I'm not sure where that statistic came from, but it seems horribly inflated to me. I've known thousands of people throughout my life, and I can only think of one person I knew who was actually physically handicapped. And this person wasn't even handicapped in such a way that would have prevented him from using a computer normally.
This is one of the major advantages of commercial software. Your average open source developer is generally not very interested in developing features that he or she doesn't have any use for. Thus, unless you have a good percentage of handicapped open source developers, your open source projects will tend not to contain good accessibility features. And, unfortunately, there aren't very many handicapped open source developers.:/
This is where commercial software (especially companies like Microsoft who spend countless millions each year on research alone) has a distinct advantage. People who write code for commercial applications or OSes are not writing it for their own benefit -- they're writing it because they were told to and because they get paid to.
That said, I'm very impressed with Windows XP's accessibility features, but I really don't think they would be too difficult to implement in Linux applications. The only major problem is that "Linux" is just a kernel, and accessibility features don't belong in the kernel. Thus, it will be left up to individual distributions (Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake...) or individual application developers. This makes for a very uneven and inconsistent level of accessibility support across different applications.:/
Sadly, this is one area where companies like Microsoft and Apple have much more of an advantage than open source OSes, due mainly to the structure of their OSes.
If I were a lesser man, I'd take the liberty of submitting the survey on behalf of such fine companies as NVidia and ATI. Hell, I might submit a survey on behalf of Microsoft or Dell or Bob's Discount Graphics Card Warehouse-O-Rama or The State of West Virginia.
But I'm not that man. Luckily, 90% of Slashdot users are that man. Have at it, men. OpenGL 2.0 will be the most widely-supported standard around.
I was once a Quality Assurance tester for a dot-com with a really shitty product. My job was to find bugs in the aforementioned pile of shit. And find them I did. I had no control over whether or not these bugs were fixed; my job was merely to make sure the developers were aware of them.
Likewise, it is not a security advisor's job to fix security issues. It is his job to advise people on ways of preventing security problems. Just like a QA tester, he has no control over whether people actually heed his advice.
Previous comments have mentioned the HipZip, but haven't gone into too much detail. The Iomega HipZip has no digital rights management, and works exactly like a Zip drive; you just copy your music over from your desktop machine.
In addition to MP3, the HipZip also supports WAV, Microsoft Windows Media Audio, Dolby AAC, and Voice Age Audible formats. And it's got the best sound quality I've ever heard -- the thing sounds even better than my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1.
Another cool thing about it is that it functions as a normal PocketZip drive as well, so if you want, you can use it as a portable storage device. And they're going for $99 now, which is a pretty sweet price considering I got mine last year for over $200.
It just occurred to me that MySQL actually doesn't allow connections from anywhere other than localhost by default, so my statement that a MySQL worm could do more damage than this MSSQL worm was probably in error. Ignore me. Even so, this is still a user problem more than a software problem.
Ever installed MySQL? It comes configured by default with no root password, just like MSSQL. If someone wrote a worm that took advantage of improperly-secured MySQL servers, that worm would do just as much damage (if not more, considering how widespread MySQL is) as this MSSQL worm. It's the administrator's problem, not the software's.
Coincidentally, when you run the installer for MSSQL 2000, it prompts you to change the administrator password. Anyone who doesn't is an ignorant fool.
Back when I worked for McAfee.com (which is technically not McAfee, but even so...), Srivats Sampath (the CEO) apparently had this incredible idea: a web-based MP3 player. He wanted this thing to be part of our web-based antivirus/security suite. Ha ha.
I quit not long after that, as did a lot of other people. Whee.
And yet you still seem to have missed my point entirely.
To sum it all up: Measuring uptime is all well and good, and uptime can be an indicator of stability, but uptime, by itself, is a very bad way to measure stability.
I was not defending a server or an OS, I was objecting to your misleading usage of the word "uptime".
After using a Dell Inspiron 8000 with the 15" Ultra XGA screen, I will never ever use any other laptop. Dell is the only company I've found that sells laptops with Ultra XGA, and the screen quality is absolutely stunning. After using that laptop, I couldn't stand looking at even the sharpest CRT monitors. The difference was incredible.
Since when is "uptime" the same thing as "stability"?
Uptime is a measure of how long a system has been running without a reboot. Uptime generally requires stability, assuming the machine in question is actually doing something. But I could boot up a fresh, clean install of Windows 95 and (after patching the 49.7 day registry uptime counter bug) let it sit in a corner doing nothing, and the damn thing would probably keep running till the next Ice Age.
Stability, on the other hand, is a measure of many things. Mostly it is a measure of how well an operating system responds to instability in software. Linux is incredibly good at this; when a program on Linux crashes or has a problem, the OS steps over it and keeps right on going. Windows has been notoriously bad at this, until Windows 2000 and XP.
