Laptop CD-ROM burner - backups, projects, mp3... Blank CDs Digital-Audio recorder (w/ at least 90 min of record time) Small digital camera Nice headphones (compact yet good quality) A PDA Rechargeable batteries Leatherman tool An Almanac, Dictionary & Thesaurus
Thanks to the backwards movie industry, we pay for movies and THEN watch them.
The vast majority of merchants (in ANY industry) will not give you 100% use out of a product or service and allow you to pay later with zero penalty. How the movie industry is somehow backwards because they use practically universal pay-then-use business practices is beyond me.
I've been a Star Wars fan from day 1. Sure I'm annoyed with Jar Jar, and sure there are moments in EVERY episode that are corny, but I love the story - every version of it.
Personally I would LOVE for Lucas to tinker with ANY episode that he wants to. Barring a complete rewrite of the story I'll be chomping at the bit to see what layers of the story can be added.
If he blows it and introduces something new and corny I'll just watch my older VHS copy of the episode, no harm done. If he pulls a rabbit out of the hat and adds more depth, or better effects, or ties the story together better I'll eat it up.
Star Wars isn't sacred and written in stone. It's just a story, one of the most epic stories ever told. Obviously as time goes on the story will grow (fan fiction, Lucas himself) and evolve (remastering, etc.). Given the advances in technology I'd love to see all of the episodes stiched together seamlessly. How many of us wouldn't want to fiddle with the originals if we were in Lucas' position?
Easy. You will be told to go elsewhere. Just because you can't find the product that you want at the merchant that you wan to buy from doesn't mean that you are being forced to buy something. There are thousands of independent computer stores that are MORE THAN WILLING to sell you a machine without Windows.
Consumers have alway had choices. Name one year out of the last 15 where Microsoft had the ONLY desktop operating system. Name one. Just one. You can't.
And the reason you can't is because there has ALWAYS been choices for consumers. Sure, M$ pushed a few brand-name OEM's around, basterdized a few protocols here and there, and so on... but claiming that ANY consumer was FORCED to buy Windows is absurd.
No Windows user who as invested in a ton of software (Office, games, etc) would ever switch to Red Hat or to any version of Linux if they were forced to give up that software (as in handing over the media and key). Abandoning it would be a waste of $$.
Now a SuSe user would be able to retain most, if not all, of their software, settings, data, etc so an upgrade becomes something thats within the realm of possibility.
"Fragmentation and infighting". Interesting choice of words. Fragmentation doesn't matter as long as everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels. Infighting (aka competition) is a good thing and should be encouraged... as long as.... everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels.
Perhaps I need to re-read the article(s) but where did they say they were moving to a Windows solution? If cost is SUCH an issue with this town perhaps they are moving to a Linux solution. If that were the case I'd reckon that a few newtworked PC's configured properly could easily handle the records of 25000 citizens. Now I won't get started on their "migration" strategy, but the artice(s) do seem somewhat lacking in technical details and somewhat bloated in hype and finger pointing.
It would be interesting to know more about the problem and the chain of events that lead to such a tragic meltdown. Perahps then the article (and the/. posts that followed) would have been much more interesting and though provoking.
Keeping the OS with the machine is NOT the same thing as tags on furniture! You can ALWAYS take an OS off of a machine, however you can't take and OEM licensed operating system and put it on another machine.
When you buy a computer from Dell and it comes with and OEM licensed copy of Windows XP you cannot legally put that copy of XP on ANY other machine than the one you originally purchased. Its a package deal.
Sure, you can put Linux on the box all day long, but whether you use XP or not it follows your machine to its grave.
This is a HUGE "gotcha!" for businesses that use Microsoft Enterprise Agreements. For example: say I'm buying 500 PC's and they come with OEM WXP. BUT I want them all to have W2K to follow corporate standards. I have a MEA that covers OS/Office/CAL for all my users.
I've just been double-sold operating systems (since the OEM OS cost was baked into the price of the machine) and I can't even re-use my XP licenses! They can't be transferred away from the specific hardware they were preinstalled on.
This underscores the need for people that use Windows to manage their licenses carefully. Either use a MEA and order machines without OEM OSs OR manage and track all of your OEM licenses carefully and make plans accordingly.
The state also has also exercised the option to utilize biometric features with the new Digitized Driver License system given the need for greater security since September 11. It has become evident that the driver's license is now a critical identification document.
