Most contents removed is as a result of it being slashdotted and the company who provided web hosting service decided that it's better to remove them and cancelled the associated accounts to avoid exceesive bandwidth bill next month.
If you can see this, you can realize that we are among one of those bloodly murderers who killed those contents.:)
Here is the content I shamelessly mirrored without the permission from the original author. Now all those meta-karma-whore flamers can jump up to my ass and sue me for plaigarism.
Caching Content and the Shrinking Web? Posted by Cliff on 02:55 AM -- Friday March 14 2003
from the keeping-the-context-intact dept.
kill-hup asks: "I know the issue of caching linked pages has been discussed many times here on Slashdot, but the majority of those discussions centered around the 'Slashdot Effect' knocking remote content servers off-line. How does the ethic/legality issue change, if any, when we're talking about information that once was available but now has moved or disappeared from the provider's site?"
"I run a small discussion-oriented site patterned after Slashdot; small story blurbs and discussion center around links to external content. From time to time we post our own content, but the vast majority involves links to articles on other sites. This structure obviously relies heavily on the external pages being available for our visitors so they can understand the issue or viewpoint being highlighted.
Just before the new year, I took a look back at story entries that had been posted throughout 2002 and found it interesting to note that a large portion of the linked content was no longer available/had moved/etc. In the short term, this is not an issue; most outside material tends to remain available for the length of an active discussion. The problem I see is visitors coming to the site by way of search engines to stories whose linked content no longer exists. Without the background provided by the referenced story link, the discussion or quick blurb may not make sense or may not fulfill the request that brought the visitor to us.
I know I am not alone in this quandary and that others must have run into this before. While I respect the copyright of the external content providers and do not wish to get into the whole issue of lost advertising revenue for them if I were to cache a local copy, I'm curious what other users are doing to mitigate this problem."
This is obviously wrong, the earth is only a little more than 5000 [creator-creation.com] years old.
This is a series of science paradox which show one scientific estimation is in contradiction with another. They may look very funny at the first glance, but they actually help us reconsider the validity of commonly adopted scientific assumptions.
I can't really comment on the earth rotation part as I'm not expert in this field, but his comment on electromagnetic decay is already answered by recent(not really recent) discovery of the fact that earth magnetic field will actually 'switch' over, i.e. North pole become South pole and vice versa, periodically. They 'swtich' will happen so rapid that (~100 years) will cause catastrophic effect on all species on earth. That explain why the decay in electromagnetic field and it's not like his assumption that the electromagnetic field will eventually decay away.
Try playing Street Fighter II with a keyboard and mouse. Watch me whip you with a PS1 controller connected to the PC through an EMS USB2 adapter.
That's not fair, even a grade school kid knows a standard keyboard can deal more damage than a standard PS1 controller. Not to mention the extra punching effect dealt by that 101 keys. Oh and that removable, throwable ball in the mouse is also an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Of course, he might stand a chance if he use a non-standard joystick type controller, but only when the stick is being stuck into the right place on your opponent.
Microsoft doesn't expect to release another major DirectX update for a couple of years.
It's also looking into making it possible to run Windows games directly from the CD without installation.
Microsoft is working on a standard PC controller
Microsoft is really heading the right way - gaming. The idea of boot-n-play and standard controller really makes standard PC an excellent game console, and that's the way we long to see. They should really put more focus on what they are really good and and not waste time on fighting with other platforms with things they aren't good at.
I can foresee the future propaganda of Microsoft Windows - 'Ultimate Gaming Platform for PC and your great office assistant'.:)
Don't forget there are two other moons have been known to have similar subterranean worlds. Very strong evidence has been discovered to support the idea of subterranean oceans beneath the surfaces of two other Galilean moons, Ganymede and Callisto. While these would be colder, there is also far less radiation to wory about. With some luck, any of these three worlds may well host life, weither microbial or maybe something more complex.
How can they one-up on us in passing laws more ridiculous than OURS? We pioneer making laws supressing free-speech and protecting the best of the interests of richies and we won't let this lag behind of other countries, EVER! I'm going to talk to my senator about this.
and it's one-off? They don't know much about how Microsoft deals with competition. In this situation, Microsoft will offer twice as much in term of purchase coupons over 3, 5 or 7 contracts, and it'll be all done before next board meeting.:)
Tell your grandpa to call Microsoft if he wants to save MORE money.:)
Thank you for your support. I just tried to help but end up being called whore, as expected. My karma is already at max and it's not that I'd really care of it otherwise; BUT some people DO get mad at seeing that because they feel jealous as they ARE whore.:)
Concerning your post end up half way. I browse with Phoenix(similar to mozy I think) at +3/Threaded/Oldest First and don't get the problem. I've notice that the/. sometime returns false content length which causes adnormal behavior on client side like loading the page continously after it's being loaded. I'm not sure if it's related to your problem but IMHO either get/. fix that problem, or find another browser that is intelligent enough to detect false content length in loading pages.
Of the 136-paragraph Complaint filed by Caldera Systems, Inc., d/b/a The SCO Group, six are particularly significant regarding the Linux kernel, and the GNU/Linux operating system, and Linux distributions.
Paragraphs 74 and 82 through 86 of SCO-Caldera's Complaint belittle and insult Linux developers, the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, Linux distribution providers -- in essence the entire GNU/Linux and free software community.
In an e-mail discussion, we asked Linus Torvalds to comment on the Linux-related allegations SCO-Caldera makes in its Complaint against IBM. Here is Linus Torvalds' uncensored commentary.
Linus Torvalds: Ho humm..
