Leave it to a Microsoft partnered news agency to equate marketshare to success.
I would argue that Linux is a raging success. How else can you explain a software product that costs nothing, generates little direct sales revenue, yet has thousands of developers world-wide supporting it, and is nipping at Microsoft's heels in the server arena?
Does Apple think it's software products are failures? With only about 5% of the desktop market, MSNBC would label Mac OS a failure. I don't use Mac software, but I imagine that Mac users like the software very much.
Software products are tools, and the correct tool should be used for the job. Windows for my mother, Linux for my development/server platform....and a Mac for something or other...i don't know.
I use a Linux desktop machine, and the progress that Linux has made in that arena in the past 5 years is amazing....and it's getting better by the day.
Hailstorm failed for one BIG reason: No one in their right mind trusts Microsoft with security sensitive data. Corporations from AmEx to the average joe consumer didn't buy the claim that Microsoft would protect all this confidential data.
Now, we are to trust Microsoft to develop an all encompasing security platform? How do those bone-heads at Microsoft Marketing/Engineering think anyone at all will buy into this?
It takes a very long time to build security into your products, and an even longer time to build trust with customers. Microsoft has not done either, and this security platform will fail without the support of hardware vendors, software vendors, and people like you and me.
"Those that do not think with their heads, think with their wallets instead."
The issue here is not tech savvy or not, rather, the issue is time-value of money.
It takes alot of time to find the music at acceptable quality, download the music, organize the music, and then burn the CD. The only reason people accept this form of distribution is that it is cost effective. CDs are too damn expensive, and the consumer is in open revolt.
If CDs were in the $2-4 dollar range, I suspect alot of people wouldn't waste the time to download and burn a CD.
How can the recording industry justify a $15-$20 CD, when DVD's cost roughly the same, and are a much better entertainment value. Surely the production and distribution costs of a movie are much higher than that of a music CD. If that is true, why are CDs so expensive?
UFO sitings may be higher in remote areas, but I think the frequency of sightings can be more closely correlated to the alcohol consumption rate in a given area.
I had a similar problem at the school I work for. We have a central file server running Vertias backup exec. Gave everyone a "home" directory on the server and mapped the drive via login script. I told everyone to put all their documents there....and of course some people didn't do that.
So I forced the issue by installing Fortres on every machine and locked down the user's ability to save files locally....so if they want to save the document, they need to save it on the server. I am also running the central control module to easily push out changes to the workstations.
I thought about using roaming profiles (Windows 2000/NT/9x required), but they are a pain in the ass. Some local apps don't like the roaming profile thing, and the file synchronization on login and logoff was killing our network bandwidth (as well as annoying the users with really long login/logout times.)
Turn on a radio or television where you normally hang out. If you get a signal you are in the RF field of that broadcast station. Wireless communication works by generating a very small voltage in any conductive material in the RF field....so anywhere you can pickup radio, television, or cell-phone signal, you have a voltage being generated in your body.
As a comparison, the voltages generated by the human nervous system are much higher since you don't lose motor control every time you enter one of these RF fields.
You probably want to avoid standing in front of a Megawatt radar station on an Aegis class destroyer, and sticking your head in a running microwave....but other than that I wouldn't worry.
-ted
I can already hear the filters being installed.
on
What Free Cable?
·
· Score: 2
Yup, you got it....cable companies can install filters on the pole that feeds your house to block out any channels they want....and yes, they can block all but the channel that your data rides on if you aren't paying for basic cable.
Most areas only have one cable provider, that's true. Usually it is a regulated monopoly. Typically the local cable company is allowed a monopoly for a contractually limited time. After that time the cable co. has to sweeten the deal with the local governments (better programming, upgraded services and features,...etc) to keep that area or the local gov't gets competing offers from other cable companies.
I agree, competition is a wonderful thing...but that usually implies more than one vendor of a product or service. Most areas of this country can not get broadband, those that can are usually only serviced by one broadband provider.
No competiton there.
