But there was also a lot of support for Beta as well I don't know any percentages, but I remember seeing both formats available in video rental stores back in the day. Today many studios, I think, will release movies in both formats. If enough do this, I think the pendulum will swing in the way of HD-DVD. I also think that due to the increased expense of Blu-Ray manufacture, those movies will be more expensive than their HD-DVD counterparts. This might factor in to nudge the consumer in the way of HD-DVD as well. It's definitely a wait-and-see game. How much are people willing to pay for their entertainment?
Analysts say the early adopters, those who rush out and buy whatever new technology becomes available, will jump right in and pay $1,800 US for a Blu-ray player from Pioneer or $499 US for the Toshiba HD DVD player.
Hmm, which one should I get?? This is typical Sony.
My understanding of the manufacturing of the discs themselves is that fabricating Blu-Ray discs requires complete retooling, while making HD-DVD discs only needs a retrofit of the equipment used to make standard DVDs. Then you add Sony itself to the equation...They have a long history of developing proprietary standards, which are arguably superior, but end up being so expensive for the consumer that they die (the standard, not the consumer:) ). I'm sure they want a pretty penny for Blu-Ray licensing as well. As it is I am sick of Sony and their fire-and-forget policy on practically all of their products - which is to roll out product and practically drop support immediately. Ever try to get new firmware for a Sony product? Ever try to do an out of warranty repair? It's usually cheaper and easier just to buy a new one. The cost for them to even _look_ at the problem is insane.
The fact that Toshiba's demo didn't work means nothing. Ultimately the marketplace will decide who wins, and the trump card in the marketplace is cost. If Blu-Ray sets don't come down to be competitive with HD-DVD, HD-DVD will win by default - just like VHS did.
I don't deny that it was an accident. There was probably a few mistakes made by some idiots, but it makes no sense to me that someone would have triggered the reaction on purpose. However, I don't think that the fact that it was an accident absolves them of responsibility to help those injured. If I rear end somebody while driving, I don't do it on purpose. But my insurance company assigns fault to me and pays damages all the same. Now what if my car has a few thousand people in it and everyone has a small part in operating it, but I'm was the guy telling everyone what basic direction to go in? Who are you going to assign fault to then? I could easily say that I had know knowledge of what the guy operating the brakes didn't do his job. And who would be able to prove otherwise? The most any authority could do is fine me because it's not certain who in the car is at fault for the accident.
This is the crux of the problem with all corporations who do nefarious things or create massive damage through sheer negligence. UC whitewashed Bhopal because they knew they could get away with it. The extradition request went nowhere because there was no way anyone could know if the CEO knew about the faulty procedures and equipment there. Now admittedly, bringing up extradition might be moot since the US doesn't tend to honor extradition requests. But if it could be proven that someone was directly responsible for this disaster, wouldn't you agree that extradition would be more likely?
That is why I put forth the argument that being part of a corporate machine offers much more protection against individual prosecution. This is also why I believe that many argue that corporations are inherently "evil", because those who are part of it know their personal assets and freedom are safe because of the shield of the corporation. There are too many hands in the cookie jar to know for sure who the wrongdoers are. What did they nail Bernie Ebbers for? It wasn't grand larceny times a zillion and destroying thosands of peoples' financial solvency, but rather lying to investigators and securities fraud. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, but is currently free on bail while getting the sentence appealed. How much do you want to bet he'll be successful? The only thing they're getting Ken Lay on is...wait for it...securities fraud for selling $300 million worth of stock while encouraging employees to buy more. I doubt he will serve a day in jail, either.
If it were you or me, we'd be spending the rest of our lives in the clink.
Let me repeat: its a human that made the decision to do evil, not the corporation itself.
Yes. But the problem is that the human doing the evil is rarely held accountable for it because it's done under the cloak of the corporation. In a large corporation it's very easy to cover up who made what decisions. India's case against Union Carbide went nowhere. Though they issued an arrest warrant for its CEO Warren Anderson and unsuccessfully tried to extradite him, I wonder if they could prove that he had any knowledge of what was going on in Bhopal? In the meantime, Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide and to this day fights over the matter of taking responsibility for the incident. Putting away the CEOs of Enron, Adelphia, et al is the exception, not the rule, and that's only because investors lost an assload of cash. But the deaths of 14,000 second world brown people. Who gives a crap?
