The Apple ][ and many other machines from that era really helped move the industry out of the labs and realm of the most dedicated hobbyists and helped to make it available for everyone. Many of the popular machines of that era were all using the 6502 or some variant. I would be curious about your recollection of any interaction with Chuck Peddle and the team behind that processor and the impact it had.
What a great write-up and thanks for all the great images.
I had seen a few launches from my school campus in the mid 80s. But the first launch that I attended in a more direct manner was STS-61B, the Atlantis in November of 1985. It was a late evening launch and was quite spectacular to see in person, even though we could only watch from across the water outside Kennedy Space Center crowding the sides of the roadways with many others who did not have access. So it was quite a thrill when I got the opportunity to get tickets to actually get on Cape Canaveral for the launch of STS135. I jumped at the chance and took my two young nephews with me to watch the Atlantis once again reach out to the stars. I hope the memory of it impacts them in a positive manner and helps to kindle their interest in pursuing and dreaming big despite the odds and the challenges it might take to get there. So it was a fantastic privilege to personally witness Atlantis take flight again.
Many thanks to the countless people who over the years worked to make the shuttle program such a source of inspiration for the rest of us.
I manage a variety of sites and for those that are not tech oriented, I would say your percentages are pretty close to what I have seen on similar types of sites. What I notice is that of the reported IE6 users on the logs I reviewed, the reported OS in usage is Windows 2000 is 100% for these for the logs I reviewed. This seems to confirm my personal experience in that that the more likely reason remaining IE6 holdouts exist are likely less to be about "application capability" and more about the fact that for those running Windows 2000 they have no other options for a newer version of IE. The reality appears to be there are still plenty of older machines out there running Windows 2000 or some variant of it and there is no Microsoft supplied option for replacing IE6 on these machines. Microsoft's lack of providing Windows 2000 with a path beyond IE6 has locked them into this position. The fact that they may have some internal web applications that are dependent on some version of IE, has them locked into not even being able to consider an alternate browser. As another posted had mentioned the use of a Terminal Server might help decrease the security attack surface represented by continuing to use IE6 on these older machines and instead use the Terminal Server to allow the older machines to run newer version of the applications. Those that still have a large number of desktops on the Win2000 platform might need to take a harder look at the potential security holes this leaves open on their network --- even if it is only "internal", it can still be exploited in the right circumstances.
Another vote for FogBugz. Works great, can easily do everything the original poster mentioned. Plus it is extensible if you really need to build you own hooks into it. You can try it out online completely free for 45 days (and they'll even sometimes extend that if you ask real nicely) and then if you decide to use it, you can either pay to use their hosted service or if you purchase it for local use, then they'll even send you the database for you to re-install locally so you loose no time migrating your trial period data. It makes it easy for you to publish the information to others on a need to know basis and if you are having any trouble getting input from other persons or groups within the company as to how things need to be prioritized, it makes it a great centralized way to put it in front of the faces of the decision makers. The user interface is a little deceiving, as it looks a little overly simplistic at first glance, but it has an excellent and well organized interface for a browser based application. Just spend a little time with the free demo and really put it through the paces and this will become more apparent as you use it. For the value it provides, I consider it to be reasonably priced. If you already have the hardware resources in-house to run it locally, it is much more cost effective to buy it and run locally of course. But if you have any difficulty getting buy-in on it, the monthly service beyond the free trial period makes it very easy for anyone to digest to make sure you have more than adequate time to really have it prove its worth in your organization. I've had to force some customers to sit down and use it to manage their own projects, but once they get over their issues, they find it an invaluable tool without fail.
The free microsoft search server express does exactly that. Plus it is very extensable if you want to write some code for it. Free download at: http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch
How active are you keeping in terms of continuing to flex your development skills? If you haven't been doing any programming in all that time, then most likely you have a lot of catching up to do before you can start to expect to get anywhere with an interview. If you have been letting your practical knowledge of development wane over time, it is going to show through pretty quickly if there are any real developers present during your interview. Therefore it is critical you are keeping your skills polished and reasonably up to date if you really expect to get back into the field. Even if you are only doing development projects on your own, it still means you are practicing your craft and gaining real experience. This should be apparent to a good technical interviewer and you should not be afraid to bring the topic up if they neglect to at first (although I would be surprised).
