I'd like to applaud the method the KDE team uses, releasing maintenance releases that focus on fixing bugs and improving stability.
I've seen too many patches and fixes that insist in introducing new components or functionality at the same time as a fix. The separation of "fix" and "feature" is a critical one for minimizing the number of new bugs introduced.
While KDE is by no means the only project where this is practiced, they are a big one and it is a method that should be praised and emulated whenever possible.
I can go around RH Update and update any piece of software I choose without them. If I need to, I can recompile the kernel or get the source from the original author.
I can't do that with Windows Update -- they are a sole source provider.
Actually, Red Hat frequently lags in some patches -- especially with KDE, etc. That is why about 10% of my software that was originally installed with RH9 has been replaced with my own updates. RH was taking too long. (Testing, and all that. Chickens!)
Is this something that could be addressed by a microcode update? I've always wondered about exactly what can be done with the Kernel support for microcode updates.
On a side note -- who exactly didn't expect something like this? Intel has a history of this sort of thing -- from the 80486DX not being able to add properly, and IBM having to halt shipments of PS/2 machines; to the Pentium F00F bug and others. Buying first run Intel chips is like playing dice with your business. Give them a few production runs to work out the bugs...
Not knowing who the hell "Sammy" was, the first thing that popped into my mind was a technician I used to work with. I was thinking "either he's really come up in life, or Sega is REALLY getting desparate!"
For some reason, watching 4:3 shows on my 16:9 screen looks a hell of a lot better with the non-linear stretch than watching squished 16:9 on a 4:3 TV -- where everyone looks too thin.
Everyone does NOT look fat on my widescreen. The Mitsubishi HDs have a couple of different settings for handling it. "Stretched" DOES make everyone look fat, and "zoomed" makes me lose a small amount of the actual picture but fills the screen. "Letterbox" give a reverse letterbox, with black vertical stripes on the sides but "Normal" fills the screen and everything looks proper.
Actually, my bitch is with WIDESCREEN DVDs. Not all widescreen film is 16:9 and I frequently have thin black bars on the top and bottom. The size varies depending on what film it is and what aspect they used. It irritates me though.
You can't transparently cache, but you can set up an SUS server and point your clients at it. Software Update Services FAQ [microsoft.com]. I don't think it costs anything (beyond the cost of a Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server), and I don't see anywhere that it says you can only use it in a business... Wouldn't that work?
No, this is Microsoft. They want your MONEY, so it isn't that simple. The main reason is it doesn't work with XP Home, only XP Professional. [Note: This is according the the website FAQ. It places lots of emphasis on "Professional" and not once mentions "Home".]
What the hell does affording expensive connections have to do with it? Your ISP provides you with an SMTP connection -- use that! Relay thru that! Why do you have to run your own SMTP server? That's a pretty elitest thing to do.
When you are talking about relability are you just meaning the core set of switches etc. As I can't think of anyway that you could easily make the end PC easily redundant short of having two networks cards etc. Though I suppose if everything is on the server you could just swap the PC and be up and running again in a few minutes
Most of the problems I have had with PC LANs wasn't hardware related, it was software. Most desktop, office PCs don't need the latest 3D graphics card, 3 GHz CPU and mega hard drive to run the standard suite: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Visio, Project, Access, IE (or their equivalents). [Okay, okay -- you might. But you *shouldn't* if they weren't so damn bloated!]
A fanless CPU like the VIA C3, the ulta low power Celerons, the Crusoe, etc. combined with something like the S3 3D chipset on the motherboard, 5.1 sound, 256+ Mb RAM and no drives would make for a small, quiet, low-heat system. Fast or Gigabit Ethernet on the motherboard. No drives mean no local saves (against policy at my last employer -- no data on C:!), no backup nightmares, and the profile is tied to the server. If it breaks, drop another unit in and you're ready to go!
Laptops and engineering workstations need to be handled separately, of course but those are usually in the minority. This wouldn't be a "1 size fits all" plan, but more like "1 size fits most".
Because when the network is down you are down, regardless.
Many business, like manufacturing, are so connected to computers that if the computer network goes down then business grinds to a halt.