I'm not all that excited about commenting a lot on lawsuits, since quite frankly I want to have as little as humanly possible to do with such things. At the same time I obviously do find the SCO one a bit interesting, since it's the first lawsuit ever I know of that actually involves Linux, even if Linux itself seems pretty peripheral.
Just as well, that "peripheral" thing;)
MozillaQuest Magazine: SCO-Caldera says in paragraph "82" that "it would be difficult or impossible for the Linux development community to create a grade of Linux adequate for enterprise use." (Without the aid of the alleged actionable conduct of IBM) Is that true?
Linus Torvalds: I don't think IBM would have started using Linux if it was true. I think IBM got serious about Linux because it noticed that it _was_ "adequate for enterprise use" from a technical perspective, but lacked a lot of things IBM could bring to the table (marketing, of course, but even more than just marketing, just the presence of IBM made Linux be taken much more seriously).
So I think IBM's involvement has been very important, but while IBM has fine engineers, the most important part by _far_ has been the "mindshare" part of it.
But what does "adequate for enterprise use" really mean? The marketing and mindshare certainly _matter_ a lot for pretty much all enterprise customers. So in _that_ sense maybe SCO is right, even though I don't think that is really what SCO _meant_.
MozillaQuest Magazine: It sounds as though this lawsuit is not a suit alleging copyright infringement, patent infringement, or trademark infringement (the standard three prongs of the intellectual property complex). Rather, it appears the Caldera v IBM action is more in the nature of a contract or tort action.
Linus Torvalds: Yeah, I don't personally think they have any IP rights on Linux, and I agree, it looks more like a suit over the contract rather than over Linux itself.
I don't think they are going to win it (very very weak arguments, since at least from a technical perspective I don't think the IBM involvement has been that significant, and SCO was losing out _long_ before IBM started pushing Linux). However, my personal (maybe overly cynical) suspicion is that even _they_ don't think they'll win the suit, and it may be nothing more than a way to force IBM back into license discussions over UNIX itself.
So I think that 100-day license revocation thing may actually be the most important part of the whole suit, and that the rest might be just the excuse. If I was SCO and looking at IBM, I'd have long since noticed that IBM has been talking about Linux taking over more and more of their current AIX usage, to potentially eventually replace it altogether.
So SCO sees IBM largely going away as a licensee in a few years - and while I certainly don't have any knowledge of how much that means for SCO, I would not be surprised if IBM licenses are quite a noticeable part of SCOs receivables.
And what would you do? You want to get IBM back to the discussion table over licensing _before_ IBM starts to consider the UNIX licenses for AIX to be no longer worth it. I think IBM has announced they'll drop AIX eventually, but I do _not_ think that IBM is willing to drop it within three months. They tend to pride themselves on supporting their existing customers.
MozillaQuest Magazine: What sort of impact do you believe this sort of lawsuit filed by SCO-Caldera has on the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, UNIX, and the Linux and free-software communities?
Linus Torvalds: None, really. The people I work with couldn't care less.
The thrust of paragraphs 74 and 82 to 84 of SCO-Caldera's Complaint against IBM is that without the aid of the alleged actionable conduct of IBM, GNU/Linux would not be an enterprise/server grade operating system. Although in paragraph 84 of its Complaint, SCO-Caldera does not directly say it, when taken in context of the entire Complaint, SCO-Caldera is alleging that it is the alleged actionable conduct of IBM that provides items (1) through (5) set forth in paragraphs 84 to the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, and Linux distributions.
84. Prior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car. To make Linux of necessary quality for use by enterprise customers, it must be re-designed so that Linux also becomes the software equivalent of a luxury car. This re-design is not technologically feasible or even possible at the enterprise level without (1) a high degree of design coordination, (2) access to expensive and sophisticated design and testing equipment; (3) access to UNIX code, methods and concepts; (4) UNIX architectural experience; and (5) a very significant financial investment.
MozillaQuest Magazine: Did the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux developers and groups lack the technological capability of producing an enterprise level Linux without being bailed-out by IBM as SCO-Caldera claims?
Linus Torvalds: "Bailed-out by IBM"? Hardly. Oh, IBM has certainly been very helpful, and I like the IBM engineers I work with, but Linux was running on 16-cpu Sun sparc computers long before IBM really got into it.
In paragraph 85 of its Complaint against IBM, SCO-Caldera alleges that the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux are limited to handling a maximum of four CPUs.
85. For example, Linux is currently capable of coordinating the simultaneous performance of 4 computer processors. UNIX, on the other hand, commonly links 16 processors and can successfully link up to 32 processors for simultaneous operation. This difference in memory management performance is very significant to enterprise customers who need extremely high computing capabilities for complex tasks. The ability to accomplish this task successfully has taken AT&T, Novell and SCO at least 20 years, with access to expensive equipment for design and testing, well-trained UNIX engineers and a wealth of experience in UNIX methods and concepts.
MozillaQuest Magazine: Is this true? I thought the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux can handle 32 CPUs?
Linus Torvalds: We still claim 4-8 CPU scalability. Yeah, it sure works on bigger machines, but they are just so uncommon as to not be a big issue yet, and most of peoples' resources are certainly spent on the mass market (well, UP is the _real_ mass market, but most of the kernel people tend to be fascinated by SMP issues, so we tend to target slightly higher;)
Normally, we end our articles with a summary and/or conclusion. We do not do so with this article. That's because we want you to have the benefits of Linus Torvalds' comments about the SCO-Caldera v IBM lawsuit without any spin from us. You are getting this just the way Linus said it and in context. Moreover, Linus Torvalds' comments are concise, well-expressed, and to the point. The only material in this article is Linus' comments with just enough background added by us to put the comments in perspective and context with the allegations of SCO-Caldera's Complaint. Thus, Linus Torvalds' comments need no interpretation or spin from us.
