My last school gave all students an account on a unix server with email/telnet/ftp access from anywhere (this was in Colorado). Now I'm at a high school in Texas that not only has no school-provided email, but also filters out other ISP-provided email access. They're under the impression that computers only lead to evil (even teachers have severely restricted computer usage)
Floppies can also be useful for students. I occasionally need to bring files home from school and there's no way for me to put them on a CD or upload them to a networked computer (my high school filters any free web hosting sites), so floppies are the only real way to bring the files back and forth.
The first computer my mom used to check email and connect to the internet was a HP-UX workstation and she didn't know a thing about computers. But in general people don't get started on *n*x.
What this reminded me of, actually, was what some Windows applications (in particular MS ones, but probably other professional programs; not a heavy Windows user so I wouldn't know) do in order to simplify the UI. They typically hide more advanced menu options (and after you've used the program for a while they tend to hide unused options). This way the UI is not overwhelming for less advanced users. After they've figured out the basics, they can move on to more complicated features (for example, the rule-based sorting in Outlook).
While I personally find it a bit annoying to have to find hidden options, it could be useful to some people. Programs that aren't used by beginners take a different approach. Visual Studio, for example, doesn't hide any options, but it does let you customize the menus and toolbars to suit your needs (right click on a toolbar to see a list of all existing toolbars).
I know I've only mentioned Windows programs, but let's face it: right now the only OS's that a complete beginner is likely to see are Windows or Mac OS 9/X.
You're right, a web search is a good idea, which is why I did just that. And I did find Norse mythology references to Valhalla, but failed to find similar references to Limbo. Though they are both part of the afterlife, I decided to go with a connection that I was more sure about (and of course, the author knew the connection).
It gets worse, though. What if I have an ASP+ (or your web language of choice) page that dynamically produces content? The page as posted has no real content. And if the page is posted for a year, I could then update the database with whatever text I wanted. The meaning of the page has changed, but it has not been reposted onto the server.
Think of this in non-electronic terms. I publish a book that everyone supports. A year later people go to the bookstore and find that my book, with the same cover and publishing date, is now defamatory.
So for static content, the posting date seems reasonable. For dynamic content, things need to be examined more closely. Things like page changes, DLL changes (in ASP.NET and presumably other languages, I can change the code of a page without touching the page itself), database records, etc need to be considered to determine a publication date.
And for those of you who don't recognize it, Valhalla and Limbo are both locations on the Spacer planet Inferno. From Asimov's Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia (written by Roger MacBride Allen)
Of course, there might be other connections, but that's the only one that comes to mind.
If you don't mind the space, the Volt is expandable in 700MB units for about 15 cents a piece. I'll take my 70 GB for fifteen bucks rather than shell out the cash for an iPod. If you're looking for a good player, go for the Volt 250. Flash upgradeable, 4 line display, and 8 minutes of skip protection.
My interpretation of the article summary was that people might be less inclined to share their findings as they are working on the port. Sure, they'll release them once they're done and have the money, but will people share their half-completed work for other people to get a head start?
To give an example of the last part: I was born in Canada in 85. My brother was born in Canada in 87. We got our US citizenship in 97 or 98. My citizenship only counts for the last four or five years. My brother, on the other hand, is an American citizen from birth. (from what I recall there was a change in immigration law that had a cutoff between me and my brother). So we've lived in the country the same amount, but he could become President and I couldn't.
Read more carefully. He's saying that he shouldn't have to run a 3rd party's program to play a game (ie, he trusts the game's manufacturer to write a decent multiplayer environment, but not something like gamespy)
A few years ago I was sitting at the lunch table at my high school with an exchange student from England. He had just bought his lunch, so he had a bunch of coins. He had to get us to explain to him how much money he had. It's too bad the penny and nickel have their actual value on them;-)
But other countries are just as bad. Hong Kong's 10 dollar coin (similar in style to the Canadian 2-dollar coin) is smaller than both the one and two dollar coins. The two dollar coin is nearly the same size and thickness as the one dollar coin, but has twelve wavy edges to it. China has a 5 jiao (tenth of a yuan, or 1.25 cents) that is smaller than the 1 jiao coin (which is a nearly weightless coin similar in style to the 1 yuan coin). To make things more confusing, every coin has the same pictures except for the actual number and the type of currency (jiao/yuan).
But at least they aren't as bad as the old British system =)
I could see running into the problem you mention if you use C++ since you still end up linking to static libs. I refuse to touch VB, so I don't know what it's like. C# is the least likely to have problems since all that you redistribute is the name of a library (the framework is responsible for doing the traditional linking at runtime). Anyway, if you just distribute source you don't have to worry about that (and C# is made to make source distributions easy).
