you obviously haven't seen six degrees of separatoin. while smith is popular for his less than dramatic roles, he is a good actor, and he's also a pretty bright guy.
i'm also a big fan of asimov, and i think smith could easily take on a role in i, robot.
let's see it was in the evening, so it might have been on his own time. i worked on it in the evening because i also had a job. he worked for nasa and then started his own company. perhaps it was tax dollars helping me...
he might be trying to say that 20% of the servers on the internet are running linux and the nic's in them use his code. i didnt know cisco was big in the server market.
why don't you compare the volume of support that microsoft handles with the volume handled by the open source community, and then compare turnaround time on problem reports, and finally compare cost.
frankly, i would expect the community to pick up the slack. the open nature of linux allows people not working directly with the organization writing the code to discover bugs and provide patches. as a result you get a more robust product.
local lugs do alot to help users. the one here in pittsburgh holds installfests every two months, and has an email list which answers many of the user's questions. if they users are having problems, they are encouraged to bring their computers to the installfests and user meetings to get help trouble shooting their problems.
if linux had %95 of the market, then there would be that many more people with expirence running around who could answer questons. with this market share there would be more activity on lists and the hard problems would eventually make it up to the people who hack at the code.
the example i listed above was one of the few examples of a problem i was having that i could not solve after a bit of searching on the net.
an hour on the phone with microsoft trying to debug my problem would have cost me $50 to $150 and my problem still wouldnt have been fixed. they would have gladly taken my money and told me that it was a problem with the venders driver.
i used to work for a computer store and this was the treatment i recieved from microsoft when i had similar problems. they would never say that i was encountering a bug in windows.
did you sign up to the mailing lists and ask them? http://us2.samba.org/samba/archives.html
it looks like they've had a list for nt domains since 1998: http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/samba-ntdo m/
i've never had a problem with samba, but i've also never tried to set it up as a pdc.
since you asked where the giant support base is here are some resources to get you started:
usenet is a great place to find answers to your questions: http://groups.google.com
if you are trying to do something new, there are many different types of documentation available. these are collectively held at the linux documentation project
you might also want to check to see if your area has a linux users group. you can get more info about that here:
if you are willing to pay for information then you can do that too. if you're using redhat, they offer support. if you purchase redhat you get a certain amount of free support, but i'm not sure how much that costs.
well the original article was about tco of running linux as a server, and not really aimed at developers.
one thing to not about Free software is that the support base from the community is huge. as a result when you are having problems there are many more resources available for you online than there are for proprietary software. also people developing Free software are more likely to admit bugs and problems with their system than those who close their source to the public.
my own personal expirences have shown that developers in the linux community are more likely to respond to you personally than those from say microsoft. take for example a problem i was having with a network card. i was getting strange errors in syslog and i wasnt sure what they ment. i poked around on the net and i couldnt figure out what was wrong. in a last ditch effort i emailed donald becker. perhaps you've heard of him, he writes most of the linux network interface drivers and he came up with a little clustering concept called beowulf.
well i emailed him with the problem i was having, and do you know what he did? he didn't ask me for money, or a credit card number, or a beer. he emailed me source code for a diagnostic program. i emailed the results back. this continued for a couple hours and eventually we determined that the nic was bad. oh did i mention that he responded to my initial query within an hour?
now i ask you, if i emailed support@microsoft.com and asked them for help with my nic do you think the guy who wrote the network card drivers for windows would respond to me personally within an hour to work out my problem for free? this is the difference between support costs in windows and linux. you might not appreciate them, but i do.
Most companies consider their internal IT applications to be Intellectual Property which is used as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. You do not want your business competitors to get a hold of your internal apps and make money off of your development efforts. From the company's prespective, there is nothing to gain, and everything to lose.
speaking in terms of the gpl: if you extend a gpled product for internal use, you dont have to relaease the source. this is because the software is being used internally and thus not being distributed. because the applications are being used internally, your competitors wont have this advantage.
you could think of it that way, or you could consider in a different light. if you can save the company $n dollars by extending an opensource program then it's worth it to the company. say for example company Y is thinking about buying proprietary software package P for $m dollars. now say there is a gpled alternative that could be adapted by hireing a programmer for $t. if $t $m then you would be saving the company $m-$t dollars.
this is a very simplified example, but i think you get the point. this might not work for all software, but there is a large amount of free software available which can costs significantly less to adapt than the comerical alternatives.