Another important point to realize is that especially as a new programmer, you are not going to be expected to have a wide breadth of knowledge in the field. But you should be expected to be able to show you can apply knowledge of common techniques and concepts. So being able to say you have done programming in 10 different languages is pretty worthless at the entry level because nobody serious would realistically be expecting that from an entry level developer. At the entry level, it is way more important to be able to show you have good command of fewer areas and are understanding development concepts and techniques. But if you can point to a couple projects where you can show applied knowledge using one specific development environment that is usually enough to get you in the door at many places. Of course, the development environment you choose to practice in is likely to define or limit the initial places you are going to be able to apply for. So don't go for anything too esoteric. One specific recommendation is that since almost all development work needs to be able to store and work with data, it is pretty likely almost any development work is going to require some sort of need to work with data in databases. Most entry level developers have very poor skills with SQL development and if you want to give yourself a way to standout, really working on and nailing down your skills in using SQL can really make you rise to the top of the list when it comes for your interviewers to make a decision.
Unless the organization you would be interviewing with is overly tied down with bureaucratic rules, it is usually pretty easy to get minimum requirements overlooked if you can demonstrate you have the skills for an entry level position.
I have a fair amount of experience with such situations, mostly from helping various clients, and in my experience it largely depends on how it happened. Did you simply allow the domain to expire and then someone else snatched it up? If so, you are pretty much just plain out of luck. If it is not a pre-existing trademark of yours, then you really have no basis for trying to reclaim it under ICANN dispute resolution policies. If the new registrant somehow took control of it under false pretense - like submitted falsified statements and/or documentation to dispute the domain, then you most certainly have grounds to file your own dispute. If that's the case, then you should initiate a dispute via the registrar you normally use for your domain registrations. If it doesn't really fall into those extremes, then an ICANN dispute is probably not going to lead anywhere and your only option would be some kind of legal action, but that is not likely to have any different kind of outcome either.
The Can-Am cabinets are excellent for storage of a lot of media. While you can probably find some other solutions for even higher desity storage, these probably cannot be beat for the price. They are made of a decent gauge steel, so they are heavy duty and can take some abuse. I would say they are better quality construction than most office style file cabinets. And they look good enough for home use, which is where I have mine. You can order them in a variety of configurations and with or without a formica top. They are built to accomodate regular DVD's and CD's in their original retail style packing. However, if you stored the discs in sleeves, you could store a ton of discs in each drawer. Just would probably want to use something as separators for easier indexing.
Format (+/-) doesn't matter unless you are concerned about read compatibility. If it's just for your own use, then you can get away with anything. Right now, pricing for each type of media seems to have finally gotten to be about equal, so price really should not be a factor any longer. But watch out for older recorders being liquidated at a too good to be true price, these will typically only suport one format, they won't write both. If you are using just for DVD-ROM, data storage, then either should be fine, as both media can be read reliably in most DVD-ROM drives. If you are interested in created DVD video, then the -R media is drastically more compatible with a variety of DVD Video players. Note: we're not talking about Divx movies on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM here, we're talking about video recorded in the same format as a commercial DVD video disc you would get from Circuit City (er, ack! oh, nevermind - that's another story alltogether). I experienced this firsthand as I have both media and have tested videos on DVD on a wide variety of DVD players. I have yet to come across a player that will not read a DVD-R disc at all. The worst I have found is my 1st generation Pioneer Laserdisc/DVD Combo player, it recognizes and plays the DVD-R media just fine, but on occasion seems to get confused and stops playing when using FF. Even a cheapie $50 Apex DVD player purchased just one year ago plays all my DVD-R video's like a champ. But both the above players do not recognize DVD+R media at all. With my +R discs, the people I've given them to in order to have them test in their players, about 20% of them have problems viewing, while no problems reported at all with the video I have done on -R media.
Seems like Verisign might have already moved on to their next technique for tricking people back into their lackluster service. Today I received a phone call from a Verisign rep that wanted to tell me all about their great new priority support phone number for very important clients like me that have many domains with Verisign. Of course I listened intently because I was too shocked to do anything else! Verisign promoting the fact that they even have a phone number?!?!? This must be a dream? Then after telling me all about this great new level of support service that Verisign would be providing to me as long time valued client, he would be glad to help me renew my domains that were about to expire while I was on the phone rather than having to go through the web site(!). He listed several domains, all of which had already been transferred to another registrar, none of which were about to expire.
To have that link on Slashdot that will cause the user's machine to be shutdown because of the hole on IIS is ridiculous. If you wanted to help inform the lazy people and admin's out there that still have that hole open on their system, it would have been MUCH more responsible to have a message stating "Click here to test your machine for this backdoor". I really have lost allot of respect for the people at Slashdot. This is completely irresponsible and foolish.
