Ok, so by now we all know PS and Gimp fanboys alike, that PS has features that Gimp hasn't and makes working with images in a certain way possible were Gimp doesn't. Gimp doesn't have protocol, Gimp filters are a joke compared to PS, Gimp layers are ok but again PS excels here. And lets not get started on effects. Corel PhotoPaint is somewhere in between (I'd say closer to PS) and does nearly everything one needs perfectly on linux. As I am a professional user that's used all three on professional projects let me provide the bottom line here: Gimp -> nice usefull tool for editing images Corel PhotoPaint (also available for Linux, free (beer)) -> nice professional tool for editing images PS -> the bar
Even though a lot of stuff can be done with Gimp and might not technically justify buying a licence for Corel Draw/PhotoPaint for Linux (I did this before PP was availlable for free), there is a very good reason to do this anyway. Let me illustrate with another example:
I'm a Blender Fanboy. Blender rocks. I'm one of the few that own a commercial licence - back from the time where there was a commercial version available for about a year. Blender has come a long way since I joined at 1.8. 3D software vendors are doing wee-wee all over their pants when they see the growing featureset of Blender. It's allready got stuff that no other package in the industry has (i.e. B-Bones). With the ongoing Orange Project features are getting added every other week. I love the programm and I love to use it. Yet I still bought a (reduced) commercial edition of Lightwave less than a year ago. How's that work out? Type in the word "Lightwave" at amazon.com and you'll get one reason. Lightwave has been in the industry for 10 years and it shows. You can get clobberd with books on LW. LW covers workflow from a to z. While workspacemanagement lacks compared to Blender, it is well though out. The Workflow has less to none of the little quirks that can spoil the Blender experience a little. Rigid and softbody stuff is well established in LW and cloth is void of that experimental prototype feeling it has with Blender. Platonic Primitives is a bonus over current Blender (2.4) I just got to enjoy the other day. I could go on but this outlines the issue at hand. All in all, for a professional, it justifies the expense of 500 Euros for LW over Blender to get the job done quicker or make that needed extra possible. I have to spend some money on Books, but the point is that they are available. The ones for Blender still have to be written. I've volunteered for that but mind you, writing end user documentation for a 3D package is a hell of a job.
This is the narrowing difference between established software (be it commercial closed source or not) and software that isn't quite there yet. And believe me, as far as competitive oss design software goes, nothing is as mature as Blender.
In a way a Gimp/PP/PS debate is pointless. One about Blender/LW would actually be interessting.
I don't want a free database. There are more full-range free databases out there than free full-range editors.
I want a free database + free zero hassle one stop installation + free zero database driver suckage + free native object-relational OSS PL support (and I mean Python and Ruby and PHP and Perl, all at the same time) + free full range plattform independent grafical admining + SQL errors that don't say "syntax error between line 3 and 10000" + a free full-range professional level grafical ER tool with reverse engineering of any DB I have to migrate to the DB they offer + free optional zero fuss, 3 config lines maximum load balancing.
Call me when you offer that and I'll be using DB2, Oracle or whatever within an instant.
Until then I'll stick to my current MySQL InnoDB stunts and my plans to migrate to Postgres or - as the case might be - Firebird. They are truly free and they got my attention. And if MySQL Workbench will be as cool as it looks I might even just not switch at all. Despite the fact that current MySQL still has way to go before becoming a full range database. MaxDB might change that - but we'll see.
Sorry folks but getting attention requires a tad more than just giving your DB away for free these days. And it's all your fault. Hadn't you asked such bizar prices in the first place things probably would look different today.
Please note people: This is a company. That means they make money. And they do it in the classic sense which means this type of company usually gets the creeps when hearing stuff like "go FOSS" or "rely on FOSS". CEOs freak out regularly when these terms come up.
If SUN plans an OSS strategy they are certainly NOT going to GPL their powerhorse Java. Solaris is nearly just as impressive from a technical standpoint. It's probably that Solaris doesn't have the numbers attached to it SUN would like to see. So they probably guess it could prove itself as OSS, since Linux is winning in the custom Unix market at all fronts.
If x86 Solaris would go GPL that would be really cool. I'd actually give it a try.
There are a lot of people who think the same. Including OSS programmers. You might want to look up the term "freedroid" in Google. Its an OSS clone of Paradroid.
No it's not a Flashkiller. Flash is the most widespread VM ever. It offered cool grafics when everything else on the web looked like crap and now that real world CSS is finally up to the job it's grown into an impressive rich client plattform and a proper PL, rivaling Java in the client side web. It's got Players/Plugins/VMs for all three major Workstation plattforms (Windows, OS X and Linux), has a large OSS community (osflash.org), has an increasing number of OSS developement tools including an open source AS2/Flash7 compiler that's even better than the original from macromedia/adobe, an eclipse based IDE for flash/AS, a handfull of FOSS enterprise class serverside RIA generators, an impressive remoting solution for the most popular SSI Language (amfphp) and a GNU project for building a free Player/VM that recently has become a top priority for the GNU people.