With all the dark fiber purchases and rumblings I'm hearing about Google regarding streaming video, is it possible that the AOL buy is ultimately to get access to Time Warner's network?
The answer is simple. The first prisoner called in must kill the king and take his keys, then free his comrades./Sorry, I'm a run-n-gun type of guy//You didn't say anything about GUARDS
But two questions: First, was it alternating current? And second, how much amperage was going through the line?
Just having 1,000,000 volts above your head means nothing if there's little amperage and it's a DC power source. Alternating currents cause electromagnetic fields to propogate, and large amounts of current causes them to be more powerful. This is why you can get a flourescent tube to light up when you stand underneath high power transmission lines - The electromagnetic field from them is inducted into the tube and there is still enough power to excite the mercury atoms. Last I checked the Earth's magnetic field couldn't do something like that...
I can see why the brain cancer/cell phone controversy exists - Basically you have a very, very powerful source of EM in a concentrated spot next to your ear. The problem is that nobody can seem to prove conclusively that it causes cell mutations.
I would bet money that Steve Jobs is currently putting together what he needs to start Apple's own label. Disney learned the hard way that you don't screw with him. Eisner tried to play hardball thinking that Pixar needed Disney rather than the other way around, and look what happened. Chicken Little appears to be Disney's first in-house CGI movie. Saw a preview of it last night - It didn't surprise me that it's the usual Disney dreck.
And now we have Time Warner wanting a bigger piece of the pie by demanding they get a cut of iPod sales. It would be endlessly amusing to me if Apple blacklisted Warner products, started their own label, and starting poaching Warner's acts when their contracts were up.
40,000 volts is actually not much. In fact, I'd say it's easy to build up that much static charge (Van DeGraff generator, anyone?) But Back To The Future Shoes? Come on. And what is this "40,000 volts is one step shy of spontaneous combustion" BS? First of all, it's AMPS that cause fires, not VOLTS. Second, if he was grounding out enough power to leave fire in his wake, he would have been barbequed long before he could take a second step.
I lost interest in the article when he started going on about the iPod. He and I differ on the perception that choosing style over functionality is a GOOD thing. But then, that is not the point of the article.
It seems to me that he isn't really talking about good vs. bad programmers. The differences he brought up (Zen vs iPod, Winamp vs. Media Player, etc) have more to do with opinion and company culture than it does with technical superiority.
If you separate the wheat from the chaff, I think what he is trying to say is: "Surround yourself with competent and hard-working people, and you will succeed". And with that I couldn't agree more.
AFAIK, the only thing the US really has a "monopoly" on is the.com,.net, and.org domains, as well as anything else ICANN may want to create. But for the UN to use that as a pretext to take over the ENTIRE Internet? I don't think so. Besides you only have to take one look at their track record to extrapolate the doom of the Internet should they somehow push this through.
Epson and Canon have had their heads integrated into the printers for YEARS.
Actually, I preferred the old HP way of having the heads in the cartridge. Why? Heads get scratched. They get clogged. They wear out. Instead of buying some insanely expensive and hard-to-replace printhead, all you have to do is swap out the cartridge and you're printing like new. It's the same thing with HP's lasers...The imaging drum and the toner cartridge are in the same package. It might increase the price of the carts a little, but maintenance isn't as big of a deal. Besides if you want to max out your drum life, you can always refill the toner.
I guess all HP's announcement means is that their inkjets will suck even more. As it is I am quite displeased with Epson and Canon products (take a guess...printhead problems), but now I guess HP can join the team. My experience with inkjets have completely driven me away form the technology. I'll gladly shell out $600+ for a laser printer that I never have to worry about over an inkjet that prints blank pages or lines if it decides to work at all. Besides a toner cart capable of printing 1000's of pages only costs, what, just double what a little inkjet cart prices out at?
Even if you need color, the lasers have dropped through the floor. At work we just picked up an HP3550 color laser for under $1000, and that's with networking. Granted, HP really screwed the pooch and provided not an INTERNAL JetDirect like I expected, but rather included an external USB print server with no price break, but at least it prints nice.
I thought things were supposed to get BETTER after Fiorina was ousted
One one hand, spyware is some pretty evil stuff. There are little weasel programs I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get out of systems.