Ummm, IBM probably couldn't have produced OS/2 without at least some code from Microsoft.
Just fill up your missing pieces of history. Doesn't mean to flame or for karma.:)
OS/2 2.0 onward was entirely rewritten from the ground up, having seen the fact that outsourcing first release of OS/2 was an utter mistake. Imagine the mistakes they made: missing the time to market, losing the major servers market for mid-size enterprises; giving Microsoft the opportunities to perform test on an outsourced platform and took the success to their platform. Nobody considers that kind of partnership ever after.
In my place they've policy to charge only internet access while allow unrestricted intranet access. With proper configured proxy and community effort, downloading large files like Linux's iso/packages would not be an issue.
Later we might implement batch download request for large files downloading. However, reading thru it I don't see they've the sense and technical clue to implement such a fair policy and this would affect their legitimate academic research VERY much.
I wondered this policy is coming out of the minds of clueless managers who has never been admin a campus system for a day. I don't know how pirating mp3s and movies would be a problem to them, it's kinda easy to track them down - unless of course their compus rans by bunch of MCSE who cannot tell why bandwidth usage would be skyrocked.
(apology to the rest MCSE with clue. So far I haven't met one with clue in rl)
You are absolutely right. Whenever somebody who has no previous linux experience come to ask me which distro to start with, I'll then ask 'Do you want to learn to use a distro or learn to use Linux?' For the latter case I'd definitely recommend Gentoo, at least they could learn a great deal about installing a Linux from sources or at least how to compile from sources. Of course, this is not for those who *just* want to learn to use a distro for their job.:)
In our sense we bought the goods and we own it. Of course, it's still illegal to make profit out of others' proprietary intellectual properties; beside that, you can do whatever you like to the things you buy and nobody would give you trouble.
Mod chips can be found everywhere here, and we even have whole streets dedicated to this hobbist. I think you can still remember the case of Lik Sang who got into trouble selling modchips on US goods. We've never seen similar case for goods from Japanese, Korean, etc.
If selling modchips is a crime, why don't they ban screwdriver as well? I'm not kidding, there's more crimes with screwdrivers than with modchips.:)
Having seen the difficulties in getting useful help from Microsoft Technical Support, some people has compared it with The Psychic Friends Network, see which is more helpful. You make your own judgement. (Can't find original, but you can find a repost here
Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network
In the course of a recent Microsoft Access programming project, we
had three difficult technical problems where we decided to call a
support hotline for advice. This article compares the two support
numbers we tried: Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends
Network. As a resultof this research, we have come to the following
conclusions: 1 ) that Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic
Friends Network are about equal in their ability to provide technical
assistance for Microsoft products over the phone ; 2 ) that the
Psychic Friends Net work has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the
areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support; but 3) that
Microsoft has a generally better refund policy if they fail to solve
your problem.
In the paragraphs that follow, we will detail the support calls we
made and the responses we received from each pport provider. We will
follow this with a discussion of the features provided by each support
provider so that readers can do their own rankings of the two
services.
Our research began when we called Microsoft regarding a bug that we
had detected when executing queries which pulled data from a Sybase
Server into Microsoft Access. If we used the same Access database to
query two databases on the same server, we found that all of the
queries aimed at the second database that we queried were sent to the
first database that we had queried. This problem existed no matter
which database we queried first. Dan called Microsoft's Technical
Solutions Line, gave them $55, and was connected with an official
Microsoft Access technical support person. As Dan began to explain the
problem, the support person interrupted him, and told him that since
it was clear that it was not just a problem with Access but with the
two programs together, Microsoft would not try to help us. They
did,however, have a consultant referral service with which he would be
glad to connect us. Dan then asked if we could have our $55 refunded,
since Microsoft was not going to try to answer to our question. The
tech support person responded by forwarding Dan to the person in
charge of giving refunds. The person officially in charge of giving
refunds took Dan's credit card info again, after which Dan asked about
the referral service. It was too late, however - the refund folks
could not reconnect Dan with the tech support guy he'd been talking
with, nor could he put Dan in touch with the referral service
hotline. End of Call One.
Our second call came when Dan was creating some line graphs in
Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access actually uses a program called
Microsoft Graph to create its graphs, and this program has a "feature"
that makes the automatic axis scale always start the scale at zero. If
all of your data are between 9,800 and 10,000 and you get a scale of 0
to 10,000, your data will appear as a flat line at the top of your
graph-not a very interesting chart. Since Dan was writing Visual Basic
code to create the graphs, he wanted to be able to use Visual Basic
code to change the graph scaling, but he could not find anything in
the help files that would tell him how to do this. After working with
Microsoft Graph for a while, Dan concluded that it probably didn't
have the capability that he needed, but he decided to call Microsoft
just to make sure. Dan described his problem to the technical support
person, whom we'll call Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Bob said he'd never
gotten a call about Microsoft Graph before. He then left Dan on hold
while he went to ask another support person how to use Microsoft
Graph. Microsoft Bob came back with the suggestion that Dan use the
online help. Dan, however, had already used the online help, and
didn't feel that this was an appropriate answer for a $55 support
call. Microsoft Bob didn't give up, though. He consulted the help
files and learned to change the graph scale by hand and then began
looking for a way to do this via code. After Microsoft Bob had spent
about an hour on the phone with Dan learning how to use Microsoft
Graph, Dan asked for a refund since he had no more time to spend on
the problem. Microsoft Bob refused the refund, however. He said he
wouldn't give up, and told Dan that he would call back the next
week.