It has exactly zero firewall, zero plattform and zero browser problems when deploying enterprise RIAs and it integrates with any browser DOM like peanutbutter with chocolate. Every idiot and his brother knows it and every other idiot can build flash stuff. Or at least thinks he can. Installing the VM (Player/Plugin) is gods prototype of a no-brainer and Java/Classpath/wxPython/XUL Technology-mix uglyness bounce off it like a wrench hitting a patio door.
After Flash comes a looong empty space in RIA Web, then comes Java with XUL quite close behind. Maybe somewhere inbetween there is Curl of some other exotic thing, but the rest you see is just dead bodies of the last 6 years of 'flash killers', including Director.
Bottom line: Whatever Sparkle is or is intended to be, it is not a Flash killer. And if Adobe doesn't do a major screwup there won't be a flash killer for a very long time. I'd know how to attempt one with MS type money, but I kinda doupt MS would support a VM that outperforms Flash in every aspect, including price for an offical IDE, and runs flawlessly on x86 Linux and OS X.
Of course PHP is somewhat quirky. We all know that. I'd also rather do all my stuff with Python, Zope and Django. But it happens to be that everything is run in PHP nowadays and lots of clients want PHP modifications or an extension to one of the 10 million PHP/MySQL CMSes out there.
Luckily there are neat tools that make professional PHP project work very easy and fun:
PHPTAL (http://phptal.motion-twin.com/) is a PHP based redoo of Zopes TAL (Template Attribute Language) - the best Templating concept ever. Makes Prado look even more sucky than it is allready.
CakePHP (www.cakephp.org/) - the PHP addition to the MVC Framework hype that Ruby on Rails kicked off. Just the right thing for larger Projects that cry for clean frameworks. Very neat.
I find it fascinating how this Ajax buzzword took of almost the instant some new economy web consultant wisecrack coined the term in his blog. The stuff Ajax stands for all had been done before but suddenly everybody acted as if there'd be something new. It's even admitted by it's 'creators' that the term Ajax is a buzzword. Being in the business of web conltant wisecracking myself I actually find it very usefull. From now on there is no chance whatsoever customers, clients and partners I talk to will get another chance to mix up Java and JavaScript.
1.) Windows does take longer to patch 2.) Anything is more secure than windows 3.) Odds are the people that discovered the bug are the same ones that patched it while discovering it. So, yes, this security hole is allready patched. That is more often the case than not with OSS. 4.) Yes, believe it of not, it does NOT crash the OS when Konqueror goes down. Unlike IE on windows, the TCP/IP stack is not bound into the most inner workings of the OS. Which makes sense.
The funny thing is that we ought to be laughing about windows when windows holes pop up. Then on the other hand, the trouble the windows family causes isn't funny anymore and hasn't been for years.
The parents of Tron calling for a temporal decree at a german court and having his real name deleted from Wikipedia are being silly. Tron is, by definition, "a person of public interest" (german legal term) and any legally optainable information on him may thus be published. A temporal decree in german law is exactly that: temporal. A decision by court that needs to be followed until the real court rule is out. No judge in his right mind will prohibit an encyclopedia from publishing details about Tron.
This case does emphasise though that writers to wikipedia are bound by german publishing law and are liable for any damage they cause by deliberately publishing lies or such. Just because the server with german content is outside of germany doesn't mean you'll get away with causing public unrest (Volksverhetzung), denial of the Holocaust ('Auschwitz Lüge') or anything else that is illegal in germany. If the indended audience evidently is in germany the courts won't fall for cheap excuses. Which makes perfect sense.
Lots of stuff about spyware and backup and such. Pointless. All that is expert stuff from this perspective.
Be shure to teach the following:
1.) Computers are more a new cultural technique rather than just typewriters that can make nice pictures and show video. They are -and this is the most important thing EVERYBODY needs to understand before they do anything else - they are devices that automate tasks that only humans can understand. They are - for the lack of better explaination - extremly primitive thinking devices.
2.) Surfing the net and editing files on a Computer in an effective manner is like playing Beethovens Moonshine Sonata on the Piano. AND YOU CAN NOT,NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO, PLAY THE MOONSHINE SONATA WITHOUT PRACTICING CORDS AND SCALES FIRST!
YOU HAVE TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE INNER WORKINGS OF A COMPUTER AND ITS USES BEFORE YOU CAN USE IT IN AN EFFECTIVE MANNER!
Be shure to repeat that sentence something like 10 times in the first chapter.
3.) A list of things then following: ->Automating mind tasks - the history of computers (a short overview) ->Modern Micro Computers (a super-short overview). ->Volatile (Chips) and non-volatile (HDD) memory 101. ->Operating Systems - The programm that runs programms and why such a thing is practical. The CPU and it's friends on the motherboard. ->The File systems and their metaphors and what's cool about file systems. The HDD and it's friends in the opto-drives and USB sticks.
