Everything I ordered, including something I ordered AFTER I was told it would not make it on time, made it by Friday. The company I ordered from Fedex'ed it at no extra charge even though they were under no obligation to do so.
On the flip side, another company has screwed up every order I've given them. Luckily I did not use them to buy any Christmas presents since they have not arrived and I don't expect them to.
It seems just like everything else you can get good service or crappy service. Just a matter of luck and experience -- I'll keep ordering from the former into the new millenium, and heaven help me if I order from the latter ever again.
P.S. The latter kept crashing since they use Microsoft ODBC and Microsoft servers. Coincidence?:)
Jeopardy and technology -- bad combination
on
Linux on Jeopardy
·
· Score: 1
I remember a while ago they had an answer like this: "This is what http://www.jeopardy.com is" and someone answered what is a domain name? and got the point.
Of course that is just plain wrong. www.jeopardy.com is a domain name. http://www.jeopardy.com is an URL. After that blatant mistake I know the writers there are clueless. I even wrote Jeopardy about their mistake and no answer.
I don't watch the show but did flip through and saw that question and answer. Even my wife was surprised such a blatant mis pronunciation was allowed. Oh well, Jeopardy and technology -- bad combination.
I am lucky enough NOT to get those new license plates yet. I wonder if it's against the law to cover up part of a license plate (ie the URL, not the rest of the plate). I don't see why, but there are a lot of dumblaws.com:)
I will give it a shot and probably cover up the URL with some other URL. My truck right now has a vanity plate on front that says MLDOTORG... of course that's in the past...
Cheryl is a secretary. Her job is to read all the public mail. If UNISYS wants to be on the Internet and receieve email they have to take it all, good and bad. And it's Cheryl job (She gets the $$$) to read this email. If people mailbombed her, as I'm sure some did, then that's too bad. But if someone sent a strongly worded letter once, well that's their right to send whatever the hell they want, and Cheryl's job to receieve and file it, and possibly read it.
I feel no sympathy for her or Unisys. You go on the Internet you're going to get flamed. She and the company needs to DEAL with the consequences of their decisions or unplug their Internet link.
There was a really good article in USAToday (editorial section) about how the 'internet revolution' is over since the people who wrote the code before did it for the code and for the excitement rather than the money. I personally also feel slashdot is slipping; I know I only visit two-three times a week now, only find 1 or two articles of interest, and the folks I work with and talk with, who used to visit often, now rarely visit.
Of course, that's hardly a scientific survey nor proves any correlation between quality and acquisition by any sort of Borg, but hey... things have changed. No matter what Andover or Slashdot can say it's different when you're no longer the owner. I know how it is -- I was approached with a similar offer on something else and turned it down -- I didn't want to sell out (not saying the slashdot crew did, but, everyone is entitled to their opinion).
I'm happy here. IBM's efforts are still very fragmented but things are very slowly coming together.
I don't do much Linux work on a 'Do Linux Work' basis but I do run a Linux server and have spread the gospel here to several other employees. Most people here are very open to the idea...
"When the browser makes the request to a Web server, the patent covers the notion of redirecting that request to other machines [application servers] within a cluster and having those other machines dynamically produce a response,"
No mention of load balancing here. Redirection fits into the above if you set cluster size=1. This is me playing devil's advocate in any case... and they probably couldn't stand up in court -- but that won't stop them from trying to intimidate others.... the granted patent may be more specific so InfoSpinner might get shot down in going the whole nine yards as indicated above... but I think we're in agreement that no matter how you read it the technologies have been around long before Apr 96.
It seems that the patent covers any sort of web redirection, as in what I used to have with the ATHOME project (http://yourname.home.ml.org --> http://your.com/website) and even more simpler ones that is used for example when you access http://somesite.com/somedir and it redirects you to http://somesite.com/somedir/
I guess the purpose is NOT load balancing, but from my reading the patent covers the idea, not the purpose.
Bullsh!t, bullsh!t, and more bs... Patents and trademarks are way out of control.
As per IBM I spoke to a few of the IBMers who were at the expo. They all seemed pretty clueful and interested in it from more than the money perspective. Sure there are suits here and at any other company who look out for the bottom line but that's their job. We got plenty of techie people who run Linux inside IBM and they like it for the myriad of reasons all of us do.