I've worked in this type of place. It isn't as tough as you think, considering they only worked 2 shifts, leaving 8 hours for maintenance, etc. It isn't 24x7 but more like 16x5.
The biggest issues were desktop apps having problems. Amazing how much that stuff freezes and crashes when people *insist* on having Outlook, IE, Word, Excel, an SNA client (TN 3270) and possibly a CAD viewer (java applet) and maybe an MS Access database or two running all at once.
Believe it or not, Sun has the right idea. Build the network so that it is so reliable it makes the phone and power companies look like slackers. Then move 90+% of the apps back upstream to a professionally-managed & maintained server.
Sorry, I have no clue what you are talking about here.
I was talking about the OEM requirement taht all PCs that were sold by the major retailers included MS Windows, regardless of whether it was a "business" or "consumer" sale.
I've built so many PCs that I've lost count. Personally, I still prefer to do it that way. However, 20 a day is nothing compared to the volumes that the big players like Dell, Gateway, Micron, CompUSA and others sell.
Yes, I know that now you can get a PC how you want it from most of the big players. I was talking about pre-2000 when referring to the sales practices of the retail stores.
And again, the OEM agreements cover more than you seem to think. They cover such things as the rights to modify the boot sector; mandates uniform treatment of OEMs allowing for volume discounts but not much else; API and communications protocol documentation release; all the bundling and middleware details.
Those are companies, not users. Not people. Does your illicit use of capital letters make you think your point is more valid? Microsoft did what it did to saturate the market, and they did it well. The Anti-trust cases are not for the vendors that they bullied, but for the inclusion of other software into their operating system, if you recall.
Not quite correct. The MS Windows requirements were for *all* users, business or personal. MS Works was pre-loaded for personal while MS Office was pre-loaded for business. The only place you would have been able to get a PC without Windows, short of building one yourself, would be an Mac reseller and a very few whitebox dealers. No retail store -- CompUSA, Circuit City, Frys, etc. -- would sell a PC without Windows.
As far as airline revenue... what you quoted was gross income. The industry is looking at posting a $3+ Billion loss for the first quarter of 2003. US just emerged from bankruptcy, UAL is still there and American is looking like filing. Those numbers you quoted don't mean anything when you factor in massive debts, impending/existing bankruptcy and staggering losses. MS probably *could* buy them out -- but would then lose money just as fast and go broke just as fast.
The whole point was the massive amounts of cash reserves allow Microsoft unprecedented leverage in dealing with things like boycotts, lawsuits and other things. The OEMs were not in a position to do anything about the illegal tactics at the time.
And the court findings were more than just bundling. The also covered using one monopoly (Operating Systems) to leverage a product into another monopoly (Browser, Office Suite). OEM agreements were a big part of the settlement.
Sorry, I'll stand by the "forced" bit. NOW, there are multiple points of supply but a few years back, there were NOT. They FORCED by means of financial threats, OEMs and vendors to sell MS Windows, MS Works and MS Office. Did you have to USE it? No. Did you have to PAY FOR IT? Yes.
As far as secure goes -- I'll accept that they are NOT proven to be unsecure. "Secure" can only be defined in context, and there are contexts that Windows can be considered "secure". Stand-alone, non-networked machine in a controlled access room is one (Win 9x/ME).
As for the $100 Billion -- my mistake. It was reported as $40+ Billion at one time. Still enough to purchase all the airline industry, or EVERY major North American sports team, or enough to outlast any boycott.
Bankrupted Microsoft? The same company with somewhere around $100 BILLION in reserves? The same company that had enough cash to by EVERY AIRLINE, twice over? With change to spare? Wrong answer. Sorry.
The law of supply and demand is absolute. There was/is enough demand that if all the major PC makers decide not to sell MS products, there will be a handful of companies created overnight to fill the void. The deman is there -- a supply WILL be found.
You've GOT to be kidding? If you were running desktops or small workstations, maybe. But, servers?!
Ever hot swap a CPU on a SMP PC? How about adding a CPU or RAM module without powering down? Hot sawp PCI? How about 4-way machines scalable to 64-way? 64+ Gb of RAM? Terabytes of storage?