->Putting stuff in computers and getting stuff out, brief mentioning of the CLI. ->The modern GUIs and their metaphors and why they are a good thing.
->The name of the keys on the keyboard and how they are used. ->How the different keys on the keyboard are called and what they do. ->How to do different things on a computer by pressing different keys on a keyboard of a computer. ->The hold-down keys and how they influence the function of other keys. ->Why some keys (mostly hold-down keys) are to be found more than once on a keyboard and how that indicates their importance and the suggested frequency of their usage.
->The concept of the clipboard. ->Computers are really good at copying and pasting stuff. ->Computers where built to copy and paste stuff. ->How copy and paste works on all GUI operating systems since the mid-80s. ->How to use your keyboard and that invisible thing callled clipboard to COPY AND PASTE stuff.
->Keyboard key naming and functions, refreshment chapter.
->The concept of focus in modern GUIs. ->There is a thing called focus and you have to know where it is at all times and how it got there and how you can move the focus of you input.
->Thourough keyboard GUI and Edit Widget navigation chapter. Explain Selection, deleting, cutting and refresh copy and paste. Explain cursor navigation, the cursor keys, back and forth with cursor keys, up and down with cursor keys, selecting with shift and so on.
->Modern Mouse navigation and CUAS (Common User Access Standards) ->What the mouse cursor symbols mean. ->There is more than one way to do it, find your style (time for authors personal advice)
->The concept of focus, refreshment chapter.
->Modern programming languages (brief overview), some simple exaple of a computer programm that everyone can relate to (simple find and replace in a text in Python, Ruby or something)
->Computer Networks, the internet and the web.
->Computer File system refreshment chapter with additional network concepts.
->Ready made software, closed and open source software (brief summary), cool things computers can do for you today.
->The computer as a computer. ->The computer as a communication device. ->The computer as a toy. ->The difference of all three above, the significance of number 1 and why all three are cool.
We all know it: Market share an insecurity are directly related, because hackers go for market share. That's why Apache is such an exploit ridden piece of crap and IIS is known for it's remarkable security. Oh, errrm, wait...
I've been doing computer stuff for 20 years now so I won't go into technical details. Just this little comparsion:
1. Installation of system wide software on Windows: Doubleclick install.exe. Wait. Reboot when promted.
2. Installation of system wide software on Linux (KDE, but works with any other Desktop): Click install.bin. No reaction. Open CLI, run./install.bin to read reaction. Notice lack of execution rights due to INet download. Change rights in context menu. Click install.bin. No reaction. Type./install.bin to read reaction. Notice user permission problem. Switch to su. Run install.bin. Wait. Exit su upon prompt.
3. Installation of system wide software on Mac OS X (Tiger) Get promted upon download with something like "This may be a program, do you really want to download it?" Confirm. Doubleclick the installer. Get promted about su access requirement. Confirm continue. Enter su password in neat OS X su permission popup. Wait. Click away finish message.
Do you see any pattern? (Hint: Number 2 and 3 are simular)
Personally, I think of OS X as a unix variant with minimum hassle, zero hardware compatability issues and some nice extras such as neat looking cigar box cases and an interessting range of commercial software offerings. It plain lacks the PC hardware and driver crappiness.
That's why I ditched Linux as main working OS after 3 years of sole professional Linux usage.
The bitter truth is, security wise Windows isn't even in the same ballpark as the entire unix lot. It's a gaming BIOS with severe security issues due to a substancial inert insecure-by-design problem. Vista will probably change this (they have to), but until today windows and it's standards of usage are nearly a decade behind in basic security.
Bottom line: When it comes to security, Mac OS X is - simply put - Debian Linux or OpenBSD without the PITA factor.
Thunderbird is ok. Really ok. It multi-plattform, uses mbox, has some cool automation/filtering and is relatively easy to set up and recover on all plattforms. Yet it still looks like a software that's aping last decades Outlook/Netscape Mail crappyness. What I whish for is this:
Three-Divided is the 5uXX0rz!!1!1!!11ONE! Default non-three-divided screen. Three-devided is pointless. It sucks. It really does. Nobody really needs it and it definitely is bad as a default setting. If at all it should be optional. This is one thing that elitistware called Mutt actually really does right. I'd like Thunderbird with tabbed fullscreen folder, mails, read and edit views. With easy switching up and down the herachy with Ctrl.-Arrow or something. It can't be that hard, no?
Encryption. All variants. Out of the box. Zero-hassle, zero compile this, semi-maybe-works-if-your-lucky pseudo wannabe plugin encryption. As in: Start Mailer, Klick "Encryption", Klick "Make Key" and get rolling. It can't that hard, or? KMail and Thunderbird have be practically lying about this to the community for years. Both say they support encrytion. Fact is, they don't. Enigmail is compiling agains a moving target and rarely hits - i couldn't get it to run once - and KMail encryption, despite their bold marketing claims on the projects website, is Vaporware. Pure and utter.
