Beyond the browser toys that blowup every browser I've used on just about every platform I've used, the serious Java based applications all include the latest JRE with them on the CD.
Beyond the tech side of this, what M$oft is doing is more of the FUD they're famous for. Talking with one MicroSerf already about this issue, he loudly proclaimed, in his typical smug way, "Did you hear that Microsoft XP won't support Java" -- and what followed was a thin justification for developing all future applications in Visual Basic
I'm beginning to think that the road to MSCE includes some kind of secret ritual where they ask you to drink koolaid and purify yourself in some electric chamber;)
To some extent, time delays in software, especially quality software are directly proportional to the time it takes for end users to adopt, embrace, and ask for expansion.
I have read elsewhere that most technology in general takes about 20 years to reach mainstream usage
But writing software isn't like following a recipe. The software doesn't mature on its own -- timing is NOT everything -- its not even like making up a batch of wort.
We all know about the mythical man-month.....but perhaps if more TESTERS were thrown at the software, commercialware would benefit from the same "release early, release often" strategy that FS/OSS has been enjoying.
Software isn't about engineering either. We do not build software the same way we build cars, bridges, and skyscrapers.
A much better analogy is writing a symphony and performing it with an orchestra -- it takes many many iterations to write it so it sounds good, and then practice practice practice putting the people together to make them play well.
It can be done, but again, imagine 'engineering' a building the same way a muscian composes.
And that is why, IMHO, software is more about an ART form, a creative expression, than it is about laying down a circuit board.
CPU's only have to detect the overrun error -- only software can give you the Blue Screen of Death!
But you have to admit, even at a full $1, its a bargain to put 3-4 sheets of printed, un-grep'able dead tree into a container (also made of dead tree) and send it off to from coast to coast with the reasonable expectation that your insignificant little missive will make it there unscathed....
I don't know about you, but I don't hold my breath everytime I drop a bill to a client into the mail like I do when they shoot several million tons of steel and liquid hydrogen into high orbit
Forget about the impact EMAIL has made on the USPS, the real killer is FAX -- and has been since 1989
FAX documents are legal/binding and admissable in a court of law
email is dubious and highly subject to spoofing
sure junk mail might be proping the USPS up -- well, let them raise bulk mail prices -- hell let them raise it all up a few degree's
Having administered machines for several Universities prior to starting an ISP I hope the following observations to be interesting:
1. Every professor running "SETI" should be included in this lawsuit
2. Unless this guy was NUMBER ONE, their own network management would have sniffed this out long ago, which makes me wonder what is REALLY going on that that don't know about;)
3. The software in question isn't cloaked
4. Unless he was the ONLY administrator even a junior admin (ie, another employee) would know about it
5. Admins are in tight with the professors -- surely somone on staff knew and implicitly approved of this
6. The state is frankly full of shit when it comes to bandwidth pricing and couldn't possibly legitimately price "per minute" rates for data -- that is ridiculous -- what are they on? Circuit-switched cellular?
7. This is a school right? A learning institution? The bad PR alone will cost them more than they would ever hope to gain.
Unless this guy locked all the passwords on the boxes its ridiculous to think he is "ultimately responsible" for this. He had superiors (well, bosses anyway), and some form of peer review.
Shit, just think of the number of vanilla installs of most Unices out there trying to pull down netnews, and worse, the ones that are succeeding
I sure hope its a hoax -- i'd hate to have to add Georgia to my "wish it would slide into the ocean" list;)
Here in QWEST territory (minnesota) in the old USWest days they made it real easy: Just buy a minimum T1 from them, and then handle the Internet side out.
There is absolutely no reason why AOL/TW couldn't do the same -- provide private circuit transport to the ISP.
Tried and true formula for ctrl-alt-delete business....
This is good news given windrivers lackluster...
on
FreeBSD on DVD
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· Score: 1
As a long time FreeBSD subscriber ala Walnut Creek, its good to note another distribution option given Windrivers really lackluster "assurances" that they are going to continue to support it.
I just haven't seen anything in the PR from them that gives me any kind of "warm fuzzy"
FreeBSD in particular installs are so incredibly awesome -- if you have the bandwidth, get the boot images and just install it from the internet.
If not, and NFS mount on LAN machine is bliss:)
And package installs from the "PORTs tree" is just too cool
I have to agree that the *BSD crowd is a bit snobbish -- maybe even elitist at times -- but the more i compare linux to bsd -- the more i'm impressed with BSD's stability and resource utilization -- but with linux its just a matter of time
Clearly the difference stems from the "one source" for the kernel -- and maybe i'm just too stuck on rebuilding the kernel -- the config files are just too easy to run through to flip things on and off -- my current kernel is parred down to about 1.4mb
As a software developer/consultant, I really like the BSD license -- I can weild a big sword on a consulting projects for companies that want to build blackboxes (network toasters et al) and don't want to give it all away.