Your wrong, when you first purchase the game, you get the first month free.
i believe the parent was referring to the initial purchase of the game, which i presume is not free. i believe he was trying to convey something along the lines of:
when he purchased the game, he made no agreements other than i give you $n and you give me this game. once he got home, put the game in the computer, and started playing it placed a set of terms in front of him. at this point he can indeed click i disagree, but then he's pretty much up the creek since the store wont take the opened game back.
if the eula was given to the guy at the store, and he was allowed to inspect it, then he signed his name on a piece of paper saying that he accepted the terms in the eula, then i could see your point.
he could of course not sign up for the online service. i dont play evercrack, but as i understand it there is no offline play, except at ebay of course;).
since the game is sold exclusively for online play and the terms are not stated at the time of purchase, i really dont think this guy has any further obligations than those he agreed to during the initial purchase.
of course i'm not a lawyer, and i dont suspect you are either.
Re:i don't think you're getting the point.
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Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 1
i would tend to agree that the habits of your average slashdotter dont translate well to the public at this time. i do expect this to change with time. as people become more familar with the internet and what it has to offer their use will expand.
it is possible that people will just download music and not pay for it. it really depends on the numbers, and i cannot predict that. i know i've given _normal_ people cdr's of different music and they have gone out and purchased other albums by that artist. now the artist probably didnt get the revenue from the original cdr i gave them, but they did get revenu from the other cd's my friends purchased and the added exposure.
either way i'll be happy when the corporate leaches get plucked from the artists so they can produce at their full potential.
Re:i don't think you're getting the point.
on
Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 1
When's the last time you heard a newish Prince song on commercial radio? A Greatful Dead song? A song by any artist who wasn't deepiy in the pocket of one of the majors?
i dont know, i dont listen to the radio. 90% of the new music i listen to i found first on the internet. i also buy the music if i like it. i personally think trends like this frighten the record companies, but thats just my opinion. i personally think the promotions and stuff provided by major record labels will eventually be replaced by websites run by fans.
say you like folk music. well i would imagine that someday you will find blogs like slashdot deadicated to different genres of music. you would for example find slashfolk where a group of fans who really like folk music post reviews of albums, give opinions of new artists, etc.
this is essentially what i do to find music. if i'm looking for something new, i head on over to usenet and poke around in alt.music.*. there i can find new bands, read about the ones i like, etc.
it will take a while, but as this method of self promotion takes hold, the artist will eventually see that the record labels have outlived a large part of their usefulness.
i actually do listen to the radio, but i mainly listen to npr. most of the other stations have nothing worthwhile to listen to. when i'm in the car with someone listening to the radio and i hear something like: "here's the latest from system of a down" at this point i ask, wasnt this the latest from system of a down 5 months ago?
you: Nevertheless, for the previously-stated reasons, I expect the record industry to survive, just in somewhat diminished form.
me: it's not that the publishers and record producers will go out of business. it's that they stand to make alot less money. i believe that is what frightens them.
so i guess we agree on the end result, it's just that the path taken will be different. i would really expect there to be multiple reasons for the diminishing of the audio and text publishing industries, i'm simply providing one which i'm expirencing first hand.
Re:Maybe people just aren't buying music
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Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 1
Borders still has to transfer 300MB per full CD (assuming lossless compression averaging 2:1) for infrequently requested CDs. This may not yet be feasible
actually satallite access like direct tv would be good for this. the problem as i understand it with using a satallite service is that it has a high latency. with something like this it wouldnt really matter, all you would have to do would be to initialize the transmission. it might take a second or so then once the data started coming, it would come pretty fast.
i don't think you're getting the point.
on
Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 1
at least i thought the point he was trying to make was that you could still purchase the music from the artist instead of the middle man. so you, i mean your friend, would still be able to buy the cd. the difference is that it would cost you, i mean your friend, less and the artist would make more.
i too have a friend that likes music and i, i mean he, has been know to download music so that i, i mean he, could find new music;).
with respect to libraries, imagine walking into kinkos with a cdr, putting it into a computer, and having a bound copy of a book you just bought from some authors website for $1.00 printed for $2.00. i would imagine thoughts like that really freak out publishers.
it's not that the publishers and record producers will go out of business. it's that they stand to make alot less money. i believe that is what frightens them.