Thats all well and good, but unless someone checking the ID (ticket counter at the airport) has some means of utilizing the new features to positively identify someone the features become usless. The person checking the ID must then (as always) check photo ID.
You can implement all the new features you want, but unless everyone has access to card readers, scanners or whatever gadget is used to utilize biometric information the features don't amount to squat.
Once mobile phones, computer, watches, toasters and everything else under the sun becomes net enabled the "powerful client" gets thrown out the window. The need then becomes one of availability. Needing to keep many of these gadgets "in sync" with one another (and your personal information) becomes hard. The easiest solution is one form of central repository, hence the "need".
Now one might argue that in the future (present?) broadband will be able to allow everyone to "serve" their own information from their home PC (aka.. home server) but the infrastructure to do this in some sort of secure, standardized, highly-available way is more than "wouldn't be easy".
For 99% of the population I'd imagine that their personal info would be safer in the hands of trusted professionals rather than residing on grandma's 486. The question will eventually come down to which professional do you trust the most.
I completely agree with regarding exec not wanting to put their ass on the line... I disagree with the following:
Nobody wants to offer this service because the record companies make more money doing what they do now: namely, packaging one or two hit songs onto an $18 disc and convincing consumers to buy two or more per month.
People who currently get mp3's for free aren't buying CDs. People who buy CDs probably aren't going to stop. If the Industry would offer a for-pay mp3 service they could (possibly) pull some of the free mp3 people over to the paying side.
I know that I would. If I could go to a website, log in and download a zip file of an entire album... in a pure, player-agnostic format I would gladly pay for it. The time/energy saved and the quality and consistency of the mp3s (normalized, etc) would be incentive to pay a price.
Sure, I could theoretically give all of those to my friends, etc. etc. Piracy would not be reduced. BUT they'd have my payment and they'd know that I'd pay again. Bottom line is that they'd make more money than they do now.
Unless, of course, I'm the only one who is willing to pay a reasonable price for online music.
I'm a techie. When I want music I find the mp3 and add it to my collection. I own hundreds of CDs... from a few years ago. I haven't bought a CD in ages. There is no technical need to do so. My father is a computer newbie. When he wants music even he finds the mp3 version. Same goes for my sisters. The only person in my family that still buys CDs is my brother. He likes music stores and like having "real" CDs.
There is no doubt in my mind that mp3's are destroying potential CD sales.
There is also no doubt in my mind that the RIAA is fighting the mp3 threat in the wrong way. They are hurting people that buy CDs! They are tartgeting their own customers! Rather than fighting the format, or better yet, positioning themselves to control the format they actually think that CD sales will improve with more restrictive CDs.
Its hilarious.
The VPs and Money-mongers are so wildly out of touch with their customers that they are willing to cripple their own product to control the situation.
How about monthly mp3 download subscriptions? I'd pay $10 a month to get a mp3 version of new releases as they happen.
How about cheaper CDs. $9 with more content. Better yet, include the mp3's on the CD itself. Or treat the CD as a license to download the mp3 version... no ripping/searching required.
How about a website where I can create my own CD complitation and have it mailed to me... or download the.iso?
How about some friggin creativity...
The RIAA and the music industry is sitting on a vast pile of money-potential and THEY DON'T EVEN SEE IT. They are so stuck "in the box" that they can't imagine that there is any other way of capitalizing on their investments.
I hope that someone in the "industry" wakes up and smells the cash. I'm willing to fork over a ton of $$ to get music, I simply don't want $15 CDs anymore. They're bulky, prone to scratches and a poor "investment" for my entertainment dollar. Give me access to clean, high-bitrate mp3's (no crippleware, special players, ads, and other BS) and I'll for over serious cash.
If I owned a company I would immediatly outlaw mp3's just as I would with pirated software. From a financial perspective this is simply too large of a financial and legal threat to deal with. Banning mp3's in the workplace is the only sane answer.
Far too often the workplace (and its bandwidth) is used for obtaining mp3s. I can't think of a company that I've worked for that I haven't seen someone downloading/sharing/storing mp3s (legal or not). A quick poll of a few friends confirms the same for them.
Time to add *.mp3 to my enterprise anti-virus software, not because I want to but because feel the need to CYA for my employer.
I agree that the bottom line (finance) should rule the roost in a new company, but it should not do so at the expense of organization.
I work at a company that started small (dozen or so people) and grew to many hundreds over just a few years.
