Maybe I'll take a closer look, but I *really* like Google approach to organization. I like being able to quickly and easily 'grep' the entire contents of my email for any text I want. I also really like being able to get at my email anywhere that has net access, and have the same 'view' of it regardless of wether I am at home or elsewhere.
What I'd *really* love to be able to do is copy gmails front-end, and glue it to an IMAP server. I'd even be happy using Gmail itself as a client to my own IMAP server, but sadly, so far they only support POP, no IMAP.
I have no response. I'm too busy rolling on the floor laughing insanely. A Microsoft box should never be connected directly to the Internet without either a Linksys/Netgear type NAT/firewall in front of it (or a *nix based equivalent), nor would any competent non MS-brainwashed person use it as any kind of Internet server. (I know many do - doing so demonstrates their lack of competence, directly)
B. Email stored on someone else's server
No this was about email the individual had SENT to someone else. Not about email that had been received for that individual. And yes, if Joe Blow emails spam to Harry Smith, Harry Smith does not need a warrant to give it to LE. (Nor does their ISP, if they do so on their customers behalf becuase their customers are sick of drowing in spam) It wasnt the customers of the ISP that the spam that had been sent to complaining, it was the spammer who sent the mail complaining.
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Those two items out of the way, I am one of the people that *does* have his own server. I used to be an engineer at an ISP, and I know wtf I am doing. It happens to be colocated at a former employer, rather than at home, since I want to be able to make oubound SMTP connections to the world, directly, rather than going through $cableISP's machines (and $cableISP doesnt allow that, a practive I fully understand and have no problem with)
Oh, and I also use gmail, becuase I love its interface. I cant stand most webmail, but gmail I like. I hate POP with a passion, and while I would use IMAP, there just isnt a standalone email client I like. If I could host an interface that worked exactly like gmail on my own server, I'd do it in a heartbeat (sadly, there isnt, Ive found a few projects that use the same ajax base as gmail does, but they just dont compare).
Well, in the retail environment, the point is to be able to read them without touching each individual item. Inventory audit your warehouse, ring up an entire cart of stuff without having to pick it all out and set it on a convery and scan it one by one.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for RFID. But I would agree it should always be used transparently, and once an item is yours, you should be able/allowed to remove the tag. (Note that passports, I beleive remain property of the US and are just issued to you for your use. The only reason I can figure the RFID is more desirable is perhaps it is harder to forge, since any fool can print a barcode)
The whole point of RFID for some applications is to be able to read them without physically sighting every one.
For instance, store inventory. Walk down an aisle with an RFID reader - 5 minutes to a perfect count. Walk down the same aisle, with a barcode scanner, and scan every item one at a time - many hours, if yer lucky.
"Linux users are ignored" in that they can connect without jumping through the hoops, or in that they simply can't connect at all? I'm hoping you meant the former.
Also, if a Linux (or other *nix) box can connect with no hoop-jumping, it would be trivial from there to put two NICs in that *nix box and then setup natd and dhcpd, to provide other boxes (which might include wincrap boxes) with access. A smart IT dept would recognize that anyone who would think to use a *nix box as a firewall for windoze boxes (probably) was smart enough to keep their systems malware-free on their own. An incompetent IT dept would of course think of this as a terrible security hole and wouldnt allow anything but Windoze boxes with the proper firewall 'software' installed to connect.
For less than $150 I can buy a decent used laser printer and a new toner cartridge for it, and run it for a year or two until it dies and then get another. They print faster, and how often do you really need color anyway? If I need color I'll go to kinkos.
Also note that a 'T1' is a tariffed telecom service. It is a point-to-point dedicated circuit. It doesnt (necesarrily) have anything to do with the Internet. A business could order a T1 between its home office and its branch office across town, and interconnect their local networks over it.
A T1 'to the Internet' is a T1 that either you (or an ISP, on your behalf) orders between your location and that ISP's location.