(Note to KMail: If I have to compile at least 2 different frameworks, including downloading some rare, bizar Aegypten library kit and, on top of that, fiddle with some arcane pseudo-plugin architecture in order to get a "KMail Encryption Plugin" running, then KMail does not offer a Plugin. A plugin is just that: You Plug it in and it just works. Bottom line: Please quit lying to your users. It pisses them off. qed)
If only a mailer would offer these features, one could actually presume that E-Mail clients have arived in the 21st century. Until then all mailers suck. One way or the other.
Looks a bit like a Blender (& Nemo & Qoobee & Virtools) rippoff to me. And considering that Blender Real Time runs on Linux and even some more OSes and Blender Logic Bricks are even easyer to programm with than JavaScript I'd recommend you check it out. And since Blender is open source you'll be paying 0$ rather than 999$:-) . And the Blender Real Time Engine uses Python, which I think is pretty neat aswell. Check out Blender.org and also check out the Blender Game Kit Book. Not for the newest Version of Blender, but quite up to date with the Blender Game Engine Features. (newest Blender Version)
BSD: ALL operating systems use core components of this one. Windows, Linux, OS X and the rest that's worth mentioning. That is - of course - due to it's quality combined with the BSD licence. Everybody feeds of BSD, nobody admits it.
PHP: Not the ultimate PL. I know that. But I think it's safe to say that no other PL is in such wide use across the demografic of people who know the internet. It's the web generations basic. It's the Citizen Band way of doing things with networked computers nowadays. It started as a laughing stock for 'professionals' - it often still is today - but crap-free and proper documentation, an embracing of concepts that are the absolute opposite of arcane and a solid community with zero smart-ass-hole attitude and elitisim have put PHP in a position where every other PL community envys it's recognition.
Blender: One of the rare cases where OSS currently is making inroads in an extremly competetive hermetric application market (3D) giving a clear view of the postitive side effects of successfull OSS: falling prices and increased quality and effort. Given, Blender was a commercial tool itself not long ago and it still doesn't cover today's every 'professsional' feature, but the breathtaking pace of improvement of Blender and the commitment of it's community are exceptional none the less.
I've had a recent, immediate and total HDD failure with my 12" iBook after 1,5 years of daily professional usage. Luckly I started regular overturning Backups via external HDD a few weeks earlyer. It took me 3 days aprox. for a full recovery of my working enviroment (HDD replacement, migration from old Panther to new Tiger and all).
Aside from that I've had no trouble, despite the 12" iBook being the cheapest subnotebook abvailable. Two Thumbs up.
HDD replacement worked, but it was a real job. Something like 40 screws. You have to take the case apart entirely. I ended up breaking down the process in various stages and keeping the screws in noted envelopes. There is a very good foto walkthrough on the web (google's you friend).
Why is it that WordPress has such a fanbase within the geek croud that it is mentioned every odd week on slashdot and simular forums but such powerfull well-built open source blogging tools like b2evolution or the awesome Pivot never get mentioned - even if they reach a major release? I've mostly heard programmers rave about WordPress but it doesn't appear to me as the cream of oss server side goodies, so what is it all about?
I'd never thought I'd actually look at this but since I've got an iBook and worked on several Sony Vaio and IBM ThinkPad Laptops I'd say this is a real downer. It looks like an early nineties 'luggable'. I'm looking forward to the time we've got 3 GHz like performance at Apple/IBM quality levels and 8 hours battery-time for 1000$. Until then I'm sticking to my 12" iBook and a little envy of my friends Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P with 15 hours (!) of battery time. And the size of an OReilly Camelbook.
My has some more information and also mentions Project Orange:
>>> Blender 2.4 on par with commercial 3D tools
The developers of the open source 3D package Blender have released Blender Version 2.4. B-Bones, Envelope Skinweighting and Fluid Simulation are just a few of a sheer innumerable amount of features that have been added throughout 2005 in approach of the 2.4 release. It is safe to say that Blender has come to level with current commercial 3D tools, with even a few features unique to Blender. The amount of work that went into this release and the results are just plain amazing.
Meanwhile Team Orange and their open movie Project "Elefants Dream" have moved into final animation stage. I'm moved to tears to see an open source team achieve such levels of excellence. Awesome work, Blender Team.
Slashdot Mirror
Heavens crickey. Give me break.
Let me post a replacement article for this crap that isn't even worth debating:
Blender 2.41 is out. Very cool. Nice new features added to the game engine. Get it here -> www.blender.org
Ok, so by now we all know PS and Gimp fanboys alike, that PS has features that Gimp hasn't and makes working with images in a certain way possible were Gimp doesn't. Gimp doesn't have protocol, Gimp filters are a joke compared to PS, Gimp layers are ok but again PS excels here. And lets not get started on effects. Corel PhotoPaint is somewhere in between (I'd say closer to PS) and does nearly everything one needs perfectly on linux.