Microsoft Bob did call back the following week to admit failure. He
could not help us. However, he couldn't give us a refund either.
Microsoft Bob's supervisor confirmed Microsoft Bob's position. While
Microsoft Technical Support hadn't solved our problem, they felt that
a refund was inappropriate since Microsoft Technical Support had spent
a lot of time not solving our problem. Dan persisted, however,
explaining that if Microsoft Bob actually knew the program, he would
have been able to give Dan a response much sooner. The supervisor made
no guarantees, but he instructed Dan to check his credit card bill at
the end of the month. The supervisor explained that if Dan saw that
the charge was still there at the end of the month,then he would know
that he hadn't gotten a refund. End of Call Two.
Our third call to Microsoft involved using the standard file save
dialog from within Microsoft Access to get a file name and directory
string from a user in order to save an exported file. The
documentation didn't make it clear how to do this using Visual Basic
code within Microsoft Access, and Dan decided to call Microsoft to ask
if and how a programmer could do this. The technical support person
he reached told him he was asking about a pretty heavy programming
task. He cheerily informed Dan that he'd called the wrong number and
advised Dan to call help for Visual Basic, not Access ($195 instead of
$55 ). This technical support person was extraordinarily helpful in
getting Dan his refund. End of Call Three.
Stymied by our responses from Microsoft, we decided to try another
service provider, the Psychic Friends Network. There are several
noticeable differences between Microsoft and the Psychic Friends
Network. Microsoft charges a flat rate per "solution," which is a
single problem and can be handled in multiple phone calls. As
described above, Microsoft may or may not issue a refund of their fee
if they fail to provide a solution for your problem. The Psychic
Friends Network charges a per minute fee. They do not offer a refund
if they cannot solve your problem. However, unlike Microsoft, they
will not charge you extra if they provide more than one solution per
call.
We decided to test the Psychic Friends Network by asking them the
same questions that we had asked Microsoft Technical Support. We
called them and were quickly connected with Ray, who was very
courteous and helpful. Like Microsoft Bob, Ray quickly informed us
that he wasn't fully up to date on the programs that we were working
with, but he was willing to help us anyway. We started off with our
first problem : making a connection from Microsoft Access to two
different Sybase Servers. Ray worked hard on this problem for us. He
sensed that there was a problem with something connecting, that
something wasn't being fulfilled either in a sexual, spiritual or
emotional way. Ray also identified that there was some sort of
physical failure going on that was causing the problem." Do you mean
that there's some sort of bug?" we asked. Ray denied that he knew
about any sort of bug in the software. "Are you sure there's not a
bug?" we asked. Ray insisted that he did not know of any bug in the
software, although he left open the possibility that there could be
some bug in the software that he did not know about. All in all, Ray
did not do much to distinguish himself from Microsoft Technical
Support. He wasn't able to solve our problem for us, and he wasn't
able to confirm or deny that a bug in Microsoft Access was causing the
problem. We then asked Ray our question about using Visual Basic to
set the axes of a chart. Ray thought hard about this one. Once again
he had the sense that something just wasn't connecting, that there was
some sort of physical failure that was causing our problem. "Could it
be that it's your computer that's the problem?" he asked. "Is this
something that happens just on your computer, or have you had the same
problem when you've tried to do the same thing on other computers?"
We assured Ray that we had the same problem on other computers, then
asked again, "This physical failure that you're talking about, do you
mean that there's some sort of bug?" Once again he assured us that
there wasn't a bug, but that he didn't know how to solve our
problem. "I sense there's some sort of sickness here, and you're just
going to have to sweat it out. If you'd like, you can call back
tomorrow. We have a couple of guys here, Steve and Paul, and they 're
much better with computer stuff than I am." To conclude our research,
we asked Ray about our problem with the standard file dialog box."
It's the same thing as the last one," he told us. "There's some sort
of sickness here, and you're just going to have to sweat it out. There
is a solution,though,and you're just going to have to work at it until
you get it."
Conclusions
In terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft
technician using Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic
Friends reader using Tarot Cards. All in all, however, the Psychic
Friends Net work proved to be a much friendlier organization than
Microsoft Technical Support. While neither group was actually able to
answer any of our technical questions, the Psychic Friends Network was
much faster than Microsoft and much more courteous. Which organization
is more affordable is open to question. If Microsoft does refund all
three "solutions" fees, then they will be the far more affordable
solution provider, having charged us no money for having given us no
assistance. However, if Microsoft does not refund the fees for our
call regarding Microsoft Graph, then they will have charged us more
than 120% of what the Psychic Friends charged, but without providing
the same fast and courteous service that Psychic Friends provided.
Slashdot Mirror
Most contents removed is as a result of it being slashdotted and the company who provided web hosting service decided that it's better to remove them and cancelled the associated accounts to avoid exceesive bandwidth bill next month.
:)
If you can see this, you can realize that we are among one of those bloodly murderers who killed those contents.
Here is the content I shamelessly mirrored without the permission from the original author. Now all those meta-karma-whore flamers can jump up to my ass and sue me for plaigarism.
Caching Content and the Shrinking Web?
Posted by Cliff on 02:55 AM -- Friday March 14 2003
from the keeping-the-context-intact dept.
kill-hup asks: "I know the issue of caching linked pages has been discussed many times here on Slashdot, but the majority of those discussions centered around the 'Slashdot Effect' knocking remote content servers off-line. How does the ethic/legality issue change, if any, when we're talking about information that once was available but now has moved or disappeared from the provider's site?"