Re:It can be slowed down...
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Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 2, Interesting
When some large regional buys the isp that provides services you want to purchase where will you go? Did you notice all the DSL providers who were not former Bells going under? Did you hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth as cable company buyouts removed services people were using?
thats fine. if the best i can get is 56k, then why have dsl? why not cut the $60 extra a month and use a modem? i mean really, do you expect people to keep paying for dsl when they are not really _getting_ it-it being the advantage of faster transfer rates.
i dont think any of the dsl providers can afford to piss off a large number of their clients. not even the big ones. if the big ones piss off enough people, then smaller providers will spring into being-market forces and all.
maby i'll go back to isdn:).
Re:It can be slowed down...
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Cringely on P2P
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· Score: 2, Informative
In order to have P2P there has to be at least one person serving the data... it doesn't matter what port it's on if all the packets outbound are capped at 56k then P2P will collapse.
if the isp capped my outbound traffic, then they wouldnt be fulfilling my terms of service for dsl.
In fact, lots of ISPs would love to implement NAT just to avoid the hefty costs involved in having a stable of real IP addresses for their users. Implementing NAT would be an easy way to give all users a static IP (cross-checked against MAC address) and just turn down the bandwidth of those users who overuse what they pay for.
well they can cap my upload speed at 128kb, since that is what i'm paying for. if i'm using 128kb up and they turn it down, i will just cancel and move over to stargate. they do this enough and they will loose alot of money. plus they will open them selves up to a class action suit since they were contracted to provide A and failed to provide A.
this isnt whining. i'm simply paying for a service. if the choose not to provide it, i will move on to someone else.
cheap bytes has a copy of "pink tie" linux which is the redhat iso's burned to disc for you. these cost $7.00 and you can install them on as many computers as you want:
if you are in the united states, it looks like shipping is $5.00. so you can essentially get redhat for $12.00 for as many computers as you want. if you have some friends you can each chipin and bring the cost down to $4.00 per person. while this cost is greater than zero, to businesses this is what would be called essentially zero.
if you are unfamilar with the ftp sites tree i would suggest you use the "ls" and "cd" commands to find the file you want. there is no difference between clicking on a directory in ie and 'cd dirname' in ftp. you are essentially doing the same thing.
for example if you ftp to mozilla:
ftp ftp.mozilla.org look in pub then look in mozilla and next releases you will find: "/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2b"
i've never ftp'ed to mozilla before and this took about a 45 seconds. at this point you can download mozilla without much trouble. learning how to navigate ftp sites with the commandline is not that hard and can be a useful thing to understand when you are stuck with computers lacking other software you are familar with.
Then how did you download FTP Explorer or some other graphical FTP client for Windows? Or did you really try to navigate the structure of Mozilla's FTP site with the Windows command-line FTP program?
whenever i have to ftp files, i normally use the command line ftp program. the default client in windows isn't the best but at least it is consistent.
it's really not that hard.
c:\> ftp host.com type some login stuff here.
use commands like "ls" and "cd" to find the file you want. then type "bin" to set the transfer mode and then type "get filename". the commands "ls", "cd", "bin", and "get" will enable you to sit down in front of any windows machine and use the same program. it's easier for me to do this than it is to poke through the different menus to find some graphical ftp client that might be installed. once you are used to it, it's easier than ie-at least for me.
Well, anyway there should be an option "never connect to a host other than the one I typed in the url".
while this might sound nice, some websites like say slashdot have servers specifically for images. so eventhough i went to http://www.slashdot.org the little slashdot logo comes from a different domain. http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicsl ashdot.gi f
if you dont need images, use lynx for most of your needs. that should disable most advanced features webpages use these days.
After running Windows and using Outlook or Outlook express for years now, I have yet to be infected with a worm or virus. I don't even have any anti-virus installed most of the time.
while one way to know if you have a worm or have been infected with a virus is to wait for it to tell you, this method isnt the most pragmatic way of handeling such issues. most viri and worms dont announce their presence because this act would limit their effectivenss.
if you are using a networked computer, eg on the internet, and do not take a proactive approach to security, then you are not only doing yourself a disservice. if you are running windows, then you really should consider running antivirus software in the background. also you might want to consider signing up to some type of security notification mailing lists for windows. i dont know of any but they have to exsist. this way you will know when the next problem hits.
you can stand by your expirence and that is fine. i've had plenty of expirence with both windows and linux. i've installed both on a large variety of hardware and i've managed both in a network sense. after reading quite a bit and figuring out the nuances of both, i can say from my expirence and research that linux is by far easier to install and configure.