As far as channel selection goes....started with around 50 and still have around 50. I don't want any more...there is already too much garbage on TV...I want higher broadcast quality and 5.1 channel audio...maybe even some music channels that aren't programmed by Clear Channel Inc.
Need innovation and quality, not quantity.
That brings up another near monopoly...and not one that government created. Clear Channel Inc. programs most of the radio stations in this country....and most of them are terrible. The radio industry used to be competitive, but thanks to the wonderful capitalist movement called consolidation, we are ending up with 2 or 3 big media companies that control most TV and radio.
Again, not much competiton here, and a lack of innovation. Growth through aquisition instead of innovation is only temporary, unsustainable growth.
Finally, most drug development is done by the private drug companies, not the US government. I'll give you this much, there is competition in the drug business, but not much innovation. How many allergy medications have you seen in the past few years? Tons, all roughly equivalent...none really better than the other.
We need to strike a balance between innovation and competiton. When both are gone, the government needs to step in and give the industries a "kick-start".
-ted
And the idea scales well!
on
Do-it-yourself UPS
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I did some network consulting at a lawfirm that had offices in a high-rise tower. They couldn't get the EPA permits granted for a diesel powered backup generator, so they built a "UPS" room.
They hooked up half a room full of 12 volt lead-acid batteries to charging systems and inverters and put the whole system under a vent hood. We never did figure out exactly how much runtime their server room had.
C'mon guys, remember what cable deregulation was supposed to do to cable prices? Cable prices were supposed to go down.
I don't know about any other slashdotters, but my cable bill has NEVER gone down. It only goes up.
Some people will say that increased competition from satellite TV drove the cable industry to upgrade to digital cable....I say baloney. I still can't get digital cable, and i'll only get it when cablevision decides they want to give it to me.
Why would broadband providers structure internet connectivity any differently? The only way the United States will get widely available broadband at reasonable prices is if the US government makes it a priority. The gov't must aid in the build out and then REGULATE the industry.
We've already tried the unregulated approach and wall street bent over and took the results. All we've got now is spotty broadband coverage and high prices....don't even get me started on wireless internet!
I will definitely look into this. I like the idea of running an Exchange client on my Linux machines.
So when do you guys develop an Exchange server replacement that runs on linux? I'd like to import my mail from Exchange and have all my Outlook clients, Ximian clients, and web access.
SCSI has one really nice thing going for it...160MB/sec bandwidth. A bunch of drives in a raid 5 configuration can take advantage of Ultra 160's bandwidth, but it's a waste on the desktop since most desktop chipsets do not support 64-bit PCI at 66 MHZ. (Intel's i850 P4 chipset has a bug in it that limits the PCI bus to 90 MB/sec instead of the theoretical 133MB/sec.) If your platform doesn't have the bandwidth capability then there is no reason to spend the dough on lots of fast SCSI drives.
SCSI drives are (for the most part) built better and spin at higher speeds. 10k RPM drives can be had for $350. I have a 36GB 10k Seagate in my box right now. The SCSI drives that I buy come with a 5 yr warranty. You'll never see that kind of warranty on IDE drives. It has nothing to do with IDE vs. SCSI per se....it is all about margin. IDE drives have to be less than $200 to get anyone's attention in the retail space so they have lower build quality.
Most SCSI drives, on the other hand, are designed for higher-end applications where cost is less of a factor. Reliability and uptime are more important (read: servers). These drives cost more and therefore the manufacturer builds (and warranties) them better.
As far as single drive performance goes, the mechanicals of most SCSI drives and IDE drives are pretty similar. That is the limiting factor in a single drive installation...not the bus or the interface.
These cry-babies are terrible. What ever happened to the american spirit of entrepreneurship? When your market changes, you alter your model to stay viable! If no one is watching the commercials, maybe the network should switch to a completely pay-per-view model.