"I run a small discussion-oriented site patterned after Slashdot; small story blurbs and discussion center around links to external content. From time to time we post our own content, but the vast majority involves links to articles on other sites. This structure obviously relies heavily on the external pages being available for our visitors so they can understand the issue or viewpoint being highlighted.
Just before the new year, I took a look back at story entries that had been posted throughout 2002 and found it interesting to note that a large portion of the linked content was no longer available/had moved/etc. In the short term, this is not an issue; most outside material tends to remain available for the length of an active discussion. The problem I see is visitors coming to the site by way of search engines to stories whose linked content no longer exists. Without the background provided by the referenced story link, the discussion or quick blurb may not make sense or may not fulfill the request that brought the visitor to us.
I know I am not alone in this quandary and that others must have run into this before. While I respect the copyright of the external content providers and do not wish to get into the whole issue of lost advertising revenue for them if I were to cache a local copy, I'm curious what other users are doing to mitigate this problem."
This is obviously wrong, the earth is only a little more than 5000 [creator-creation.com] years old.
This is a series of science paradox which show one scientific estimation is in contradiction with another. They may look very funny at the first glance, but they actually help us reconsider the validity of commonly adopted scientific assumptions.
I can't really comment on the earth rotation part as I'm not expert in this field, but his comment on electromagnetic decay is already answered by recent(not really recent) discovery of the fact that earth magnetic field will actually 'switch' over, i.e. North pole become South pole and vice versa, periodically. They 'swtich' will happen so rapid that (~100 years) will cause catastrophic effect on all species on earth. That explain why the decay in electromagnetic field and it's not like his assumption that the electromagnetic field will eventually decay away.
Try playing Street Fighter II with a keyboard and mouse. Watch me whip you with a PS1 controller connected to the PC through an EMS USB2 adapter.
That's not fair, even a grade school kid knows a standard keyboard can deal more damage than a standard PS1 controller. Not to mention the extra punching effect dealt by that 101 keys. Oh and that removable, throwable ball in the mouse is also an unfair advantage over your opponent.
Of course, he might stand a chance if he use a non-standard joystick type controller, but only when the stick is being stuck into the right place on your opponent.
Microsoft doesn't expect to release another major DirectX update for a couple of years.
:)
It's also looking into making it possible to run Windows games directly from the CD without installation.
Microsoft is working on a standard PC controller
Microsoft is really heading the right way - gaming. The idea of boot-n-play and standard controller really makes standard PC an excellent game console, and that's the way we long to see. They should really put more focus on what they are really good and and not waste time on fighting with other platforms with things they aren't good at.
I can foresee the future propaganda of Microsoft Windows - 'Ultimate Gaming Platform for PC and your great office assistant'.
Don't forget there are two other moons have been known to have similar subterranean worlds. Very strong evidence has been discovered to support the idea of subterranean oceans beneath the surfaces of two other Galilean moons, Ganymede and Callisto. While these would be colder, there is also far less radiation to wory about. With some luck, any of these three worlds may well host life, weither microbial or maybe something more complex.
How can they one-up on us in passing laws more ridiculous than OURS? We pioneer making laws supressing free-speech and protecting the best of the interests of richies and we won't let this lag behind of other countries, EVER! I'm going to talk to my senator about this.
and it's one-off? They don't know much about how Microsoft deals with competition. In this situation, Microsoft will offer twice as much in term of purchase coupons over 3, 5 or 7 contracts, and it'll be all done before next board meeting. :)
:)
Tell your grandpa to call Microsoft if he wants to save MORE money.
Thank you for your support. I just tried to help but end up being called whore, as expected. My karma is already at max and it's not that I'd really care of it otherwise; BUT some people DO get mad at seeing that because they feel jealous as they ARE whore. :)
/. sometime returns false content length which causes adnormal behavior on client side like loading the page continously after it's being loaded. I'm not sure if it's related to your problem but IMHO either get /. fix that problem, or find another browser that is intelligent enough to detect false content length in loading pages.
Concerning your post end up half way. I browse with Phoenix(similar to mozy I think) at +3/Threaded/Oldest First and don't get the problem. I've notice that the
Linix is short for Linus's Minix
:)
SCO asserted in the suit that
Linux is short for Linus + Unix.
There wouldn't have that much trouble if he's still naming it freax
SCO-Caldera v IBM: Linus Torvalds Comments on SCO-Caldera's Linux-Related Allegations
;)
;)
Nearly One-Half of SCO-Caldera Income from IP Licensing and Enforcement
By Mike Angelo -- 10 March 2003 (C)
For more than a month now, SCO-Caldera has been doing some intellectual property (IP) saber-rattling and market posturing regarding its UNIX source code ownership and Linux. On 6 March 2003, SCO-Caldera stopped its saber-rattling and pulled the sword out of its sheath when it filed a legal action against IBM regarding claims involving the UNIX and Linux operating systems.
Of the 136-paragraph Complaint filed by Caldera Systems, Inc., d/b/a The SCO Group, six are particularly significant regarding the Linux kernel, and the GNU/Linux operating system, and Linux distributions.
Paragraphs 74 and 82 through 86 of SCO-Caldera's Complaint belittle and insult Linux developers, the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, Linux distribution providers -- in essence the entire GNU/Linux and free software community.
In an e-mail discussion, we asked Linus Torvalds to comment on the Linux-related allegations SCO-Caldera makes in its Complaint against IBM. Here is Linus Torvalds' uncensored commentary.
Linus Torvalds: Ho humm..