The fact of the matter is ALL systems have security weaknesses and limitations. This is true for both Linux and Windows, or any piece of software that has ever been written. All it takes is to subscribe to any of the excellent security mailing lists that are on the net to realize this. As a matter of fact, the last copy of the excellent SANS Security Alert Consensus (www.sans.org) lists more new vulnerabilities in Linux than Windows. Of course, the opposite is true often enough. But really, what it the point of those kinds of comparisons other than juvenile brouhaha.
There are a couple issues bought up here that can cause someone in this situation a whole bucket load of grief. What wasn't made clear above was if the original poster is an EMPLOYEE or a CONTRACTOR with the company he/she is doing work for. If you are a CONTRACTOR, then you really don't have too much to be concerned about with the company you are doing the work for, AS LONG AS you have not ever done anything related to your home project while on their premesis on on their equipment (read as: using ANY of their resources in relation to your home project).
If you are an EMPLOYEE, you are opening up a very big can of worms! If you are serious about publishing the software you wrote, you should seriously consider leaving your position with this company, even if they and you want to work out a licensing or publishing agreement. Of course, this would only really work well if you believe such an arrangement would be financially sustaining for you.
In either case, you should certainly consult with a attorney that is experieced in INTELLECTUAL LAW. Do not waste your time just going to any attorney that only has business law experience. In my past experiences, any attorney that does not specialize 100% of their time in intellectual law is not capable of providing you with sound advice. There are a ton of issues to be concerned with here, and these can vary from state to state. They should be able to provide you with standardized intellectual property contracts and such and will be able to help protect your rights and liabilities in working out a deal with your current employer/client. Yes, it might be a little more expensive than you would want, and you might have to travel a bit to find such an attorney, but I can tell you that I have learned this the hard way and it is certainly worthwhile to go through the time and expense in what it saves you long term.
This place http://www.cdcabinet.com/ has some great cabinets that can store a massive volume of media (CDs, DVDs, VHS, etc). The cabinets are not cheap (but are still reasonable), look good, strong as heck, and store more than anything else that I have seen in comparable space. They are located in Canada, so delivery time is a little long if in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
The Apple ][ and many other machines from that era really helped move the industry out of the labs and realm of the most dedicated hobbyists and helped to make it available for everyone. Many of the popular machines of that era were all using the 6502 or some variant. I would be curious about your recollection of any interaction with Chuck Peddle and the team behind that processor and the impact it had.
What a great write-up and thanks for all the great images.
I had seen a few launches from my school campus in the mid 80s. But the first launch that I attended in a more direct manner was STS-61B, the Atlantis in November of 1985. It was a late evening launch and was quite spectacular to see in person, even though we could only watch from across the water outside Kennedy Space Center crowding the sides of the roadways with many others who did not have access. So it was quite a thrill when I got the opportunity to get tickets to actually get on Cape Canaveral for the launch of STS135. I jumped at the chance and took my two young nephews with me to watch the Atlantis once again reach out to the stars. I hope the memory of it impacts them in a positive manner and helps to kindle their interest in pursuing and dreaming big despite the odds and the challenges it might take to get there. So it was a fantastic privilege to personally witness Atlantis take flight again.
Many thanks to the countless people who over the years worked to make the shuttle program such a source of inspiration for the rest of us.
I manage a variety of sites and for those that are not tech oriented, I would say your percentages are pretty close to what I have seen on similar types of sites. What I notice is that of the reported IE6 users on the logs I reviewed, the reported OS in usage is Windows 2000 is 100% for these for the logs I reviewed. This seems to confirm my personal experience in that that the more likely reason remaining IE6 holdouts exist are likely less to be about "application capability" and more about the fact that for those running Windows 2000 they have no other options for a newer version of IE. The reality appears to be there are still plenty of older machines out there running Windows 2000 or some variant of it and there is no Microsoft supplied option for replacing IE6 on these machines. Microsoft's lack of providing Windows 2000 with a path beyond IE6 has locked them into this position. The fact that they may have some internal web applications that are dependent on some version of IE, has them locked into not even being able to consider an alternate browser. As another posted had mentioned the use of a Terminal Server might help decrease the security attack surface represented by continuing to use IE6 on these older machines and instead use the Terminal Server to allow the older machines to run newer version of the applications. Those that still have a large number of desktops on the Win2000 platform might need to take a harder look at the potential security holes this leaves open on their network --- even if it is only "internal", it can still be exploited in the right circumstances.