You'd be right, except for the fact that there is very little need to do anything that would make section 3 apply to you as an open source developer. MS allows you to distribute (in source or binary) your application. Their license gets more strict if you decide to modify MFC and redistribute it (as things like the GPL might begin to apply to their code). You'd be in a gray area to distribute the system libraries with your application.
As an open source developer, I would distribute my applications and.NET components with source in one package. I would then either distribute a closed source package (with the condition that it not be redistributed) for any files in REDIST.txt. As an alternative, just point people to MS's website to update their system with the current libraries.
It's interesting to note that XP doesn't ship with.NET either. You want to run Java apps? Then go download the Java VM. You want to run.NET? Then go download the.NET Framework. Compiling source that uses SDL? Hunt down the website and download the RPM (I'm sure not every distro maintains up-to-date versions of every library that developers use).
Except that MS's latest application distribution setup is specifically designed to allow you to copy the program folder from one computer to another and have it work without being installed. (.NET doesn't require registry keys for applications and using the Global Assembly Cache is generally discouraged for most things). I agree that typical Win32 stuff sucks (due to the fact that changes get made all over your system without your knowledge), but the developers at MS seem to dislike that as much as the rest of us (slightly OT, Some Linux apps do the same thing, although they're generally easier to track down since they tend to be separate text files rather than part of a large binary file)
I just took the AB exam (no results until July). For BC Calc and AB Comp Sci the free response questions are not really about style. If the code runs (or if you proved the answer for Calc) then you'll receive full credit. It doesn't matter if you wrote a wacky recursive solution for something that could have been done in a simple loop. It's to your advantage to do something sensible however, because they can give you substantial partial credit if you can show that you were on the right track.
Free response on other subjects is more subjective, but every teacher has emphasized one thing: You get credit for what you do right, not what you do wrong (ie, they're looking to add points, not take them away). Sure the written can be hard, but it shows your problem solving skills.
My BC Calc class was a variation on this. In fact, the AP BC Calc exam divides each section into two parts. On one, the questions are designed for use with graphing calculators (ie, some part of the problem might require a numeric integral of a function not covered in BC Calc). The other part is done without a calculator. This way they can test your ability to solve a wider variety of problems (the calculator problems tend to be higher level problems where you have to do a fair amount of thinking before plugging anything into the calculator).
Wasn't the matrix a MMORPG in the movie? The AI developed a system in which the humans would lead ordinary lives simulated inside a computer. So couldn't one skip the $50 and just go lead a normal life and get the same effect?
the real number would be 168,750,000 million. Not quite Star Wars but close..
Damn! Is that all Star Wars movies combined? Seriously, though, think how much the Internet in general costs in productivity. Only taking into account the non-job related internet usage, that would be many billions of dollars per year. (of course, the Internet does have positive uses which work to increase productivity canceling out some of those losses)
I checked, and Verizon's spam detector was enabled. The people set it up based on the spam that they receive themselves. They have several accounts that just sit around gathering spam. Based on the messages they receive, they write filtering rules to prevent other users from getting the same mail. This allows them to block spam from legitimate sources (ie real email accounts sending unsolicited mail). They also hold all messages for 14 days to let users check if mail was improperly filtered.
My email address is available on 222 pages according to Google. Despite that, I haven't gotten any spam in the past 6 months from any company. I do receive a few commercial newsletters, but I specifically opted-in for those. This is with Verizon DSL. In the past I received a fair amount of spam when using ATT's WorldNet service (that address is on 315 pages; I sure hope no one else signed up with my old email ID).
Why did RadioShack continue supporting CueCats for so long? I was there fairly recently and saw that they were selling things like CueCat holders for your desk... I don't know about other places, but Dallas stopped putting CueCat barcodes in the newspaper quite a while ago.
As a company, Agenda Computing USA is long gone. The office in Germany (Agenda Computing GmbH) still exists and is finacially a distinct entity. They are still developing software and even accessories that weren't available from the US.
The community itself is currently debating the best way to move off of Agenda Computing's servers (which are likely going to disappear without notice in the next several months). Once the community switches over, all of the software can be maintained by the community.
Other people, such as myself, are working on Linux-based PDA software that is platform independent. PicoGUI, for example, runs on the VR3, the Helio, PC's, OS X (I think...), and several embedded systems. With this kind of development, the success of the software does not depend on the success of any particular piece of hardware.
