Sorry, but if you disconnect a land-line service, you will have no dial tone... just a faint ground hum.
My girlfriend just got her land-line disconnected and I picked up the phone to make a call, forgetting that it was disconnected, and a recording immediately played saying that you could only dial 911 from this line. So you most definitely can call 911 from a disconnected line, at least in my area, but I don't think that it had a dial tone (I'd have to try it again to make sure but I'm pretty sure it didn't).
I'm not sure I agree with this, unless I'm thinking about it differently. We could write an efficient, fast, dependency resolver that only has a package repository of 1,000 packages. As long as all dependancies are included in that repository. Making the repository bigger by adding 10,000 packages to it doesn't necessarily make the resolver any better. It just makes the repository better. The resolver still works the same way. Just like an employee information system that links all information for each of 100 employees versus 10,000 employees. The second one isn't necessarily better than the first. Or am I missing something here?
I think what he is refering to is that with debian almost any package that you want to run is available in its repository, whereas with mandrake and fedora, etc. If a package isn't in the repository then you have to use a 3rd party repository (which you have to decide for yourself if you trust it or now) or compile it from source. Now this still happens occasionally with debian, but not near as often as it does with other distros. urpmi may be just as good as apt-get but mandrake will never be as good as debian because of the large repository that debian has. Unfortunately, debian isn't as easy to install and use as mandrake and fedora are but it is getting better with the new installer. However, mandrake and fedora will continue to have their niche in the new user market and debian will have its niche in the more experienced user or at least more persistent new user market.
RPM is great for distro packages but it utterly sucks for 3rd party apps.
"install shield" for linux exists. here is where it has lived for years.
"install shield" for linux doesn't provide any advantages over RPM for 3rd party apps because it doesn't handle dependecies. The only way for it to work effectively is for the programs that use it to be staticly compiled which defeats the advantages of using dynamically linked libraries.
Sadly the only way to get 3rd party apps to work seamlessly on all platforms is if the developers support each and every platform, they staticly compile their program, or if there is a cross platform standard for handling dependencies (which is highly unlikely to happen) and the dependencies are available for all platforms (which they are all not, for example gtkmm is not officially available for Fedora, etc.).
If you want to play stuff in Linux, I bet you're not going to use iTunes which only runs on Mac/Windows. Therefore, since iTunes doesn't meet your needs you should go and find something which does, rather than advocating cracking the software.
Not necessarily. A large number of linux users have an (i|Power)Book running OS X, as I do. I have an iPod and have 3 or 4 songs from iTunes music store but have not bought more b/c of the sole reason that I can't play the songs on my linux boxes(one of which has a decent 5.1 sound system) that I use whenever I'm at home and not on the go. If this program allows me to play the songs I buy from iTunes on my linux box then I will definitely significantly more music from iTunes rather than buying cds which may have a lot of filler crap on them or pirating the songs which I have would rather not do b/c I like supporting bands that I actually like. You'd be surprised how many linux users also have a Mac and an iPod as well b/c they are simply the best portable mp3 player on the market IMHO.
With all of the bugs and performance problems that the current version of Nautilus has, you would think that would work on fixing Nautilus before changing it.
I agree that all versions up to and including the Gnome 2.4 version of nautilus have been slow but they have made some huge performance gains with the Gnome 2.6 Nautilus. I've tried out the Gnome 2.6 beta 1, beta 2 and rc1 via garnome and things seem much snappier and loading a directory with 100's of files doesn't take 5 secs anymore, it is near instantaneous. I haven't used the spatial interface enough to form an opinion on it but I do like some aspects of it while having tons of file manager windows open can be a pain. Also, it is possible to use the old 2.4 nautilus view by changing a gconf setting or by using a command line switch if that is how you like it, and you still get a much faster nautilus than with Gnome 2.4
2) The conjecture that if Mac OS were more used than Windows, it would have the same vulnerability rate is just that, conjecture, and it is unsupported in the article.