If you can install Linux in 15 minutes, then I am impressed. And my normal maintainance time per week is NOTHING. I don't have to do anything to keep it running. If I do install something from WindowsUpdate, and it does require a reboot, it takes less than 90 seconds until everything is up and running again.
you can install the windows equivalent in 15 minutes. if you want to install _everything_ it takes about 45 minutes over the network. when i say everything i mean everything: openoffice, servers (database, web, ftp, ssh, etc.), window managers, octave, gimp, tetex, etc. this has been my expirence with redhat.
if your normal maintainance time per week is NOTHING then perhaps your computer is one of the many windows machines trying to infect my computer with one of those windows worms (nimda, code red, etc). i wouldnt expect you to know since the amount of time you spend per week is _NOTHING_. honestly, if you are not updating your computer, then you do have problems. while windows isn't perfect, neither is linux. as a result both have to be maintained.
it's fairly easy in linux and i've automated updating with perl+ssh, so i can update all of the computers with one command for free. when i worked with windows computers, i was never able to do this. things may have changed, but they took too long for me.
i gave up on windows after i reinstalled it four times in one weekend. i plunked linux down that weekend on the same computer and havent turned back. if windows works for you then great, but it's simply not worth it for me.
i have. i've written my senator and my congress critter twice. my senator voted for and the congressman voted against the respetive bills giving the president a blank check to kill the man keeping him from the second largest oil supply in the world.
i'll also be donating to the eff next month. i think people willing to donating to the eff are more likely to be contacting their people in washington.
the first "F" stands for frontier as in the "electronic frontier foundation". did you think it stood for "free"? dont be confused any longer. visit their website and see for youself. http://www.eff.org/
Slashdot Mirror
you obviously haven't seen six degrees of separatoin. while smith is popular for his less than dramatic roles, he is a good actor, and he's also a pretty bright guy.
i'm also a big fan of asimov, and i think smith could easily take on a role in i, robot.
let's see it was in the evening, so it might have been on his own time. i worked on it in the evening because i also had a job. he worked for nasa and then started his own company. perhaps it was tax dollars helping me...
he might be trying to say that 20% of the servers on the internet are running linux and the nic's in them use his code. i didnt know cisco was big in the server market.
why don't you compare the volume of support that microsoft handles with the volume handled by the open source community, and then compare turnaround time on problem reports, and finally compare cost.
frankly, i would expect the community to pick up the slack. the open nature of linux allows people not working directly with the organization writing the code to discover bugs and provide patches. as a result you get a more robust product.
local lugs do alot to help users. the one here in pittsburgh holds installfests every two months, and has an email list which answers many of the user's questions. if they users are having problems, they are encouraged to bring their computers to the installfests and user meetings to get help trouble shooting their problems.
if linux had %95 of the market, then there would be that many more people with expirence running around who could answer questons. with this market share there would be more activity on lists and the hard problems would eventually make it up to the people who hack at the code.
the example i listed above was one of the few examples of a problem i was having that i could not solve after a bit of searching on the net.
an hour on the phone with microsoft trying to debug my problem would have cost me $50 to $150 and my problem still wouldnt have been fixed. they would have gladly taken my money and told me that it was a problem with the venders driver.
i used to work for a computer store and this was the treatment i recieved from microsoft when i had similar problems. they would never say that i was encountering a bug in windows.
did you sign up to the mailing lists and ask them?
o m/
g ww.counter.li.org/
http://us2.samba.org/samba/archives.html
it looks like they've had a list for nt domains since 1998:
http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/samba-ntd
i've never had a problem with samba, but i've also never tried to set it up as a pdc.