As I am a professional user that's used all three on professional projects let me provide the bottom line here:
Gimp -> nice usefull tool for editing images
Corel PhotoPaint (also available for Linux, free (beer)) -> nice professional tool for editing images
PS -> the bar
Even though a lot of stuff can be done with Gimp and might not technically justify buying a licence for Corel Draw/PhotoPaint for Linux (I did this before PP was availlable for free), there is a very good reason to do this anyway. Let me illustrate with another example:
I'm a Blender Fanboy. Blender rocks. I'm one of the few that own a commercial licence - back from the time where there was a commercial version available for about a year. Blender has come a long way since I joined at 1.8. 3D software vendors are doing wee-wee all over their pants when they see the growing featureset of Blender. It's allready got stuff that no other package in the industry has (i.e. B-Bones). With the ongoing Orange Project features are getting added every other week. I love the programm and I love to use it.
Yet I still bought a (reduced) commercial edition of Lightwave less than a year ago.
How's that work out?
Type in the word "Lightwave" at amazon.com and you'll get one reason. Lightwave has been in the industry for 10 years and it shows. You can get clobberd with books on LW. LW covers workflow from a to z. While workspacemanagement lacks compared to Blender, it is well though out. The Workflow has less to none of the little quirks that can spoil the Blender experience a little. Rigid and softbody stuff is well established in LW and cloth is void of that experimental prototype feeling it has with Blender. Platonic Primitives is a bonus over current Blender (2.4) I just got to enjoy the other day. I could go on but this outlines the issue at hand.
All in all, for a professional, it justifies the expense of 500 Euros for LW over Blender to get the job done quicker or make that needed extra possible. I have to spend some money on Books, but the point is that they are available. The ones for Blender still have to be written. I've volunteered for that but mind you, writing end user documentation for a 3D package is a hell of a job.
This is the narrowing difference between established software (be it commercial closed source or not) and software that isn't quite there yet. And believe me, as far as competitive oss design software goes, nothing is as mature as Blender.
In a way a Gimp/PP/PS debate is pointless. One about Blender/LW would actually be interessting.
I don't want a free database. There are more full-range free databases out there than free full-range editors.
I want a free database + free zero hassle one stop installation + free zero database driver suckage + free native object-relational OSS PL support (and I mean Python and Ruby and PHP and Perl, all at the same time) + free full range plattform independent grafical admining + SQL errors that don't say "syntax error between line 3 and 10000" + a free full-range professional level grafical ER tool with reverse engineering of any DB I have to migrate to the DB they offer + free optional zero fuss, 3 config lines maximum load balancing.
Call me when you offer that and I'll be using DB2, Oracle or whatever within an instant.
Until then I'll stick to my current MySQL InnoDB stunts and my plans to migrate to Postgres or - as the case might be - Firebird. They are truly free and they got my attention. And if MySQL Workbench will be as cool as it looks I might even just not switch at all. Despite the fact that current MySQL still has way to go before becoming a full range database. MaxDB might change that - but we'll see.
Sorry folks but getting attention requires a tad more than just giving your DB away for free these days. And it's all your fault. Hadn't you asked such bizar prices in the first place things probably would look different today.
Please note people: This is a company. That means they make money. And they do it in the classic sense which means this type of company usually gets the creeps when hearing stuff like "go FOSS" or "rely on FOSS". CEOs freak out regularly when these terms come up.
If SUN plans an OSS strategy they are certainly NOT going to GPL their powerhorse Java. Solaris is nearly just as impressive from a technical standpoint. It's probably that Solaris doesn't have the numbers attached to it SUN would like to see. So they probably guess it could prove itself as OSS, since Linux is winning in the custom Unix market at all fronts.
If x86 Solaris would go GPL that would be really cool. I'd actually give it a try.
There are a lot of people who think the same. Including OSS programmers. You might want to look up the term "freedroid" in Google. Its an OSS clone of Paradroid.
No it's not a Flashkiller.
Flash is the most widespread VM ever.
It offered cool grafics when everything else on the web looked like crap and now that real world CSS is finally up to the job it's grown into an impressive rich client plattform and a proper PL, rivaling Java in the client side web. It's got Players/Plugins/VMs for all three major Workstation plattforms (Windows, OS X and Linux), has a large OSS community (osflash.org), has an increasing number of OSS developement tools including an open source AS2/Flash7 compiler that's even better than the original from macromedia/adobe, an eclipse based IDE for flash/AS, a handfull of FOSS enterprise class serverside RIA generators, an impressive remoting solution for the most popular SSI Language (amfphp) and a GNU project for building a free Player/VM that recently has become a top priority for the GNU people.
