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User: seanb

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Comments · 149

  1. Re:Good news for Sony and Amazon on Bookworm ePub Reader Gets Boost From O'Reilly · · Score: 1

    Just tried it out, and the bookworm "mobile site" (http://m.bookworm.oreilly.com) works pretty well from my Kindle's browser.

  2. Re:I just reported a real humdinger of a bug... on Mozilla Project Turns 5 · · Score: 1

    Newp. No problems at all using Mozilla 1.3b on Windows 2000. I think your problem might be midget monkeys.

  3. Re:How about my VM? on Microsoft Ordered to Carry Java · · Score: 1

    Well, of course you can sue! You may not have a snowballs chance in hell of seeing one red cent, but you can always sue and try your luck. With a good team of lawyers, you may even get an injunction to prevent Microsoft from distributing "Bob".

  4. Re:Tomcat is easy! on Professional Apache Tomcat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tomcat doesn't require (or imply) linux. It works well under Windows, OS X, or anything with a viable J2SE runtime.

  5. Re:Morality defeats Superman on Superhero Smackdown · · Score: 1

    Of course Superman WOULDN'T do that, he's too honorable and clueless.

    I'm sure that at any given time, Batman has at least 3 different plans on how to win against Superman (should it be necessarry). In contrast, Supermans innate inability to plan more than two minutes into the future would seal his fate.

  6. Even better on Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks · · Score: 1

    % sudo -s Password: #

    It's amazing what you can learn from man(1) pages.

  7. Re:They need a punching on Microsoft Vandalizes NYC · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Penguin suits tend to be a bit bulky for melee combat.

    Now, daemon suits on the other hand...

  8. Re:The one we have in the basement. . . on The Most Dangerous Server Rooms · · Score: 1

    Haven't you ever seen old Warner Borthers Cartoons? There must be a strong similarity between Kangaroos and rodents, else Sylvester would never mistake a cangaroo for a giant mouse.

  9. Lovely on First Worm with a EULA? · · Score: 2

    Maybe if these things get aggressive enough, my mother will finally stop paying attention to chain letters and such.

    Hey, I can hope.

  10. Re:The 13 year old script kiddie crowd is smarter. on Microsoft PR Rep is the Switcher · · Score: 2

    That's right on my way home. I think I'll stop by there and see if they are giving away any Mac hardware, now that she's "switched".

  11. Re:Bookmarksync on A Universal Roaming Profile? · · Score: 1

    There's also bookmarks.yahoo.com, of course. And it is free.

  12. They recently added a Calendar to Mozilla on Netscape 7.0 is Out · · Score: 1

    Take a look at the Mozilla Calendar.

  13. Re:"Frelling A!"? on Farscape & Stargate SG-1 New Seasons Tonight · · Score: 1

    Wrong. I know quite a few women that use the words "Frell", "Drenn", and "Frellnik". My girlfriend is among them.

    Speaking of, I'm going to leave work and go see my sexy redhead right now.

  14. Re:What about MPEG encoders? on Linux DVD Players Reviewed · · Score: 2, Informative

    You might want to look at NuppelVideo. I've used it to create mpegs froma tv-tuner card, which I subsequently burned to VCD. I've been very happy with the results. The tarball includes documentation and scripts to convert the recorded files to mpeg using lame, mpeg2enc, and mplex.

    Also, the Linux VCR HOWTO may have some useful information for you.

  15. Re:What does love have to do with anything? on New Star Wars Episode II Trailer Out · · Score: 1

    Yes. I want Episode II to feel AT LEAST as dark as "Empire Strikes Back". I want to see the loss of all hope that requires Ep IV to be named "A New Hope."

  16. Re:Mirror of screen shot available on TrustedBSD Supports Windows NT ACLs With Samba · · Score: 1

    Actually, I did get one job offer largely because my resume was in a non-standard format. The Lead Software Architect recognized that my PDF resume was a TeX document. Little things that catch the attention of those literate in such matters CAN make a difference.

  17. Ports collection has version support. on Ximian's Red Carpet Released · · Score: 1

    Your criticism is interesting, but unfounded. The FreeBSD ports system does maintain version information in the package database, represented in the filesystem as the /var/db/pkg heirarchy. Also, you can query the package versions through the "pkg_version" command. There's also a way to use the pkg_version command to automatically update any ports that are out of date, or to list all the installed packages.

    Since each installed port has an entry in the packages database, ALL the package management tools work well with ports. For example, you can use pkg_delete to cleanly uninstall a port in a way which will track dependencies.

    To be honest, I tend to access the raw filesystem directly more often than I use the various pkg_* commands. For example, seeing what version of qmail I have installed is as simple as "ls -d /var/db/pkg/qmail*",

  18. Re:Debian GNU/BSD on FreeBSD 4.1.1 vs. Linux 2.4 · · Score: 1

    This can be cleaned up a bit. Once you have your kernel config file set up, just define KERNEL=YOUR_KERNEL_CONFIG in /etc/make.conf. If you also set the make.conf variables for your supfile and suphost, then your upgrade process becomes a simple matter of:

    1. cd /usr/src
    2. make update world kernel installkernel
    3. mergemaster
    4. reboot

    Personally, I have 1 and 2 in my weekly periodic script, and I just run mergemaster and reboot on monday morning when I get in.

    The best way to explain the way I feel about FreeBSD is that it's like the best of Slackware and Debian, only more so.