PCs are only starting to be able to compete in that market, which is why Sun, IBM, and HP still sell those types of machines.
If you don't need those types of options, then PCs are fine.
Set the Wayback Machine (tm) for around 1997 and let us review Microsoft's OEM contract with Dell, Gateway, Micron, Compaq, Packard Bell, etc.
Microsoft REQUIRED those manufacturers to include a copy of Windows 95 on every machine sold, or they pay 100% for all those the do sell -- no OEM discount. Microsoft also REQUIRED them to include MS Works on all consumer purchases and MS Office on all business purchases. The machines came with "free" copies of those programs, but you could not get a discount if you didn't want them.
Prices for machines w/Wordperfect or Lotus suites were $300+ more, AND include MS Office -- no choice about it.
"Proven" by the Federal Court that determined Microsoft was indeed a monopoly and abused that position by threatening OEMs and vendors.
"Forced" by threatening to take their OS and go home -- which would basically bankrupt any of those vendors if they tried that.
As for your childish analogy of installing OS/2 Warp... that machine CAME WITH Windows before you tried to install OS/2, so MS got their money anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
But the U.S. Constitution is there to protect the wierd. The conformist and majority opinion doesn't need protection, by definition.
The basic rights apply to all -- not just the mainstream. Voodoo and animal sacrifices are just as protected as Baptists and televangilism.
I'd like to applaud the method the KDE team uses, releasing maintenance releases that focus on fixing bugs and improving stability.
I've seen too many patches and fixes that insist in introducing new components or functionality at the same time as a fix. The separation of "fix" and "feature" is a critical one for minimizing the number of new bugs introduced.
While KDE is by no means the only project where this is practiced, they are a big one and it is a method that should be praised and emulated whenever possible.
I don't care WHAT the article says, chocolate is NOT bad for you!
It's only a matter of time before Verisign decides to patent it.
Only if Amazon doesn't beat them to it!
Minitel is dead, it just doesn't know it.
There is "dead", where something ceases to exist, and "dead" where it becomes irrelevant. There is no longer innovation or growth in Minitel.
Not a troll, just incorrect.
I can go around RH Update and update any piece of software I choose without them. If I need to, I can recompile the kernel or get the source from the original author.
I can't do that with Windows Update -- they are a sole source provider.
Actually, Red Hat frequently lags in some patches -- especially with KDE, etc. That is why about 10% of my software that was originally installed with RH9 has been replaced with my own updates. RH was taking too long. (Testing, and all that. Chickens!)
Is this something that could be addressed by a microcode update? I've always wondered about exactly what can be done with the Kernel support for microcode updates.
On a side note -- who exactly didn't expect something like this? Intel has a history of this sort of thing -- from the 80486DX not being able to add properly, and IBM having to halt shipments of PS/2 machines; to the Pentium F00F bug and others. Buying first run Intel chips is like playing dice with your business. Give them a few production runs to work out the bugs...
Magnetrons are the main component of microwave ovens. Beware -- unshielded units are dangerous. You can end up sterile, or dead... or both.
-Chas
Not knowing who the hell "Sammy" was, the first thing that popped into my mind was a technician I used to work with. I was thinking "either he's really come up in life, or Sega is REALLY getting desparate!"
For some reason, watching 4:3 shows on my 16:9 screen looks a hell of a lot better with the non-linear stretch than watching squished 16:9 on a 4:3 TV -- where everyone looks too thin.
Everyone does NOT look fat on my widescreen. The Mitsubishi HDs have a couple of different settings for handling it. "Stretched" DOES make everyone look fat, and "zoomed" makes me lose a small amount of the actual picture but fills the screen. "Letterbox" give a reverse letterbox, with black vertical stripes on the sides but "Normal" fills the screen and everything looks proper.
Actually, my bitch is with WIDESCREEN DVDs. Not all widescreen film is 16:9 and I frequently have thin black bars on the top and bottom. The size varies depending on what film it is and what aspect they used. It irritates me though.
Actually, I picked up a floor model Mitsubishi HDTV widescreen (65") for $1,995 -- a far cry from $10,000.
You can get non-HD widescreens for under $1,000 now.