Sure you can do this with Linux -- but when it came to selling them on a "free" OS -- all i had to do was point to the Walnut Creek FTP server information and they were sold.
I still think that linux + gnome is a much happier desktop environment then FREEBSD, but I was delighted to see it was added to the official support releases, and SUN is getting in on it too (of course this is the same company that was DEFINITELY going OpenSTEP a few years back;)
Good old home (for me anyway) grown Multitech has some nice products -- too bad they are way overpriced....though....
I met with them at the Computer Telephony Expo a few months ago, and they were purportedly going to be coming out with a one-line personal gateway device.
Otherwise, I've personally experimented with products from DSG Technology -- and while they are not quite personal gateway level, they make some really nice and relatively inexpensive little boxes that allow you to make calls (inter-device) for essentially free
The concept of the "micro-tel" isn't that far off from a reality -- really how different is the concept than that of ham radio ?
Wow, as an ISP owner I couldn't be happier to hear this.
You only merge for one reason: Economies of scale.
Both players are leveraging the dialup pops of backbone providers like Cable and Wireless, MegaPOP, and whats left of Ziplink. Combined they can possibly pay less for their access -- you didn't actually think they deployed their own network gear did you?
So merger time means they are both sucking-wind fast and maybe together they honestly think they can "best-fit" their way to profitability.
We had a customer switch over recently from one of them, and when we gave them the number for their area, they said, "Wow, thats the number I used to dial for Juno -- why are you going to be any better?" -- our tech replied, "well, you'll talking to a live person aren't you?" -- oh yeah, and we don't use your computer to search for aliens without your permission, nor do we zap you with advertising or sell you out to other companies.
There are three basic rules (okay, maybe four)
1. You get what you pay for.
2. What comes around goes around.
3. There's no such thing as a free lunch
4. A movie at matinee prices is the *SAME* movie you'll see at regular evening rates.
The advertiser "eyeball" model is dead, and banner advertising (and filtering for that matter) is about to kill whats left of that "revenue stream".
Besides....do you REALLY want to advertise your products and services to people that don't even pay for their internet service?
I agree with an earlier post.....ONE bankruptcy, not two will make things so much easier....
The Hardware is subsidized....
on
PS2 As PC
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· Score: 1
Sony relies on selling expensive software titles to help defray the costs of research and development -- not to mention the price of the box.
Considering how much power is in the box, you could probably part the thing out as a guidance system to foreign nations for thousands of dollars
Which, oddly enough, is why the thing was classified as a supercomputer prior to its entry into the US....
Slashdot Mirror
Beyond the tech side of this, what M$oft is doing is more of the FUD they're famous for. Talking with one MicroSerf already about this issue, he loudly proclaimed, in his typical smug way, "Did you hear that Microsoft XP won't support Java" -- and what followed was a thin justification for developing all future applications in Visual Basic
I'm beginning to think that the road to MSCE includes some kind of secret ritual where they ask you to drink koolaid and purify yourself in some electric chamber ;)
"I read it on the Internet" "I heard it at a party"
I have read elsewhere that most technology in general takes about 20 years to reach mainstream usage
But writing software isn't like following a recipe. The software doesn't mature on its own -- timing is NOT everything -- its not even like making up a batch of wort.
We all know about the mythical man-month.....but perhaps if more TESTERS were thrown at the software, commercialware would benefit from the same "release early, release often" strategy that FS/OSS has been enjoying.
Software isn't about engineering either. We do not build software the same way we build cars, bridges, and skyscrapers.
A much better analogy is writing a symphony and performing it with an orchestra -- it takes many many iterations to write it so it sounds good, and then practice practice practice putting the people together to make them play well.
It can be done, but again, imagine 'engineering' a building the same way a muscian composes.
And that is why, IMHO, software is more about an ART form, a creative expression, than it is about laying down a circuit board.
CPU's only have to detect the overrun error -- only software can give you the Blue Screen of Death!
So yeah, should be amusing to see when THIS will be available.....
'nuf said ;)
I don't know about you, but I don't hold my breath everytime I drop a bill to a client into the mail like I do when they shoot several million tons of steel and liquid hydrogen into high orbit
Forget about the impact EMAIL has made on the USPS, the real killer is FAX -- and has been since 1989
FAX documents are legal/binding and admissable in a court of law
email is dubious and highly subject to spoofing
sure junk mail might be proping the USPS up -- well, let them raise bulk mail prices -- hell let them raise it all up a few degree's
they do the job i wouldn't want....at a bargain!
Up next? Disney to partner with NASA....
