A few years ago, SONY decided to "protect" its movie/music assets by designing all of their home DVD players to reject recorded (instead of stampted) media.
SONY must have thought they were the only company in the world producing home DVD players. To no one's suprise, Pioneer (made players that played anything you threw at them) had a banner year in home DVD player sales.
As far as "non-compliance" with DVD standards goes - who cares. The music industry is pulling this crap right now saying DRM protected CDs are not really CDs - so they can ignore the standard.
It only takes ONE hardware manufacturer to decide that it is not in their best intrest to sell bastardized hardware for this plan to fall apart. I'll bet there are a lot of hardware manufacturers that don't own music or movie companies that would love more hardware marketshare.
I've struggled for a long time trying to find a suitable replacement for our aging T1. We pay $600/mo. for a full T1 with around 15 static IP addresses.
That's only SLIGHTLY cheaper than what we were paying in 1993.
Everything else in the technological world has gotten cheaper. Cellphones, computers, printers, even residential connectivity is better than what most businesses can get (speed and price).
Before anyone suggests DSL or Cable; both options in my area do not offer static IP.
As a network administrator for a school, I loved the idea of a light-weight office suite that ran on Mac and PC, and at educational pricing it was a STEAL.
After installing it on a few Macs without issue, I installed it on a bunch of PCs - my joy was shortlived.
Nothing worked reliably on the PC platform. Document corruption was common, database fields did not work correctly, application stability was poor. Three patches later, I was thankful to go back to MS office.
I don't blame Apple completely - after all, it was ClarisWorks before it became Appleworks.
Let's call a spade a spade - Appleworks, as a cross platform office suite stunk.
Keynote does give me hope. If iWork is similar in quality to Keynote, it could be a great office suite (assuming it runs on Mac and PC).
Linux seems to be taking market share from commercial Unix. I don't see many small and medium size businesses migrating away from Windows to Linux. Too many SMB software packages like accounting, patient managment, inventory control, and point of sale require windows both on the desktop and on the back end.
Ask Sun and SCO how Linux has impacted their businesses.
Sure, someday Linux might eventually have enough market penetration to make it profitable to develop SMB software on Linux, but by that point i'm sure we'll all be complaining about "clueless Linux admins".
The article suggests that the highway will be built with private funds, and the "operators" of the highway will charge tolls to recover their investment.
One assumes that the "recovery" of the investment will net a positive return on investment - PROFIT.
The article also states that some people stand to lose their property under "eminent domain" laws.
The logical conclusion of this: The government is seizing private property and making it available for use by the private sector. This seems like an improper transfer of wealth.
Eminent domain laws were designed to allow a government to seize property for the benefit of it's constituents. These laws were not intended for the benefit of a few "shareholders".
Investors in this highway should beware of warping this law. The next property seized and given away might be their own.
I always wonder why people assume that "windows admins" are "clueless admins".
I suppose a "clueless admin" doesn't know how to troubleshoot Active Directory replication failures over a VPN? I'm sure that a "clueless admin" wouldn't have the slightest clue that Kerberos authentication is failing because the VPN tunnel is dropping UDP packets. And i'm REALLY sure that "clueless admin" wouldn't know how to tell Windows 2003 server to use TCP instead of UDP for Kerberos Authentication to make it work over the VPN.
I admin both windows and linux - they are both technically challenging in a complex heterogeneous environment. I resent being thought of as a "clueless admin" because I admin windows boxes.
The Linux/Unix community needs to come down out of their ivory towers if they are to EVER take serious marketshare from Microsoft.
I hate these types of "letters". All they do is make Microsoft look bad, but they don't make Linux look very good. Most people I talk to that are frustrated with Microsoft look at linux (on the desktop) and say - OK, it's free, but it isn't as "nice" as windows.
Those same users really like OS X - but they don't want to buy an expensive computer to run it.
The reason spyware is not a problem for linux yet is two-fold:
1. Marketshare - if you are writing spyware, wouldn't you want to "spy" on the largest user base?
2. Application installation ease - most spyware does not install itself. Most spyware i've run into came from users directly downloading and double-clicking files. Installing apps on Linux is not nearly that easy - and that's why my sisters, neices and nephews don't like Linux. They can't double-click and install.
Sure, eventually Linux will HAVE to be that easy to get the marketshare that Microsoft has. Don't rattle off the excuse about being prompted for a password in OS X - i've seen users blindly type in an admin password every time the installation box pops up.
When *nix becomes easy (and popular), spyware will become a problem on *nix.
Because she's turning HP into a company that peddles nothing but commodities.
What made HP great were technologies that were unique and high margin - healthcare, scientific, and engineering fields paid a king's ransom for these products.