I can't tell you how much time we (as a company) have now wasted trying to go back and re-document everything that we have done. Sure the code we have is readable, but there is so much more than clean code to making a company work well.
So, document as you go. Keep it simple and straightforward in the beginning and grow into more advanced techniques/tools/etc.
And by the way, if anyone ever says "You may get people who want do things "the right way". Fire them QUICKLY!! "........ make sure you fire THEM quickly. The last thing you want is someone who will sacrifice quality to make a quick buck.
To tie groups of similar machines together in a group INSIDE of a geographic location (say a co-lo with multiple web farms) you could do:
[cluster]-[function]-[hostnumber].[location].dom ai n.foo
c01-web-001.lax.domain.foo
Also note that hostnames can be different than DNS names, so you can have fun hostname (planets, trees, animals, etc) while still maintaining meaningful DNS hostnames.
Is it really the right of the people to say what private citizens must give and give up? From a governmental perspective corporations are not that much different from a private citizen. Having laws that "force" companies to essentially "give up" hard-earned intellectual property is akin to walking into your neighbor's garage and taking some tools he hasn't used in awhile. Sure you may use the tools that your neighbor is "wasting", possibly putting them to better use, but it just seems plain wrong.
I suppose this poll doesn't bode well for Slashdot's demographics. When a huge percentage of the readership is unemployed I'd venture to say that ad customers might raise an eyebrow or two.
Apparently you (and most everyone else) didn't take the time to even look at the link provided. Microsoft DOES have computational clustering, not just "traditional" clustering. Please note that the link provided points to MS Computational Clustering, NOT MCS.
Apparently you (and most everyone else) didn't take the time to even look at the link provided. Microsoft DOES have computational clustering, not just "traditional" clustering.
mbox or no mbox... if you are required to save everything for a long time you will either need to spend a fortune (ala EMC) and keep it readily available OR go to some permanent archive (CD-ROM, etc.).
Slashdot Mirror
Laptop
CD-ROM burner - backups, projects, mp3...
Blank CDs
Digital-Audio recorder (w/ at least 90 min of record time)
Small digital camera
Nice headphones (compact yet good quality)
A PDA
Rechargeable batteries
Leatherman tool
An Almanac, Dictionary & Thesaurus
Thanks to the backwards movie industry, we pay for movies and THEN watch them.
The vast majority of merchants (in ANY industry) will not give you 100% use out of a product or service and allow you to pay later with zero penalty. How the movie industry is somehow backwards because they use practically universal pay-then-use business practices is beyond me.
I've been a Star Wars fan from day 1. Sure I'm annoyed with Jar Jar, and sure there are moments in EVERY episode that are corny, but I love the story - every version of it.
Personally I would LOVE for Lucas to tinker with ANY episode that he wants to. Barring a complete rewrite of the story I'll be chomping at the bit to see what layers of the story can be added.
If he blows it and introduces something new and corny I'll just watch my older VHS copy of the episode, no harm done. If he pulls a rabbit out of the hat and adds more depth, or better effects, or ties the story together better I'll eat it up.
Star Wars isn't sacred and written in stone. It's just a story, one of the most epic stories ever told. Obviously as time goes on the story will grow (fan fiction, Lucas himself) and evolve (remastering, etc.). Given the advances in technology I'd love to see all of the episodes stiched together seamlessly. How many of us wouldn't want to fiddle with the originals if we were in Lucas' position?
Easy. You will be told to go elsewhere. Just because you can't find the product that you want at the merchant that you wan to buy from doesn't mean that you are being forced to buy something. There are thousands of independent computer stores that are MORE THAN WILLING to sell you a machine without Windows.
Consumers have alway had choices. Name one year out of the last 15 where Microsoft had the ONLY desktop operating system. Name one. Just one. You can't.
And the reason you can't is because there has ALWAYS been choices for consumers. Sure, M$ pushed a few brand-name OEM's around, basterdized a few protocols here and there, and so on... but claiming that ANY consumer was FORCED to buy Windows is absurd.
There isn't room for a ton of goodies in that tiny case.
No Windows user who as invested in a ton of software (Office, games, etc) would ever switch to Red Hat or to any version of Linux if they were forced to give up that software (as in handing over the media and key). Abandoning it would be a waste of $$.
Now a SuSe user would be able to retain most, if not all, of their software, settings, data, etc so an upgrade becomes something thats within the realm of possibility.