If I were Rio, I'd really try to fight against this. I just bought their RioVolt and put 150 tracks on a CD-RW so that I can listen to a variety of music on the way home from school or during lunch. But I bought all of the original CD's to copy the music from. However, if they start preventing me from playing it on my Rio, I'll stop buying CD's at all. If you look at it this way, they're just killing their own business. People who burn mp3's now will find new ways of doing it. People who buy their music (like me) will start downloading the mp3's. In other words, they're just increasing piracy, not decreasing it.
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My last school gave all students an account on a unix server with email/telnet/ftp access from anywhere (this was in Colorado). Now I'm at a high school in Texas that not only has no school-provided email, but also filters out other ISP-provided email access. They're under the impression that computers only lead to evil (even teachers have severely restricted computer usage)
Floppies can also be useful for students. I occasionally need to bring files home from school and there's no way for me to put them on a CD or upload them to a networked computer (my high school filters any free web hosting sites), so floppies are the only real way to bring the files back and forth.
The first computer my mom used to check email and connect to the internet was a HP-UX workstation and she didn't know a thing about computers. But in general people don't get started on *n*x.
What this reminded me of, actually, was what some Windows applications (in particular MS ones, but probably other professional programs; not a heavy Windows user so I wouldn't know) do in order to simplify the UI. They typically hide more advanced menu options (and after you've used the program for a while they tend to hide unused options). This way the UI is not overwhelming for less advanced users. After they've figured out the basics, they can move on to more complicated features (for example, the rule-based sorting in Outlook).
While I personally find it a bit annoying to have to find hidden options, it could be useful to some people. Programs that aren't used by beginners take a different approach. Visual Studio, for example, doesn't hide any options, but it does let you customize the menus and toolbars to suit your needs (right click on a toolbar to see a list of all existing toolbars).
I know I've only mentioned Windows programs, but let's face it: right now the only OS's that a complete beginner is likely to see are Windows or Mac OS 9/X.
You're right, a web search is a good idea, which is why I did just that. And I did find Norse mythology references to Valhalla, but failed to find similar references to Limbo. Though they are both part of the afterlife, I decided to go with a connection that I was more sure about (and of course, the author knew the connection).
It gets worse, though. What if I have an ASP+ (or your web language of choice) page that dynamically produces content? The page as posted has no real content. And if the page is posted for a year, I could then update the database with whatever text I wanted. The meaning of the page has changed, but it has not been reposted onto the server.
Think of this in non-electronic terms. I publish a book that everyone supports. A year later people go to the bookstore and find that my book, with the same cover and publishing date, is now defamatory.
So for static content, the posting date seems reasonable. For dynamic content, things need to be examined more closely. Things like page changes, DLL changes (in ASP.NET and presumably other languages, I can change the code of a page without touching the page itself), database records, etc need to be considered to determine a publication date.
And for those of you who don't recognize it, Valhalla and Limbo are both locations on the Spacer planet Inferno. From Asimov's Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia (written by Roger MacBride Allen)
Of course, there might be other connections, but that's the only one that comes to mind.
If you don't mind the space, the Volt is expandable in 700MB units for about 15 cents a piece. I'll take my 70 GB for fifteen bucks rather than shell out the cash for an iPod. If you're looking for a good player, go for the Volt 250. Flash upgradeable, 4 line display, and 8 minutes of skip protection.
My interpretation of the article summary was that people might be less inclined to share their findings as they are working on the port. Sure, they'll release them once they're done and have the money, but will people share their half-completed work for other people to get a head start?
To give an example of the last part: I was born in Canada in 85. My brother was born in Canada in 87. We got our US citizenship in 97 or 98. My citizenship only counts for the last four or five years. My brother, on the other hand, is an American citizen from birth. (from what I recall there was a change in immigration law that had a cutoff between me and my brother). So we've lived in the country the same amount, but he could become President and I couldn't.
Read more carefully. He's saying that he shouldn't have to run a 3rd party's program to play a game (ie, he trusts the game's manufacturer to write a decent multiplayer environment, but not something like gamespy)
But other countries are just as bad. Hong Kong's 10 dollar coin (similar in style to the Canadian 2-dollar coin) is smaller than both the one and two dollar coins. The two dollar coin is nearly the same size and thickness as the one dollar coin, but has twelve wavy edges to it. China has a 5 jiao (tenth of a yuan, or 1.25 cents) that is smaller than the 1 jiao coin (which is a nearly weightless coin similar in style to the 1 yuan coin). To make things more confusing, every coin has the same pictures except for the actual number and the type of currency (jiao/yuan).
