
Another reason his statistics are useless: He ignores all past unfixed vulnerabilities. Before Microsoft forced the removal of the pages from the internet last year, there were 20+ documented old IE bugs. Many of these existed for over a year and still may not be fixed today. Mentioning 10 recent announcements is irrelevant when there are twice as many older vulnerabilities which still haven't been fixed.
Your #1 point is definitely the most important. There is no way to know exactly how vulnerable IE is. At least with an open source browser we don't have to believe the word of one closed group.
For decades Microsoft has been telling developers what they consider to be best practices: color combinations, window behaviors, button actions, etc. However, they contradict them with their own software. The best example is the file open/save dialog. They tell developers to use the one built into the OS so every app is consistant. Yet with each release of Office they use custom dialogs so they don't match any other.
So should they keep changing the UI? Maybe. But they frustrate users when every app on the same system acts differently. Generally the desktop should determine the UI characteristics and the apps should share them. Upgrade the desktop and the UI for all apps gets updated. The hodge-podge of user interfaces presented by Windows confuses and frustrates users.
The first rule of good user interface design is to be consistant.
Yeah, cause hacking never resulted in the creation of any large software companies... Microsoft thinks there's no way to profit from hobbyists. How was it their company got started again?
MySQL definitely has a lot more mindshare. Therefore it's probably still more popular.
The schemas must be licensed from MS. In a way they're proprietary because they're not open for everyone's free (as in speech) use.
Ability to parse and permission to parse are two different things.
*Raising hand*
Two idle windows computers prevented all of our Mac and Linux desktops from connecting out to our ISP. These two computers which sit around just for testing knocked out two of our routers (or maybe just the DSL modem). We pulled them off the network and now everything's fine.
I used to complain when I used Windows. But it causes me problems even when I'm never using it! Hence my sig.
Aside from the fact you don't own all of the information pertaining to you (the fact you drive a car of a certain color, for example), this isn't theft. How are they preventing you from profitting from it? They sell the information about you. Is there anything preventing you from selling the same information? No.
So go ahead, try to sell it.
I've found the average desktop user never puts a video DVD in their drive. I see it used for video watching often on laptops, but never desktops. I don't think the average home or "enterprise" user cares.
In case anyone needs a refresher or summary of Microsoft's other anti-competitive practices:
http://www.msversus.org/node/68
Send people to jail for sending email? C'mon...
Make the cost of doing business the entire business. Sue the company out of existance and, if their company is set up in such a way that allows it, sue the spammer into bancruptcy.
(I appologize in advance)
A Flexbeta article covers the basics of WiF security.
Apparently it sucks because someone already stole the last "i".
C'mon people. At least try to read between the lines. He's not trying to make an exact prediction of what's to come. He talking like a dreamer of what could be. He believes it's possible and phrases it as straight fact to drive the point harder.
Lighten up. It's not a news article. It's an opinion, a different view of the world.
Both monitary policy and Microsoft are about controlling and manipulating information that people are allowed to have or apply.
The value of anything is merely what others are willing to give you for it. Money can be backed by gold because gold has a value to others. Money can be backed by the US government because the country has an intrinsic value to others.
Monetary policy has nothing to do with controlling information, only perception. Therefore the only correlation to Microsoft is that it's perception dictates its value (i.e. stock price).
So, because every company does exactly the same thing it should be ignored? If everyone's doing it there's no reason to investigate and ask questions? Lxer is merely trying to open peoples' eyes to a little of what's going on. But for you ignorance is bliss.
Hayden Christensen is a terrible actor. Ignoring script and storyline issues he isn't able to convey much emotion through the screen. One easy test of good acting: are you able to forget the actor is anyone but the character they are portraying? In this case I saw the actor more than the character. I'm completely shocked that he was able to get this role. I'd be surprised if he got it any other way than knowing someone big on the inside. He simply isn't able to pretend to be someone else.
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software... Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." - Bill Gates
http://www.msversus.org/node/117