"Fragmentation and infighting". Interesting choice of words. Fragmentation doesn't matter as long as everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels. Infighting (aka competition) is a good thing and should be encouraged... as long as.... everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels.
This makes me wonder what, if anything, we left on the moon.... growing.... breeding... multiplying in the lunar dust...
Perhaps I need to re-read the article(s) but where did they say they were moving to a Windows solution? If cost is SUCH an issue with this town perhaps they are moving to a Linux solution. If that were the case I'd reckon that a few newtworked PC's configured properly could easily handle the records of 25000 citizens. Now I won't get started on their "migration" strategy, but the artice(s) do seem somewhat lacking in technical details and somewhat bloated in hype and finger pointing.
It would be interesting to know more about the problem and the chain of events that lead to such a tragic meltdown. Perahps then the article (and the
Keeping the OS with the machine is NOT the same thing as tags on furniture! You can ALWAYS take an OS off of a machine, however you can't take and OEM licensed operating system and put it on another machine.
When you buy a computer from Dell and it comes with and OEM licensed copy of Windows XP you cannot legally put that copy of XP on ANY other machine than the one you originally purchased. Its a package deal.
Sure, you can put Linux on the box all day long, but whether you use XP or not it follows your machine to its grave.
This is a HUGE "gotcha!" for businesses that use Microsoft Enterprise Agreements. For example: say I'm buying 500 PC's and they come with OEM WXP. BUT I want them all to have W2K to follow corporate standards. I have a MEA that covers OS/Office/CAL for all my users.
I've just been double-sold operating systems (since the OEM OS cost was baked into the price of the machine) and I can't even re-use my XP licenses! They can't be transferred away from the specific hardware they were preinstalled on.
This underscores the need for people that use Windows to manage their licenses carefully. Either use a MEA and order machines without OEM OSs OR manage and track all of your OEM licenses carefully and make plans accordingly.
From the article:
The state also has also exercised the option to utilize biometric features with the new Digitized Driver License system given the need for greater security since September 11. It has become evident that the driver's license is now a critical identification document.
Thats all well and good, but unless someone checking the ID (ticket counter at the airport) has some means of utilizing the new features to positively identify someone the features become usless. The person checking the ID must then (as always) check photo ID.
You can implement all the new features you want, but unless everyone has access to card readers, scanners or whatever gadget is used to utilize biometric information the features don't amount to squat.
Once mobile phones, computer, watches, toasters and everything else under the sun becomes net enabled the "powerful client" gets thrown out the window. The need then becomes one of availability. Needing to keep many of these gadgets "in sync" with one another (and your personal information) becomes hard. The easiest solution is one form of central repository, hence the "need".
Now one might argue that in the future (present?) broadband will be able to allow everyone to "serve" their own information from their home PC (aka.. home server) but the infrastructure to do this in some sort of secure, standardized, highly-available way is more than "wouldn't be easy".
For 99% of the population I'd imagine that their personal info would be safer in the hands of trusted professionals rather than residing on grandma's 486. The question will eventually come down to which professional do you trust the most.
I completely agree with regarding exec not wanting to put their ass on the line... I disagree with the following:
Nobody wants to offer this service because the record companies make more money doing what they do now: namely, packaging one or two hit songs onto an $18 disc and convincing consumers to buy two or more per month.
People who currently get mp3's for free aren't buying CDs. People who buy CDs probably aren't going to stop. If the Industry would offer a for-pay mp3 service they could (possibly) pull some of the free mp3 people over to the paying side.
I know that I would. If I could go to a website, log in and download a zip file of an entire album... in a pure, player-agnostic format I would gladly pay for it. The time/energy saved and the quality and consistency of the mp3s (normalized, etc) would be incentive to pay a price.
Sure, I could theoretically give all of those to my friends, etc. etc. Piracy would not be reduced. BUT they'd have my payment and they'd know that I'd pay again. Bottom line is that they'd make more money than they do now.
Unless, of course, I'm the only one who is willing to pay a reasonable price for online music.
I'm a techie. When I want music I find the mp3 and add it to my collection. I own hundreds of CDs... from a few years ago. I haven't bought a CD in ages. There is no technical need to do so. My father is a computer newbie. When he wants music even he finds the mp3 version. Same goes for my sisters. The only person in my family that still buys CDs is my brother. He likes music stores and like having "real" CDs.
.iso?
There is no doubt in my mind that mp3's are destroying potential CD sales.