I'm not all that excited about commenting a lot on lawsuits, since quite frankly I want to have as little as humanly possible to do with such things. At the same time I obviously do find the SCO one a bit interesting, since it's the first lawsuit ever I know of that actually involves Linux, even if Linux itself seems pretty peripheral.
Just as well, that "peripheral" thing
MozillaQuest Magazine: SCO-Caldera says in paragraph "82" that "it would be difficult or impossible for the Linux development community to create a grade of Linux adequate for enterprise use." (Without the aid of the alleged actionable conduct of IBM) Is that true?
Linus Torvalds: I don't think IBM would have started using Linux if it was true. I think IBM got serious about Linux because it noticed that it _was_ "adequate for enterprise use" from a technical perspective, but lacked a lot of things IBM could bring to the table (marketing, of course, but even more than just marketing, just the presence of IBM made Linux be taken much more seriously).
So I think IBM's involvement has been very important, but while IBM has fine engineers, the most important part by _far_ has been the "mindshare" part of it.
But what does "adequate for enterprise use" really mean? The marketing and mindshare certainly _matter_ a lot for pretty much all enterprise customers. So in _that_ sense maybe SCO is right, even though I don't think that is really what SCO _meant_.
MozillaQuest Magazine: It sounds as though this lawsuit is not a suit alleging copyright infringement, patent infringement, or trademark infringement (the standard three prongs of the intellectual property complex). Rather, it appears the Caldera v IBM action is more in the nature of a contract or tort action.
Linus Torvalds: Yeah, I don't personally think they have any IP rights on Linux, and I agree, it looks more like a suit over the contract rather than over Linux itself.
I don't think they are going to win it (very very weak arguments, since at least from a technical perspective I don't think the IBM involvement has been that significant, and SCO was losing out _long_ before IBM started pushing Linux). However, my personal (maybe overly cynical) suspicion is that even _they_ don't think they'll win the suit, and it may be nothing more than a way to force IBM back into license discussions over UNIX itself.
So I think that 100-day license revocation thing may actually be the most important part of the whole suit, and that the rest might be just the excuse. If I was SCO and looking at IBM, I'd have long since noticed that IBM has been talking about Linux taking over more and more of their current AIX usage, to potentially eventually replace it altogether.
So SCO sees IBM largely going away as a licensee in a few years - and while I certainly don't have any knowledge of how much that means for SCO, I would not be surprised if IBM licenses are quite a noticeable part of SCOs receivables.
And what would you do? You want to get IBM back to the discussion table over licensing _before_ IBM starts to consider the UNIX licenses for AIX to be no longer worth it. I think IBM has announced they'll drop AIX eventually, but I do _not_ think that IBM is willing to drop it within three months. They tend to pride themselves on supporting their existing customers.
MozillaQuest Magazine: What sort of impact do you believe this sort of lawsuit filed by SCO-Caldera has on the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, UNIX, and the Linux and free-software communities?
Linus Torvalds: None, really. The people I work with couldn't care less.
The thrust of paragraphs 74 and 82 to 84 of SCO-Caldera's Complaint against IBM is that without the aid of the alleged actionable conduct of IBM, GNU/Linux would not be an enterprise/server grade operating system. Although in paragraph 84 of its Complaint, SCO-Caldera does not directly say it, when taken in context of the entire Complaint, SCO-Caldera is alleging that it is the alleged actionable conduct of IBM that provides items (1) through (5) set forth in paragraphs 84 to the Linux kernel, GNU/Linux, and Linux distributions.
84. Prior to IBM's involvement, Linux was the software equivalent of a bicycle. UNIX was the software equivalent of a luxury car. To make Linux of necessary quality for use by enterprise customers, it must be re-designed so that Linux also becomes the software equivalent of a luxury car. This re-design is not technologically feasible or even possible at the enterprise level without (1) a high degree of design coordination, (2) access to expensive and sophisticated design and testing equipment; (3) access to UNIX code, methods and concepts; (4) UNIX architectural experience; and (5) a very significant financial investment.
MozillaQuest Magazine: Did the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux developers and groups lack the technological capability of producing an enterprise level Linux without being bailed-out by IBM as SCO-Caldera claims?
Linus Torvalds: "Bailed-out by IBM"? Hardly. Oh, IBM has certainly been very helpful, and I like the IBM engineers I work with, but Linux was running on 16-cpu Sun sparc computers long before IBM really got into it.
In paragraph 85 of its Complaint against IBM, SCO-Caldera alleges that the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux are limited to handling a maximum of four CPUs.
85. For example, Linux is currently capable of coordinating the simultaneous performance of 4 computer processors. UNIX, on the other hand, commonly links 16 processors and can successfully link up to 32 processors for simultaneous operation. This difference in memory management performance is very significant to enterprise customers who need extremely high computing capabilities for complex tasks. The ability to accomplish this task successfully has taken AT&T, Novell and SCO at least 20 years, with access to expensive equipment for design and testing, well-trained UNIX engineers and a wealth of experience in UNIX methods and concepts.
MozillaQuest Magazine: Is this true? I thought the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux can handle 32 CPUs?
