I have purchased two computers from LACLinux.com. The first was an athlon 2000+ laptop and the second (just a couple of weeks ago) was a p4 3.2ghz desktop machine.
They are priced higher than places like dell for comparable hardware, but they custom load each machine and even compile custom kernels for each machine. Here is my recent web log post regarding my desktop purchase:
http://www.evilmagic.net/archives/000012.html
Overall, I am -very- happy with them. I have never heard of the one in this topic though. Sad to see that they closed down.:(
It's funny how they always use their "innovation" to support the idea of closed source software. However, it seems like all the stories I see nowadays is how they're scrambling to catch up to what open source software has been doing for years.
Agreed. Most people setting up linux initially (especially those that need this installer), don't care about how their drive gets partitioned or what gets installed where. What they do care about is whether their sound works, whether they can print, whether they can change their screen resolution, etc.
Funny this comes up. Yesterday I was looking for a chicken fajita recipe and the entire first page of google was full of bogus results. You know, pages with titles that say "chicken fajita recipe" but that are those "global search engine!" pages or some page wanting you to pay to see the recipe.
Is google smart enough to figure out that what it's crawling isn't actually accessible to everyone else?
They have annual, and in my cases, more than annual, contracts to handle this type of thing. I'm talking about buying site licenses for the entire base and whatnot.
Have you ever used Microsoft's "support?" The Network Operations Center I worked in for a while had one problem that just wouldn't go away. I don't even remember what the problem was, but there were at least 6 guys working on it and nobody could figure out the problem. Microsofts solution: Reboot it every night when not very many people are using it. I can't believe they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. And they were YOUR dollars (if you're an american) because it was government work.
My second programming job came from monster - a really good 9 month contract at a major Seattle corporation doing PHP (yes, PHP) programming. The headhunters saw my resume on there, called me up, interviewed me within a couple of days, and I started within a week.
When that contract was over, I put my resume out on monster again, and I used their search agents. It found a perl programming position, which I applied for, and got the position after two phone interviews and an in-person interview.
I searched for "jedi knight" and the results listed duplicate sites. First, it would list www.jediknight.net and then jediknight.net and thier caches were duplicates, too. How smart is a search engine that can't figure out dupes?
Ahem, I use opera for ebay all the time. Maybe you're typing your passwords differently? Maybe you've got it set to identify as IE when it should be identifying itself as opera? Why not contact their support department?
Notice I said "hard to reproduce" not impossible. We have a solution that does just that, with javascript, and works on virtually all recent browsers. That doesn't solve the rest of the problems though (like a rich text editor or a combo box that can be typed in).
I'm also a web programmer and I do my best to stay away from javascript. The reason is that browsers implementations are so different that it's a huge pain to get it working correctly and similarly in all browsers. For back-end stuff (that only staffers can access), it's fine, but for the rest of our visitors, I stay as far away from javascript as I possibly can. Hell, it's abused across so many web sites that it's completely turned off on my browser!
There are a few problems. There are tree structures that are hard to reproduce on a web interface (think of a directory tree in Windows Explorer with collapsable nodes) [note: I said hard not impossible]. There are also other widgets (like select boxes that also allow you to type values, and rich text editing widgets) that are only reproducable using javascript/dhtml. Most of the 3rd party widgets out there require certain version of Internet Explorer, and while the visitors to my site are mostly all Windows users, most of the staffers don't use Windows, and if they do, certainly don't use IE.
On top of that, I wanted to do some experimenting (just for fun). We're not really a business or anything like that, so there was no real business decision made for it.
On the contrary, I read most of my books through on the throne, in bed, on the ferry, etc., before I ever go to the computer. Especially tutorial type books. I like to read them through first and then try out the stuff later, using the book then as more of a reference.
I read most of this book (maybe an older version?) last year. I found it very interesting because it basically gave me the idea to let the staff members of my web site update the site through a windowed interface as opposed to a web interface. MySQL doesn't have to be running on the same computer as the program is running on, so this would be simple. That way you could provide a rich client (for staff members, not end-users) to update a web site based on MySQL.
I know, it's not an original idea, but it's interesting because the book was a nice, step by step guide to doing just this. For what it's worth, I enjoyed it.
On the other hand, I ended up spending time with XUL instead.