Actually on the 12/02/03 episode of the linux show, Eric Raymond made a very good point that pretty much debunks this particular piece of FUD spread by Microsoft and Windows apologists. He said that if the number of bugs/vernerabilities of a piece of software were merely a function of the number of deployments of the software, then we would see far more bugs and vernerabilities in Apache, which currently has 67% of webserver deployments, than in Microsoft IIS, which only has 20%. Instead we see the exact opposite with far more bugs and vernerabilies in IIS. So, unless MS or Mr. Ulanoff can provide proof for their claims, then they are just spreading FUD!
Basically, ignore the warning screens, and do a kind of "pre-flight check"
That would be a good idea but unfortunately I tend to do all that before I sit down to watch the movie and then get pissed when I have to watch 10 min of commercials that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded. Another thing about dvd's that pisses me off is the 30 sec transition scene that plays after you select Play Movie from the main menu. Why they can't just go straight to the movie I don't know but the transition scenes are just a terrible idea.
I just tried it out and it is definitely cool. It runs kinda slow on decent hardware (athlon-xp 1800+ 512MB) but I'm sure it will be sped up eventually. With this and composite windows ala' Keith Packard's xserver 2004 is looking like a good time for some long awaited linux desktop features. BTW if you try it out, you have to press alt-tab to activate it, it took me about 5 minutes to figure that out.
And WHY do I see a Windows XP background in the Exposity bar?
Actually I believe that is starterbar which is a gdesklets plugin. (http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org) But that still doesn't answer the question of why it's there.
is he the skateboad kid from the one animatrix film, we couldn't decide that last nite.
Yes he is the same kid. He jumped off the building to kill himself but was able to survive from outside the matrix. That's why Neo kept saying the he freed himself. I personally thought he would have a bigger part in revolutions and possibly be even more powerful than Neo, but revolutions was good none the less. I just wished they would have developed the story more and answered more questions. They should have made it six movies instead of just three.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."
Bill Gates
You forgot the most important part of this quote...
"The solution... is patenting as much as we can... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."
Therefore, I don't think Bill Gates knows this one, he seems to be all for patents.
I'm not sure on how scantrons work but i would imagine that you would have to make a key for each distinct copy of the test so yeah it would be labor intensize. However, there is software that exists that allows teachers to randomize the question and multiple choice answers (my dad is a high school science teacher) but I don't know exactly what it is called. This poses the problem of having to hand grade each test though. Most of my high school teachers created 3-5 distinct copies of their tests and made sure people sitting near one another each had a different test. This only required the 3-5 distinct scantron keys which seems like an optimal solution.
BUT a technology like he is suggesting would be really cool and would make it feasible for each student to have a different test. Finding a full motherboard in a small enough formfactor would be difficult and expensive. I would suggest using some sort of embedded board. However this would require possibly far more programming than using a small formfactor pc tablet like device. Maybe one of the embedded boards that run linux would work but I would imagine any embedded boards would be more expensive than $100 each unfortunately.
Maybe one day in the future we will have cheap embedded devices with the multifunctionality of a pc that is also easily programmable (as easy as a pc). Until then I would suggest sticking with good ole paper for this type of problem.
I have FAR more crashes and reinstalls in Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE than I have EVER had with XP, and I use XP far more.
Not trying to start a flame war here but you said so yourself that you use XP more and are therefore "far more" familiar with it than linux. The crashes and reinstalls are probably related to your inexperience with linux. I know when I first started out with linux I probably did 20 reinstalls within the first 3 months b/c I'd screw something up and have to do a reinstall(a more experience user probably have been able to fix it though). However, each time I screwed something up I learned from my mistakes and soon had a decent understanding of how things worked and what not to do.
My suggestion is buy a distro like Redhat(so that you get the manuals and actually read them) and a book like Learning Red Hat Linux or one of several other books to go along with it and read through some of it and try stuff out. Soon, you will find that linux is "far more" stable than windows XP or 2000 for that matter.