It has exactly zero firewall, zero plattform and zero browser problems when deploying enterprise RIAs and it integrates with any browser DOM like peanutbutter with chocolate. Every idiot and his brother knows it and every other idiot can build flash stuff. Or at least thinks he can.
Installing the VM (Player/Plugin) is gods prototype of a no-brainer and Java/Classpath/wxPython/XUL Technology-mix uglyness bounce off it like a wrench hitting a patio door.
After Flash comes a looong empty space in RIA Web, then comes Java with XUL quite close behind. Maybe somewhere inbetween there is Curl of some other exotic thing, but the rest you see is just dead bodies of the last 6 years of 'flash killers', including Director.
Bottom line:
Whatever Sparkle is or is intended to be, it is not a Flash killer. And if Adobe doesn't do a major screwup there won't be a flash killer for a very long time.
I'd know how to attempt one with MS type money, but I kinda doupt MS would support a VM that outperforms Flash in every aspect, including price for an offical IDE, and runs flawlessly on x86 Linux and OS X.
Of course PHP is somewhat quirky. We all know that. I'd also rather do all my stuff with Python, Zope and Django. But it happens to be that everything is run in PHP nowadays and lots of clients want PHP modifications or an extension to one of the 10 million PHP/MySQL CMSes out there.
Luckily there are neat tools that make professional PHP project work very easy and fun:
PHPTAL (http://phptal.motion-twin.com/) is a PHP based redoo of Zopes TAL (Template Attribute Language) - the best Templating concept ever. Makes Prado look even more sucky than it is allready.
CakePHP (www.cakephp.org/) - the PHP addition to the MVC Framework hype that Ruby on Rails kicked off. Just the right thing for larger Projects that cry for clean frameworks. Very neat.
I find it fascinating how this Ajax buzzword took of almost the instant some new economy web consultant wisecrack coined the term in his blog. The stuff Ajax stands for all had been done before but suddenly everybody acted as if there'd be something new.
It's even admitted by it's 'creators' that the term Ajax is a buzzword. Being in the business of web conltant wisecracking myself I actually find it very usefull. From now on there is no chance whatsoever customers, clients and partners I talk to will get another chance to mix up Java and JavaScript.
1.) Windows does take longer to patch
2.) Anything is more secure than windows
3.) Odds are the people that discovered the bug are the same ones that patched it while discovering it. So, yes, this security hole is allready patched. That is more often the case than not with OSS.
4.) Yes, believe it of not, it does NOT crash the OS when Konqueror goes down. Unlike IE on windows, the TCP/IP stack is not bound into the most inner workings of the OS. Which makes sense.
The funny thing is that we ought to be laughing about windows when windows holes pop up. Then on the other hand, the trouble the windows family causes isn't funny anymore and hasn't been for years.
The parents of Tron calling for a temporal decree at a german court and having his real name deleted from Wikipedia are being silly. Tron is, by definition, "a person of public interest" (german legal term) and any legally optainable information on him may thus be published.
A temporal decree in german law is exactly that: temporal. A decision by court that needs to be followed until the real court rule is out. No judge in his right mind will prohibit an encyclopedia from publishing details about Tron.
This case does emphasise though that writers to wikipedia are bound by german publishing law and are liable for any damage they cause by deliberately publishing lies or such. Just because the server with german content is outside of germany doesn't mean you'll get away with causing public unrest (Volksverhetzung), denial of the Holocaust ('Auschwitz Lüge') or anything else that is illegal in germany. If the indended audience evidently is in germany the courts won't fall for cheap excuses. Which makes perfect sense.
Lots of stuff about spyware and backup and such. Pointless. All that is expert stuff from this perspective.
Be shure to teach the following:
1.) Computers are more a new cultural technique rather than just typewriters that can make nice pictures and show video. They are -and this is the most important thing EVERYBODY needs to understand before they do anything else - they are devices that automate tasks that only humans can understand. They are - for the lack of better explaination - extremly primitive thinking devices.
2.) Surfing the net and editing files on a Computer in an effective manner is like playing Beethovens Moonshine Sonata on the Piano. AND YOU CAN NOT,NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO, PLAY THE MOONSHINE SONATA WITHOUT PRACTICING CORDS AND SCALES FIRST!
YOU HAVE TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE INNER WORKINGS OF A COMPUTER AND ITS USES BEFORE YOU CAN USE IT IN AN EFFECTIVE MANNER!
Be shure to repeat that sentence something like 10 times in the first chapter.
3.) A list of things then following:
->Automating mind tasks - the history of computers (a short overview)
->Modern Micro Computers (a super-short overview).
->Volatile (Chips) and non-volatile (HDD) memory 101.
->Operating Systems - The programm that runs programms and why such a thing is practical. The CPU and it's friends on the motherboard.
->The File systems and their metaphors and what's cool about file systems. The HDD and it's friends in the opto-drives and USB sticks.
->Putting stuff in computers and getting stuff out, brief mentioning of the CLI.