Linus Torvalds: We still claim 4-8 CPU scalability. Yeah, it sure works on bigger machines, but they are just so uncommon as to not be a big issue yet, and most of peoples' resources are certainly spent on the mass market (well, UP is the _real_ mass market, but most of the kernel people tend to be fascinated by SMP issues, so we tend to target slightly higher
Normally, we end our articles with a summary and/or conclusion. We do not do so with this article. That's because we want you to have the benefits of Linus Torvalds' comments about the SCO-Caldera v IBM lawsuit without any spin from us. You are getting this just the way Linus said it and in context. Moreover, Linus Torvalds' comments are concise, well-expressed, and to the point. The only material in this article is Linus' comments with just enough background added by us to put the comments in perspective and context with the allegations of SCO-Caldera's Complaint. Thus, Linus Torvalds' comments need no interpretation or spin from us.
how many internet users in New Zealand, here is the figures:(emphasis mine)
:)
Population: 3.8 million
Internet users: 1.3 million
Projection for 2004: 1 million
Is there anything to do with all these ill-made policies that cause the decline in no. of internet users in NZ? I wouldn't doubt it.
Ummm, IBM probably couldn't have produced OS/2 without at least some code from Microsoft.
:)
Just fill up your missing pieces of history. Doesn't mean to flame or for karma.
OS/2 2.0 onward was entirely rewritten from the ground up, having seen the fact that outsourcing first release of OS/2 was an utter mistake. Imagine the mistakes they made: missing the time to market, losing the major servers market for mid-size enterprises; giving Microsoft the opportunities to perform test on an outsourced platform and took the success to their platform. Nobody considers that kind of partnership ever after.
I was there.
In my place they've policy to charge only internet access while allow unrestricted intranet access. With proper configured proxy and community effort, downloading large files like Linux's iso/packages would not be an issue.
Later we might implement batch download request for large files downloading. However, reading thru it I don't see they've the sense and technical clue to implement such a fair policy and this would affect their legitimate academic research VERY much.
I wondered this policy is coming out of the minds of clueless managers who has never been admin a campus system for a day. I don't know how pirating mp3s and movies would be a problem to them, it's kinda easy to track them down - unless of course their compus rans by bunch of MCSE who cannot tell why bandwidth usage would be skyrocked.
(apology to the rest MCSE with clue. So far I haven't met one with clue in rl)
I'm afraid that's exactly what the mangement are looking for, and then the total amount would be much higher than US$25.68.
Damn....
I knew I'm 3500 times slower....
You are absolutely right. Whenever somebody who has no previous linux experience come to ask me which distro to start with, I'll then ask 'Do you want to learn to use a distro or learn to use Linux?' For the latter case I'd definitely recommend Gentoo, at least they could learn a great deal about installing a Linux from sources or at least how to compile from sources. Of course, this is not for those who *just* want to learn to use a distro for their job. :)
1) managed to entangle three electrons at once
2) ???
3) Profit
They are gearing toward their ultimate goal of Trustworthy Computing. :)
The case of Lik Sang are covered below. Sorry for the wrong link given above.
Microsoft Shuts Down Lik Sang
More on Microsoft vs. Lik Sang
Lik-Sang Back Online, Minus Modchips
Lik-Sang Back Online
Lik-Sang To Take On The Big 3?
The Lik-Sang Saga Continues
and found it absolutely incredible.
:)
In our sense we bought the goods and we own it. Of course, it's still illegal to make profit out of others' proprietary intellectual properties; beside that, you can do whatever you like to the things you buy and nobody would give you trouble.
Mod chips can be found everywhere here, and we even have whole streets dedicated to this hobbist. I think you can still remember the case of Lik Sang who got into trouble selling modchips on US goods. We've never seen similar case for goods from Japanese, Korean, etc.
If selling modchips is a crime, why don't they ban screwdriver as well? I'm not kidding, there's more crimes with screwdrivers than with modchips.
Citizens takes over Government!
IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN.....
nevermind.
That's funny. The applicant even draw plain pictures of a wheel and a vehicle with wheels and still got grant!
:)
I wonder what kind of transportation do the people in Australian Patent office use everyday? Horses?
They called this Trustworthy Computing? :)
Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network
In the course of a recent Microsoft Access programming project, we had three difficult technical problems where we decided to call a support hotline for advice. This article compares the two support numbers we tried: Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network. As a resultof this research, we have come to the following conclusions: 1 ) that Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network are about equal in their ability to provide technical assistance for Microsoft products over the phone ; 2 ) that the Psychic Friends Net work has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support; but 3) that Microsoft has a generally better refund policy if they fail to solve your problem.
In the paragraphs that follow, we will detail the support calls we made and the responses we received from each pport provider. We will follow this with a discussion of the features provided by each support provider so that readers can do their own rankings of the two services.
Our research began when we called Microsoft regarding a bug that we had detected when executing queries which pulled data from a Sybase Server into Microsoft Access. If we used the same Access database to query two databases on the same server, we found that all of the queries aimed at the second database that we queried were sent to the first database that we had queried. This problem existed no matter which database we queried first. Dan called Microsoft's Technical Solutions Line, gave them $55, and was connected with an official Microsoft Access technical support person. As Dan began to explain the problem, the support person interrupted him, and told him that since it was clear that it was not just a problem with Access but with the two programs together, Microsoft would not try to help us. They did,however, have a consultant referral service with which he would be glad to connect us. Dan then asked if we could have our $55 refunded, since Microsoft was not going to try to answer to our question. The tech support person responded by forwarding Dan to the person in charge of giving refunds. The person officially in charge of giving refunds took Dan's credit card info again, after which Dan asked about the referral service. It was too late, however - the refund folks could not reconnect Dan with the tech support guy he'd been talking with, nor could he put Dan in touch with the referral service hotline. End of Call One.