Lucky enough to be in Raleigh and get a free exhibitor badge from IBM I was there for a couple of hours and saw Rob and crew among other things. Nothing much interesting there, honestly, though it is good to see some varied support there -- including a company based out of my home town, Pittsburgh.
It was funny when I actually met the guy behind linux.com and themes.org. Just another ordinary person. He seemed just as surprised when I told him I was the guy behind ML.ORG:)
You can tell this is a low budget expo since things that most other expos give away the vendors were charging for. But if you looked you could still get a free t-shirt (I got one) and buy a nice one (I bought one) and also get a nice stuffed penguin for my wife's collection and several cool bumper stickers..
And yoyos too..
To those who aren't around I can't say you are missing much and I don't know if I'd pay $20 for the exhibition badge... maybe... I guess I'm just spoiled by attending PC Expo many years.
Well I wasn't going to watch it anyway (maybe on video some day down the road) but now I got one more reason past that annoying 'countdowns' in everything from a rinky dinky personal web site to USAToday.
I found of interest the link to the LOC site where they keep the designation of who's responsible for a given site. It's good to have if you need to get a hold of someone. Bookmarked here.
I beleive it was Voltaire, a great French philosopher. He did influence the whole freedom of speech thing.
I sent email to scottadams@aol.com telling him what I thought (I have not seen the site nor do I care to see it, but I can't imagine anyone mistaking them for dilbert or them getting any money/etc for it) and will be taking those dilbert cartoons down. Oh well. Userfriendly is more applicable anyway:)
As others here I've sent a letter and looked into using Google. The good thing is that ?text option to altavista. I wish I'd known about that earlier. Makes searching a lot easier
Slashdot is a registered trademark of BSI, Inc. as reported by the US Patent and Trademark Office. So we know that Block Stackers International is a corporation. Non-profit or for-profit can be found out pretty easily by checking public records, but that's not the point.
I have not read the article (screw the NY Times and their registration) but if it as people say it is it does seriously jeopardize volunteer operations WHO do not have a lawyer go over every agreement and possibly even ensure written affidavits from their volunteer.
BTW,.org==.com==.net == I hope no one is left that believes that the Internic or anyone imposes any difference on them anymore -- it's been over a year since the Internic dropped their text telling people that.ORG is for non-profit organizations,.NET is for infrastructure, etc
The only difference is the perceived domain value and the public's tendency to dot com everything.. but that's a whole another thread:)
It's a nice idea, but I am of those who doesn't like any sort of moderation. One of the mailing lists I started and went very well (and is still going very well without me) -- systalk (originally @ml.org, now @dhs.org) -- fought moderation like the plague and was one of the best mailing lists to be on.
It's the people, not the moderation, that makes a list good or bad.
(Of course nice on virtual paper, not so great in practice).
Free DNS is very possible. At ML.ORG we came close but due to other issues (not particularly funding) it fell apart. I and a few other complete new comers were able to do it and handle it fine till we hit the 100,000 domain mark. After that it was quite simply inexperience that killed it.
I am convinced from my work with Monolith though that someone with a little more business background and just plain experience can do a much better job than NSI and charge much less or nothing for the domain. Even without the monopoly.
By the very nature of IBM things are pulling in different directions. I'm sure those IBMers who released Jikes and several of my co-workers at IBM knows better. Even some 'suits' know better. But a vast majority don't and are trying to protect AIX. As someone else posted IBM is trying to position, even if it's not really true, as Linux as mid-range OS and AIX as high-range OS (Unixwise at least.. way too much NT use here, but that's another story). It's marketing, folks...
140 Million a year for terrible customer service and bad response times.. I've submitted a mod for one of my domains three times with absolutely no response. Not even the auto tracking -- so no proof I ever submitted anything.
The question is -- what sort of registry could anyone but Network Solutions run for $140 Million a year?
This is a problem that faces many many Internet Service providers and one I faced when I ran ml.org... Big companies with big pockets (or even individuals with deep pockets) can easily harass a company for the identity of their users. And its difficult for little startups and groups of users to defend themselves against this without going broke. It's just a symptom of the litigious nature here in USA... I'm more and more tempted to move servers overseas.. though of course they can still get you personally if you live in the states... Can't win....