Actually, I only care about widescreen for movies and gaming -- both Xbox and PS2 have HD connectors and do widescreen and sometimes HD.
Surround sound Halo on a 65" HDTV is something to behold. I can't wait to pick up DOA2: Extreme Beach Vollyball! Hires rendered 3D T&A!
Shocked! Shocked, I am! I am absolutely amazed it took THIS LONG for that to actually happen.
I remember thinking "they're gonna get hacked, DOSed and generally trashed" about 10 seconds into the *original* article.
Ummm.... I'm not a C genius, but wouldn't
:. :-)
printf("Hello, World\n");
be more of a problem for them? The comma is optional, but I though those things terminated with ; and not
1. Open mouth
2. Insert foot
3. Correct the mistake
Digging further finds that it DOES work with XP Home. Still, 98 and ME users are left out, but it is a step in the right direction.
You can't transparently cache, but you can set up an SUS server and point your clients at it. Software Update Services FAQ [microsoft.com]. I don't think it costs anything (beyond the cost of a Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server), and I don't see anywhere that it says you can only use it in a business... Wouldn't that work?
No, this is Microsoft. They want your MONEY, so it isn't that simple. The main reason is it doesn't work with XP Home, only XP Professional. [Note: This is according the the website FAQ. It places lots of emphasis on "Professional" and not once mentions "Home".]
A shame -- it would have been a good idea.
What the hell does affording expensive connections have to do with it? Your ISP provides you with an SMTP connection -- use that! Relay thru that! Why do you have to run your own SMTP server? That's a pretty elitest thing to do.
Really? You just pay for connectivity? Who is your provider? I need to switch!
Of course, if you mean you didn't read your TOS and only THINK you are playing just for connectivity, then never mind.
When you are talking about relability are you just meaning the core set of switches etc. As I can't think of anyway that you could easily make the end PC easily redundant short of having two networks cards etc. Though I suppose if everything is on the server you could just swap the PC and be up and running again in a few minutes
Most of the problems I have had with PC LANs wasn't hardware related, it was software. Most desktop, office PCs don't need the latest 3D graphics card, 3 GHz CPU and mega hard drive to run the standard suite: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Visio, Project, Access, IE (or their equivalents). [Okay, okay -- you might. But you *shouldn't* if they weren't so damn bloated!]
A fanless CPU like the VIA C3, the ulta low power Celerons, the Crusoe, etc. combined with something like the S3 3D chipset on the motherboard, 5.1 sound, 256+ Mb RAM and no drives would make for a small, quiet, low-heat system. Fast or Gigabit Ethernet on the motherboard. No drives mean no local saves (against policy at my last employer -- no data on C:!), no backup nightmares, and the profile is tied to the server. If it breaks, drop another unit in and you're ready to go!
Laptops and engineering workstations need to be handled separately, of course but those are usually in the minority. This wouldn't be a "1 size fits all" plan, but more like "1 size fits most".
Because when the network is down you are down, regardless.
Many business, like manufacturing, are so connected to computers that if the computer network goes down then business grinds to a halt.
I've worked in this type of place. It isn't as tough as you think, considering they only worked 2 shifts, leaving 8 hours for maintenance, etc. It isn't 24x7 but more like 16x5.
The biggest issues were desktop apps having problems. Amazing how much that stuff freezes and crashes when people *insist* on having Outlook, IE, Word, Excel, an SNA client (TN 3270) and possibly a CAD viewer (java applet) and maybe an MS Access database or two running all at once.
Believe it or not, Sun has the right idea. Build the network so that it is so reliable it makes the phone and power companies look like slackers. Then move 90+% of the apps back upstream to a professionally-managed & maintained server.
Sorry, I have no clue what you are talking about here.
1 1- 12FinalJudgment.asp
I was talking about the OEM requirement taht all PCs that were sold by the major retailers included MS Windows, regardless of whether it was a "business" or "consumer" sale.
I've built so many PCs that I've lost count. Personally, I still prefer to do it that way. However, 20 a day is nothing compared to the volumes that the big players like Dell, Gateway, Micron, CompUSA and others sell.
Yes, I know that now you can get a PC how you want it from most of the big players. I was talking about pre-2000 when referring to the sales practices of the retail stores.