If you want to try something different (and altogether more fun, although I -may- be biased;), try Jedi Knight. The editor/game is based on sectors as opposed to brushes, so you edit in negative space. You basically have a block of clay and you carve your world out of it. Of course, my site's tutorials section is the best place to learn it:) http://www.massassi.net/
Has he expressed an interest in programming or just game creation in general? There are fan sites for virtually every popular game. They host user-created addons, tutorials on every aspect of modification (from level design to texture creation to in-game scripting to ai, animations, modelling, etc.). Encourage him to find sites like these and start making addons. Lots of people have been hired out of our community alone (site up there ^^). Hell, a lot of our visitors are 13-15, and most of them are far more talented than I am, and I've been programming "professionally" since 1998. I would hire any of those kids in a heartbeat over the 25 "professional web developers" we interviewed recently at the company I work for.
Have you ever looked at the online documentation for PHP? It's gotta be the best docs ever. They have code examples, in-depth discussion of each argument, and user comments at the bottom. Everything is nicely formatted and the information is very easy to get to. After reading Core PHP Programming, I can also state with absolute accuracy that the PHP manual is far easier to read and navigate than their "function reference" section. I think the book should be half the price and should not contain the function reference.
Actually, slashdot had a story a while ago about the county I used to live in, Mason County, WA, and how they put fiber to most of the local businesses and were offering broadband for reasonable rates. It was the local PUD (public utility district - basically, the government run electric company). But yeah, mostly it's done by large companies. After all, who else has the resources?
Who cares about "big players" anyway? Over the years, I tried compuserv, aol, and earthlink, and I always had better luck with local ISPs. They were cheaper, had faster access, and it was easier to get a -real- tech support person on the phone. They also didn't insist on installing their version of a browser and a "remote help agent" which wanted to sit in the systray all the time. The local guys had a configuration cd which simply changed network settings, and that was it. They included a bunch of other useful apps on the cd as well, but nothing I ever installed (since I had it already).
I would always rather do business with somebody local.
Got my claim form in the mail and they're basically offering $15 per copy of windows. That's not even worth the half hour it's going to take to fill out the stinking form. Maybe if it were $50 it would be worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't only blame Comcast. If LinkSys is doing this in one device, what about others?
Goes to the kids? In the form of "free" software that has to be upgraded (for money) in a few years? *cough*
Sad to see qli linux shut down. Sorry!
I have purchased two computers from LACLinux.com. The first was an athlon 2000+ laptop and the second (just a couple of weeks ago) was a p4 3.2ghz desktop machine.
:(
They are priced higher than places like dell for comparable hardware, but they custom load each machine and even compile custom kernels for each machine. Here is my recent web log post regarding my desktop purchase:
http://www.evilmagic.net/archives/000012.html
Overall, I am -very- happy with them. I have never heard of the one in this topic though. Sad to see that they closed down.
It's funny how they always use their "innovation" to support the idea of closed source software. However, it seems like all the stories I see nowadays is how they're scrambling to catch up to what open source software has been doing for years.
I have done a few hd-installs of KNOPPIX and it wasn't an issue. Still had to partition the drive, though.
Agreed. Most people setting up linux initially (especially those that need this installer), don't care about how their drive gets partitioned or what gets installed where. What they do care about is whether their sound works, whether they can print, whether they can change their screen resolution, etc.
Funny this comes up. Yesterday I was looking for a chicken fajita recipe and the entire first page of google was full of bogus results. You know, pages with titles that say "chicken fajita recipe" but that are those "global search engine!" pages or some page wanting you to pay to see the recipe.
Is google smart enough to figure out that what it's crawling isn't actually accessible to everyone else?
They have annual, and in my cases, more than annual, contracts to handle this type of thing. I'm talking about buying site licenses for the entire base and whatnot.
Have you ever used Microsoft's "support?" The Network Operations Center I worked in for a while had one problem that just wouldn't go away. I don't even remember what the problem was, but there were at least 6 guys working on it and nobody could figure out the problem. Microsofts solution: Reboot it every night when not very many people are using it. I can't believe they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. And they were YOUR dollars (if you're an american) because it was government work.
My second programming job came from monster - a really good 9 month contract at a major Seattle corporation doing PHP (yes, PHP) programming. The headhunters saw my resume on there, called me up, interviewed me within a couple of days, and I started within a week.
When that contract was over, I put my resume out on monster again, and I used their search agents. It found a perl programming position, which I applied for, and got the position after two phone interviews and an in-person interview.
I searched for "jedi knight" and the results listed duplicate sites. First, it would list www.jediknight.net and then jediknight.net and thier caches were duplicates, too. How smart is a search engine that can't figure out dupes?