But at least they aren't as bad as the old British system =)
I could see running into the problem you mention if you use C++ since you still end up linking to static libs. I refuse to touch VB, so I don't know what it's like. C# is the least likely to have problems since all that you redistribute is the name of a library (the framework is responsible for doing the traditional linking at runtime). Anyway, if you just distribute source you don't have to worry about that (and C# is made to make source distributions easy).
As an open source developer, I would distribute my applications and
It's interesting to note that XP doesn't ship with .NET either. You want to run Java apps? Then go download the Java VM. You want to run .NET? Then go download the .NET Framework. Compiling source that uses SDL? Hunt down the website and download the RPM (I'm sure not every distro maintains up-to-date versions of every library that developers use).
Except that MS's latest application distribution setup is specifically designed to allow you to copy the program folder from one computer to another and have it work without being installed. (.NET doesn't require registry keys for applications and using the Global Assembly Cache is generally discouraged for most things). I agree that typical Win32 stuff sucks (due to the fact that changes get made all over your system without your knowledge), but the developers at MS seem to dislike that as much as the rest of us (slightly OT, Some Linux apps do the same thing, although they're generally easier to track down since they tend to be separate text files rather than part of a large binary file)
I just took the AB exam (no results until July). For BC Calc and AB Comp Sci the free response questions are not really about style. If the code runs (or if you proved the answer for Calc) then you'll receive full credit. It doesn't matter if you wrote a wacky recursive solution for something that could have been done in a simple loop. It's to your advantage to do something sensible however, because they can give you substantial partial credit if you can show that you were on the right track.
Free response on other subjects is more subjective, but every teacher has emphasized one thing: You get credit for what you do right, not what you do wrong (ie, they're looking to add points, not take them away). Sure the written can be hard, but it shows your problem solving skills.
My BC Calc class was a variation on this. In fact, the AP BC Calc exam divides each section into two parts. On one, the questions are designed for use with graphing calculators (ie, some part of the problem might require a numeric integral of a function not covered in BC Calc). The other part is done without a calculator. This way they can test your ability to solve a wider variety of problems (the calculator problems tend to be higher level problems where you have to do a fair amount of thinking before plugging anything into the calculator).
Wasn't the matrix a MMORPG in the movie? The AI developed a system in which the humans would lead ordinary lives simulated inside a computer. So couldn't one skip the $50 and just go lead a normal life and get the same effect?
Damn! Is that all Star Wars movies combined? Seriously, though, think how much the Internet in general costs in productivity. Only taking into account the non-job related internet usage, that would be many billions of dollars per year. (of course, the Internet does have positive uses which work to increase productivity canceling out some of those losses)
I checked, and Verizon's spam detector was enabled. The people set it up based on the spam that they receive themselves. They have several accounts that just sit around gathering spam. Based on the messages they receive, they write filtering rules to prevent other users from getting the same mail. This allows them to block spam from legitimate sources (ie real email accounts sending unsolicited mail). They also hold all messages for 14 days to let users check if mail was improperly filtered.
My email address is available on 222 pages according to Google. Despite that, I haven't gotten any spam in the past 6 months from any company. I do receive a few commercial newsletters, but I specifically opted-in for those. This is with Verizon DSL. In the past I received a fair amount of spam when using ATT's WorldNet service (that address is on 315 pages; I sure hope no one else signed up with my old email ID).
Why did RadioShack continue supporting CueCats for so long? I was there fairly recently and saw that they were selling things like CueCat holders for your desk... I don't know about other places, but Dallas stopped putting CueCat barcodes in the newspaper quite a while ago.
The community itself is currently debating the best way to move off of Agenda Computing's servers (which are likely going to disappear without notice in the next several months). Once the community switches over, all of the software can be maintained by the community.
Other people, such as myself, are working on Linux-based PDA software that is platform independent. PicoGUI, for example, runs on the VR3, the Helio, PC's, OS X (I think...), and several embedded systems. With this kind of development, the success of the software does not depend on the success of any particular piece of hardware.
If I were Rio, I'd really try to fight against this. I just bought their RioVolt and put 150 tracks on a CD-RW so that I can listen to a variety of music on the way home from school or during lunch. But I bought all of the original CD's to copy the music from. However, if they start preventing me from playing it on my Rio, I'll stop buying CD's at all. If you look at it this way, they're just killing their own business. People who burn mp3's now will find new ways of doing it. People who buy their music (like me) will start downloading the mp3's. In other words, they're just increasing piracy, not decreasing it.