Our second call came when Dan was creating some line graphs in Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access actually uses a program called Microsoft Graph to create its graphs, and this program has a "feature" that makes the automatic axis scale always start the scale at zero. If all of your data are between 9,800 and 10,000 and you get a scale of 0 to 10,000, your data will appear as a flat line at the top of your graph-not a very interesting chart. Since Dan was writing Visual Basic code to create the graphs, he wanted to be able to use Visual Basic code to change the graph scaling, but he could not find anything in the help files that would tell him how to do this. After working with Microsoft Graph for a while, Dan concluded that it probably didn't have the capability that he needed, but he decided to call Microsoft just to make sure. Dan described his problem to the technical support person, whom we'll call Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Bob said he'd never gotten a call about Microsoft Graph before. He then left Dan on hold while he went to ask another support person how to use Microsoft Graph. Microsoft Bob came back with the suggestion that Dan use the online help. Dan, however, had already used the online help, and didn't feel that this was an appropriate answer for a $55 support call. Microsoft Bob didn't give up, though. He consulted the help files and learned to change the graph scale by hand and then began looking for a way to do this via code. After Microsoft Bob had spent about an hour on the phone with Dan learning how to use Microsoft Graph, Dan asked for a refund since he had no more time to spend on the problem. Microsoft Bob refused the refund, however. He said he wouldn't give up, and told Dan that he would call back the next week.
Microsoft Bob did call back the following week to admit failure. He could not help us. However, he couldn't give us a refund either. Microsoft Bob's supervisor confirmed Microsoft Bob's position. While Microsoft Technical Support hadn't solved our problem, they felt that a refund was inappropriate since Microsoft Technical Support had spent a lot of time not solving our problem. Dan persisted, however, explaining that if Microsoft Bob actually knew the program, he would have been able to give Dan a response much sooner. The supervisor made no guarantees, but he instructed Dan to check his credit card bill at the end of the month. The supervisor explained that if Dan saw that the charge was still there at the end of the month,then he would know that he hadn't gotten a refund. End of Call Two.
Our third call to Microsoft involved using the standard file save dialog from within Microsoft Access to get a file name and directory string from a user in order to save an exported file. The documentation didn't make it clear how to do this using Visual Basic code within Microsoft Access, and Dan decided to call Microsoft to ask if and how a programmer could do this. The technical support person he reached told him he was asking about a pretty heavy programming task. He cheerily informed Dan that he'd called the wrong number and advised Dan to call help for Visual Basic, not Access ($195 instead of $55 ). This technical support person was extraordinarily helpful in getting Dan his refund. End of Call Three.
Stymied by our responses from Microsoft, we decided to try another service provider, the Psychic Friends Network. There are several noticeable differences between Microsoft and the Psychic Friends Network. Microsoft charges a flat rate per "solution," which is a single problem and can be handled in multiple phone calls. As described above, Microsoft may or may not issue a refund of their fee if they fail to provide a solution for your problem. The Psychic Friends Network charges a per minute fee. They do not offer a refund if they cannot solve your problem. However, unlike Microsoft, they will not charge you extra if they provide more than one solution per call.
We decided to test the Psychic Friends Network by asking them the same questions that we had asked Microsoft Technical Support. We called them and were quickly connected with Ray, who was very courteous and helpful. Like Microsoft Bob, Ray quickly informed us that he wasn't fully up to date on the programs that we were working with, but he was willing to help us anyway. We started off with our first problem : making a connection from Microsoft Access to two different Sybase Servers. Ray worked hard on this problem for us. He sensed that there was a problem with something connecting, that something wasn't being fulfilled either in a sexual, spiritual or emotional way. Ray also identified that there was some sort of physical failure going on that was causing the problem." Do you mean that there's some sort of bug?" we asked. Ray denied that he knew about any sort of bug in the software. "Are you sure there's not a bug?" we asked. Ray insisted that he did not know of any bug in the software, although he left open the possibility that there could be some bug in the software that he did not know about. All in all, Ray did not do much to distinguish himself from Microsoft Technical Support. He wasn't able to solve our problem for us, and he wasn't able to confirm or deny that a bug in Microsoft Access was causing the problem. We then asked Ray our question about using Visual Basic to set the axes of a chart. Ray thought hard about this one. Once again he had the sense that something just wasn't connecting, that there was some sort of physical failure that was causing our problem. "Could it be that it's your computer that's the problem?" he asked. "Is this something that happens just on your computer, or have you had the same problem when you've tried to do the same thing on other computers?" We assured Ray that we had the same problem on other computers, then asked again, "This physical failure that you're talking about, do you mean that there's some sort of bug?" Once again he assured us that there wasn't a bug, but that he didn't know how to solve our problem. "I sense there's some sort of sickness here, and you're just going to have to sweat it out. If you'd like, you can call back tomorrow. We have a couple of guys here, Steve and Paul, and they 're much better with computer stuff than I am." To conclude our research, we asked Ray about our problem with the standard file dialog box." It's the same thing as the last one," he told us. "There's some sort of sickness here, and you're just going to have to sweat it out. There is a solution,though,and you're just going to have to work at it until you get it."
ConclusionsIn terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft technician using Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic Friends reader using Tarot Cards. All in all, however, the Psychic Friends Net work proved to be a much friendlier organization than Microsoft Technical Support. While neither group was actually able to answer any of our technical questions, the Psychic Friends Network was much faster than Microsoft and much more courteous. Which organization is more affordable is open to question. If Microsoft does refund all three "solutions" fees, then they will be the far more affordable solution provider, having charged us no money for having given us no assistance. However, if Microsoft does not refund the fees for our call regarding Microsoft Graph, then they will have charged us more than 120% of what the Psychic Friends charged, but without providing the same fast and courteous service that Psychic Friends provided.
Microsoft Tech Support (800) 939-5700
The Psychic Friends Network (900)-407-6611