There is also no doubt in my mind that the RIAA is fighting the mp3 threat in the wrong way. They are hurting people that buy CDs! They are tartgeting their own customers! Rather than fighting the format, or better yet, positioning themselves to control the format they actually think that CD sales will improve with more restrictive CDs.
Its hilarious.
The VPs and Money-mongers are so wildly out of touch with their customers that they are willing to cripple their own product to control the situation.
How about monthly mp3 download subscriptions? I'd pay $10 a month to get a mp3 version of new releases as they happen.
How about cheaper CDs. $9 with more content. Better yet, include the mp3's on the CD itself. Or treat the CD as a license to download the mp3 version... no ripping/searching required.
How about a website where I can create my own CD complitation and have it mailed to me... or download the
How about some friggin creativity...
The RIAA and the music industry is sitting on a vast pile of money-potential and THEY DON'T EVEN SEE IT. They are so stuck "in the box" that they can't imagine that there is any other way of capitalizing on their investments.
I hope that someone in the "industry" wakes up and smells the cash. I'm willing to fork over a ton of $$ to get music, I simply don't want $15 CDs anymore. They're bulky, prone to scratches and a poor "investment" for my entertainment dollar. Give me access to clean, high-bitrate mp3's (no crippleware, special players, ads, and other BS) and I'll for over serious cash.
Simply put, this is huge.
If I owned a company I would immediatly outlaw mp3's just as I would with pirated software. From a financial perspective this is simply too large of a financial and legal threat to deal with. Banning mp3's in the workplace is the only sane answer.
Far too often the workplace (and its bandwidth) is used for obtaining mp3s. I can't think of a company that I've worked for that I haven't seen someone downloading/sharing/storing mp3s (legal or not). A quick poll of a few friends confirms the same for them.
Time to add *.mp3 to my enterprise anti-virus software, not because I want to but because feel the need to CYA for my employer.
If this isn't an April Fools then I don't know what is.....
when my main machine had to be sent away for repairs for a week
I'm trolling, but come on.... You send your PC away for repairs? What kind of geek are you!@?
I agree that the bottom line (finance) should rule the roost in a new company, but it should not do so at the expense of organization.
........ make sure you fire THEM quickly. The last thing you want is someone who will sacrifice quality to make a quick buck.
I work at a company that started small (dozen or so people) and grew to many hundreds over just a few years.
I can't tell you how much time we (as a company) have now wasted trying to go back and re-document everything that we have done. Sure the code we have is readable, but there is so much more than clean code to making a company work well.
So, document as you go. Keep it simple and straightforward in the beginning and grow into more advanced techniques/tools/etc.
And by the way, if anyone ever says "You may get people who want do things "the right way". Fire them QUICKLY!! "
Actually it doesn't. "Floppies" were in fact once actually floppy.
Somehow if this is "Stuff that Matters" I'd hate to see what DOESN'T matter. I know I'm a troll with this post.... hrm.
[function]-[hostnumber].[location].domain.foo
m ai n.foo
web-001.lax.domain.foo
smtp-001.lax.domain.foo
To tie groups of similar machines together in a group INSIDE of a geographic location (say a co-lo with multiple web farms) you could do:
[cluster]-[function]-[hostnumber].[location].do
c01-web-001.lax.domain.foo
Also note that hostnames can be different than DNS names, so you can have fun hostname (planets, trees, animals, etc) while still maintaining meaningful DNS hostnames.
Is it really the right of the people to say what private citizens must give and give up? From a governmental perspective corporations are not that much different from a private citizen. Having laws that "force" companies to essentially "give up" hard-earned intellectual property is akin to walking into your neighbor's garage and taking some tools he hasn't used in awhile. Sure you may use the tools that your neighbor is "wasting", possibly putting them to better use, but it just seems plain wrong.
I suppose this poll doesn't bode well for Slashdot's demographics. When a huge percentage of the readership is unemployed I'd venture to say that ad customers might raise an eyebrow or two.
Apparently you (and most everyone else) didn't take the time to even look at the link provided. Microsoft DOES have computational clustering, not just "traditional" clustering. Please note that the link provided points to MS Computational Clustering, NOT MCS.
Apparently you (and most everyone else) didn't take the time to even look at the link provided. Microsoft DOES have computational clustering, not just "traditional" clustering.
MS Computational Clustering
mbox or no mbox... if you are required to save everything for a long time you will either need to spend a fortune (ala EMC) and keep it readily available OR go to some permanent archive (CD-ROM, etc.).