On the other hand, I get paid to do that. I just did one small company with 5 computers that was literally shut down because they couldn't do anything on their systems. Spyware is a problem on just about every single "joe average" computer that I have seen lately. The problem, of course, is going to get worse as long as Windows continues to allow users to run with privileged access by default.
I don't feel like going into a Microsoft rant - I'm sure it would be preaching to the choir anyway. I would like to share effective tools in my warchest for cleaning out spyware -
Ad-Aware - My favorite anti-spyware program right now. Gets about 95% of baddies.
HiJack This! - Cleans up anything that Ad-Aware may have left behind. It scans all startup regkeys, services, and BHO IE extension keys and lets you select which ones to nuke. BE CAREFUL, it lists both the good and the bad. If you don't know what a process is, google for it before you remove its key.
There are many other useful tools on this download page as well, like LSPFix. This program will fix the mess left by programs that mess with your TCP stack, such as New Net, whos manual removal can disable your Internet access completely.
Pocket KillBox - You know those processes that come back from the dead after you kill them? Can't delete the EXE because it's locked in both normal and safe modes? Pocket Killbox is what you need. If it can't delete the file outright, it can temporarily end the Explorer task and try it that way. If that doesn't work, it can use Windows' replace-on-reboot function to swap the EXE with a dummy file on the next reboot. Very handy for getting rid of the most nefarious of processes.
Spyware Blaster - Pre-emptive spyware prevention. The interesting thing about this program is that it doesn't remain resident in memory. Instead, it writes files and regkeys to your system that prevent the spyware from installing. Adding and removing protection can be done in one click.
Symantec's products have been losing popularity recently
I hear that. Could be because Symantec AntiVirus HAS PROBLEMS SNAGGING VIRUSES.
I just switched my company to McAfee Corporate after I found MyDoom lurking on my boss' computer even though he was running the client and had the latest patterns. His system was running very strangely, so I went to TrendMicro's online scan and it picked up all kinds of weird stuff, the biggest standout being MyDoom.
When I got my license renewal for SAV I told them to shove it and went to McAfee. The startup cost per license is higher than SAV, but the renewal is about half the cost compared to what Symantec wanted. When I deployed it at my company, it picked up some remenants of Nachi, a bunch of web scripting attacks and a few spyware apps. Another nice feature is that McAfee also uses a network driver to look for worm buffer overflow attacks and stop them before the files can even jump on your system. Overall, I'd have to say it is a much better value than what Symantec offers.
The same rationalization is floated at all the warez and P2P sites, and it just doesn't hold water. The network effect may be real (up-front loss in sales yields free advertising and subsequent monetary transaction), but it is neither as large or as desirable as they make it out to be. First, if you can download game ABC from the network, play through it in 2 weeks for free, what incentive do you ever have to buy it down the road
I have to disagree. Regarding games, yes, you're right, the effect would be limited. But we are talking about operating systems here. Back in the early 90's I don't think I encountered a version of Windows that was legit, or if I did it was one copy loaded onto every computer in the building. Nobody really wanted to run Windows because there wasn't that much software for it - At the time it was pretty much an extention of DOS and people just loaded it up to use the occasional GUI program, notwithstanding the constant crashing.
I worked for a tech depot at the time and I built hundreds of systems, and pre-loaded them all with the good old DOS 6.22/Win3.1 combo. Most other mom and pop shops I knew of did the same. I think that Microsoft was letting this practice slide because they knew a critical mass of their operating systems would make developers flock to them, and they were right. It has only been 10 short years since the release of Windows 95, but look at what Microsoft has done in that time. They decimated Novell and took over the x86 server market, moved PCs to a GUI only interface with proprietary APIs, and can make their vendors and customers dance to any tune they want. Apparently that's the "medicine" hiding in the sugar of a free OS.
"But why doesn't Linux have more adoption? IT'S free!", you say? Linux is just a kernel. But there are dozens of distros and a million ways of doing things. There is no universal package manager or development platform. Developers use whatever libraries they please to write their programs, so if you happen to want to use a program that your distro didn't package, you have to scour the 'Net to find the dependencies and take time to get THOSE to work before you can get the holy grail of a program that actually runs correctly. It's not like Windows where you can download setup.exe, install the program and have it run right away. THAT is the biggest hangup with Linux right now.
OSX is a consistant platform with no danger of forking which has a decent compliment of software. If UNIX is ever going to get on Joe Anybody's desktop, it's going to be through OSX for that reason. But of course that's provided Apple will bother to even make it work on non-Apple hardware.