The telco charges you (or your ISP, who then passes the charges on to you, although often they get a better rate since they generally have multiple circuits from the telco) an installation charge and a monthly fee. If the T1 goes between rate centers, then an LD telco has to get involved as well. The local loops are generall always full T1's, as theres no cost break on fractions there (However the price for a LD portion of a T1 may well be affected enough to consider fractions).
That only covers the actual connection between you and the ISP, who then will also charge you for brandwidth to the 'Net, and the arrangements there can vary between flat charger per-month, charge based on data transferred, and/or for the maximum and/or average amount of bandwidth you use.
Note that since many telcos are also ISP's, sometimes these are combined (Eg, if you get a T1 from AT&T, are you are in an area where your local telco is now 'the new' AT&T, the entire ball of cheese will be AT&T)
Lack of customer density outside of the areas that the monopoly broadband providers are interested in. Lack of major breakthrough in wireless technology. Excess of political influence by various telecom monopolies. Theres just a few reasons, there are more.
The point was, they are not violating either existing copyright law, or even the RIAA's vision of copyright law, by doing so, and even if copyright were to be repurposed 'sell-for-profit-right', they would still be able to do so, since end-users pretty much dont buy directly from RIAA members, but rather through retailers that obtain the product through wholesalers that are supplied with it by the RIAA members, with the specific intention that the CD's get distributed for retail sale.
retailers who sell CDs (for example) so do under the authority of the record label they get them from. They are selling them on behalf of the publisher.
Joe public should be able to make copies of things for private use regardless of wether the copyright holder has copies for sale. (Considering that in order for Joe public to make the copy, he has to have obtained, and presumably paid for, a copy from the rights holder.
I'll go further - 'copyright' should be renamed 'sell-for-profit-right'..
It means only the original xxxxrights holder can sell for profit, and has nothing to do with 'copying'. The only reason 'copy'right was named that way was becuause there was no concept of personal 'copying' at the time.
Your argument is bullshit, troll. You are obviously a 'big monopoly telco' astroturfer.
Vonage does not need Verizon's infrastructure to exist. You dont have to have *VERIZON* DSL to use Voip, ANY highspeed Internet connection will suffice.
Also, only if a Vonage user calls a Verizon customer does it connect to Verizon's PSTN. If they call an AT&T customer, it goes to AT&T. And, astonishly, if they call another Vonage customer, it doesnt go anywhere near the obsolete 'PSTN'. And guess what, the same thing happens if an AT&T user calls a Verizon customer, or any customer of one telephone service provider calls a customer of another - its called interconnection, and in order to avoid balkanization, its pretty much require in order for there to be fair competition for the provision of telecom services.
Yes, the 'baby (monopoly) bells' currently have near-monopoly control of the legacy market, but not letting new companies in only hurts competition, and in the end, telecommunications customers. Verizon,(the 'new') AT&T, and all the other monopoly ILECs can go fsck themselves, as far as I'm concerned. I would never do business with either of them.
Really? Perhaps it was a hypothetical question, becuase I know the answer is that hardware makers are cheapr, lazy and/or dont give a damn, and instead of making the device fully functional, they'd rather only do half the job and then just write a windows 'driver' to do the rest of the job.
Any piece of so-called 'hardware' that requires Windows-only closed software to work is garbage.
Really? How would completely removing the wifi 'driver' from the computer (becuase you are going to use an existing secure ethernet driver) not help the situation where the wifi driver has a security hole that allows remote code execution on said computer?
Not to mention, avoid the need for double the amount of 'drivers' on the machine. Why *not* have a wifi 'client side' router?
1. No need for special drivers - if your box can do ethernet, it can connect. 2. Add a hub, and connect multiple devices with just the one wifi transceiver. (Say you live in your folks garage and they have wifi and you cant run wire for whatever reason, and you have two computers you want to get on the net - why should you have to have two wifi 'cards' when one would do the job just fine, with a hub and some patch cables?
Ah yes, I'm here in the US. We have the 'If there is the remote possibility that any policy might allow someone to (OMG!) STEAL valuable music or video from the labe^H^H^H^H'artist' then we cant allow it.'