Being based out of Pittsburgh and having to constantly fly anywhere to get anywhere important, this is a nice change of pace. I'm also a CMU alumnus and I also worked professionally for CMU six months and one thing I can say for sure -- life there sucks -- but it does look good on your resume, and there is a lot of opportunity there (the atmosphere helped me start ML.ORG)... In any case, the airport is very nice:)
Will it be more successful than ML?
on
dhs.org In Beta
·
· Score: 1
Joshua,
You should know better. It's ALWAYS more complicated than that.
I will give you though that one of the many reasons was a disconnect between management and the workers.
But it's not that simple...
Good luck in any case. There are a lot of lessons you will only learn through experience.
most big companies do this
on
1984, today.
·
· Score: 1
I work for a big company. I like it there. The only thing I don't like is the sweeping IP agreement I signed which basically means if I create anything remotely related to computers my employer owns it. Which is why I had to stop my work on the Internet for now.
It is quite a drag but that guy should have known better. I know that I'm not working on anything till either I leave the company or expect them to take their cut.
The bottom line is they can't control what you think-- but don't 'work' on it till after you leave the company. I got plenty of ideas but none of them are anywhere but my head.
I think we all feel for the guy but the law is the law -- he's probably going to lose.
After running ML.ORG for so long I know a good deal about the whole domain name issue. There is no trademark dilution here, as someone mentioned. Yahoo has no need to 'defend' their trademark rights in this case since there is no dilution. They went after this company since they didn't like what they were saying.
There is also the situation that trademarks are based by 'class' -- ie you can not trademark a word (few exceptions, like made up words) for EVERYTHING. LIke 'yahoocake.com' which obviously is not in the same business as 'yahoo.com'. Going down that argument, yahooka.com is a different class than yahoo.com. Legally, they are ok.
Of course, as others have pointed out, it's all about money. Deeper pockets. I too, have sent a letter to Yahoo, telling them that I've been a user since akebono.cs.stanford.edu days, and if they don't quit their stupid lawsuit, they can be sure I will never visit their site again.
Slashdot Mirror
Everything I ordered, including something I ordered AFTER I was told it would not make it on time, made it by Friday. The company I ordered from Fedex'ed it at no extra charge even though they were under no obligation to do so.
:)
On the flip side, another company has screwed up every order I've given them. Luckily I did not use them to buy any Christmas presents since they have not arrived and I don't expect them to.
It seems just like everything else you can get good service or crappy service. Just a matter of luck and experience -- I'll keep ordering from the former into the new millenium, and heaven help me if I order from the latter ever again.
P.S. The latter kept crashing since they use Microsoft ODBC and Microsoft servers. Coincidence?
I remember a while ago they had an answer like this: "This is what http://www.jeopardy.com is" and someone answered what is a domain name? and got the point.
Of course that is just plain wrong. www.jeopardy.com is a domain name. http://www.jeopardy.com is an URL. After that blatant mistake I know the writers there are clueless. I even wrote Jeopardy about their mistake and no answer.
I don't watch the show but did flip through and saw that question and answer. Even my wife was surprised such a blatant mis pronunciation was allowed. Oh well, Jeopardy and technology -- bad combination.
I am lucky enough NOT to get those new license plates yet. I wonder if it's against the law to cover up part of a license plate (ie the URL, not the rest of the plate). I don't see why, but there are a lot of dumblaws.com :)
... of course that's in the past...
I will give it a shot and probably cover up the URL with some other URL. My truck right now has a vanity plate on front that says MLDOTORG
Cheryl is a secretary. Her job is to read all the public mail. If UNISYS wants to be on the Internet and receieve email they have to take it all, good and bad. And it's Cheryl job (She gets the $$$) to read this email. If people mailbombed her, as I'm sure some did, then that's too bad. But if someone sent a strongly worded letter once, well that's their right to send whatever the hell they want, and Cheryl's job to receieve and file it, and possibly read it.
I feel no sympathy for her or Unisys. You go on the Internet you're going to get flamed. She and the company needs to DEAL with the consequences of their decisions or unplug their Internet link.
There was a really good article in USAToday (editorial section) about how the 'internet revolution' is over since the people who wrote the code before did it for the code and for the excitement rather than the money. I personally also feel slashdot is slipping; I know I only visit two-three times a week now, only find 1 or two articles of interest, and the folks I work with and talk with, who used to visit often, now rarely visit.