Now, if you re-read my message, you'll notice that nowhere did I claim that I thought Windows XP was more stable than Linux. I merely claimed that it was more stable than previous versions of Windows. Furthermore, since Windows XP, as you said, has been out for about a month now, it would be impossible (and incredibly stupid) to rate its stability by comparing the uptime of a Windows system with that of a Linux system.
To illustrate my point (that uptime does not always equal stability), back when uptimes.net was running full force, I achieved an uptime of about 155 days from a beta version of Windows 2000 running on a Pentium 166 with 64 megs of RAM, serving up lots of dynamic webpages at wonko.com. In the end, I had to turn the machine off because I moved.
Now, the only reason I achieved that incredible uptime with a beta OS running on inferior hardware was that it wasn't doing a whole lot. It was just running IIS and MSSQL Server, and that was about it. Now, if I had been serving Slashdot off that box, it probably wouldn't have lasted a week. Thus, we see that uptime != stability.
I saw XP at a Fry's and was not impressed. It contains more graphics and junk, which means that it needs yet more powerful computers than before to accomplish the same tasks.
You saw Windows XP at Fry's? I'm assuming you mean you saw a demo computer running XP, and not that you merely saw the box sitting on a shelf. By your logic, I could say "I saw Linux at my friend's house and was not impressed. It was nothing but text and stuff."
I shouldn't have to tell you that the interface isn't the OS. If everyone judged Linux by its interface and nothing else (which, unfortunately, is often the case), people would have an absurdly skewed view of Linux. Think about how many different window managers and themes there are for Linux. Just because one of them looks like shit doesn't mean the underlying OS kernel sucks.
The same holds true for Windows. Sure, the interface may be full of goofy alpha blending and unnecessary menu fade-ins and mouse pointer shadows and other things, but when you replace explorer.exe with a third-party shell (or merely disable the extra eye candy via the Control Panel), all that stuff goes away and you're left with what is without a doubt the most stable version of Windows I've ever seen.
By some reports, the annual Leonid meteor shower should be the best show in decades, and possibly until 2099.
Why is it that every time there's a major meteor shower, people say it's going to be the best show for the next hundred years? I've heard this said at least once a year since about 1994 or so.
As usual, switch off active scripting, even though that will make essentially every webpage that's designed for IE not work.
"Active Scripting" is the term Microsoft uses to refer to client-side JavaScript and VBScript. Thus, disabling active scripting will not only break pages designed for IE, it will break any page designed for any browser if that page contains JavaScript or VBScript (remember, there's an addon for the Windows version of Netscape 4.x that gives it the ability to run client-side VBScript and ActiveX controls).
Furthermore, Michael, switching off Active Scripting is not the only way to avoid falling prey to this exploit. In order for the exploit to work, someone must convince you to go to a specially-formed URL. Being smart enough to recognize malicious URLs would allow you to avoid this security hole without disabling Active Scripting.
I find it disturbing that you're so obviously biased against IE (and apparently also uninterested in learning details before representing your own uninformed misconceptions as "fact"). I've never made the mistake of thinking of Slashdot as an unbiased news source. A predilection towards open-source rather than commercial software is one thing, however, while openly vehement bias based on false conclusions is another.
For your own sake, and for the sake of Slashdot's journalistic integrity (ha ha), please at least do a little bit of fact-finding before posting knee-jerk stories like this.
Perhaps it's just me, but when using the Ximian Installer to attempt to install Ximian Desktop and Evolution on Mandrake 8.1, I get an "Unable to download package set info" error message, no matter what mirror I select or what install option I choose.
So much for Ximian.
Re:No open-source package can touch it, eh?
on
Slash 2.2.0 Released
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· Score: 2
My response was merely intended to register my tongue-in-cheek fake disgust at Taco's arrogance. I'm the original author of PHPSlice, a little-known PHP-based (duh) weblog package that we've worked hard at making fast and efficient.
The only reason that was *mock* disgust and not *real* disgust is that, like you mentioned, we've never had an opportunity to test it under a load like Slashdot's.
But, personally, we think it could kick Slash's ass.;)
And of course a variety of optimizations that continue to make it possible to serve a quantity of pages that no other open source package like this can even touch:)
I am insulted, chagrined, annoyed, disturbed, perturbed, dismayed, aghast, and perhaps even indignant at this shocking act of arrogance, Mr. Taco! Shame on you, sir. Shame shame shame!
Now we just have to pray that nobody carries a bomb under their coat, or a gun in their pocket, or anthrax in a plastic baggie, or a Potential Enemy Neutralizer in their shirt pocket, or a pointy steel-toed boot...
Come to think of it, I won't feel safe until everyone is naked.