->The modern GUIs and their metaphors and why they are a good thing.
->The name of the keys on the keyboard and how they are used.
->How the different keys on the keyboard are called and what they do.
->How to do different things on a computer by pressing different keys on a keyboard of a computer.
->The hold-down keys and how they influence the function of other keys.
->Why some keys (mostly hold-down keys) are to be found more than once on a keyboard and how that indicates their importance and the suggested frequency of their usage.
->The concept of the clipboard.
->Computers are really good at copying and pasting stuff.
->Computers where built to copy and paste stuff.
->How copy and paste works on all GUI operating systems since the mid-80s.
->How to use your keyboard and that invisible thing callled clipboard to COPY AND PASTE stuff.
->Keyboard key naming and functions, refreshment chapter.
->The concept of focus in modern GUIs.
->There is a thing called focus and you have to know where it is at all times and how it got there and how you can move the focus of you input.
->Thourough keyboard GUI and Edit Widget navigation chapter. Explain Selection, deleting, cutting and refresh copy and paste. Explain cursor navigation, the cursor keys, back and forth with cursor keys, up and down with cursor keys, selecting with shift and so on.
->Modern Mouse navigation and CUAS (Common User Access Standards)
->What the mouse cursor symbols mean.
->There is more than one way to do it, find your style (time for authors personal advice)
->The concept of focus, refreshment chapter.
->Modern programming languages (brief overview), some simple exaple of a computer programm that everyone can relate to (simple find and replace in a text in Python, Ruby or something)
->Computer Networks, the internet and the web.
->Computer File system refreshment chapter with additional network concepts.
->Ready made software, closed and open source software (brief summary), cool things computers can do for you today.
->The computer as a computer.
->The computer as a communication device.
->The computer as a toy.
->The difference of all three above, the significance of number 1 and why all three are cool.
->Authors
We all know it: Market share an insecurity are directly related, because hackers go for market share. That's why Apache is such an exploit ridden piece of crap and IIS is known for it's remarkable security. ...
Oh, errrm, wait
I've been doing computer stuff for 20 years now so I won't go into technical details. Just this little comparsion:
./install.bin to read reaction. Notice lack of execution rights due to INet download. Change rights in context menu. Click install.bin. No reaction. ./install.bin to read reaction. Notice user permission problem.
1. Installation of system wide software on Windows:
Doubleclick install.exe.
Wait.
Reboot when promted.
2. Installation of system wide software on Linux
(KDE, but works with any other Desktop):
Click install.bin. No reaction.
Open CLI, run
Type
Switch to su.
Run install.bin.
Wait.
Exit su upon prompt.
3. Installation of system wide software on Mac OS X (Tiger)
Get promted upon download with something like "This may be a program, do you really want to download it?"
Confirm.
Doubleclick the installer.
Get promted about su access requirement.
Confirm continue.
Enter su password in neat OS X su permission popup.
Wait.
Click away finish message.
Do you see any pattern?
(Hint: Number 2 and 3 are simular)
Personally, I think of OS X as a unix variant with minimum hassle, zero hardware compatability issues and some nice extras such as neat looking cigar box cases and an interessting range of commercial software offerings. It plain lacks the PC hardware and driver crappiness.
That's why I ditched Linux as main working OS after 3 years of sole professional Linux usage.
The bitter truth is, security wise Windows isn't even in the same ballpark as the entire unix lot. It's a gaming BIOS with severe security issues due to a substancial inert insecure-by-design problem. Vista will probably change this (they have to), but until today windows and it's standards of usage are nearly a decade behind in basic security.
Bottom line:
When it comes to security, Mac OS X is - simply put - Debian Linux or OpenBSD without the PITA factor.
Talk about bizar facts.
Thunderbird is ok. Really ok. It multi-plattform, uses mbox, has some cool automation/filtering and is relatively easy to set up and recover on all plattforms.
Yet it still looks like a software that's aping last decades Outlook/Netscape Mail crappyness.
What I whish for is this:
Three-Divided is the 5uXX0rz!!1!1!!11ONE!
Default non-three-divided screen. Three-devided is pointless. It sucks. It really does. Nobody really needs it and it definitely is bad as a default setting. If at all it should be optional. This is one thing that elitistware called Mutt actually really does right. I'd like Thunderbird with tabbed fullscreen folder, mails, read and edit views. With easy switching up and down the herachy with Ctrl.-Arrow or something. It can't be that hard, no?
Encryption. All variants. Out of the box.
Zero-hassle, zero compile this, semi-maybe-works-if-your-lucky pseudo wannabe plugin encryption. As in: Start Mailer, Klick "Encryption", Klick "Make Key" and get rolling. It can't that hard, or? KMail and Thunderbird have be practically lying about this to the community for years. Both say they support encrytion. Fact is, they don't. Enigmail is compiling agains a moving target and rarely hits - i couldn't get it to run once - and KMail encryption, despite their bold marketing claims on the projects website, is Vaporware. Pure and utter.