Of course, that's hardly a scientific survey nor proves any correlation between quality and acquisition by any sort of Borg, but hey... things have changed. No matter what Andover or Slashdot can say it's different when you're no longer the owner. I know how it is -- I was approached with a similar offer on something else and turned it down -- I didn't want to sell out (not saying the slashdot crew did, but, everyone is entitled to their opinion).
I work for IBM.
I also know Linux pretty well (not a guru).
I'm happy here. IBM's efforts are still very fragmented but things are very slowly coming together.
I don't do much Linux work on a 'Do Linux Work' basis but I do run a Linux server and have spread the gospel here to several other employees. Most people here are very open to the idea...
My opinion only, not IBM's.
Uhhh, read this quote from InfoSpinner:
.. but I think we're in agreement that no matter how you read it the technologies have been around long before Apr 96.
"When the browser makes the request to a Web server,
the patent covers the notion of redirecting that request to
other machines [application servers] within a cluster and
having those other machines dynamically produce a
response,"
No mention of load balancing here. Redirection fits into the above if you set cluster size=1.
This is me playing devil's advocate in any case... and they probably couldn't stand up in court -- but that won't stop them from trying to intimidate others.... the granted patent may be more specific so InfoSpinner might get shot down in going the whole nine yards as indicated above.
It seems that the patent covers any sort of web redirection, as in what I used to have with the ATHOME project (http://yourname.home.ml.org --> http://your.com/website) and even more simpler ones that is used for example when you access http://somesite.com/somedir and it redirects you to http://somesite.com/somedir/
I guess the purpose is NOT load balancing, but from my reading the patent covers the idea, not the purpose.
Bullsh!t, bullsh!t, and more bs... Patents and trademarks are way out of control.
As per IBM I spoke to a few of the IBMers who were at the expo. They all seemed pretty clueful and interested in it from more than the money perspective. Sure there are suits here and at any other company who look out for the bottom line but that's their job. We got plenty of techie people who run Linux inside IBM and they like it for the myriad of reasons all of us do.
- Not speaking for IBM of course
Lucky enough to be in Raleigh and get a free exhibitor badge from IBM I was there for a couple of hours and saw Rob and crew among other things. Nothing much interesting there, honestly, though it is good to see some varied support there -- including a company based out of my home town, Pittsburgh.
:)
It was funny when I actually met the guy behind linux.com and themes.org. Just another ordinary person. He seemed just as surprised when I told him I was the guy behind ML.ORG
You can tell this is a low budget expo since things that most other expos give away the vendors were charging for. But if you looked you could still get a free t-shirt (I got one) and buy a nice one (I bought one) and also get a nice stuffed penguin for my wife's collection and several cool bumper stickers..
And yoyos too..
To those who aren't around I can't say you are missing much and I don't know if I'd pay $20 for the exhibition badge... maybe... I guess I'm just spoiled by attending PC Expo many years.
Well I wasn't going to watch it anyway (maybe on video some day down the road) but now I got one more reason past that annoying 'countdowns' in everything from a rinky dinky personal web site to USAToday.
I found of interest the link to the LOC site where they keep the designation of who's responsible for a given site. It's good to have if you need to get a hold of someone. Bookmarked here.
The ISP business gets more complicated each day..
Agreed
:)
I beleive it was Voltaire, a great French philosopher. He did influence the whole freedom of speech thing.
I sent email to scottadams@aol.com telling him what I thought (I have not seen the site nor do I care to see it, but I can't imagine anyone mistaking them for dilbert or them getting any money/etc for it) and will be taking those dilbert cartoons down. Oh well. Userfriendly is more applicable anyway
As others here I've sent a letter and looked into using Google. The good thing is that ?text option to altavista. I wish I'd known about that earlier. Makes searching a lot easier
Slashdot is a registered trademark of BSI, Inc.
.org==.com==.net == I hope no one is left that believes that the Internic or anyone imposes any difference on them anymore -- it's been over a year since the Internic dropped their text telling people that .ORG is for non-profit organizations, .NET is for infrastructure, etc
:)
as reported by the US Patent and Trademark Office. So we know that Block Stackers International is a corporation. Non-profit or for-profit can be found out pretty easily by checking public records, but that's not the point.
