It's been suggested already but using a tape recorder, or some kind of voice recording gizmo that can record more than a few seconds at a time, would be a good option. You could easily babble off thoughts and descriptions during the trip then, when you get home, take a little time to transscribe it to your blog/email/note/whatever.
> I know that my metabolism has slowed down a bit (I'm 26), but I wonder if the > computer noise isn't a contributing factor? Is it making me want to sleep too much?
It's worth looking into but I don't think that is the problem. I'm 41 and my metabolism is definitely much slower now than when I was younger (as seen by the extra 30 pounds around my mid-section). My sleep patterns are not much different than when I was your age, though. I can't pull all-nighters anymore but I can still do the occational 3am hacking session. Most of my working life I've spent in server rooms and the whitenoise there is nearily defening. The only time I get grogy, though, is if I eat a very big lunch.
I upgraded from RH 9 to RH 10... Uh, I mean Fedora, when FC1 was released (can't wait for FC2). For all my desktop/workstation needs it fits the bill quite nicely. For my server(s) I have gone to White Box Linux but I could have just as well used Tao Linux or CentOS-3. Moving to SUSE would have been a viable option as well but I didn't need to go that far.
I've commented before when this topic has come up but am I the only one who doesn't want a silent system? The general hum is whitenoise and does a great job of helping me stay focused when at work and sleep when at home. A friend of mine recently put together a system for me and he made it as quiet as possible. I had to buy an extra case fan to get it to produce some noise.
If you check out OEone'sHomeBase Linux distro you'll see what can be done with Mozilla. Everything in it runs with Mozilla as the desktop interface. It's increadably slick and easy to use.
I think that a web site that intends to be a "News" site should work just as hard as any print media at getting the facts. Community sites like/. should try and keep as close to factual as possible but should not necessarily be held up to the same level as serious media. Sites like Wonkette & Drudge are just personal mastabatory vehicles for their authors and shouldn't be expected to hold to any standard of factual reporting. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with these kind of sites but everyone reading then should always remember that anything published on them that is remotely close to factual is there by accedent.
Of the major named distros, Slackware was the last to ship with a pristein kernel source. There was notice when they actually shipped a version with a patch.
And as for old kernels, 2.0.x is still being maintained.
The first car I actually bought was a brand new, just off the assembly line 1983 VW Bug (made in Mexico and not available in the States). It was a little more "hi-tech" than the ones from the 60's (it had an electronic radio instead of a manual one) but it was a tank. Nothing could stop it; it could take all kinds of abuse (and believe me I put it through all kinds of abuse); didn't care about weather, roads, anything. Hell, when the battery would die ('cause someone would constently forget to turn the headlights off) just put it in second, give it a little push and pop the clutch. Man, that was a car.
It's become so difficult to find the porn spam burried under all the rest. If this gets done it'll really help me in finding the only spam worth reading.
(Yes, I'm being faces... fecaci... feseecious... ah hell, you know what I mean)
While it is true that the article is useless in that the "flaws" being made are so generic they apply to every software and development model (not to mention the complete lack of any examples or data to back up the claims), that doesn't mean that we should summarily dismissed them. Here is an opportunity for the Open Source world to stick it in the face of these kind of detractors. Go through each point and try to address it. Make whatever project/app/tool we write or use just that much better instead of going on about how idiotic the original article is (and it is idiotic). Then, with real working examples in hand, address each of the "flaws" directly. Tick them off one by one, showing what we are doing to make them better. Nothing makes people more frustrated than being shown up as fools in public.
Abiword has come a long way recently so you might want to check it out again. TextMaker is very good if you want to exchange files with that other OS.
Doesn't matter to me either way
on
CSS for the LDP?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I have nothing against presentation so if a decent css (and the one the original author did isn't bad at all) is used I would not be against it. I am more concerned with the information/content/data than the presentation of same, though. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. As long as those two criteria are met then I don't really care.
Man, times does fly. I remember the reports of TMI when it happened. We were living in Germany at the time but most of my relitives live in Pittsburgh so it was of interest. I was a Junior in High School and remember thinking how it seemed everyone was all hyper and frantic when very little damage was actually done. I should go on a rant someday on the who world energy situation and how the current fossil fules are doing far more damage to the planet than a hundred TMI's. But I'm feeling quite lazy today...
I don't know if this thing will survive (I've got an Adgenda VR3 and a Vtech Helios lying around here somewhere) but it looks like a great product. I really like the "paper" thing they have. I wish I had $300 (plus shipping, etc.) to get one of them. Unfortunately I'll be lucky if I can pay rent next month.