1. Every professor running "SETI" should be included in this lawsuit
2. Unless this guy was NUMBER ONE, their own network management would have sniffed this out long ago, which makes me wonder what is REALLY going on that that don't know about ;)
3. The software in question isn't cloaked
4. Unless he was the ONLY administrator even a junior admin (ie, another employee) would know about it
5. Admins are in tight with the professors -- surely somone on staff knew and implicitly approved of this
6. The state is frankly full of shit when it comes to bandwidth pricing and couldn't possibly legitimately price "per minute" rates for data -- that is ridiculous -- what are they on? Circuit-switched cellular?
7. This is a school right? A learning institution? The bad PR alone will cost them more than they would ever hope to gain.
Unless this guy locked all the passwords on the boxes its ridiculous to think he is "ultimately responsible" for this. He had superiors (well, bosses anyway), and some form of peer review.
Shit, just think of the number of vanilla installs of most Unices out there trying to pull down netnews, and worse, the ones that are succeeding
I sure hope its a hoax -- i'd hate to have to add Georgia to my "wish it would slide into the ocean" list ;)
There is absolutely no reason why AOL/TW couldn't do the same -- provide private circuit transport to the ISP.
The funny thing is, AOL used to be part of the OpenNet Coalition....
And since they couldn't sell banner advertising in their cars on scrolling marquees.....
Tried and true formula for ctrl-alt-delete business....
I just haven't seen anything in the PR from them that gives me any kind of "warm fuzzy"
Its like a whole new era of blue boxes.....
now having Britney Spears show up on a regular basis.....
If not, and NFS mount on LAN machine is bliss :)
And package installs from the "PORTs tree" is just too cool
I have to agree that the *BSD crowd is a bit snobbish -- maybe even elitist at times -- but the more i compare linux to bsd -- the more i'm impressed with BSD's stability and resource utilization -- but with linux its just a matter of time
Clearly the difference stems from the "one source" for the kernel -- and maybe i'm just too stuck on rebuilding the kernel -- the config files are just too easy to run through to flip things on and off -- my current kernel is parred down to about 1.4mb
As a software developer/consultant, I really like the BSD license -- I can weild a big sword on a consulting projects for companies that want to build blackboxes (network toasters et al) and don't want to give it all away.
Sure you can do this with Linux -- but when it came to selling them on a "free" OS -- all i had to do was point to the Walnut Creek FTP server information and they were sold.
I still think that linux + gnome is a much happier desktop environment then FREEBSD, but I was delighted to see it was added to the official support releases, and SUN is getting in on it too (of course this is the same company that was DEFINITELY going OpenSTEP a few years back ;)
still runs VERY happy on a little 386/16mhz
of course *I'm* not happy with it ;)
Linux/GNU/FREEBSD is doing more to help "reduce/reuse/recycle"
I met with them at the Computer Telephony Expo a few months ago, and they were purportedly going to be coming out with a one-line personal gateway device.
Otherwise, I've personally experimented with products from DSG Technology -- and while they are not quite personal gateway level, they make some really nice and relatively inexpensive little boxes that allow you to make calls (inter-device) for essentially free
The concept of the "micro-tel" isn't that far off from a reality -- really how different is the concept than that of ham radio ?
Find the programs they did, call them up!
Most would be willing to share ideas and materials
Definitely arrange a weekly field trip to local University computing centers and local businesses.
I think AOL has proven that they are in control of their troll users horizontal and vertical....
You only merge for one reason: Economies of scale.
Both players are leveraging the dialup pops of backbone providers like Cable and Wireless, MegaPOP, and whats left of Ziplink. Combined they can possibly pay less for their access -- you didn't actually think they deployed their own network gear did you?
So merger time means they are both sucking-wind fast and maybe together they honestly think they can "best-fit" their way to profitability.
We had a customer switch over recently from one of them, and when we gave them the number for their area, they said, "Wow, thats the number I used to dial for Juno -- why are you going to be any better?" -- our tech replied, "well, you'll talking to a live person aren't you?" -- oh yeah, and we don't use your computer to search for aliens without your permission, nor do we zap you with advertising or sell you out to other companies.
There are three basic rules (okay, maybe four)
1. You get what you pay for.
2. What comes around goes around.
3. There's no such thing as a free lunch
4. A movie at matinee prices is the *SAME* movie you'll see at regular evening rates.
The advertiser "eyeball" model is dead, and banner advertising (and filtering for that matter) is about to kill whats left of that "revenue stream".
Besides....do you REALLY want to advertise your products and services to people that don't even pay for their internet service?
I agree with an earlier post.....ONE bankruptcy, not two will make things so much easier....
Considering how much power is in the box, you could probably part the thing out as a guidance system to foreign nations for thousands of dollars
Which, oddly enough, is why the thing was classified as a supercomputer prior to its entry into the US....
Watch Moore's law take a exponential slice out of the price ;)
Starting with the US Census Bureau!
Place and Zipcode Files
All files contain lat/long info, as well as some other tasty data.
But then again, I'm a self proclaimed "InfoManiac" :)
PostgreSQL has some really nice support for proximity searching.