I have not read the article (screw the NY Times and their registration) but if it as people say it is it does seriously jeopardize volunteer operations WHO do not have a lawyer go over every agreement and possibly even ensure written affidavits from their volunteer.
BTW,
The only difference is the perceived domain value and the public's tendency to dot com everything.. but that's a whole another thread
It's a nice idea, but I am of those who doesn't like any sort of moderation. One of the mailing lists I started and went very well (and is still going very well without me) -- systalk (originally @ml.org, now @dhs.org) -- fought moderation like the plague and was one of the best mailing lists to be on.
It's the people, not the moderation, that makes a list good or bad.
(Of course nice on virtual paper, not so great in practice).
Hello,
Free DNS is very possible. At ML.ORG we came close but due to other issues (not particularly funding) it fell apart. I and a few other complete new comers were able to do it and handle it fine till we hit the 100,000 domain mark. After that it was quite simply inexperience that killed it.
I am convinced from my work with Monolith though that someone with a little more business background and just plain experience can do a much better job than NSI and charge much less or nothing for the domain. Even without the monopoly.
By the very nature of IBM things are pulling in different directions. I'm sure those IBMers who released Jikes and several of my co-workers at IBM knows better. Even some 'suits' know better. But a vast majority don't and are trying to protect AIX. As someone else posted IBM is trying to position, even if it's not really true, as Linux as mid-range OS and AIX as high-range OS (Unixwise at least .. way too much NT use here, but that's another story). It's marketing, folks...
Rumors are that IBM might use Dell to sell IBM computers...
140 Million a year for terrible customer service and bad response times.. I've submitted a mod for one of my domains three times with absolutely no response. Not even the auto tracking -- so no proof I ever submitted anything.
The question is -- what sort of registry could anyone but Network Solutions run for $140 Million a year?
This is a problem that faces many many Internet Service providers and one I faced when I ran ml.org... Big companies with big pockets (or even individuals with deep pockets) can easily harass a company for the identity of their users. And its difficult for little startups and groups of users to defend themselves against this without going broke. It's just a symptom of the litigious nature here in USA... I'm more and more tempted to move servers overseas.. though of course they can still get you personally if you live in the states... Can't win....
Being based out of Pittsburgh and having to constantly fly anywhere to get anywhere important, this is a nice change of pace. I'm also a CMU alumnus and I also worked professionally for CMU six months and one thing I can say for sure -- life there sucks -- but it does look good on your resume, and there is a lot of opportunity there (the atmosphere helped me start ML.ORG)... In any case, the airport is very nice :)
Joshua,
You should know better. It's ALWAYS more complicated than that.
I will give you though that one of the many reasons was a disconnect between management and the workers.
But it's not that simple...
Good luck in any case. There are a lot of lessons
you will only learn through experience.
I work for a big company. I like it there. The only thing I don't like is the sweeping IP agreement I signed which basically means if I create anything remotely related to computers my employer owns it. Which is why I had to stop my work on the Internet for now.
It is quite a drag but that guy should have known better. I know that I'm not working on anything till either I leave the company or expect them to take their cut.
The bottom line is they can't control what you think-- but don't 'work' on it till after you leave the company. I got plenty of ideas but none of them are anywhere but my head.
I think we all feel for the guy but the law is the law -- he's probably going to lose.
After running ML.ORG for so long I know a
good deal about the whole domain name issue.
There is no trademark dilution here, as
someone mentioned. Yahoo has no need to 'defend'
their trademark rights in this case since there
is no dilution. They went after this company
since they didn't like what they were saying.
There is also the situation that trademarks
are based by 'class' -- ie you can not
trademark a word (few exceptions, like made
up words) for EVERYTHING. LIke 'yahoocake.com'
which obviously is not in the same business
as 'yahoo.com'. Going down that argument,
yahooka.com is a different class than yahoo.com.
Legally, they are ok.
Of course, as others have pointed out, it's
all about money. Deeper pockets. I too, have
sent a letter to Yahoo, telling them that I've
been a user since akebono.cs.stanford.edu
days, and if they don't quit their stupid
lawsuit, they can be sure I will never visit
their site again.