Letting someone return opened CD's or DVD's would make it trivial to buy them, make a rip/copy, then return them.
Er, yes, you should use the most appropriate (open, documented) format for each application or need to transfer information. No one (afaik, anyway) is suggesting using ODF in place of jpeg for high-quality photos, only for "editable formatted text-documents" (eg 'word processing').
I'm not sure, but I beleive the ODF has related formats for 'spreadsheets', and 'databases', and 'presentations'.
But for a 'pay-per-view' online movie site I can tell you that the word 'DRM' is definately included in the answer. They want to lock down what you can do with the movie, and the idea of allowing ANY non-closed-source code to have anything to do with their site scares the bejesus out of them (or the idea of the MPAA finding out about it does).
Sure its possible. just runs 'strings' across it to extract just the ascii text. Of course, it will then look like shit, in which case you tell the sender to either send the original ascii text, or print to Postscript or PDF, which will maintain the formatting.
Accepting MS Word docs is unavoidable? Sure it isnt. Just set policy - no word docs. Send your emails as plain text, send your documents-formatted-for-printing as PDF. Done.
If this doesnt (yet again) highlight the need to drop 'MS Word' as a de-facto document exchange format, I dont know what would. Maybe its time for the US State Department to think about ODF (but as usual MS will grease a lot of palms and it wont happen)
"We need to get away from every device having to COME WITH its own proprietary closed drivers, and instead the device makers either conforming to an existing established design for driving their device, *or* publically documenting the full programming interface so that every OS (EVERY OS, not just closed-source ones whos makers can sign an NDA) can include an appropriate driver for"
Also, I understand hardware needs firmware. What I meant is that a given piece of hardware (sich as a printer) should be capable of performing its intendend function without relying on specific software on ANOTHER piece of hardware (a PC). Note that I didnt say without relying on ANY software, since certainly something software on a PC (or other device) is going to need to send data to the printer to print, I said without requiring *specific* software. A printer should support PCL, Postscript, or some other page description language for which documentation is either widely available to the public, or which COMES with the printer (or documentation form, not in 'sample binary-only software' form), so that anyone with the appropriate skills and that knowledge could take whatever PC/CPU hardware they want and write software that can print to it.
Ah yes, I could type the binary strings to make a printer function. I could even write a piece of software to do it, and call it a 'driver'. Ah, but *ONLY* if there was documention on what binary strings to send, and in what order, and what they meant. And if there was, then you wouldnt really need the hardware makers driver, anyone could make their own, and you could use their hardware (be it a wifi transciever or a printer) with any PC/OS/device they wanted to. The problem comes when there *is* no documentation for the 'binary strings', and they only way to send data to (print, for example) in a documented format (postscript or PCL, for example) is via a closed 'driver' that only runs on one close 'OS', then the printer isnt really a printer, but instead merely a cheap accessory for windows-based systems.
Imagine buying a box of nails, only instead of the normal heads that you can hit with any hammer, they come a special attachment to hit them, which will only attach to a specific brand of hammer, which costs $599 individually, unless you buy it as part of certain brands of toolbox, in which case the price is hidden but the toolbox maker surely gets them for $20 a piece, but only becuase they refuse to sell toolboxes with any other brand of hammer, (and lately they are even taking steps to try and make it harder to remove the certain hammer and put a different hammer in the toolbox after you purchase it) - No one in their right mind would buy that brand of nails, toolbox, or hammer. You expect that you can drive nails you buy with any standard hammer, regardless of what *brand* it is (yes, you arent going to drive finishing nails with a 50lb sledgehammer, but that isnt a BRAND, its a TYPE of hammer)
Ludicrous in the tool/hardware world, yet thats exactly the situation we have in the 'computer' market.
Slashdot Mirror
Read this article about an even that happened 14 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace
Maybe I'll take a closer look, but I *really* like Google approach to organization. I like being able to quickly and easily 'grep' the entire contents of my email for any text I want. I also really like being able to get at my email anywhere that has net access, and have the same 'view' of it regardless of wether I am at home or elsewhere.