Another vote for FogBugz. Works great, can easily do everything the original poster mentioned. Plus it is extensible if you really need to build you own hooks into it. You can try it out online completely free for 45 days (and they'll even sometimes extend that if you ask real nicely) and then if you decide to use it, you can either pay to use their hosted service or if you purchase it for local use, then they'll even send you the database for you to re-install locally so you loose no time migrating your trial period data. It makes it easy for you to publish the information to others on a need to know basis and if you are having any trouble getting input from other persons or groups within the company as to how things need to be prioritized, it makes it a great centralized way to put it in front of the faces of the decision makers. The user interface is a little deceiving, as it looks a little overly simplistic at first glance, but it has an excellent and well organized interface for a browser based application. Just spend a little time with the free demo and really put it through the paces and this will become more apparent as you use it. For the value it provides, I consider it to be reasonably priced. If you already have the hardware resources in-house to run it locally, it is much more cost effective to buy it and run locally of course. But if you have any difficulty getting buy-in on it, the monthly service beyond the free trial period makes it very easy for anyone to digest to make sure you have more than adequate time to really have it prove its worth in your organization. I've had to force some customers to sit down and use it to manage their own projects, but once they get over their issues, they find it an invaluable tool without fail.
The free microsoft search server express does exactly that. Plus it is very extensable if you want to write some code for it. Free download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch
How active are you keeping in terms of continuing to flex your development skills? If you haven't been doing any programming in all that time, then most likely you have a lot of catching up to do before you can start to expect to get anywhere with an interview. If you have been letting your practical knowledge of development wane over time, it is going to show through pretty quickly if there are any real developers present during your interview. Therefore it is critical you are keeping your skills polished and reasonably up to date if you really expect to get back into the field. Even if you are only doing development projects on your own, it still means you are practicing your craft and gaining real experience. This should be apparent to a good technical interviewer and you should not be afraid to bring the topic up if they neglect to at first (although I would be surprised).
Another important point to realize is that especially as a new programmer, you are not going to be expected to have a wide breadth of knowledge in the field. But you should be expected to be able to show you can apply knowledge of common techniques and concepts. So being able to say you have done programming in 10 different languages is pretty worthless at the entry level because nobody serious would realistically be expecting that from an entry level developer. At the entry level, it is way more important to be able to show you have good command of fewer areas and are understanding development concepts and techniques. But if you can point to a couple projects where you can show applied knowledge using one specific development environment that is usually enough to get you in the door at many places. Of course, the development environment you choose to practice in is likely to define or limit the initial places you are going to be able to apply for. So don't go for anything too esoteric. One specific recommendation is that since almost all development work needs to be able to store and work with data, it is pretty likely almost any development work is going to require some sort of need to work with data in databases. Most entry level developers have very poor skills with SQL development and if you want to give yourself a way to standout, really working on and nailing down your skills in using SQL can really make you rise to the top of the list when it comes for your interviewers to make a decision.
Unless the organization you would be interviewing with is overly tied down with bureaucratic rules, it is usually pretty easy to get minimum requirements overlooked if you can demonstrate you have the skills for an entry level position.
I have a fair amount of experience with such situations, mostly from helping various clients, and in my experience it largely depends on how it happened. Did you simply allow the domain to expire and then someone else snatched it up? If so, you are pretty much just plain out of luck. If it is not a pre-existing trademark of yours, then you really have no basis for trying to reclaim it under ICANN dispute resolution policies. If the new registrant somehow took control of it under false pretense - like submitted falsified statements and/or documentation to dispute the domain, then you most certainly have grounds to file your own dispute. If that's the case, then you should initiate a dispute via the registrar you normally use for your domain registrations. If it doesn't really fall into those extremes, then an ICANN dispute is probably not going to lead anywhere and your only option would be some kind of legal action, but that is not likely to have any different kind of outcome either.
The Can-Am cabinets are excellent for storage of a lot of media. While you can probably find some other solutions for even higher desity storage, these probably cannot be beat for the price. They are made of a decent gauge steel, so they are heavy duty and can take some abuse. I would say they are better quality construction than most office style file cabinets. And they look good enough for home use, which is where I have mine. You can order them in a variety of configurations and with or without a formica top. They are built to accomodate regular DVD's and CD's in their original retail style packing. However, if you stored the discs in sleeves, you could store a ton of discs in each drawer. Just would probably want to use something as separators for easier indexing.