The reason they won't is simple...TNT knows no one in their right mind would pay for that crap, so their only choice is to extort money from advertisers. Eventually the advertisers will figure out that no one is watching their commercials and pull money from the networks...oh well I say good ridance!
I'd pay for high-quality HDTV content. Not this watered down crap the industry wants to implement. Just think, instead of giving high-quality HDTV signals to the public they want to divide up the bandwith to provide 3-4 low-quality channels in what should only be 1 high-quality channel...why? Because they can sell 3-4 times more ad space.
If congress won't force the broadcasters to do the right thing, maybe economics will.
We buy the academic open license MS Office suite for $60.00/seat. This includes Outlook as well as the whole office suite.
Now how am I supposed to tell my boss that Linux/Evolution/Open Office, will free us from the licensing costs and license tracking overhead of closed proprietary software? The OS academic open license for Windows XP costs $40.00/seat and the Office suite costs $60.00/seat...for a total of $100.00 per seat.
The exchange connector for Evolution costs $69.00! This doesn't give me an entire office suite....just an Exchange connector! And I still have the license tracking overhead of closed proprietary software.
I'd be willing to consider this product as an Outlook replacement, but not at this cost.
Slashdot Mirror
Leave it to a Microsoft partnered news agency to equate marketshare to success.
I would argue that Linux is a raging success. How else can you explain a software product that costs nothing, generates little direct sales revenue, yet has thousands of developers world-wide supporting it, and is nipping at Microsoft's heels in the server arena?
Does Apple think it's software products are failures? With only about 5% of the desktop market, MSNBC would label Mac OS a failure. I don't use Mac software, but I imagine that Mac users like the software very much.
Software products are tools, and the correct tool should be used for the job. Windows for my mother, Linux for my development/server platform....and a Mac for something or other...i don't know.
I use a Linux desktop machine, and the progress that Linux has made in that arena in the past 5 years is amazing....and it's getting better by the day.
That doesn't sound like a failure to me.
-ted
Hailstorm failed for one BIG reason: No one in their right mind trusts Microsoft with security sensitive data. Corporations from AmEx to the average joe consumer didn't buy the claim that Microsoft would protect all this confidential data.
Now, we are to trust Microsoft to develop an all encompasing security platform? How do those bone-heads at Microsoft Marketing/Engineering think anyone at all will buy into this?
It takes a very long time to build security into your products, and an even longer time to build trust with customers. Microsoft has not done either, and this security platform will fail without the support of hardware vendors, software vendors, and people like you and me.
-ted
"Those that do not think with their heads, think with their wallets instead."
The issue here is not tech savvy or not, rather, the issue is time-value of money.
It takes alot of time to find the music at acceptable quality, download the music, organize the music, and then burn the CD. The only reason people accept this form of distribution is that it is cost effective. CDs are too damn expensive, and the consumer is in open revolt.
If CDs were in the $2-4 dollar range, I suspect alot of people wouldn't waste the time to download and burn a CD.
How can the recording industry justify a $15-$20 CD, when DVD's cost roughly the same, and are a much better entertainment value. Surely the production and distribution costs of a movie are much higher than that of a music CD. If that is true, why are CDs so expensive?
I can only think of one answer...greed.
-ted
UFO sitings may be higher in remote areas, but I think the frequency of sightings can be more closely correlated to the alcohol consumption rate in a given area.
-ted
Great! Another way for a telephone to interrupt my life! If my girlfriend ever interrupts oral to answer the phone, she's out the door.
-ted
I had a similar problem at the school I work for. We have a central file server running Vertias backup exec. Gave everyone a "home" directory on the server and mapped the drive via login script. I told everyone to put all their documents there....and of course some people didn't do that.
So I forced the issue by installing Fortres on every machine and locked down the user's ability to save files locally....so if they want to save the document, they need to save it on the server. I am also running the central control module to easily push out changes to the workstations.
I thought about using roaming profiles (Windows 2000/NT/9x required), but they are a pain in the ass. Some local apps don't like the roaming profile thing, and the file synchronization on login and logoff was killing our network bandwidth (as well as annoying the users with really long login/logout times.)