What I'd *really* love to be able to do is copy gmails front-end, and glue it to an IMAP server. I'd even be happy using Gmail itself as a client to my own IMAP server, but sadly, so far they only support POP, no IMAP.
A. "Microsoft's Windows Home Server software"
I have no response. I'm too busy rolling on the floor laughing insanely. A Microsoft box should never be connected directly to the Internet without either a Linksys/Netgear type NAT/firewall in front of it (or a *nix based equivalent), nor would any competent non MS-brainwashed person use it as any kind of Internet server. (I know many do - doing so demonstrates their lack of competence, directly)
B. Email stored on someone else's server
No this was about email the individual had SENT to someone else. Not about email that had been received for that individual. And yes, if Joe Blow emails spam to Harry Smith, Harry Smith does not need a warrant to give it to LE. (Nor does their ISP, if they do so on their customers behalf becuase their customers are sick of drowing in spam) It wasnt the customers of the ISP that the spam that had been sent to complaining, it was the spammer who sent the mail complaining.
-
Those two items out of the way, I am one of the people that *does* have his own server. I used to be an engineer at an ISP, and I know wtf I am doing. It happens to be colocated at a former employer, rather than at home, since I want to be able to make oubound SMTP connections to the world, directly, rather than going through $cableISP's machines (and $cableISP doesnt allow that, a practive I fully understand and have no problem with)
Oh, and I also use gmail, becuase I love its interface. I cant stand most webmail, but gmail I like. I hate POP with a passion, and while I would use IMAP, there just isnt a standalone email client I like. If I could host an interface that worked exactly like gmail on my own server, I'd do it in a heartbeat (sadly, there isnt, Ive found a few projects that use the same ajax base as gmail does, but they just dont compare).
Well, in the retail environment, the point is to be able to read them without touching each individual item. Inventory audit your warehouse, ring up an entire cart of stuff without having to pick it all out and set it on a convery and scan it one by one.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for RFID. But I would agree it should always be used transparently, and once an item is yours, you should be able/allowed to remove the tag. (Note that passports, I beleive remain property of the US and are just issued to you for your use. The only reason I can figure the RFID is more desirable is perhaps it is harder to forge, since any fool can print a barcode)
The whole point of RFID for some applications is to be able to read them without physically sighting every one.
For instance, store inventory. Walk down an aisle with an RFID reader - 5 minutes to a perfect count. Walk down the same aisle, with a barcode scanner, and scan every item one at a time - many hours, if yer lucky.
"Linux users are ignored" in that they can connect without jumping through the hoops, or in that they simply can't connect at all? I'm hoping you meant the former.
Also, if a Linux (or other *nix) box can connect with no hoop-jumping, it would be trivial from there to put two NICs in that *nix box and then setup natd and dhcpd, to provide other boxes (which might include wincrap boxes) with access. A smart IT dept would recognize that anyone who would think to use a *nix box as a firewall for windoze boxes (probably) was smart enough to keep their systems malware-free on their own. An incompetent IT dept would of course think of this as a terrible security hole and wouldnt allow anything but Windoze boxes with the proper firewall 'software' installed to connect.
That rule applies only in the coed dorms. :P
For less than $150 I can buy a decent used laser printer and a new toner cartridge for it, and run it for a year or two until it dies and then get another. They print faster, and how often do you really need color anyway? If I need color I'll go to kinkos.
Also note that a 'T1' is a tariffed telecom service. It is a point-to-point dedicated circuit. It doesnt (necesarrily) have anything to do with the Internet. A business could order a T1 between its home office and its branch office across town, and interconnect their local networks over it.
A T1 'to the Internet' is a T1 that either you (or an ISP, on your behalf) orders between your location and that ISP's location.
The telco charges you (or your ISP, who then passes the charges on to you, although often they get a better rate since they generally have multiple circuits from the telco) an installation charge and a monthly fee. If the T1 goes between rate centers, then an LD telco has to get involved as well. The local loops are generall always full T1's, as theres no cost break on fractions there (However the price for a LD portion of a T1 may well be affected enough to consider fractions).