I have long felt that the differences between GNOME and KDE were miniscule at best. I'm talking about from a usability perspective. Yes, under the hood, they are vastly different, but when you look at the UI and see how they both follow the same basic way there's really little difference between them. It's good having more choices but GNOME and KDE are so much alike that they are nearily identical. Finding a way to merge them into one UI (from an interface level, not a code level) would be ideal.
> Is this is a realistic investment considering most companies don't last 100 years?
> Given that the Internet is a recent phenomenom, is it realistic to expect it to be the
> same in 100 years? Will Verisign be around that long? Does this make sense?
No, no, no and, let's see, no. The.tk domain has a plan where you can register a domain name for 9 years. That is quite a long time, IMO. Registering a domain name for 100 years is just a con to get lots of money.
SoftMaker's products are quite exelent and TextMaker was worth buying, for me. There are a number of times when OO just doesn't render a document right while TM does. Ideaily I like to have at least OO, TM & Abiword installed on any desktop I use. I used to include Applix (the best office suite there was) in this but since the company killed it it's not worth running anymore.
> Anyone else here think this could signal the beginning of a new trend in Linux distributions,
> and that XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation?
Only if we're lucky. Even if the XFree project comes to it's senses it can only be a good thing for there to be other implimentations of X available.
It is extremely difficult to have a business with family members. Not that it can't be done but there are a lot of issues that will hit you if you don't prepare for them before hand.
I had a small consulting business that was completely funded by my family. My youngest brother also did a little work. Even when things were going good there were problems that wouldn't have come up if we weren't related. When the business imploded last year it left a very large debt that ended up being attached to my mother and youngest brother as well as myself. Luckily we have a strong family bond and have always been able to get through the bad time as well as the good but this has still put a strain on the overall familial relationships.
Some suggestions I would give would be to have everything worked out in writing before you "hire" anyone. Everyone needs to know exactly where they stand and what they are getting into. Have explicate defined goals and duties and direction. These are all things that you should do for any business but where family is concerned there can be nothing left to interpretation. Nothing inferred nor implied.
Lastly, you will need to make sure that everyone is able to separate the office life from their home life. This is something that is not easy to do but it will go a long way toward keeping things from getting out of hand.
At least that's my opinion... But what do I know anyway.
As many (most?) other posts have said, you should really look into non MS options. If money is not a critical issue you would likely be best getting a Mac. Otherwise I would strongly recommend either Xandros or OEone's HomeBase. The former for people who are very used to and like the WinXX interface and the latter for people who actually want to do something on their computer.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been suggested already but using a tape recorder, or some kind of voice recording gizmo that can record more than a few seconds at a time, would be a good option. You could easily babble off thoughts and descriptions during the trip then, when you get home, take a little time to transscribe it to your blog/email/note/whatever.
> computer noise isn't a contributing factor? Is it making me want to sleep too much?
It's worth looking into but I don't think that is the problem. I'm 41 and my metabolism is definitely much slower now than when I was younger (as seen by the extra 30 pounds around my mid-section). My sleep patterns are not much different than when I was your age, though. I can't pull all-nighters anymore but I can still do the occational 3am hacking session. Most of my working life I've spent in server rooms and the whitenoise there is nearily defening. The only time I get grogy, though, is if I eat a very big lunch.
I upgraded from RH 9 to RH 10... Uh, I mean Fedora, when FC1 was released (can't wait for FC2). For all my desktop/workstation needs it fits the bill quite nicely. For my server(s) I have gone to White Box Linux but I could have just as well used Tao Linux or CentOS-3. Moving to SUSE would have been a viable option as well but I didn't need to go that far.
I've commented before when this topic has come up but am I the only one who doesn't want a silent system? The general hum is whitenoise and does a great job of helping me stay focused when at work and sleep when at home. A friend of mine recently put together a system for me and he made it as quiet as possible. I had to buy an extra case fan to get it to produce some noise.
(I don't know why there are extra speces in some of the lines but the only space should be at the end of the PS1 line between the "\W]" and the quote)
All the new CS graduate programmers around here are starting off between $22k and $25k.
If you check out OEone's HomeBase Linux distro you'll see what can be done with Mozilla. Everything in it runs with Mozilla as the desktop interface. It's increadably slick and easy to use.
I think that a web site that intends to be a "News" site should work just as hard as any print media at getting the facts. Community sites like /. should try and keep as close to factual as possible but should not necessarily be held up to the same level as serious media. Sites like Wonkette & Drudge are just personal mastabatory vehicles for their authors and shouldn't be expected to hold to any standard of factual reporting. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with these kind of sites but everyone reading then should always remember that anything published on them that is remotely close to factual is there by accedent.
And as for old kernels, 2.0.x is still being maintained.