BTW, once i learned that basics I haven't been forced to do a reinstall b/c I screwed something up and I've never had a crash(apps crash on occasion but never bring down the whole system). I don't own a windows machine but I've used XP at school and at my g/f's house and have had at least 5 crashes in the past year. And no they weren't b/c of me screwing up something, it was while typing in word or surfing the web(I don't know how many times I've had IE crash on me and bring explorer.exe[the taskbar,desktop,etc..] down with it resulting in a system crash at least once.).
I don't have anything to say about your comment but your sig sure made me laugh. I remember seeing that speech on the daily show. You gotta love GW's *excellent* speech giving skills:-)
In fact, looking at their white paper - the patent link is broken - the system they appear to have patented is a system which automatically adds any taxes you have to pay onto the bill (so, for instance, if the buyer is in Europe, adding on VAT). How on earth can you patent something like that?
I haven't read it yet but if this is so then I don't see how that could possibly be patentable. I recall seeing a debate on cspan or some similar news channel where they were discussing taxing the internet(i.e. pay taxes for purchases online like in a brick and mortor store, which I think is a very BAD idea for a number of reasons), and similar software would be required in order to implement something like that. That would mean all online retailers would have to pay taxes on the goods being solds and taxes for using the method to pay the taxes. I highly doubt this is a valid patent, or at least it shouldn't be along with several other software and business method patents which are as another reader state earlier are complete BS!
I received a letter from my ISP(Comcast) claiming that I was in violation of the DMCA for downloading a copy of the matrix reloaded(I know it's not the RIAA but its still related). The letter said that the owners of the copyrighted works(I'm assuming the MPAA) has contacted them saying that I am in violation of the DMCA and they would cease service if I did not delete the work or otherwise remove it from their network. I did attempt to download the matrix reloaded but ended up getting the first matrix and fight club instead that happened to be named "The Matrix Reloaded [divx].avi". I own both of these dvds and I deleted both copies as soon as I found out they weren't the real thing and gave up looking. I'm not too worried about actions brought against me.
The way I see it from my experience with tech support is that it isn't of any value. Tech support is an illusion to make people feel more secure in their purchases. Most people won't ever use it and those that do are the one's that barely know how to use that e-mail thing. If the tech support people can't fix it over the phone, they just send the customer to one of their nearby locations or tell them to send it to them and charge them lots of money to fix something that a more in the know customer would have been able to fix on their own. The best thing is not to look for products with free tech support but to look for ones with warrenties that allow you to get a replacement if it breaks. Unfortunately this doesn't help less technically advanced people very much and their best bet is to get to know someone who is and call them if they have a problem, and preferably pay them a small fee for helping or at least bake them some cookies:)
I'm completely ignorant of such things but I assume that the cost of living is much cheaper in india. Is $300/month reasonable pay over there? Is it about equivalent to middle class life in the US? Or is it just enough to have the basics?
I don't know about immunity or not but I usually drink a Dew at least every 3 hours or so that I'm awake and last summer I even fell asleep while drinking a Dew. I was watching TV and had the Dew in my hand and a comercial came on, I closed my eyes for a second and I was gone. I woke up the next morning soaking wet and sticky (I thought I had pissed myself) and found the empty Dew can laying next to me. Now I at least make sure I finish drinking the Dew before falling asleep. If I start dozing off, I down the rest of the drink and set it on my bedside table.
OK I guess that makes since. It's always kinda stumped me b/c all histories of UNIX, etc. kinda leave out that detail and just say that BSD is based on UNIX. Thanks for clarifying.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a guess.
Sorry, but if you disconnect a land-line service, you will have no dial tone... just a faint ground hum.
My girlfriend just got her land-line disconnected and I picked up the phone to make a call, forgetting that it was disconnected, and a recording immediately played saying that you could only dial 911 from this line. So you most definitely can call 911 from a disconnected line, at least in my area, but I don't think that it had a dial tone (I'd have to try it again to make sure but I'm pretty sure it didn't).