Anyone know how to upgrade a hard drive install to the latest kernel/features? I'm most concerned about the kernel.
Ahem, I use opera for ebay all the time. Maybe you're typing your passwords differently? Maybe you've got it set to identify as IE when it should be identifying itself as opera? Why not contact their support department?
Notice I said "hard to reproduce" not impossible. We have a solution that does just that, with javascript, and works on virtually all recent browsers. That doesn't solve the rest of the problems though (like a rich text editor or a combo box that can be typed in).
I'm also a web programmer and I do my best to stay away from javascript. The reason is that browsers implementations are so different that it's a huge pain to get it working correctly and similarly in all browsers. For back-end stuff (that only staffers can access), it's fine, but for the rest of our visitors, I stay as far away from javascript as I possibly can. Hell, it's abused across so many web sites that it's completely turned off on my browser!
There are a few problems. There are tree structures that are hard to reproduce on a web interface (think of a directory tree in Windows Explorer with collapsable nodes) [note: I said hard not impossible]. There are also other widgets (like select boxes that also allow you to type values, and rich text editing widgets) that are only reproducable using javascript/dhtml. Most of the 3rd party widgets out there require certain version of Internet Explorer, and while the visitors to my site are mostly all Windows users, most of the staffers don't use Windows, and if they do, certainly don't use IE.
On top of that, I wanted to do some experimenting (just for fun). We're not really a business or anything like that, so there was no real business decision made for it.
On the contrary, I read most of my books through on the throne, in bed, on the ferry, etc., before I ever go to the computer. Especially tutorial type books. I like to read them through first and then try out the stuff later, using the book then as more of a reference.
I read most of this book (maybe an older version?) last year. I found it very interesting because it basically gave me the idea to let the staff members of my web site update the site through a windowed interface as opposed to a web interface. MySQL doesn't have to be running on the same computer as the program is running on, so this would be simple. That way you could provide a rich client (for staff members, not end-users) to update a web site based on MySQL.
I know, it's not an original idea, but it's interesting because the book was a nice, step by step guide to doing just this. For what it's worth, I enjoyed it.
On the other hand, I ended up spending time with XUL instead.
If you want to try something different (and altogether more fun, although I -may- be biased ;), try Jedi Knight. The editor/game is based on sectors as opposed to brushes, so you edit in negative space. You basically have a block of clay and you carve your world out of it. Of course, my site's tutorials section is the best place to learn it :) http://www.massassi.net/
Has he expressed an interest in programming or just game creation in general? There are fan sites for virtually every popular game. They host user-created addons, tutorials on every aspect of modification (from level design to texture creation to in-game scripting to ai, animations, modelling, etc.). Encourage him to find sites like these and start making addons. Lots of people have been hired out of our community alone (site up there ^^). Hell, a lot of our visitors are 13-15, and most of them are far more talented than I am, and I've been programming "professionally" since 1998. I would hire any of those kids in a heartbeat over the 25 "professional web developers" we interviewed recently at the company I work for.
Have you ever looked at the online documentation for PHP? It's gotta be the best docs ever. They have code examples, in-depth discussion of each argument, and user comments at the bottom. Everything is nicely formatted and the information is very easy to get to. After reading Core PHP Programming, I can also state with absolute accuracy that the PHP manual is far easier to read and navigate than their "function reference" section. I think the book should be half the price and should not contain the function reference.
Actually, slashdot had a story a while ago about the county I used to live in, Mason County, WA, and how they put fiber to most of the local businesses and were offering broadband for reasonable rates. It was the local PUD (public utility district - basically, the government run electric company). But yeah, mostly it's done by large companies. After all, who else has the resources?
Who cares about "big players" anyway? Over the years, I tried compuserv, aol, and earthlink, and I always had better luck with local ISPs. They were cheaper, had faster access, and it was easier to get a -real- tech support person on the phone. They also didn't insist on installing their version of a browser and a "remote help agent" which wanted to sit in the systray all the time. The local guys had a configuration cd which simply changed network settings, and that was it. They included a bunch of other useful apps on the cd as well, but nothing I ever installed (since I had it already).
I would always rather do business with somebody local.
Got my claim form in the mail and they're basically offering $15 per copy of windows. That's not even worth the half hour it's going to take to fill out the stinking form. Maybe if it were $50 it would be worth it.
If we can't trust the government with our email addresses, WHY oh why do we trust them with 55% of our income each and every year?