(Note to KMail: If I have to compile at least 2 different frameworks, including downloading some rare, bizar Aegypten library kit and, on top of that, fiddle with some arcane pseudo-plugin architecture in order to get a "KMail Encryption Plugin" running, then KMail does not offer a Plugin. A plugin is just that: You Plug it in and it just works. Bottom line: Please quit lying to your users. It pisses them off. qed)
If only a mailer would offer these features, one could actually presume that E-Mail clients have arived in the 21st century. Until then all mailers suck. One way or the other.
All mailers suck. Mutt sucks less.
Unfortunately, it still sucks.
Looks a bit like a Blender (& Nemo & Qoobee & Virtools) rippoff to me. And considering that Blender Real Time runs on Linux and even some more OSes and Blender Logic Bricks are even easyer to programm with than JavaScript I'd recommend you check it out. :-) . And the Blender Real Time Engine uses Python, which I think is pretty neat aswell.
And since Blender is open source you'll be paying 0$ rather than 999$
Check out Blender.org and also check out the Blender Game Kit Book. Not for the newest Version of Blender, but quite up to date with the Blender Game Engine Features.
(newest Blender Version)
Hehe. Nice troll. Judging from the +5 insightfull and the protesting posts I'd even say people have bitten. :-)
(For the uninformed: Gentoo Ports system - really what Gentoo is all about - is written in Python)
BSD:
ALL operating systems use core components of this one.
Windows, Linux, OS X and the rest that's worth mentioning.
That is - of course - due to it's quality combined with the BSD licence.
Everybody feeds of BSD, nobody admits it.
PHP:
Not the ultimate PL. I know that. But I think it's safe to say that no other PL is in such wide use across the demografic of people who know the internet. It's the web generations basic. It's the Citizen Band way of doing things with networked computers nowadays. It started as a laughing stock for 'professionals' - it often still is today - but crap-free and proper documentation, an embracing of concepts that are the absolute opposite of arcane and a solid community with zero smart-ass-hole attitude and elitisim have put PHP in a position where every other PL community envys it's recognition.
Blender:
One of the rare cases where OSS currently is making inroads in an extremly competetive hermetric application market (3D) giving a clear view of the postitive side effects of successfull OSS: falling prices and increased quality and effort. Given, Blender was a commercial tool itself not long ago and it still doesn't cover today's every 'professsional' feature, but the breathtaking pace of improvement of Blender and the commitment of it's community are exceptional none the less.
How come is a PHP hole only a Unix hole? ... This "Vulnerability Summary" is bullsh*t.
I've had a recent, immediate and total HDD failure with my 12" iBook after 1,5 years of daily professional usage. Luckly I started regular overturning Backups via external HDD a few weeks earlyer. It took me 3 days aprox. for a full recovery of my working enviroment (HDD replacement, migration from old Panther to new Tiger and all).
Aside from that I've had no trouble, despite the 12" iBook being the cheapest subnotebook abvailable. Two Thumbs up.
HDD replacement worked, but it was a real job. Something like 40 screws. You have to take the case apart entirely. I ended up breaking down the process in various stages and keeping the screws in noted envelopes. There is a very good foto walkthrough on the web (google's you friend).
Why is it that WordPress has such a fanbase within the geek croud that it is mentioned every odd week on slashdot and simular forums but such powerfull well-built open source blogging tools like b2evolution or the awesome Pivot never get mentioned - even if they reach a major release? I've mostly heard programmers rave about WordPress but it doesn't appear to me as the cream of oss server side goodies, so what is it all about?
Anybody care to shed some light on this for me?
I'd never thought I'd actually look at this but since I've got an iBook and worked on several Sony Vaio and IBM ThinkPad Laptops I'd say this is a real downer. It looks like an early nineties 'luggable'. I'm looking forward to the time we've got 3 GHz like performance at Apple/IBM quality levels and 8 hours battery-time for 1000$.
Until then I'm sticking to my 12" iBook and a little envy of my friends Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P with 15 hours (!) of battery time. And the size of an OReilly Camelbook.
... Excel, Outlook, ICQ, PowerPoint, Entourage, Dreamweaver and Acrobat.
Errrm,... nevermind.
My has some more information and also mentions Project Orange:
>>>
Blender 2.4 on par with commercial 3D tools
The developers of the open source 3D package Blender have released Blender Version 2.4. B-Bones, Envelope Skinweighting and Fluid Simulation are just a few of a sheer innumerable amount of features that have been added throughout 2005 in approach of the 2.4 release. It is safe to say that Blender has come to level with current commercial 3D tools, with even a few features unique to Blender. The amount of work that went into this release and the results are just plain amazing.
Meanwhile Team Orange and their open movie Project "Elefants Dream" have moved into final animation stage.
I'm moved to tears to see an open source team achieve such levels of excellence. Awesome work, Blender Team.