I'm not sure I agree with this, unless I'm thinking about it differently. We could write an efficient, fast, dependency resolver that only has a package repository of 1,000 packages. As long as all dependancies are included in that repository. Making the repository bigger by adding 10,000 packages to it doesn't necessarily make the resolver any better. It just makes the repository better. The resolver still works the same way. Just like an employee information system that links all information for each of 100 employees versus 10,000 employees. The second one isn't necessarily better than the first. Or am I missing something here?
I think what he is refering to is that with debian almost any package that you want to run is available in its repository, whereas with mandrake and fedora, etc. If a package isn't in the repository then you have to use a 3rd party repository (which you have to decide for yourself if you trust it or now) or compile it from source. Now this still happens occasionally with debian, but not near as often as it does with other distros. urpmi may be just as good as apt-get but mandrake will never be as good as debian because of the large repository that debian has. Unfortunately, debian isn't as easy to install and use as mandrake and fedora are but it is getting better with the new installer. However, mandrake and fedora will continue to have their niche in the new user market and debian will have its niche in the more experienced user or at least more persistent new user market.
RPM is great for distro packages but it utterly sucks for 3rd party apps.
"install shield" for linux exists. here is where it has lived for years.
"install shield" for linux doesn't provide any advantages over RPM for 3rd party apps because it doesn't handle dependecies. The only way for it to work effectively is for the programs that use it to be staticly compiled which defeats the advantages of using dynamically linked libraries.
Sadly the only way to get 3rd party apps to work seamlessly on all platforms is if the developers support each and every platform, they staticly compile their program, or if there is a cross platform standard for handling dependencies (which is highly unlikely to happen) and the dependencies are available for all platforms (which they are all not, for example gtkmm is not officially available for Fedora, etc.).
If you want to play stuff in Linux, I bet you're not going to use iTunes which only runs on Mac/Windows. Therefore, since iTunes doesn't meet your needs you should go and find something which does, rather than advocating cracking the software.
Not necessarily. A large number of linux users have an (i|Power)Book running OS X, as I do. I have an iPod and have 3 or 4 songs from iTunes music store but have not bought more b/c of the sole reason that I can't play the songs on my linux boxes(one of which has a decent 5.1 sound system) that I use whenever I'm at home and not on the go. If this program allows me to play the songs I buy from iTunes on my linux box then I will definitely significantly more music from iTunes rather than buying cds which may have a lot of filler crap on them or pirating the songs which I have would rather not do b/c I like supporting bands that I actually like. You'd be surprised how many linux users also have a Mac and an iPod as well b/c they are simply the best portable mp3 player on the market IMHO.
With all of the bugs and performance problems that the current version of Nautilus has, you would think that would work on fixing Nautilus before changing it.
I agree that all versions up to and including the Gnome 2.4 version of nautilus have been slow but they have made some huge performance gains with the Gnome 2.6 Nautilus. I've tried out the Gnome 2.6 beta 1, beta 2 and rc1 via garnome and things seem much snappier and loading a directory with 100's of files doesn't take 5 secs anymore, it is near instantaneous. I haven't used the spatial interface enough to form an opinion on it but I do like some aspects of it while having tons of file manager windows open can be a pain. Also, it is possible to use the old 2.4 nautilus view by changing a gconf setting or by using a command line switch if that is how you like it, and you still get a much faster nautilus than with Gnome 2.4
2) The conjecture that if Mac OS were more used than Windows, it would have the same vulnerability rate is just that, conjecture, and it is unsupported in the article.