Carly has turned her back on these industries. She wants to sell 64-bit systems running linux? Great, so does SUN, Dell (pretty soon), and every white box vendor on the planet. What makes HP so compelling?
HP is losing their edge in printing. To whom? Dell. Sure, their (laser) printers aren't as robust or durable, but they are 1/3rd the cost of most HPs these days.
Now Carly wants to make HP a "services" company. Guess what Carly? - IBM already has you beat.
HP was a company that produced technology no one else had - that was called innovation. Now Carly wants to be a "me too" company, but it seems that Dell and IBM have already beaten HP.
We've looked at Linux time and time again, and we've found that it works well as database and web servers, but we can't use it for much else.
This may change with Novell's Enterprise Server comming out in January.
Central user management with single sign-on? It's a pain in the butt right now on Linux. How does that impact TCO?
What about all our apps that don't run on Linux? Speech to Text stuff that always falls apart in Wine, special educational packages that aren't supported on Linux? That doesn't help the TCO analysis either.
We've got lots of hardware that won't EVER work in linux - network scanners, copiers and printers, raid controllers, CD-burners, network fax machines...etc. This isn't really Linux's fault - it's the hardware manufacturer's fault - but the TCO problem falls squarely on "Linux". Should we pay BIG bucks to replace all that hardware so we can save a little money on the OS?
These studies aren't very good for anything except "rallying the troops".
Those MS TCO studies that claim you only need 2 or 3 guys to support 15,000 windows users all over the world are also good for a laugh as well.
I've got PIX firewalls built around socket 370 Celeron variants of the Pentium II. The slowest of these PIX firewalls can handle 100 times the amount of internet traffic we could ever think about affording.
Recently Cisco moved to a 133 MHz AMD cpu in their PIX 501. Their higher end PIXes use Socket 370 Celeron and Pentium III chips.
This technology is of little benefit for encoding video DVD's audio tracks. Standard video DVDs audio is usually encoded via Dolby Digital 5.1. DD 5.1 uses a lossy compression algorithm, further compression won't result in dramatically smaller bit-streams (pigeonhole principle).
Since DD 5.1 uses lossy compression, it is unsuitable for "high-end" purposes. The DVD audio format uses all the video space on the DVD for very high bit-rate (no lossy compression), high resolution, multi-channel audio. A DD 5.1 track is occasionally included for standard DVD player compatiblity.
The nice thing about this new MP3 standard is that it seems perfectly suited for encoding DVD audio tracks. Very handy if you want to take your entire DVD audio collection with you on a portable player.
Thanks to automation, my clients can do a heck of a lot more on their own without my help. Repetitive tasks like patching, virus definition updating, and user maintenance can be performed without my assistance.
So, I must be out of a job right? Wrong - new technologies don't install themselves. Take, for example, wireless networks - when the technologies became available, I got a call from every single client to install some sort of wireless network. Then I got calls to move from WEP to WPA.
One of my clients was deploying so many new technologies that they decided they needed to hire me full time.
Sure, repetitve stuff will get easer - everyone here should be thankful this is true.
My Alma Mater is looking at access points from Meru Networks.
The stuff looks impressive. The access points don't have much intelligence. The central controller authenticates users, controls AP power output to prevent AP overlap, or to compensate for a failed AP.
It looks like the right way to do wireless access.
Rambus used a high speed serialized type bus architecture. Low-pin count and very high performance.
I've built lots of machines based on Rambus memory and never once had a bad stick of memory or a compatiblity issue. I can't say the same for SDRAM based machines: "OK, this stick won't boot in this board or with those other sticks, so let's try this one..."
Why didn't Rambus designs have quality control issues like SDRAM had in the past few years? I don't know, but it could be that Rambus had very strict standards regarding the memory interfaces and the modules themselves. Does the JEDEC have similar QA standards in SDRAM designs or are memory manufacturers allowed to take "liberties" with the designs?
I'm no attorney, but it appears any department enforcing patents, copyrights, and trademarks like this is overstepping their jurisdiction.
These laws are written to protect products and ideas in CIVIL cases. If your protected idea or product is infringed upon, you go to CIVIL court, sue someone's ass off, get a cease and desist order and walk away with a nice fat stack of cash.
Disobeying the court's ruling might land you some criminal charges, but that requires a court order and cops.
If my understanding of this is wrong, hopefully an attorney will correct me.
I know many people who replace their computers every two years "because the old one got really slow". These people aren't searching for large prime numbers, finding pi to the 50,000th digit, or running nuclear blast simulations - they are checking email, surfing the web, and burning CDs. What drives this pointless upgrade cycle?