since you asked where the giant support base is here are some resources to get you started:
usenet is a great place to find answers to your questions:
http://groups.google.com
if you are trying to do something new, there are many different types of documentation available. these are collectively held at the linux documentation project
you might also want to check to see if your area has a linux users group. you can get more info about that here:
http://www.ssc.com:8080/glue/groups/
http://lu
if you are willing to pay for information then you can do that too. if you're using redhat, they offer support. if you purchase redhat you get a certain amount of free support, but i'm not sure how much that costs.
well the original article was about tco of running linux as a server, and not really aimed at developers.
one thing to not about Free software is that the support base from the community is huge. as a result when you are having problems there are many more resources available for you online than there are for proprietary software. also people developing Free software are more likely to admit bugs and problems with their system than those who close their source to the public.
my own personal expirences have shown that developers in the linux community are more likely to respond to you personally than those from say microsoft. take for example a problem i was having with a network card. i was getting strange errors in syslog and i wasnt sure what they ment. i poked around on the net and i couldnt figure out what was wrong. in a last ditch effort i emailed donald becker. perhaps you've heard of him, he writes most of the linux network interface drivers and he came up with a little clustering concept called beowulf.
well i emailed him with the problem i was having, and do you know what he did? he didn't ask me for money, or a credit card number, or a beer. he emailed me source code for a diagnostic program. i emailed the results back. this continued for a couple hours and eventually we determined that the nic was bad. oh did i mention that he responded to my initial query within an hour?
now i ask you, if i emailed support@microsoft.com and asked them for help with my nic do you think the guy who wrote the network card drivers for windows would respond to me personally within an hour to work out my problem for free? this is the difference between support costs in windows and linux. you might not appreciate them, but i do.
Most companies consider their internal IT applications to be Intellectual Property which is used as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. You do not want your business competitors to get a hold of your internal apps and make money off of your development efforts. From the company's prespective, there is nothing to gain, and everything to lose.
speaking in terms of the gpl: if you extend a gpled product for internal use, you dont have to relaease the source. this is because the software is being used internally and thus not being distributed. because the applications are being used internally, your competitors wont have this advantage.
you could think of it that way, or you could consider in a different light. if you can save the company $n dollars by extending an opensource program then it's worth it to the company. say for example company Y is thinking about buying proprietary software package P for $m dollars. now say there is a gpled alternative that could be adapted by hireing a programmer for $t. if $t $m then you would be saving the company $m-$t dollars.
this is a very simplified example, but i think you get the point. this might not work for all software, but there is a large amount of free software available which can costs significantly less to adapt than the comerical alternatives.
Your wrong, when you first purchase the game, you get the first month free.
;).
i believe the parent was referring to the initial purchase of the game, which i presume is not free. i believe he was trying to convey something along the lines of:
when he purchased the game, he made no agreements other than i give you $n and you give me this game. once he got home, put the game in the computer, and started playing it placed a set of terms in front of him. at this point he can indeed click i disagree, but then he's pretty much up the creek since the store wont take the opened game back.
if the eula was given to the guy at the store, and he was allowed to inspect it, then he signed his name on a piece of paper saying that he accepted the terms in the eula, then i could see your point.
he could of course not sign up for the online service. i dont play evercrack, but as i understand it there is no offline play, except at ebay of course
since the game is sold exclusively for online play and the terms are not stated at the time of purchase, i really dont think this guy has any further obligations than those he agreed to during the initial purchase.
of course i'm not a lawyer, and i dont suspect you are either.
i would tend to agree that the habits of your average slashdotter dont translate well to the public at this time. i do expect this to change with time. as people become more familar with the internet and what it has to offer their use will expand.
it is possible that people will just download music and not pay for it. it really depends on the numbers, and i cannot predict that. i know i've given _normal_ people cdr's of different music and they have gone out and purchased other albums by that artist. now the artist probably didnt get the revenue from the original cdr i gave them, but they did get revenu from the other cd's my friends purchased and the added exposure.
either way i'll be happy when the corporate leaches get plucked from the artists so they can produce at their full potential.