And again, the OEM agreements cover more than you seem to think. They cover such things as the rights to modify the boot sector; mandates uniform treatment of OEMs allowing for volume discounts but not much else; API and communications protocol documentation release; all the bundling and middleware details.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/nov02/
Those are companies, not users. Not people. Does your illicit use of capital letters make you think your point is more valid? Microsoft did what it did to saturate the market, and they did it well. The Anti-trust cases are not for the vendors that they bullied, but for the inclusion of other software into their operating system, if you recall.
Not quite correct. The MS Windows requirements were for *all* users, business or personal. MS Works was pre-loaded for personal while MS Office was pre-loaded for business. The only place you would have been able to get a PC without Windows, short of building one yourself, would be an Mac reseller and a very few whitebox dealers. No retail store -- CompUSA, Circuit City, Frys, etc. -- would sell a PC without Windows.
As far as airline revenue... what you quoted was gross income. The industry is looking at posting a $3+ Billion loss for the first quarter of 2003. US just emerged from bankruptcy, UAL is still there and American is looking like filing. Those numbers you quoted don't mean anything when you factor in massive debts, impending/existing bankruptcy and staggering losses. MS probably *could* buy them out -- but would then lose money just as fast and go broke just as fast.
The whole point was the massive amounts of cash reserves allow Microsoft unprecedented leverage in dealing with things like boycotts, lawsuits and other things. The OEMs were not in a position to do anything about the illegal tactics at the time.
And the court findings were more than just bundling. The also covered using one monopoly (Operating Systems) to leverage a product into another monopoly (Browser, Office Suite). OEM agreements were a big part of the settlement.
Sorry, I'll stand by the "forced" bit. NOW, there are multiple points of supply but a few years back, there were NOT. They FORCED by means of financial threats, OEMs and vendors to sell MS Windows, MS Works and MS Office. Did you have to USE it? No. Did you have to PAY FOR IT? Yes.
As far as secure goes -- I'll accept that they are NOT proven to be unsecure. "Secure" can only be defined in context, and there are contexts that Windows can be considered "secure". Stand-alone, non-networked machine in a controlled access room is one (Win 9x/ME).
As for the $100 Billion -- my mistake. It was reported as $40+ Billion at one time. Still enough to purchase all the airline industry, or EVERY major North American sports team, or enough to outlast any boycott.
Bankrupted Microsoft? The same company with somewhere around $100 BILLION in reserves? The same company that had enough cash to by EVERY AIRLINE, twice over? With change to spare? Wrong answer. Sorry.
The law of supply and demand is absolute. There was/is enough demand that if all the major PC makers decide not to sell MS products, there will be a handful of companies created overnight to fill the void. The deman is there -- a supply WILL be found.
You've GOT to be kidding? If you were running desktops or small workstations, maybe. But, servers?!
Ever hot swap a CPU on a SMP PC? How about adding a CPU or RAM module without powering down? Hot sawp PCI? How about 4-way machines scalable to 64-way? 64+ Gb of RAM? Terabytes of storage?
PCs are only starting to be able to compete in that market, which is why Sun, IBM, and HP still sell those types of machines.
If you don't need those types of options, then PCs are fine.
Set the Wayback Machine (tm) for around 1997 and let us review Microsoft's OEM contract with Dell, Gateway, Micron, Compaq, Packard Bell, etc.
Microsoft REQUIRED those manufacturers to include a copy of Windows 95 on every machine sold, or they pay 100% for all those the do sell -- no OEM discount. Microsoft also REQUIRED them to include MS Works on all consumer purchases and MS Office on all business purchases. The machines came with "free" copies of those programs, but you could not get a discount if you didn't want them.
Prices for machines w/Wordperfect or Lotus suites were $300+ more, AND include MS Office -- no choice about it.
"Proven" by the Federal Court that determined Microsoft was indeed a monopoly and abused that position by threatening OEMs and vendors.
"Forced" by threatening to take their OS and go home -- which would basically bankrupt any of those vendors if they tried that.
As for your childish analogy of installing OS/2 Warp... that machine CAME WITH Windows before you tried to install OS/2, so MS got their money anyway.