You guessed it: Spyware.
Why would Dell want to fix the problems? Their solution often times is to tell the hapless user that their machine is toast, and that they should buy a new one.
Excluding profits for all those involved I calculate almost $11.00 in COSTS that are way out of line.
We are in an era of "innovation stagnation". Companies are not creating "new stuff", but making money by taking costs out of the "old stuff". The record industry has simply refused to accept this fact.
Wal-mart, Dell, Southwest Airlines, and other low-cost providers are not providing new and innovative products, they are providing new and innovative business models that take cost out, and therefore provide value.
If the record industry is to survive, it must either create something radically new (MP3 online distribution of every artist past and present, and DVD - SACD discs) or reduce it's costs to meet market price.
The market has spoken. $15.00 CDs are not a viable business model.
I called paypal customer service last week complaining about the REALLY poor performance of the site. The wonderfully helpful DOLT on the other end said that the site gets really busy during the weekend and that slows things down.
Bullsh*t.
How can Ebay build a site that handles millions of transactions, and has great uptime and speed, yet their subsidiary - suck so bad?
The reason the 6 year deadline passed without a peep is because all parties involved know the case is totally irrelevant today. Too much time has passed. Nutscrape is almost gone, IE is actually losing marketshare due to product flaws (free market economies at work), and renewed competition in the browser, operating system, and office suite wars.
Our court system has better things to do - like sort out the mess that is our United States Patent Office.
Slashdot Mirror
A few years ago, SONY decided to "protect" its movie/music assets by designing all of their home DVD players to reject recorded (instead of stampted) media.
SONY must have thought they were the only company in the world producing home DVD players. To no one's suprise, Pioneer (made players that played anything you threw at them) had a banner year in home DVD player sales.
As far as "non-compliance" with DVD standards goes - who cares. The music industry is pulling this crap right now saying DRM protected CDs are not really CDs - so they can ignore the standard.
It only takes ONE hardware manufacturer to decide that it is not in their best intrest to sell bastardized hardware for this plan to fall apart. I'll bet there are a lot of hardware manufacturers that don't own music or movie companies that would love more hardware marketshare.
-ted
I've struggled for a long time trying to find a suitable replacement for our aging T1. We pay $600/mo. for a full T1 with around 15 static IP addresses.
That's only SLIGHTLY cheaper than what we were paying in 1993.
Everything else in the technological world has gotten cheaper. Cellphones, computers, printers, even residential connectivity is better than what most businesses can get (speed and price).
Before anyone suggests DSL or Cable; both options in my area do not offer static IP.
Telcos suck.
-ted
As a network administrator for a school, I loved the idea of a light-weight office suite that ran on Mac and PC, and at educational pricing it was a STEAL.
After installing it on a few Macs without issue, I installed it on a bunch of PCs - my joy was shortlived.
Nothing worked reliably on the PC platform. Document corruption was common, database fields did not work correctly, application stability was poor. Three patches later, I was thankful to go back to MS office.
I don't blame Apple completely - after all, it was ClarisWorks before it became Appleworks.
Let's call a spade a spade - Appleworks, as a cross platform office suite stunk.
Keynote does give me hope. If iWork is similar in quality to Keynote, it could be a great office suite (assuming it runs on Mac and PC).
-ted
Linux seems to be taking market share from commercial Unix. I don't see many small and medium size businesses migrating away from Windows to Linux. Too many SMB software packages like accounting, patient managment, inventory control, and point of sale require windows both on the desktop and on the back end.
Ask Sun and SCO how Linux has impacted their businesses.
Sure, someday Linux might eventually have enough market penetration to make it profitable to develop SMB software on Linux, but by that point i'm sure we'll all be complaining about "clueless Linux admins".
-ted
The article suggests that the highway will be built with private funds, and the "operators" of the highway will charge tolls to recover their investment.
One assumes that the "recovery" of the investment will net a positive return on investment - PROFIT.
The article also states that some people stand to lose their property under "eminent domain" laws.
The logical conclusion of this: The government is seizing private property and making it available for use by the private sector. This seems like an improper transfer of wealth.
Eminent domain laws were designed to allow a government to seize property for the benefit of it's constituents. These laws were not intended for the benefit of a few "shareholders".
Investors in this highway should beware of warping this law. The next property seized and given away might be their own.
-ted
I always wonder why people assume that "windows admins" are "clueless admins".
I suppose a "clueless admin" doesn't know how to troubleshoot Active Directory replication failures over a VPN? I'm sure that a "clueless admin" wouldn't have the slightest clue that Kerberos authentication is failing because the VPN tunnel is dropping UDP packets. And i'm REALLY sure that "clueless admin" wouldn't know how to tell Windows 2003 server to use TCP instead of UDP for Kerberos Authentication to make it work over the VPN.