When's the last time you heard a newish Prince song on commercial radio? A Greatful Dead song? A song by any artist who wasn't deepiy in the pocket of one of the majors?
i dont know, i dont listen to the radio. 90% of the new music i listen to i found first on the internet. i also buy the music if i like it. i personally think trends like this frighten the record companies, but thats just my opinion. i personally think the promotions and stuff provided by major record labels will eventually be replaced by websites run by fans.
say you like folk music. well i would imagine that someday you will find blogs like slashdot deadicated to different genres of music. you would for example find slashfolk where a group of fans who really like folk music post reviews of albums, give opinions of new artists, etc.
this is essentially what i do to find music. if i'm looking for something new, i head on over to usenet and poke around in alt.music.*. there i can find new bands, read about the ones i like, etc.
it will take a while, but as this method of self promotion takes hold, the artist will eventually see that the record labels have outlived a large part of their usefulness.
i actually do listen to the radio, but i mainly listen to npr. most of the other stations have nothing worthwhile to listen to. when i'm in the car with someone listening to the radio and i hear something like: "here's the latest from system of a down" at this point i ask, wasnt this the latest from system of a down 5 months ago?
you:
Nevertheless, for the previously-stated reasons, I expect the record industry to survive, just in somewhat diminished form.
me:
it's not that the publishers and record producers will go out of business. it's that they stand to make alot less money. i believe that is what frightens them.
so i guess we agree on the end result, it's just that the path taken will be different. i would really expect there to be multiple reasons for the diminishing of the audio and text publishing industries, i'm simply providing one which i'm expirencing first hand.
Borders still has to transfer 300MB per full CD (assuming lossless compression averaging 2:1) for infrequently requested CDs. This may not yet be feasible
actually satallite access like direct tv would be good for this. the problem as i understand it with using a satallite service is that it has a high latency. with something like this it wouldnt really matter, all you would have to do would be to initialize the transmission. it might take a second or so then once the data started coming, it would come pretty fast.
at least i thought the point he was trying to make was that you could still purchase the music from the artist instead of the middle man. so you, i mean your friend, would still be able to buy the cd. the difference is that it would cost you, i mean your friend, less and the artist would make more.
;).
i too have a friend that likes music and i, i mean he, has been know to download music so that i, i mean he, could find new music
with respect to libraries, imagine walking into kinkos with a cdr, putting it into a computer, and having a bound copy of a book you just bought from some authors website for $1.00 printed for $2.00. i would imagine thoughts like that really freak out publishers.
it's not that the publishers and record producers will go out of business. it's that they stand to make alot less money. i believe that is what frightens them.
When some large regional buys the isp that provides services you want to purchase where will you go? Did you notice all the DSL providers who were not former Bells going under? Did you hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth as cable company buyouts removed services people were using?
:).
thats fine. if the best i can get is 56k, then why have dsl? why not cut the $60 extra a month and use a modem? i mean really, do you expect people to keep paying for dsl when they are not really _getting_ it-it being the advantage of faster transfer rates.
i dont think any of the dsl providers can afford to piss off a large number of their clients. not even the big ones. if the big ones piss off enough people, then smaller providers will spring into being-market forces and all.
maby i'll go back to isdn
In order to have P2P there has to be at least one person serving the data... it doesn't matter what port it's on if all the packets outbound are capped at 56k then P2P will collapse.
if the isp capped my outbound traffic, then they wouldnt be fulfilling my terms of service for dsl.
In fact, lots of ISPs would love to implement NAT just to avoid the hefty costs involved in having a stable of real IP addresses for their users. Implementing NAT would be an easy way to give all users a static IP (cross-checked against MAC address) and just turn down the bandwidth of those users who overuse what they pay for.
well they can cap my upload speed at 128kb, since that is what i'm paying for. if i'm using 128kb up and they turn it down, i will just cancel and move over to stargate. they do this enough and they will loose alot of money. plus they will open them selves up to a class action suit since they were contracted to provide A and failed to provide A.
this isnt whining. i'm simply paying for a service. if the choose not to provide it, i will move on to someone else.
cheap bytes has a copy of "pink tie" linux which is the redhat iso's burned to disc for you. these cost $7.00 and you can install them on as many computers as you want:
pink tie
if you are in the united states, it looks like shipping is $5.00. so you can essentially get redhat for $12.00 for as many computers as you want. if you have some friends you can each chipin and bring the cost down to $4.00 per person. while this cost is greater than zero, to businesses this is what would be called essentially zero.
if you are unfamilar with the ftp sites tree i would suggest you use the "ls" and "cd" commands to find the file you want. there is no difference between clicking on a directory in ie and 'cd dirname' in ftp. you are essentially doing the same thing.
for example if you ftp to mozilla:
ftp ftp.mozilla.org
look in pub then look in mozilla and next releases you will find:
"/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2b"
i've never ftp'ed to mozilla before and this took about a 45 seconds. at this point you can download mozilla without much trouble. learning how to navigate ftp sites with the commandline is not that hard and can be a useful thing to understand when you are stuck with computers lacking other software you are familar with.