Should I be selected as a finalist in this competition, I confirm the following:
7. I will formally licence, on terms acceptable to Microsoft, all intellectual property rights in my film and agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do so. I understand that if I do not complete the necessary documentation by the stated date, my entry will be disqualified from the competition.
Hm, "thought thieves" indeed. I guess IP theft is only acceptable when Microsoft does it. Agreeing to these terms essentially means they could sue you for publishing your own work on your website. Oh, they use the word "license" instead of "give", but they also say "agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do so". Microsoft? Evil? Nahhh.
It doesn't sound like we disagree all that much. However, I would even hesitate to call it a disability. Such a description should be reserved for those who are completely unable to function in a normal fashion. It could be said that I have a case of Asperger's Syndrome. But I do not consider it a syndrome, a disease, a disability, or anything. It is just the way I am...A personality trait. It did not stop me from getting a job, buying a house, finding a girlfriend, etc. If I were huddled in a corner afraid to leave the confines of my mother's house because I was too afraid I might have to talk to someone, then we can call it a syndrome. But this is not the case.
I, too, have been a party to and have witnessed situations where those who "have" AS get together and mingle pretty well. Is that so strange though? This always happens when you get a group of like-minded people together. It's a cultural clique, if you will.
This whole business of AS being everywhere is probably a result of a general culture that values chatty individuals over those who stay quiet. It makes sense that everyone likes a friendly person, but lets face it, introverts are pretty much demonized and looked down upon. AS seems to have ended up being the name for our "condition". You don't have to go any farther than Cheerleader/Jock vs. The Nerd. I think we've all been there.
Hmm, I wonder if societies that value intelligence have identified a name for the syndrome extroverts have?
I think a large percentage of us can relate to what this guy is about...Trouble making friends, hates school, college dropout, awkward in social situations. Hell I thought I was reading my own interview...Well, except that I'm a lousy programmer.
Anyway, I got to thinking, is the majority of cases of this so called "Asperger's Syndrome" really a "disease", or simply a consequence of being an introvert? Practice makes perfect, and if you like being by yourself and don't enjoy talking to people, then of course you are not going to be very good in social situations. That explains problems making friends and problems with social situations.
As such, what is there to do by yourself besides partake in intellectual pursuits? School is the devil for those who truly love to learn. "Here's a piece of paper, now regurgitate all of the pointless information you have learned this year with a reasonable percentage of accuracy and guess what, you go to the next level. Yay!"
I'm not saying that Asperger's Syndrome does not exist, but I think it's over diagnosed just like most other conditions out there that gives drug companies an excuse to sell their wares. Only in the most extreme cases where someone cannot function should treatment be required. Other than that, it does not to be "cured". IMHO, mild "cases" are little more than a personality trait.
Read Bram's interview. Looks to me like he was able to figure out how to read people in social situations and wishes he could go back in time and smack his previous self around a little. I think he got over his problem (look, he's got a kid to prove it!) the same way I did...By being in situations that require social interaction. Being a consultant, this happens a lot. When I first started off as a tech monkey visiting customers on site or deal with them directly, I got reports from my boss that they thought I was a pretty weird dude. Eventually I learned that the customer does not want to hear how many transistors a Pentium has when they want Windows working again. Anyway, I think I'm able to handle people better today, and if my customers still think I'm weird, at least they aren't telling anyone about it.:)
Well looking at the price of the software, and assuming it is ripped off from GPL code, I'd say that the primary goal here is to make a lot of money without having put put in any up front R&D or programming costs. The key word here is "money". If enough was made, I don't think the real author would have any trouble securing a lawyer on contingency to sue the pants off of these guys. The ability to sue isn't the problem. The real problem is building a case and proving that the software is based on someone else's code using evidence gained from looking at a compiled executable. But I guess it's not a problem a subpoena can't solve.
But then I figure what would happen is Maui-X would play the "trade secrets" card and settle under the table to avoid public embarrassment.
The law only applies to people convicted of certain crimes against children 11 or younger. And man, if you are trying to have sex with children you NEED to be locked up. 25 to life and then being tagged by Big Brother sounds good to me...I have no sympathy for such animals.
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It's like hard disks - Why should it have ANY filesystem? Just ship them uninitialized and write instructions to have the user format them.
Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
But there was also a lot of support for Beta as well I don't know any percentages, but I remember seeing both formats available in video rental stores back in the day. Today many studios, I think, will release movies in both formats. If enough do this, I think the pendulum will swing in the way of HD-DVD. I also think that due to the increased expense of Blu-Ray manufacture, those movies will be more expensive than their HD-DVD counterparts. This might factor in to nudge the consumer in the way of HD-DVD as well. It's definitely a wait-and-see game. How much are people willing to pay for their entertainment?
Analysts say the early adopters, those who rush out and buy whatever new technology becomes available, will jump right in and pay $1,800 US for a Blu-ray player from Pioneer or $499 US for the Toshiba HD DVD player.
:) ). I'm sure they want a pretty penny for Blu-Ray licensing as well. As it is I am sick of Sony and their fire-and-forget policy on practically all of their products - which is to roll out product and practically drop support immediately. Ever try to get new firmware for a Sony product? Ever try to do an out of warranty repair? It's usually cheaper and easier just to buy a new one. The cost for them to even _look_ at the problem is insane.
Hmm, which one should I get?? This is typical Sony.
My understanding of the manufacturing of the discs themselves is that fabricating Blu-Ray discs requires complete retooling, while making HD-DVD discs only needs a retrofit of the equipment used to make standard DVDs. Then you add Sony itself to the equation...They have a long history of developing proprietary standards, which are arguably superior, but end up being so expensive for the consumer that they die (the standard, not the consumer
The fact that Toshiba's demo didn't work means nothing. Ultimately the marketplace will decide who wins, and the trump card in the marketplace is cost. If Blu-Ray sets don't come down to be competitive with HD-DVD, HD-DVD will win by default - just like VHS did.
I don't deny that it was an accident. There was probably a few mistakes made by some idiots, but it makes no sense to me that someone would have triggered the reaction on purpose. However, I don't think that the fact that it was an accident absolves them of responsibility to help those injured. If I rear end somebody while driving, I don't do it on purpose. But my insurance company assigns fault to me and pays damages all the same. Now what if my car has a few thousand people in it and everyone has a small part in operating it, but I'm was the guy telling everyone what basic direction to go in? Who are you going to assign fault to then? I could easily say that I had know knowledge of what the guy operating the brakes didn't do his job. And who would be able to prove otherwise? The most any authority could do is fine me because it's not certain who in the car is at fault for the accident.
This is the crux of the problem with all corporations who do nefarious things or create massive damage through sheer negligence. UC whitewashed Bhopal because they knew they could get away with it. The extradition request went nowhere because there was no way anyone could know if the CEO knew about the faulty procedures and equipment there. Now admittedly, bringing up extradition might be moot since the US doesn't tend to honor extradition requests. But if it could be proven that someone was directly responsible for this disaster, wouldn't you agree that extradition would be more likely?
That is why I put forth the argument that being part of a corporate machine offers much more protection against individual prosecution. This is also why I believe that many argue that corporations are inherently "evil", because those who are part of it know their personal assets and freedom are safe because of the shield of the corporation. There are too many hands in the cookie jar to know for sure who the wrongdoers are. What did they nail Bernie Ebbers for? It wasn't grand larceny times a zillion and destroying thosands of peoples' financial solvency, but rather lying to investigators and securities fraud. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, but is currently free on bail while getting the sentence appealed. How much do you want to bet he'll be successful? The only thing they're getting Ken Lay on is...wait for it...securities fraud for selling $300 million worth of stock while encouraging employees to buy more. I doubt he will serve a day in jail, either.
If it were you or me, we'd be spending the rest of our lives in the clink.
Let me repeat: its a human that made the decision to do evil, not the corporation itself.
Yes. But the problem is that the human doing the evil is rarely held accountable for it because it's done under the cloak of the corporation. In a large corporation it's very easy to cover up who made what decisions. India's case against Union Carbide went nowhere. Though they issued an arrest warrant for its CEO Warren Anderson and unsuccessfully tried to extradite him, I wonder if they could prove that he had any knowledge of what was going on in Bhopal? In the meantime, Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide and to this day fights over the matter of taking responsibility for the incident. Putting away the CEOs of Enron, Adelphia, et al is the exception, not the rule, and that's only because investors lost an assload of cash. But the deaths of 14,000 second world brown people. Who gives a crap?