That only covers the actual connection between you and the ISP, who then will also charge you for brandwidth to the 'Net, and the arrangements there can vary between flat charger per-month, charge based on data transferred, and/or for the maximum and/or average amount of bandwidth you use.
Note that since many telcos are also ISP's, sometimes these are combined (Eg, if you get a T1 from AT&T, are you are in an area where your local telco is now 'the new' AT&T, the entire ball of cheese will be AT&T)
Lack of customer density outside of the areas that the monopoly broadband providers are interested in. Lack of major breakthrough in wireless technology. Excess of political influence by various telecom monopolies. Theres just a few reasons, there are more.
The point was, they are not violating either existing copyright law, or even the RIAA's vision of copyright law, by doing so, and even if copyright were to be repurposed 'sell-for-profit-right', they would still be able to do so, since end-users pretty much dont buy directly from RIAA members, but rather through retailers that obtain the product through wholesalers that are supplied with it by the RIAA members, with the specific intention that the CD's get distributed for retail sale.
retailers who sell CDs (for example) so do under the authority of the record label they get them from. They are selling them on behalf of the publisher.
Joe public should be able to make copies of things for private use regardless of wether the copyright holder has copies for sale. (Considering that in order for Joe public to make the copy, he has to have obtained, and presumably paid for, a copy from the rights holder.
As far as I know, MS has already released malware known as Vista.
I'll go further - 'copyright' should be renamed 'sell-for-profit-right'..
It means only the original xxxxrights holder can sell for profit, and has nothing to do with 'copying'. The only reason 'copy'right was named that way was becuause there was no concept of personal 'copying' at the time.
Your argument is bullshit, troll. You are obviously a 'big monopoly telco' astroturfer.
Vonage does not need Verizon's infrastructure to exist. You dont have to have *VERIZON* DSL to use Voip, ANY highspeed Internet connection will suffice.
Also, only if a Vonage user calls a Verizon customer does it connect to Verizon's PSTN. If they call an AT&T customer, it goes to AT&T. And, astonishly, if they call another Vonage customer, it doesnt go anywhere near the obsolete 'PSTN'. And guess what, the same thing happens if an AT&T user calls a Verizon customer, or any customer of one telephone service provider calls a customer of another - its called interconnection, and in order to avoid balkanization, its pretty much require in order for there to be fair competition for the provision of telecom services.
Yes, the 'baby (monopoly) bells' currently have near-monopoly control of the legacy market, but not letting new companies in only hurts competition, and in the end, telecommunications customers. Verizon,(the 'new') AT&T, and all the other monopoly ILECs can go fsck themselves, as far as I'm concerned. I would never do business with either of them.
Really? Perhaps it was a hypothetical question, becuase I know the answer is that hardware makers are cheapr, lazy and/or dont give a damn, and instead of making the device fully functional, they'd rather only do half the job and then just write a windows 'driver' to do the rest of the job.
Any piece of so-called 'hardware' that requires Windows-only closed software to work is garbage.
Really? How would completely removing the wifi 'driver' from the computer (becuase you are going to use an existing secure ethernet driver) not help the situation where the wifi driver has a security hole that allows remote code execution on said computer?
Not to mention, avoid the need for double the amount of 'drivers' on the machine. Why *not* have a wifi 'client side' router?
1. No need for special drivers - if your box can do ethernet, it can connect.
2. Add a hub, and connect multiple devices with just the one wifi transceiver. (Say you live in your folks garage and they have wifi and you cant run wire for whatever reason, and you have two computers you want to get on the net - why should you have to have two wifi 'cards' when one would do the job just fine, with a hub and some patch cables?
Ah yes, I'm here in the US. We have the 'If there is the remote possibility that any policy might allow someone to (OMG!) STEAL valuable music or video from the labe^H^H^H^H'artist' then we cant allow it.'