Save me, O Comdex, from the evil, evil terrorists!
On my Athlon 950MHz with 384MB of RAM and a UDMA 66 drive, I counted slightly less than two (that's two) seconds between the time I clicked on "Search" and when the search window popped up and was fully ready to go. This is on Windows XP Pro with all the eye-candy turned on.
Sounds like you've either got faulty hardware or a faulty stopwatch, pal.
Slashdot: Mozilla.org announced that they'll be putting a calendar app in Mozilla!
Readers: Yay! Go open-source! We like calendars in web browsers!
.....
Slashdot: Microsoft has announced they'll be putting a calendar app in Internet Explorer!
Readers: Boo! Fuck Microsoft, fuck them up their stupid asses! Browsers shouldn't have calendars! Browsers should browse! If everything was open-source, this wouldn't have happened!
I can't see how this surprises anyone, considering how much poo has been flung at Microsoft over the years regarding the fact that the thesaurus sometimes returns offensive results for fairly innocent input words.
In fact, I remember reading about a lawsuit several years ago in which a black man sued Microsoft because he used the Office Clipart library to search for the word "monkey", and the library returned a picture of two black children climbing on monkey bars. He claimed that Microsoft was implying that black children were monkeys when, in fact, the picture had just been linked to the word "monkey" due to the fact that it contained "monkey bars".
Slashdot Mirror
Hit them until they hit back. Voila! You've turned that introvert into an extrovert!
I'm not sure where that statistic came from, but it seems horribly inflated to me. I've known thousands of people throughout my life, and I can only think of one person I knew who was actually physically handicapped. And this person wasn't even handicapped in such a way that would have prevented him from using a computer normally.
This is where commercial software (especially companies like Microsoft who spend countless millions each year on research alone) has a distinct advantage. People who write code for commercial applications or OSes are not writing it for their own benefit -- they're writing it because they were told to and because they get paid to.
That said, I'm very impressed with Windows XP's accessibility features, but I really don't think they would be too difficult to implement in Linux applications. The only major problem is that "Linux" is just a kernel, and accessibility features don't belong in the kernel. Thus, it will be left up to individual distributions (Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake...) or individual application developers. This makes for a very uneven and inconsistent level of accessibility support across different applications. :/
Sadly, this is one area where companies like Microsoft and Apple have much more of an advantage than open source OSes, due mainly to the structure of their OSes.
But I'm not that man. Luckily, 90% of Slashdot users are that man. Have at it, men. OpenGL 2.0 will be the most widely-supported standard around.
Likewise, it is not a security advisor's job to fix security issues. It is his job to advise people on ways of preventing security problems. Just like a QA tester, he has no control over whether people actually heed his advice.
Anyone notice the date on that article? September 24, 2001. This isn't news, yada yada yada, you know the drill.
In addition to MP3, the HipZip also supports WAV, Microsoft Windows Media Audio, Dolby AAC, and Voice Age Audible formats. And it's got the best sound quality I've ever heard -- the thing sounds even better than my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1.
Another cool thing about it is that it functions as a normal PocketZip drive as well, so if you want, you can use it as a portable storage device. And they're going for $99 now, which is a pretty sweet price considering I got mine last year for over $200.
Um, that's exactly what I said. You apparently didn't read my comment.
It just occurred to me that MySQL actually doesn't allow connections from anywhere other than localhost by default, so my statement that a MySQL worm could do more damage than this MSSQL worm was probably in error. Ignore me. Even so, this is still a user problem more than a software problem.
Coincidentally, when you run the installer for MSSQL 2000, it prompts you to change the administrator password. Anyone who doesn't is an ignorant fool.
I quit not long after that, as did a lot of other people. Whee.
To sum it all up: Measuring uptime is all well and good, and uptime can be an indicator of stability, but uptime, by itself, is a very bad way to measure stability.
I was not defending a server or an OS, I was objecting to your misleading usage of the word "uptime".
After using a Dell Inspiron 8000 with the 15" Ultra XGA screen, I will never ever use any other laptop. Dell is the only company I've found that sells laptops with Ultra XGA, and the screen quality is absolutely stunning. After using that laptop, I couldn't stand looking at even the sharpest CRT monitors. The difference was incredible.
Uptime is a measure of how long a system has been running without a reboot. Uptime generally requires stability, assuming the machine in question is actually doing something. But I could boot up a fresh, clean install of Windows 95 and (after patching the 49.7 day registry uptime counter bug) let it sit in a corner doing nothing, and the damn thing would probably keep running till the next Ice Age.
Stability, on the other hand, is a measure of many things. Mostly it is a measure of how well an operating system responds to instability in software. Linux is incredibly good at this; when a program on Linux crashes or has a problem, the OS steps over it and keeps right on going. Windows has been notoriously bad at this, until Windows 2000 and XP.