With all the dark fiber purchases and rumblings I'm hearing about Google regarding streaming video, is it possible that the AOL buy is ultimately to get access to Time Warner's network?
The answer is simple. The first prisoner called in must kill the king and take his keys, then free his comrades. /Sorry, I'm a run-n-gun type of guy //You didn't say anything about GUARDS
But two questions: First, was it alternating current? And second, how much amperage was going through the line?
Just having 1,000,000 volts above your head means nothing if there's little amperage and it's a DC power source. Alternating currents cause electromagnetic fields to propogate, and large amounts of current causes them to be more powerful. This is why you can get a flourescent tube to light up when you stand underneath high power transmission lines - The electromagnetic field from them is inducted into the tube and there is still enough power to excite the mercury atoms. Last I checked the Earth's magnetic field couldn't do something like that...
I can see why the brain cancer/cell phone controversy exists - Basically you have a very, very powerful source of EM in a concentrated spot next to your ear. The problem is that nobody can seem to prove conclusively that it causes cell mutations.
I would bet money that Steve Jobs is currently putting together what he needs to start Apple's own label. Disney learned the hard way that you don't screw with him. Eisner tried to play hardball thinking that Pixar needed Disney rather than the other way around, and look what happened. Chicken Little appears to be Disney's first in-house CGI movie. Saw a preview of it last night - It didn't surprise me that it's the usual Disney dreck.
And now we have Time Warner wanting a bigger piece of the pie by demanding they get a cut of iPod sales. It would be endlessly amusing to me if Apple blacklisted Warner products, started their own label, and starting poaching Warner's acts when their contracts were up.
40,000 volts is actually not much. In fact, I'd say it's easy to build up that much static charge (Van DeGraff generator, anyone?) But Back To The Future Shoes? Come on. And what is this "40,000 volts is one step shy of spontaneous combustion" BS? First of all, it's AMPS that cause fires, not VOLTS. Second, if he was grounding out enough power to leave fire in his wake, he would have been barbequed long before he could take a second step.
I lost interest in the article when he started going on about the iPod. He and I differ on the perception that choosing style over functionality is a GOOD thing. But then, that is not the point of the article.
It seems to me that he isn't really talking about good vs. bad programmers. The differences he brought up (Zen vs iPod, Winamp vs. Media Player, etc) have more to do with opinion and company culture than it does with technical superiority.
If you separate the wheat from the chaff, I think what he is trying to say is: "Surround yourself with competent and hard-working people, and you will succeed". And with that I couldn't agree more.
Or you could just print it on a B&W laser :)
Let them try to take control of the Internet. We have nothing to worry about because all they will do is write carefully worded letters.
.com, .net, and .org domains, as well as anything else ICANN may want to create. But for the UN to use that as a pretext to take over the ENTIRE Internet? I don't think so. Besides you only have to take one look at their track record to extrapolate the doom of the Internet should they somehow push this through.
Seriously, why does the UN need to be involved? I thought that each country had control over its own TLD, and assigned number authorities are assigned to each continent. . The root servers themselves are located all over the world.
AFAIK, the only thing the US really has a "monopoly" on is the
Epson and Canon have had their heads integrated into the printers for YEARS.
Actually, I preferred the old HP way of having the heads in the cartridge. Why? Heads get scratched. They get clogged. They wear out. Instead of buying some insanely expensive and hard-to-replace printhead, all you have to do is swap out the cartridge and you're printing like new. It's the same thing with HP's lasers...The imaging drum and the toner cartridge are in the same package. It might increase the price of the carts a little, but maintenance isn't as big of a deal. Besides if you want to max out your drum life, you can always refill the toner.
I guess all HP's announcement means is that their inkjets will suck even more. As it is I am quite displeased with Epson and Canon products (take a guess...printhead problems), but now I guess HP can join the team. My experience with inkjets have completely driven me away form the technology. I'll gladly shell out $600+ for a laser printer that I never have to worry about over an inkjet that prints blank pages or lines if it decides to work at all. Besides a toner cart capable of printing 1000's of pages only costs, what, just double what a little inkjet cart prices out at?
Even if you need color, the lasers have dropped through the floor. At work we just picked up an HP3550 color laser for under $1000, and that's with networking. Granted, HP really screwed the pooch and provided not an INTERNAL JetDirect like I expected, but rather included an external USB print server with no price break, but at least it prints nice.