Then how did you download FTP Explorer or some other graphical FTP client for Windows? Or did you really try to navigate the structure of Mozilla's FTP site with the Windows command-line FTP program?
whenever i have to ftp files, i normally use the command line ftp program. the default client in windows isn't the best but at least it is consistent.
it's really not that hard.
c:\> ftp host.com
type some login stuff here.
use commands like "ls" and "cd" to find the file you want. then type "bin" to set the transfer mode and then type "get filename". the commands "ls", "cd", "bin", and "get" will enable you to sit down in front of any windows machine and use the same program. it's easier for me to do this than it is to poke through the different menus to find some graphical ftp client that might be installed. once you are used to it, it's easier than ie-at least for me.
Well, anyway there should be an option "never connect to a host other than the one I typed in the url".
l ashdot.gi f
while this might sound nice, some websites like say slashdot have servers specifically for images. so eventhough i went to http://www.slashdot.org the little slashdot logo comes from a different domain.
http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topics
if you dont need images, use lynx for most of your needs. that should disable most advanced features webpages use these days.
from what i've read you just have to delete the icons ;)
After running Windows and using Outlook or Outlook express for years now, I have yet to be infected with a worm or virus. I don't even have any anti-virus installed most of the time.
while one way to know if you have a worm or have been infected with a virus is to wait for it to tell you, this method isnt the most pragmatic way of handeling such issues. most viri and worms dont announce their presence because this act would limit their effectivenss.
if you are using a networked computer, eg on the internet, and do not take a proactive approach to security, then you are not only doing yourself a disservice. if you are running windows, then you really should consider running antivirus software in the background. also you might want to consider signing up to some type of security notification mailing lists for windows. i dont know of any but they have to exsist. this way you will know when the next problem hits.
you can stand by your expirence and that is fine. i've had plenty of expirence with both windows and linux. i've installed both on a large variety of hardware and i've managed both in a network sense. after reading quite a bit and figuring out the nuances of both, i can say from my expirence and research that linux is by far easier to install and configure.
If you can install Linux in 15 minutes, then I am impressed. And my normal maintainance time per week is NOTHING. I don't have to do anything to keep it running. If I do install something from WindowsUpdate, and it does require a reboot, it takes less than 90 seconds until everything is up and running again.
you can install the windows equivalent in 15 minutes. if you want to install _everything_ it takes about 45 minutes over the network. when i say everything i mean everything: openoffice, servers (database, web, ftp, ssh, etc.), window managers, octave, gimp, tetex, etc. this has been my expirence with redhat.
if your normal maintainance time per week is NOTHING then perhaps your computer is one of the many windows machines trying to infect my computer with one of those windows worms (nimda, code red, etc). i wouldnt expect you to know since the amount of time you spend per week is _NOTHING_. honestly, if you are not updating your computer, then you do have problems. while windows isn't perfect, neither is linux. as a result both have to be maintained.
it's fairly easy in linux and i've automated updating with perl+ssh, so i can update all of the computers with one command for free. when i worked with windows computers, i was never able to do this. things may have changed, but they took too long for me.
i gave up on windows after i reinstalled it four times in one weekend. i plunked linux down that weekend on the same computer and havent turned back. if windows works for you then great, but it's simply not worth it for me.
i have. i've written my senator and my congress critter twice. my senator voted for and the congressman voted against the respetive bills giving the president a blank check to kill the man keeping him from the second largest oil supply in the world.
i'll also be donating to the eff next month. i think people willing to donating to the eff are more likely to be contacting their people in washington.
Personally, I'm working on a system to create new copyright-free textbooks to be used as an alternative to copyrighted ones.
this sounds cool. if you would like help send me an email. i've been toying around with writing a math text, and i'm pretty good with latex.
the first "F" stands for frontier as in the "electronic frontier foundation". did you think it stood for "free"? dont be confused any longer. visit their website and see for youself.
http://www.eff.org/