I admin both windows and linux - they are both technically challenging in a complex heterogeneous environment. I resent being thought of as a "clueless admin" because I admin windows boxes.
The Linux/Unix community needs to come down out of their ivory towers if they are to EVER take serious marketshare from Microsoft.
-ted
I hate these types of "letters". All they do is make Microsoft look bad, but they don't make Linux look very good. Most people I talk to that are frustrated with Microsoft look at linux (on the desktop) and say - OK, it's free, but it isn't as "nice" as windows.
Those same users really like OS X - but they don't want to buy an expensive computer to run it.
The reason spyware is not a problem for linux yet is two-fold:
1. Marketshare - if you are writing spyware, wouldn't you want to "spy" on the largest user base?
2. Application installation ease - most spyware does not install itself. Most spyware i've run into came from users directly downloading and double-clicking files. Installing apps on Linux is not nearly that easy - and that's why my sisters, neices and nephews don't like Linux. They can't double-click and install.
Sure, eventually Linux will HAVE to be that easy to get the marketshare that Microsoft has. Don't rattle off the excuse about being prompted for a password in OS X - i've seen users blindly type in an admin password every time the installation box pops up.
When *nix becomes easy (and popular), spyware will become a problem on *nix.
-ted
Because she's turning HP into a company that peddles nothing but commodities.
What made HP great were technologies that were unique and high margin - healthcare, scientific, and engineering fields paid a king's ransom for these products.
Carly has turned her back on these industries. She wants to sell 64-bit systems running linux? Great, so does SUN, Dell (pretty soon), and every white box vendor on the planet. What makes HP so compelling?
HP is losing their edge in printing. To whom? Dell. Sure, their (laser) printers aren't as robust or durable, but they are 1/3rd the cost of most HPs these days.
Now Carly wants to make HP a "services" company. Guess what Carly? - IBM already has you beat.
HP was a company that produced technology no one else had - that was called innovation. Now Carly wants to be a "me too" company, but it seems that Dell and IBM have already beaten HP.
-ted
Firewire CD burners - most we have do not work under linux. There is one old Yamaha that does - sometimes.
-ted
We've looked at Linux time and time again, and we've found that it works well as database and web servers, but we can't use it for much else.
This may change with Novell's Enterprise Server comming out in January.
Central user management with single sign-on? It's a pain in the butt right now on Linux. How does that impact TCO?
What about all our apps that don't run on Linux? Speech to Text stuff that always falls apart in Wine, special educational packages that aren't supported on Linux? That doesn't help the TCO analysis either.
We've got lots of hardware that won't EVER work in linux - network scanners, copiers and printers, raid controllers, CD-burners, network fax machines...etc. This isn't really Linux's fault - it's the hardware manufacturer's fault - but the TCO problem falls squarely on "Linux". Should we pay BIG bucks to replace all that hardware so we can save a little money on the OS?
These studies aren't very good for anything except "rallying the troops".
Those MS TCO studies that claim you only need 2 or 3 guys to support 15,000 windows users all over the world are also good for a laugh as well.
-ted
I've "fixed" more than one computer by removing AOL.
It seems that AOL asks you during installation if you want it to be the "primary" way of getting to the internet.
Most AOL users don't know what this means, and they think they must answer "YES" to this question.
This creates a problem in most offices since AOL routes all DNS querys through it's DNS servers.
That will break windows 2000 and XP workstations that require DNS resolution to find their local domain controllers and member servers.
Answering "NO" to the "primary internet" connection question prevents the DNS problem - but how many AOL users are expected to know that?
-ted
I've got PIX firewalls built around socket 370 Celeron variants of the Pentium II. The slowest of these PIX firewalls can handle 100 times the amount of internet traffic we could ever think about affording.
Recently Cisco moved to a 133 MHz AMD cpu in their PIX 501. Their higher end PIXes use Socket 370 Celeron and Pentium III chips.
-ted
Now wait just one minute you young whipper-snapper...
Before you go on makin' people live to 1000, how 'bout curin' cancer, aids, and heart disease first?
Seems we've got a bunch of little things to do before anyone can live to 1k.
-ted
Two words:
Car audio
This technology is of little benefit for encoding video DVD's audio tracks. Standard video DVDs audio is usually encoded via Dolby Digital 5.1. DD 5.1 uses a lossy compression algorithm, further compression won't result in dramatically smaller bit-streams (pigeonhole principle).