Hope this helps.
-ted
Turn on a radio or television where you normally hang out. If you get a signal you are in the RF field of that broadcast station. Wireless communication works by generating a very small voltage in any conductive material in the RF field....so anywhere you can pickup radio, television, or cell-phone signal, you have a voltage being generated in your body.
As a comparison, the voltages generated by the human nervous system are much higher since you don't lose motor control every time you enter one of these RF fields.
You probably want to avoid standing in front of a Megawatt radar station on an Aegis class destroyer, and sticking your head in a running microwave....but other than that I wouldn't worry.
-ted
Yup, you got it....cable companies can install filters on the pole that feeds your house to block out any channels they want....and yes, they can block all but the channel that your data rides on if you aren't paying for basic cable.
Oh well, another freebee bites the dust.
-ted
Probably a plane ticket for the ass-kicker paid for by the ass-kickee.
-ted
The stuff was lost in a warehouse for 12 years....how "classified" can this stuff be? It sounds like a bunch of old radar equipment....big deal.
Now if they were nuke parts i'd be worried.
-ted
You can also buy an ass kicking....if you're into that sort of thing. Bid here -ted
Most areas only have one cable provider, that's true. Usually it is a regulated monopoly. Typically the local cable company is allowed a monopoly for a contractually limited time. After that time the cable co. has to sweeten the deal with the local governments (better programming, upgraded services and features,...etc) to keep that area or the local gov't gets competing offers from other cable companies.
Carmack on ATI:
"the driver quality is still quite a ways from Nvidia's"
My jaw almost hit the floor after reading that.......NOT!
ATI is moving to a unified driver model like Nvidia's so maybe, just maybe, we'll start to see better refined drivers as ATI's product line ages.
-ted
I agree, competition is a wonderful thing...but that usually implies more than one vendor of a product or service. Most areas of this country can not get broadband, those that can are usually only serviced by one broadband provider.
No competiton there.
As far as channel selection goes....started with around 50 and still have around 50. I don't want any more...there is already too much garbage on TV...I want higher broadcast quality and 5.1 channel audio...maybe even some music channels that aren't programmed by Clear Channel Inc.
Need innovation and quality, not quantity.
That brings up another near monopoly...and not one that government created. Clear Channel Inc. programs most of the radio stations in this country....and most of them are terrible. The radio industry used to be competitive, but thanks to the wonderful capitalist movement called consolidation, we are ending up with 2 or 3 big media companies that control most TV and radio.
Again, not much competiton here, and a lack of innovation. Growth through aquisition instead of innovation is only temporary, unsustainable growth.
Finally, most drug development is done by the private drug companies, not the US government. I'll give you this much, there is competition in the drug business, but not much innovation. How many allergy medications have you seen in the past few years? Tons, all roughly equivalent...none really better than the other.
We need to strike a balance between innovation and competiton. When both are gone, the government needs to step in and give the industries a "kick-start".
-ted
I did some network consulting at a lawfirm that had offices in a high-rise tower. They couldn't get the EPA permits granted for a diesel powered backup generator, so they built a "UPS" room.
The inverter came from these guys here.
They hooked up half a room full of 12 volt lead-acid batteries to charging systems and inverters and put the whole system under a vent hood. We never did figure out exactly how much runtime their server room had.
-ted
C'mon guys, remember what cable deregulation was supposed to do to cable prices? Cable prices were supposed to go down.
I don't know about any other slashdotters, but my cable bill has NEVER gone down. It only goes up.
Some people will say that increased competition from satellite TV drove the cable industry to upgrade to digital cable....I say baloney. I still can't get digital cable, and i'll only get it when cablevision decides they want to give it to me.
Why would broadband providers structure internet connectivity any differently? The only way the United States will get widely available broadband at reasonable prices is if the US government makes it a priority. The gov't must aid in the build out and then REGULATE the industry.