I thought things were supposed to get BETTER after Fiorina was ousted
One one hand, spyware is some pretty evil stuff. There are little weasel programs I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get out of systems.
On the other hand, I get paid to do that. I just did one small company with 5 computers that was literally shut down because they couldn't do anything on their systems. Spyware is a problem on just about every single "joe average" computer that I have seen lately. The problem, of course, is going to get worse as long as Windows continues to allow users to run with privileged access by default.
I don't feel like going into a Microsoft rant - I'm sure it would be preaching to the choir anyway. I would like to share effective tools in my warchest for cleaning out spyware -
Ad-Aware - My favorite anti-spyware program right now. Gets about 95% of baddies.
HiJack This! - Cleans up anything that Ad-Aware may have left behind. It scans all startup regkeys, services, and BHO IE extension keys and lets you select which ones to nuke. BE CAREFUL, it lists both the good and the bad. If you don't know what a process is, google for it before you remove its key.
There are many other useful tools on this download page as well, like LSPFix. This program will fix the mess left by programs that mess with your TCP stack, such as New Net, whos manual removal can disable your Internet access completely.
Pocket KillBox - You know those processes that come back from the dead after you kill them? Can't delete the EXE because it's locked in both normal and safe modes? Pocket Killbox is what you need. If it can't delete the file outright, it can temporarily end the Explorer task and try it that way. If that doesn't work, it can use Windows' replace-on-reboot function to swap the EXE with a dummy file on the next reboot. Very handy for getting rid of the most nefarious of processes.
Spyware Blaster - Pre-emptive spyware prevention. The interesting thing about this program is that it doesn't remain resident in memory. Instead, it writes files and regkeys to your system that prevent the spyware from installing. Adding and removing protection can be done in one click.
Symantec's products have been losing popularity recently
I hear that. Could be because Symantec AntiVirus HAS PROBLEMS SNAGGING VIRUSES.
I just switched my company to McAfee Corporate after I found MyDoom lurking on my boss' computer even though he was running the client and had the latest patterns. His system was running very strangely, so I went to TrendMicro's online scan and it picked up all kinds of weird stuff, the biggest standout being MyDoom.
When I got my license renewal for SAV I told them to shove it and went to McAfee. The startup cost per license is higher than SAV, but the renewal is about half the cost compared to what Symantec wanted. When I deployed it at my company, it picked up some remenants of Nachi, a bunch of web scripting attacks and a few spyware apps. Another nice feature is that McAfee also uses a network driver to look for worm buffer overflow attacks and stop them before the files can even jump on your system. Overall, I'd have to say it is a much better value than what Symantec offers.
Well I guess Amazon's servers have nothing to worry about. But those poor employees....
Then does that mean going forward, there is such a thing as destiny?
I have to disagree. Regarding games, yes, you're right, the effect would be limited. But we are talking about operating systems here. Back in the early 90's I don't think I encountered a version of Windows that was legit, or if I did it was one copy loaded onto every computer in the building. Nobody really wanted to run Windows because there wasn't that much software for it - At the time it was pretty much an extention of DOS and people just loaded it up to use the occasional GUI program, notwithstanding the constant crashing.
I worked for a tech depot at the time and I built hundreds of systems, and pre-loaded them all with the good old DOS 6.22/Win3.1 combo. Most other mom and pop shops I knew of did the same. I think that Microsoft was letting this practice slide because they knew a critical mass of their operating systems would make developers flock to them, and they were right. It has only been 10 short years since the release of Windows 95, but look at what Microsoft has done in that time. They decimated Novell and took over the x86 server market, moved PCs to a GUI only interface with proprietary APIs, and can make their vendors and customers dance to any tune they want. Apparently that's the "medicine" hiding in the sugar of a free OS.
"But why doesn't Linux have more adoption? IT'S free!", you say? Linux is just a kernel. But there are dozens of distros and a million ways of doing things. There is no universal package manager or development platform. Developers use whatever libraries they please to write their programs, so if you happen to want to use a program that your distro didn't package, you have to scour the 'Net to find the dependencies and take time to get THOSE to work before you can get the holy grail of a program that actually runs correctly. It's not like Windows where you can download setup.exe, install the program and have it run right away. THAT is the biggest hangup with Linux right now.