Since DD 5.1 uses lossy compression, it is unsuitable for "high-end" purposes. The DVD audio format uses all the video space on the DVD for very high bit-rate (no lossy compression), high resolution, multi-channel audio. A DD 5.1 track is occasionally included for standard DVD player compatiblity.
The nice thing about this new MP3 standard is that it seems perfectly suited for encoding DVD audio tracks. Very handy if you want to take your entire DVD audio collection with you on a portable player.
-ted
Thanks to automation, my clients can do a heck of a lot more on their own without my help. Repetitive tasks like patching, virus definition updating, and user maintenance can be performed without my assistance.
So, I must be out of a job right? Wrong - new technologies don't install themselves. Take, for example, wireless networks - when the technologies became available, I got a call from every single client to install some sort of wireless network. Then I got calls to move from WEP to WPA.
One of my clients was deploying so many new technologies that they decided they needed to hire me full time.
Sure, repetitve stuff will get easer - everyone here should be thankful this is true.
-ted
My Alma Mater is looking at access points from Meru Networks.
The stuff looks impressive. The access points don't have much intelligence. The central controller authenticates users, controls AP power output to prevent AP overlap, or to compensate for a failed AP.
It looks like the right way to do wireless access.
-ted
I use an audiotron and a Dell Powervault 725 N.
The Audiotron is a nice piece. Easy to use, and will work with anything that can serve up SMB shares. It does not play OGG though.
-ted
Rambus used a high speed serialized type bus architecture. Low-pin count and very high performance.
I've built lots of machines based on Rambus memory and never once had a bad stick of memory or a compatiblity issue. I can't say the same for SDRAM based machines: "OK, this stick won't boot in this board or with those other sticks, so let's try this one..."
Why didn't Rambus designs have quality control issues like SDRAM had in the past few years? I don't know, but it could be that Rambus had very strict standards regarding the memory interfaces and the modules themselves. Does the JEDEC have similar QA standards in SDRAM designs or are memory manufacturers allowed to take "liberties" with the designs?
-ted
I'm no attorney, but it appears any department enforcing patents, copyrights, and trademarks like this is overstepping their jurisdiction.
These laws are written to protect products and ideas in CIVIL cases. If your protected idea or product is infringed upon, you go to CIVIL court, sue someone's ass off, get a cease and desist order and walk away with a nice fat stack of cash.
Disobeying the court's ruling might land you some criminal charges, but that requires a court order and cops.
If my understanding of this is wrong, hopefully an attorney will correct me.
-ted
While this may be an improvement on traditional rocket designs, it still has one major flaw for distant space travel:
It needs a propellant.
That's right boys and girls, if you want to travel long distances on this rocket, you'll need to carry a lot of propellant - most likely hydrogen.
We need to work on non-propellant based propulsion if we are to ever get out of our solar system.
Oh yeah, we also need to work on the speed of light thing as well if we are going to get anywhere in our galaxy in a reasonable time.
-ted
I know many people who replace their computers every two years "because the old one got really slow". These people aren't searching for large prime numbers, finding pi to the 50,000th digit, or running nuclear blast simulations - they are checking email, surfing the web, and burning CDs. What drives this pointless upgrade cycle?
You guessed it: Spyware.
Why would Dell want to fix the problems? Their solution often times is to tell the hapless user that their machine is toast, and that they should buy a new one.
-ted
Look at the breakdown in the article for the cost of a $15.99 CD:
$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead
Excluding profits for all those involved I calculate almost $11.00 in COSTS that are way out of line.
We are in an era of "innovation stagnation". Companies are not creating "new stuff", but making money by taking costs out of the "old stuff". The record industry has simply refused to accept this fact.
Wal-mart, Dell, Southwest Airlines, and other low-cost providers are not providing new and innovative products, they are providing new and innovative business models that take cost out, and therefore provide value.
If the record industry is to survive, it must either create something radically new (MP3 online distribution of every artist past and present, and DVD - SACD discs) or reduce it's costs to meet market price.
The market has spoken. $15.00 CDs are not a viable business model.
-ted
I called paypal customer service last week complaining about the REALLY poor performance of the site. The wonderfully helpful DOLT on the other end said that the site gets really busy during the weekend and that slows things down.
Bullsh*t.
How can Ebay build a site that handles millions of transactions, and has great uptime and speed, yet their subsidiary - suck so bad?
-ted
The reason the 6 year deadline passed without a peep is because all parties involved know the case is totally irrelevant today. Too much time has passed. Nutscrape is almost gone, IE is actually losing marketshare due to product flaws (free market economies at work), and renewed competition in the browser, operating system, and office suite wars.
Our court system has better things to do - like sort out the mess that is our United States Patent Office.
-ted