Format (+/-) doesn't matter unless you are concerned about read compatibility. If it's just for your own use, then you can get away with anything. Right now, pricing for each type of media seems to have finally gotten to be about equal, so price really should not be a factor any longer. But watch out for older recorders being liquidated at a too good to be true price, these will typically only suport one format, they won't write both. If you are using just for DVD-ROM, data storage, then either should be fine, as both media can be read reliably in most DVD-ROM drives. If you are interested in created DVD video, then the -R media is drastically more compatible with a variety of DVD Video players. Note: we're not talking about Divx movies on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM here, we're talking about video recorded in the same format as a commercial DVD video disc you would get from Circuit City (er, ack! oh, nevermind - that's another story alltogether). I experienced this firsthand as I have both media and have tested videos on DVD on a wide variety of DVD players. I have yet to come across a player that will not read a DVD-R disc at all. The worst I have found is my 1st generation Pioneer Laserdisc/DVD Combo player, it recognizes and plays the DVD-R media just fine, but on occasion seems to get confused and stops playing when using FF. Even a cheapie $50 Apex DVD player purchased just one year ago plays all my DVD-R video's like a champ. But both the above players do not recognize DVD+R media at all. With my +R discs, the people I've given them to in order to have them test in their players, about 20% of them have problems viewing, while no problems reported at all with the video I have done on -R media.
Seems like Verisign might have already moved on to their next technique for tricking people back into their lackluster service. Today I received a phone call from a Verisign rep that wanted to tell me all about their great new priority support phone number for very important clients like me that have many domains with Verisign. Of course I listened intently because I was too shocked to do anything else! Verisign promoting the fact that they even have a phone number?!?!? This must be a dream? Then after telling me all about this great new level of support service that Verisign would be providing to me as long time valued client, he would be glad to help me renew my domains that were about to expire while I was on the phone rather than having to go through the web site(!). He listed several domains, all of which had already been transferred to another registrar, none of which were about to expire.
What a deal! Where do I sign?
To have that link on Slashdot that will cause the user's machine to be shutdown because of the hole on IIS is ridiculous. If you wanted to help inform the lazy people and admin's out there that still have that hole open on their system, it would have been MUCH more responsible to have a message stating "Click here to test your machine for this backdoor". I really have lost allot of respect for the people at Slashdot. This is completely irresponsible and foolish.
The fact of the matter is ALL systems have security weaknesses and limitations. This is true for both Linux and Windows, or any piece of software that has ever been written. All it takes is to subscribe to any of the excellent security mailing lists that are on the net to realize this. As a matter of fact, the last copy of the excellent SANS Security Alert Consensus (www.sans.org) lists more new vulnerabilities in Linux than Windows. Of course, the opposite is true often enough. But really, what it the point of those kinds of comparisons other than juvenile brouhaha.
There are a couple issues bought up here that can cause someone in this situation a whole bucket load of grief. What wasn't made clear above was if the original poster is an EMPLOYEE or a CONTRACTOR with the company he/she is doing work for. If you are a CONTRACTOR, then you really don't have too much to be concerned about with the company you are doing the work for, AS LONG AS you have not ever done anything related to your home project while on their premesis on on their equipment (read as: using ANY of their resources in relation to your home project). If you are an EMPLOYEE, you are opening up a very big can of worms! If you are serious about publishing the software you wrote, you should seriously consider leaving your position with this company, even if they and you want to work out a licensing or publishing agreement. Of course, this would only really work well if you believe such an arrangement would be financially sustaining for you. In either case, you should certainly consult with a attorney that is experieced in INTELLECTUAL LAW. Do not waste your time just going to any attorney that only has business law experience. In my past experiences, any attorney that does not specialize 100% of their time in intellectual law is not capable of providing you with sound advice. There are a ton of issues to be concerned with here, and these can vary from state to state. They should be able to provide you with standardized intellectual property contracts and such and will be able to help protect your rights and liabilities in working out a deal with your current employer/client. Yes, it might be a little more expensive than you would want, and you might have to travel a bit to find such an attorney, but I can tell you that I have learned this the hard way and it is certainly worthwhile to go through the time and expense in what it saves you long term.
This place http://www.cdcabinet.com/ has some great cabinets that can store a massive volume of media (CDs, DVDs, VHS, etc). The cabinets are not cheap (but are still reasonable), look good, strong as heck, and store more than anything else that I have seen in comparable space. They are located in Canada, so delivery time is a little long if in the US.