OSX is a consistant platform with no danger of forking which has a decent compliment of software. If UNIX is ever going to get on Joe Anybody's desktop, it's going to be through OSX for that reason. But of course that's provided Apple will bother to even make it work on non-Apple hardware.
From the contract:
Should I be selected as a finalist in this competition, I confirm the following:
7. I will formally licence, on terms acceptable to Microsoft, all intellectual property rights
in my film and agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do
so. I understand that if I do not complete the necessary documentation by the stated
date, my entry will be disqualified from the competition.
Hm, "thought thieves" indeed. I guess IP theft is only acceptable when Microsoft does it. Agreeing to these terms essentially means they could sue you for publishing your own work on your website.
Oh, they use the word "license" instead of "give", but they also say "agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do
so". Microsoft? Evil? Nahhh.
It doesn't sound like we disagree all that much. However, I would even hesitate to call it a disability. Such a description should be reserved for those who are completely unable to function in a normal fashion. It could be said that I have a case of Asperger's Syndrome. But I do not consider it a syndrome, a disease, a disability, or anything. It is just the way I am...A personality trait. It did not stop me from getting a job, buying a house, finding a girlfriend, etc. If I were huddled in a corner afraid to leave the confines of my mother's house because I was too afraid I might have to talk to someone, then we can call it a syndrome. But this is not the case.
I, too, have been a party to and have witnessed situations where those who "have" AS get together and mingle pretty well. Is that so strange though? This always happens when you get a group of like-minded people together. It's a cultural clique, if you will.
This whole business of AS being everywhere is probably a result of a general culture that values chatty individuals over those who stay quiet. It makes sense that everyone likes a friendly person, but lets face it, introverts are pretty much demonized and looked down upon. AS seems to have ended up being the name for our "condition". You don't have to go any farther than Cheerleader/Jock vs. The Nerd. I think we've all been there.
Hmm, I wonder if societies that value intelligence have identified a name for the syndrome extroverts have?
I think a large percentage of us can relate to what this guy is about...Trouble making friends, hates school, college dropout, awkward in social situations. Hell I thought I was reading my own interview...Well, except that I'm a lousy programmer.
:)
Anyway, I got to thinking, is the majority of cases of this so called "Asperger's Syndrome" really a "disease", or simply a consequence of being an introvert? Practice makes perfect, and if you like being by yourself and don't enjoy talking to people, then of course you are not going to be very good in social situations. That explains problems making friends and problems with social situations.
As such, what is there to do by yourself besides partake in intellectual pursuits? School is the devil for those who truly love to learn. "Here's a piece of paper, now regurgitate all of the pointless information you have learned this year with a reasonable percentage of accuracy and guess what, you go to the next level. Yay!"
I'm not saying that Asperger's Syndrome does not exist, but I think it's over diagnosed just like most other conditions out there that gives drug companies an excuse to sell their wares. Only in the most extreme cases where someone cannot function should treatment be required. Other than that, it does not to be "cured". IMHO, mild "cases" are little more than a personality trait.
Read Bram's interview. Looks to me like he was able to figure out how to read people in social situations and wishes he could go back in time and smack his previous self around a little. I think he got over his problem (look, he's got a kid to prove it!) the same way I did...By being in situations that require social interaction. Being a consultant, this happens a lot. When I first started off as a tech monkey visiting customers on site or deal with them directly, I got reports from my boss that they thought I was a pretty weird dude. Eventually I learned that the customer does not want to hear how many transistors a Pentium has when they want Windows working again. Anyway, I think I'm able to handle people better today, and if my customers still think I'm weird, at least they aren't telling anyone about it.
Well looking at the price of the software, and assuming it is ripped off from GPL code, I'd say that the primary goal here is to make a lot of money without having put put in any up front R&D or programming costs. The key word here is "money". If enough was made, I don't think the real author would have any trouble securing a lawyer on contingency to sue the pants off of these guys. The ability to sue isn't the problem. The real problem is building a case and proving that the software is based on someone else's code using evidence gained from looking at a compiled executable. But I guess it's not a problem a subpoena can't solve.
But then I figure what would happen is Maui-X would play the "trade secrets" card and settle under the table to avoid public embarrassment.
The law only applies to people convicted of certain crimes against children 11 or younger. And man, if you are trying to have sex with children you NEED to be locked up. 25 to life and then being tagged by Big Brother sounds good to me...I have no sympathy for such animals.