Actually on the 12/02/03 episode of the linux show, Eric Raymond made a very good point that pretty much debunks this particular piece of FUD spread by Microsoft and Windows apologists. He said that if the number of bugs/vernerabilities of a piece of software were merely a function of the number of deployments of the software, then we would see far more bugs and vernerabilities in Apache, which currently has 67% of webserver deployments, than in Microsoft IIS, which only has 20%. Instead we see the exact opposite with far more bugs and vernerabilies in IIS. So, unless MS or Mr. Ulanoff can provide proof for their claims, then they are just spreading FUD!
Basically, ignore the warning screens, and do a kind of "pre-flight check"
That would be a good idea but unfortunately I tend to do all that before I sit down to watch the movie and then get pissed when I have to watch 10 min of commercials that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded. Another thing about dvd's that pisses me off is the 30 sec transition scene that plays after you select Play Movie from the main menu. Why they can't just go straight to the movie I don't know but the transition scenes are just a terrible idea.
I just tried it out and it is definitely cool. It runs kinda slow on decent hardware (athlon-xp 1800+ 512MB) but I'm sure it will be sped up eventually. With this and composite windows ala' Keith Packard's xserver 2004 is looking like a good time for some long awaited linux desktop features. BTW if you try it out, you have to press alt-tab to activate it, it took me about 5 minutes to figure that out.
And WHY do I see a Windows XP background in the Exposity bar?
Actually I believe that is starterbar which is a gdesklets plugin. (http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org) But that still doesn't answer the question of why it's there.
is he the skateboad kid from the one animatrix film, we couldn't decide that last nite.
Yes he is the same kid. He jumped off the building to kill himself but was able to survive from outside the matrix. That's why Neo kept saying the he freed himself. I personally thought he would have a bigger part in revolutions and possibly be even more powerful than Neo, but revolutions was good none the less. I just wished they would have developed the story more and answered more questions. They should have made it six movies instead of just three.
Come on! Even Bill Gates knows this one:
... is patenting as much as we can ... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."
Bill Gates
You forgot the most important part of this quote...
"The solution
Therefore, I don't think Bill Gates knows this one, he seems to be all for patents.
Scantron randomization would be labor intensive.
I'm not sure on how scantrons work but i would imagine that you would have to make a key for each distinct copy of the test so yeah it would be labor intensize. However, there is software that exists that allows teachers to randomize the question and multiple choice answers (my dad is a high school science teacher) but I don't know exactly what it is called. This poses the problem of having to hand grade each test though. Most of my high school teachers created 3-5 distinct copies of their tests and made sure people sitting near one another each had a different test. This only required the 3-5 distinct scantron keys which seems like an optimal solution.
BUT a technology like he is suggesting would be really cool and would make it feasible for each student to have a different test. Finding a full motherboard in a small enough formfactor would be difficult and expensive. I would suggest using some sort of embedded board. However this would require possibly far more programming than using a small formfactor pc tablet like device. Maybe one of the embedded boards that run linux would work but I would imagine any embedded boards would be more expensive than $100 each unfortunately.
Maybe one day in the future we will have cheap embedded devices with the multifunctionality of a pc that is also easily programmable (as easy as a pc). Until then I would suggest sticking with good ole paper for this type of problem.
I have FAR more crashes and reinstalls in Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE than I have EVER had with XP, and I use XP far more.
Not trying to start a flame war here but you said so yourself that you use XP more and are therefore "far more" familiar with it than linux. The crashes and reinstalls are probably related to your inexperience with linux. I know when I first started out with linux I probably did 20 reinstalls within the first 3 months b/c I'd screw something up and have to do a reinstall(a more experience user probably have been able to fix it though). However, each time I screwed something up I learned from my mistakes and soon had a decent understanding of how things worked and what not to do.
My suggestion is buy a distro like Redhat(so that you get the manuals and actually read them) and a book like Learning Red Hat Linux or one of several other books to go along with it and read through some of it and try stuff out. Soon, you will find that linux is "far more" stable than windows XP or 2000 for that matter.