Letting someone return opened CD's or DVD's would make it trivial to buy them, make a rip/copy, then return them.
Er, yes, you should use the most appropriate (open, documented) format for each application or need to transfer information. No one (afaik, anyway) is suggesting using ODF in place of jpeg for high-quality photos, only for "editable formatted text-documents" (eg 'word processing').
I'm not sure, but I beleive the ODF has related formats for 'spreadsheets', and 'databases', and 'presentations'.
But for a 'pay-per-view' online movie site I can tell you that the word 'DRM' is definately included in the answer. They want to lock down what you can do with the movie, and the idea of allowing ANY non-closed-source code to have anything to do with their site scares the bejesus out of them (or the idea of the MPAA finding out about it does).
Sure its possible. just runs 'strings' across it to extract just the ascii text. Of course, it will then look like shit, in which case you tell the sender to either send the original ascii text, or print to Postscript or PDF, which will maintain the formatting.
The Internet became robust because the code was (is) public and everyone could contribute.
MS software will never become rebost becuase the code is secret and no one can even look, let alone contribute.
The Internet with non-MS software is quite robust and stable. I get along just fine with no MS software.
Accepting MS Word docs is unavoidable? Sure it isnt. Just set policy - no word docs. Send your emails as plain text, send your documents-formatted-for-printing as PDF. Done.
If this doesnt (yet again) highlight the need to drop 'MS Word' as a de-facto document exchange format, I dont know what would. Maybe its time for the US State Department to think about ODF (but as usual MS will grease a lot of palms and it wont happen)
Ok, wasnt clear, I'll restate:
"We need to get away from every device having to COME WITH its own proprietary closed drivers, and instead the device makers either conforming to an existing established design for driving their device, *or* publically documenting the full programming interface so that every OS (EVERY OS, not just closed-source ones whos makers can sign an NDA) can include an appropriate driver for"
Also, I understand hardware needs firmware. What I meant is that a given piece of hardware (sich as a printer) should be capable of performing its intendend function without relying on specific software on ANOTHER piece of hardware (a PC). Note that I didnt say without relying on ANY software, since certainly something software on a PC (or other device) is going to need to send data to the printer to print, I said without requiring *specific* software. A printer should support PCL, Postscript, or some other page description language for which documentation is either widely available to the public, or which COMES with the printer (or documentation form, not in 'sample binary-only software' form), so that anyone with the appropriate skills and that knowledge could take whatever PC/CPU hardware they want and write software that can print to it.
Ah yes, I could type the binary strings to make a printer function. I could even write a piece of software to do it, and call it a 'driver'. Ah, but *ONLY* if there was documention on what binary strings to send, and in what order, and what they meant. And if there was, then you wouldnt really need the hardware makers driver, anyone could make their own, and you could use their hardware (be it a wifi transciever or a printer) with any PC/OS/device they wanted to. The problem comes when there *is* no documentation for the 'binary strings', and they only way to send data to (print, for example) in a documented format (postscript or PCL, for example) is via a closed 'driver' that only runs on one close 'OS', then the printer isnt really a printer, but instead merely a cheap accessory for windows-based systems.
Imagine buying a box of nails, only instead of the normal heads that you can hit with any hammer, they come a special attachment to hit them, which will only attach to a specific brand of hammer, which costs $599 individually, unless you buy it as part of certain brands of toolbox, in which case the price is hidden but the toolbox maker surely gets them for $20 a piece, but only becuase they refuse to sell toolboxes with any other brand of hammer, (and lately they are even taking steps to try and make it harder to remove the certain hammer and put a different hammer in the toolbox after you purchase it) - No one in their right mind would buy that brand of nails, toolbox, or hammer. You expect that you can drive nails you buy with any standard hammer, regardless of what *brand* it is (yes, you arent going to drive finishing nails with a 50lb sledgehammer, but that isnt a BRAND, its a TYPE of hammer)
Ludicrous in the tool/hardware world, yet thats exactly the situation we have in the 'computer' market.