The first car I actually bought was a brand new, just off the assembly line 1983 VW Bug (made in Mexico and not available in the States). It was a little more "hi-tech" than the ones from the 60's (it had an electronic radio instead of a manual one) but it was a tank. Nothing could stop it; it could take all kinds of abuse (and believe me I put it through all kinds of abuse); didn't care about weather, roads, anything. Hell, when the battery would die ('cause someone would constently forget to turn the headlights off) just put it in second, give it a little push and pop the clutch. Man, that was a car.
(Yes, I'm being faces... fecaci... feseecious... ah hell, you know what I mean)
While it is true that the article is useless in that the "flaws" being made are so generic they apply to every software and development model (not to mention the complete lack of any examples or data to back up the claims), that doesn't mean that we should summarily dismissed them. Here is an opportunity for the Open Source world to stick it in the face of these kind of detractors. Go through each point and try to address it. Make whatever project/app/tool we write or use just that much better instead of going on about how idiotic the original article is (and it is idiotic). Then, with real working examples in hand, address each of the "flaws" directly. Tick them off one by one, showing what we are doing to make them better. Nothing makes people more frustrated than being shown up as fools in public.
Abiword has come a long way recently so you might want to check it out again. TextMaker is very good if you want to exchange files with that other OS.
I have nothing against presentation so if a decent css (and the one the original author did isn't bad at all) is used I would not be against it. I am more concerned with the information/content/data than the presentation of same, though. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. As long as those two criteria are met then I don't really care.
Man, times does fly. I remember the reports of TMI when it happened. We were living in Germany at the time but most of my relitives live in Pittsburgh so it was of interest. I was a Junior in High School and remember thinking how it seemed everyone was all hyper and frantic when very little damage was actually done. I should go on a rant someday on the who world energy situation and how the current fossil fules are doing far more damage to the planet than a hundred TMI's. But I'm feeling quite lazy today...
I don't know if this thing will survive (I've got an Adgenda VR3 and a Vtech Helios lying around here somewhere) but it looks like a great product. I really like the "paper" thing they have. I wish I had $300 (plus shipping, etc.) to get one of them. Unfortunately I'll be lucky if I can pay rent next month.
I still miss Desqview, myself. If only... If only...
I have long felt that the differences between GNOME and KDE were miniscule at best. I'm talking about from a usability perspective. Yes, under the hood, they are vastly different, but when you look at the UI and see how they both follow the same basic way there's really little difference between them. It's good having more choices but GNOME and KDE are so much alike that they are nearily identical. Finding a way to merge them into one UI (from an interface level, not a code level) would be ideal.
> Given that the Internet is a recent phenomenom, is it realistic to expect it to be the
> same in 100 years? Will Verisign be around that long? Does this make sense?
No, no, no and, let's see, no. The .tk domain has a plan where you can register a domain name for 9 years. That is quite a long time, IMO. Registering a domain name for 100 years is just a con to get lots of money.
SoftMaker's products are quite exelent and TextMaker was worth buying, for me. There are a number of times when OO just doesn't render a document right while TM does. Ideaily I like to have at least OO, TM & Abiword installed on any desktop I use. I used to include Applix (the best office suite there was) in this but since the company killed it it's not worth running anymore.
> and that XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation?
Only if we're lucky. Even if the XFree project comes to it's senses it can only be a good thing for there to be other implimentations of X available.
I had a small consulting business that was completely funded by my family. My youngest brother also did a little work. Even when things were going good there were problems that wouldn't have come up if we weren't related. When the business imploded last year it left a very large debt that ended up being attached to my mother and youngest brother as well as myself. Luckily we have a strong family bond and have always been able to get through the bad time as well as the good but this has still put a strain on the overall familial relationships.
Some suggestions I would give would be to have everything worked out in writing before you "hire" anyone. Everyone needs to know exactly where they stand and what they are getting into. Have explicate defined goals and duties and direction. These are all things that you should do for any business but where family is concerned there can be nothing left to interpretation. Nothing inferred nor implied.
Lastly, you will need to make sure that everyone is able to separate the office life from their home life. This is something that is not easy to do but it will go a long way toward keeping things from getting out of hand.
At least that's my opinion... But what do I know anyway.
Kinda makes me think they should have stuck with the LGPL. Not that I don't understand why they went to GPL (it's all about the Benjamin's).
As many (most?) other posts have said, you should really look into non MS options. If money is not a critical issue you would likely be best getting a Mac. Otherwise I would strongly recommend either Xandros or OEone's HomeBase. The former for people who are very used to and like the WinXX interface and the latter for people who actually want to do something on their computer.
As for alien, it's a common tool that's been available for years.