BTW, once i learned that basics I haven't been forced to do a reinstall b/c I screwed something up and I've never had a crash(apps crash on occasion but never bring down the whole system). I don't own a windows machine but I've used XP at school and at my g/f's house and have had at least 5 crashes in the past year. And no they weren't b/c of me screwing up something, it was while typing in word or surfing the web(I don't know how many times I've had IE crash on me and bring explorer.exe[the taskbar,desktop,etc..] down with it resulting in a system crash at least once.).
I don't have anything to say about your comment but your sig sure made me laugh. I remember seeing that speech on the daily show. You gotta love GW's *excellent* speech giving skills :-)
In fact, looking at their white paper - the patent link is broken - the system they appear to have patented is a system which automatically adds any taxes you have to pay onto the bill (so, for instance, if the buyer is in Europe, adding on VAT). How on earth can you patent something like that?
I haven't read it yet but if this is so then I don't see how that could possibly be patentable. I recall seeing a debate on cspan or some similar news channel where they were discussing taxing the internet(i.e. pay taxes for purchases online like in a brick and mortor store, which I think is a very BAD idea for a number of reasons), and similar software would be required in order to implement something like that. That would mean all online retailers would have to pay taxes on the goods being solds and taxes for using the method to pay the taxes. I highly doubt this is a valid patent, or at least it shouldn't be along with several other software and business method patents which are as another reader state earlier are complete BS!
This sounds awfully similar to the colossal squid that was found a few months back. The article with pics is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2910849. stm
Actually you didn't even need to go that far. The headline of the Slashdot blurb says that he used 9 pcs ;)
I received a letter from my ISP(Comcast) claiming that I was in violation of the DMCA for downloading a copy of the matrix reloaded(I know it's not the RIAA but its still related). The letter said that the owners of the copyrighted works(I'm assuming the MPAA) has contacted them saying that I am in violation of the DMCA and they would cease service if I did not delete the work or otherwise remove it from their network. I did attempt to download the matrix reloaded but ended up getting the first matrix and fight club instead that happened to be named "The Matrix Reloaded [divx].avi". I own both of these dvds and I deleted both copies as soon as I found out they weren't the real thing and gave up looking. I'm not too worried about actions brought against me.
RSI occurs due to inappropriate use of certain muscles. This could happen through the keyboard, counting money or any repetitive job.
I wouldn't mind developing a RSI if it was the result of counting too much money, well as long as it was mine.
SCO
How is that of any value?
:)
The way I see it from my experience with tech support is that it isn't of any value. Tech support is an illusion to make people feel more secure in their purchases. Most people won't ever use it and those that do are the one's that barely know how to use that e-mail thing. If the tech support people can't fix it over the phone, they just send the customer to one of their nearby locations or tell them to send it to them and charge them lots of money to fix something that a more in the know customer would have been able to fix on their own. The best thing is not to look for products with free tech support but to look for ones with warrenties that allow you to get a replacement if it breaks. Unfortunately this doesn't help less technically advanced people very much and their best bet is to get to know someone who is and call them if they have a problem, and preferably pay them a small fee for helping or at least bake them some cookies
That is around 300 dollars a month.
I'm completely ignorant of such things but I assume that the cost of living is much cheaper in india. Is $300/month reasonable pay over there? Is it about equivalent to middle class life in the US? Or is it just enough to have the basics?
I don't know about immunity or not but I usually drink a Dew at least every 3 hours or so that I'm awake and last summer I even fell asleep while drinking a Dew. I was watching TV and had the Dew in my hand and a comercial came on, I closed my eyes for a second and I was gone. I woke up the next morning soaking wet and sticky (I thought I had pissed myself) and found the empty Dew can laying next to me. Now I at least make sure I finish drinking the Dew before falling asleep. If I start dozing off, I down the rest of the drink and set it on my bedside table.
OK I guess that makes since. It's always kinda stumped me b/c all histories of UNIX, etc. kinda leave out that detail and just say that BSD is based on UNIX. Thanks for clarifying.