We've already tried the unregulated approach and wall street bent over and took the results. All we've got now is spotty broadband coverage and high prices....don't even get me started on wireless internet!
-ted
http://www.handspring.com/products/communicators/i ndex.jhtml?prod_cat_name=Communicators
-ted
C'mon Stallman...finish Hurd...then you can call it GNU/Hurd and leave Linux alone.
I'm not discounting the GNU contribution....on the contrary. I wouldn't have been able to do what I did in College without GNU tools.
-ted
They probably overbought licenses to avoid the posssiblity of a BSA audit.....ever. At least that's the excuse i'd use to cover my ass.
-ted
I will definitely look into this. I like the idea of running an Exchange client on my Linux machines.
So when do you guys develop an Exchange server replacement that runs on linux? I'd like to import my mail from Exchange and have all my Outlook clients, Ximian clients, and web access.
That's where the $$$$ are.
-ted
SCSI has one really nice thing going for it...160MB/sec bandwidth. A bunch of drives in a raid 5 configuration can take advantage of Ultra 160's bandwidth, but it's a waste on the desktop since most desktop chipsets do not support 64-bit PCI at 66 MHZ. (Intel's i850 P4 chipset has a bug in it that limits the PCI bus to 90 MB/sec instead of the theoretical 133MB/sec.) If your platform doesn't have the bandwidth capability then there is no reason to spend the dough on lots of fast SCSI drives.
SCSI drives are (for the most part) built better and spin at higher speeds. 10k RPM drives can be had for $350. I have a 36GB 10k Seagate in my box right now. The SCSI drives that I buy come with a 5 yr warranty. You'll never see that kind of warranty on IDE drives. It has nothing to do with IDE vs. SCSI per se....it is all about margin. IDE drives have to be less than $200 to get anyone's attention in the retail space so they have lower build quality.
Most SCSI drives, on the other hand, are designed for higher-end applications where cost is less of a factor. Reliability and uptime are more important (read: servers). These drives cost more and therefore the manufacturer builds (and warranties) them better.
As far as single drive performance goes, the mechanicals of most SCSI drives and IDE drives are pretty similar. That is the limiting factor in a single drive installation...not the bus or the interface.
-ted
These cry-babies are terrible. What ever happened to the american spirit of entrepreneurship? When your market changes, you alter your model to stay viable! If no one is watching the commercials, maybe the network should switch to a completely pay-per-view model.
The reason they won't is simple...TNT knows no one in their right mind would pay for that crap, so their only choice is to extort money from advertisers. Eventually the advertisers will figure out that no one is watching their commercials and pull money from the networks...oh well I say good ridance!
I'd pay for high-quality HDTV content. Not this watered down crap the industry wants to implement. Just think, instead of giving high-quality HDTV signals to the public they want to divide up the bandwith to provide 3-4 low-quality channels in what should only be 1 high-quality channel...why? Because they can sell 3-4 times more ad space.
If congress won't force the broadcasters to do the right thing, maybe economics will.
-ted
You got modded down to zero....probably becuase of the editorial at the end, but you make a good point.
I usually bundle the CALs into the server cost, not the client costs.
-ted
We buy the academic open license MS Office suite for $60.00/seat. This includes Outlook as well as the whole office suite.
Now how am I supposed to tell my boss that Linux/Evolution/Open Office, will free us from the licensing costs and license tracking overhead of closed proprietary software? The OS academic open license for Windows XP costs $40.00/seat and the Office suite costs $60.00/seat...for a total of $100.00 per seat.
The exchange connector for Evolution costs $69.00! This doesn't give me an entire office suite....just an Exchange connector! And I still have the license tracking overhead of closed proprietary software.
I'd be willing to consider this product as an Outlook replacement, but not at this cost.
-ted
My Dell Inspiron 8200 has a 1600 x 1200 LCD panel and it is awsome.
It's nice to have multiple 800 x 600 windows open; code in one window, email in another...etc.
Try it you'll like it.
-ted