Now, if you re-read my message, you'll notice that nowhere did I claim that I thought Windows XP was more stable than Linux. I merely claimed that it was more stable than previous versions of Windows. Furthermore, since Windows XP, as you said, has been out for about a month now, it would be impossible (and incredibly stupid) to rate its stability by comparing the uptime of a Windows system with that of a Linux system.
To illustrate my point (that uptime does not always equal stability), back when uptimes.net was running full force, I achieved an uptime of about 155 days from a beta version of Windows 2000 running on a Pentium 166 with 64 megs of RAM, serving up lots of dynamic webpages at wonko.com. In the end, I had to turn the machine off because I moved.
Now, the only reason I achieved that incredible uptime with a beta OS running on inferior hardware was that it wasn't doing a whole lot. It was just running IIS and MSSQL Server, and that was about it. Now, if I had been serving Slashdot off that box, it probably wouldn't have lasted a week. Thus, we see that uptime != stability.
You saw Windows XP at Fry's? I'm assuming you mean you saw a demo computer running XP, and not that you merely saw the box sitting on a shelf. By your logic, I could say "I saw Linux at my friend's house and was not impressed. It was nothing but text and stuff."
I shouldn't have to tell you that the interface isn't the OS. If everyone judged Linux by its interface and nothing else (which, unfortunately, is often the case), people would have an absurdly skewed view of Linux. Think about how many different window managers and themes there are for Linux. Just because one of them looks like shit doesn't mean the underlying OS kernel sucks.
The same holds true for Windows. Sure, the interface may be full of goofy alpha blending and unnecessary menu fade-ins and mouse pointer shadows and other things, but when you replace explorer.exe with a third-party shell (or merely disable the extra eye candy via the Control Panel), all that stuff goes away and you're left with what is without a doubt the most stable version of Windows I've ever seen.
Why is it that every time there's a major meteor shower, people say it's going to be the best show for the next hundred years? I've heard this said at least once a year since about 1994 or so.
"Active Scripting" is the term Microsoft uses to refer to client-side JavaScript and VBScript. Thus, disabling active scripting will not only break pages designed for IE, it will break any page designed for any browser if that page contains JavaScript or VBScript (remember, there's an addon for the Windows version of Netscape 4.x that gives it the ability to run client-side VBScript and ActiveX controls).
Furthermore, Michael, switching off Active Scripting is not the only way to avoid falling prey to this exploit. In order for the exploit to work, someone must convince you to go to a specially-formed URL. Being smart enough to recognize malicious URLs would allow you to avoid this security hole without disabling Active Scripting.
I find it disturbing that you're so obviously biased against IE (and apparently also uninterested in learning details before representing your own uninformed misconceptions as "fact"). I've never made the mistake of thinking of Slashdot as an unbiased news source. A predilection towards open-source rather than commercial software is one thing, however, while openly vehement bias based on false conclusions is another.
For your own sake, and for the sake of Slashdot's journalistic integrity (ha ha), please at least do a little bit of fact-finding before posting knee-jerk stories like this.
So much for Ximian.
The only reason that was *mock* disgust and not *real* disgust is that, like you mentioned, we've never had an opportunity to test it under a load like Slashdot's.
But, personally, we think it could kick Slash's ass. ;)
I am insulted, chagrined, annoyed, disturbed, perturbed, dismayed, aghast, and perhaps even indignant at this shocking act of arrogance, Mr. Taco! Shame on you, sir. Shame shame shame!
Now we just have to pray that nobody carries a bomb under their coat, or a gun in their pocket, or anthrax in a plastic baggie, or a Potential Enemy Neutralizer in their shirt pocket, or a pointy steel-toed boot...
Come to think of it, I won't feel safe until everyone is naked.
Save me, O Comdex, from the evil, evil terrorists!
Sorry to disappoint you, but Apple hosts trailers for just about every new movie that's released these days.
Sounds like you've either got faulty hardware or a faulty stopwatch, pal.
Readers: Yay! Go open-source! We like calendars in web browsers!
Slashdot: Microsoft has announced they'll be putting a calendar app in Internet Explorer!
Readers: Boo! Fuck Microsoft, fuck them up their stupid asses! Browsers shouldn't have calendars! Browsers should browse! If everything was open-source, this wouldn't have happened!
In fact, I remember reading about a lawsuit several years ago in which a black man sued Microsoft because he used the Office Clipart library to search for the word "monkey", and the library returned a picture of two black children climbing on monkey bars. He claimed that Microsoft was implying that black children were monkeys when, in fact, the picture had just been linked to the word "monkey" due to the fact that it contained "monkey bars".