  19. Why I put FreeBSD on my laptop. on FreeBSD 4.1.1 vs. Linux 2.4 · · Score: 3

    A while ago I was issued a Dell Inspiron 7500. After taking a good hard look at the Linux distros out there (I was running Debian on my desktop at the time, I decided to put FreeBSD on the laptop. These were my major reasons:

    1. USB support. This was before the days of linux 2.4, and FreeBSD USB support was rock-solid. At one point I was using a USB mouse and a USB Ethernet adapter, and both just worked. I ended up playing with the lower details of USB later, but that was for my own curiosity - eveything already worked.
    2. Faster boot times. In my (subjective) experience, FreeBSD booted in about half the time of linux. This is a big deal for me.
    3. The FreeBSD boot loader. I was sick of mucking around with LILO every time I compiled a kernel.
    4. fsck. Working with a laptop, it is almost inevitable that the machine will sometimes be shut down improperly. Again, this is subjective, but I found that this causes problems much less often in FreeBSD, and any problems that are caused are usually automatically fixed by the boot process. This just makes the boot process take much longer, comparable with the start-up time of a linux system.
    5. Curiosity. I had heard how cool cvsup/make world could be, but I was skeptical. Coming from the Debian world, I doubted anything could be better than apt-get, so I wanted to find out.
    6. I was fed up with packages (wrestling with qmail on Debian was the last straw!). FreeBSD works VERY well for people who like compiling from source, and makes this option amazingly convenient.

    Do I think FreeBSD is ideal for everything? No. I'm typing this from a Mandrake box I set up for my roommate to use.

    Have I become a BSD bigot? Possibly. As I type this I wear a FreeBSD shirt and a tattoo of Chuck, the FreeBSD daemon.

  20. Re:Changing tab sizes is evil! on Komodo Beta Release · · Score: 1

    I also like to set softtabstop to four. As explained in the vim docs:
    Number of spaces that a [Tab] while performing editing operations, like inserting a [Tab] or using [BS]. It "feels" like [Tab]s are being inserted, while in fact a mixture of spaces and tabs are being used.

    I've used this for python editing in vim, and have never had trouble with the results.

  21. Re:Why the Electoral College is PROVABLY BETTER: on And The Winner Is... Nobody! · · Score: 1

    Natapoff's theory seems to be severely flawed.

    As I read it, his argument boils down to the statement that "individual voting power is higher when funneled through districts" (defining "individual voting power as the probability that a given vote will turn an election). By definition, the sum of these chances - of the voting power - across all the voters will be 1. Therefore, the average voting power for each voter will be 1/N (where N is the number of voters), regardless of the byzantine districting system the votes are funneled through. Districting can change the power some voters, but only by diminishing the power of others. The average remains the same.

    Personally, I see this system of artificially diminishing the voting power of some individuals in favor of others as a major flaw with the current system.

  22. Re:lessons learned on Star Wars Episode II Wraps · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, those aren't the lessons he learned. Here's the real lessons from episode I

    1. Hard-core fans don't matter. They will bitch and moan about how lousy the movie is while they stand in line to see it a seventh time.
    2. Kids liked jar-jar. Children far too young to be "normal" Star Wars fans have been demending to see that movie over and over, getting their parents to buy tons of merchandise.
    3. Story line doesn't matter. Put in enough special effects and you have a blockbuster.
    I think we can count on Lucas ignoring what the fans say - it's not like they are going to boycott. Lucas is going to focus on drawing in other people - little kids who want to see cute critters, young women looking for an Anikin and Amidala love story, action movie junkies looking for more special effects than plot, etc.

    I know I'm part of the problem. EpII will suck, but I will see it opening night (and a few other times). I'd pay to see it even if it just turned out to be two hours of George Lucas laughing at all the people who wasted money to see his movies.

  23. Re:Another take on the story on Set Digital Music Free · · Score: 1

    Just remember: the acronym is correctly pronounced sodomy

  24. Re:Python stifles creativity on Python 1.6 Final Released · · Score: 1

    Why do you need it to compile? I've written several production servers in python. When the limiting factor is I/O, the scripted/compiled performance difference is largely irrelevant.

    Does this ean that you don't consider Zope a "real" application? How about sketch?? Programs don't always have to be compiled to be useful.

  25. Re:A different take: I think I finally get it on RIAA Responds to Napster - Raises Serious Questions · · Score: 1

    Yes, I would have a problem if you did that with GPL code. To my mind the critical difference is between the desires of the creator and the desires of a third party that may or may not be involved with the creator.

    If the orginal (artist|programmer) explicitly states that they want restrictions on their creation (such as by using the GPL or a more restrictive license, or by simply by publicly stating that they do not want copies of their work traded), I will respect that. For example, I no longer share Metallica mp3s. If somebody didn't respect my wishes with something I had created I would be pissed off, and I try to keep my hypocricies to a minimum.

    Perhaps I made a mistake in interpreting artist's long-term silence regarding napster and mp3s as implicit permission. A long time ago I said that mp3s were OK because only the record labels complained about them, but no artist ever had. That has changed. While I disagree with some artists, I will respect their wishes.

    If, on the other hand, the original (artist|programmer) had a "do whatever you want" attitude (e.g. Phish, FreeBSD), then I don't want some third party group like the RIAA coming in and telling me that I can't.

    It is reasonable for bands to ask services like Napster or mp3.com NOT to share their music. It would have been easy to design a filtering scheme into the original napster protocol so that search strings matching certain patterns could be refused or files matching certain patters could not be reported. Perhaps Napster will investigate such a hack...

    It is NOT reasonable for Napster to be shut down, even though the majority of the traffic across Napster is against the artists wishes. Napster is simply a communciations system designed for sharing mp3s.

    Copying music is only stealing if the artist wants you to not copyright the music. Using open-source software is only a license violation if the license forbids it.

    Frightening thought: Will the end result of this mess be EULAs for every CD sold and every mp3 downloaded?