...I know I'd be calling a lawyer if they said "boo" to me about it.
Come on, something simple like that should not need the interference of a lawyer? Lawyers might have their place in society but their involvement with day-to-day live should be as minimal as possible. Call the shop manager instead and have him explain why they tell you to photograph ceiling fans in their commercials and when you then act as a gullible sheep and do exactly what their marketroids told you they start whining.
No lawyer needed. They're hardly ever needed, really. If everyone just stopped feeding them their numbers would be reduced to a tolerable level, just like you would do with pigeons in a park or rats in the inner city.
Development of the Mozilla suite has not stopped at all. The name of the project has been changed to SeaMonkey (meant to be spelled with StudlyCaps, unfortunately...) and project management has been turned over to a group of volunteers. SeaMonkey 1.0.2 (the most recent 'stable' release) is what Mozilla 1.8 would have been. There is a SeaMonkey 1.5 development series (which is quite a bit faster than 1.0.x) and a roadmap to move the whole suite to XULRunner (a move which will be made by Firefox and Thunderbird as well). I mostly use SeaMonkey now (instead of Firefox and Thunderbird, and before that Mozilla suite) because of the lower memory use and extra functionality the suite offers.
Firefox' development strategy being what it is there is not that much opportunity - other than by filing bugs - to influence priorities and design criteria.
The bug reports are there. They just happen to hang around a long time... Often the memory problems are blamed on:
extensions (but as I already said I use a clean profile (without extensions) for testing purposes)
'it is not a bug but a feature to make your browser faster'. It doesn't make it faster if it thrashes the cache...
'I never see the problem on my $_box with $_memory and $_tabs open'. Good for you. Others are less lucky.
'use the leak detector extension'. I do sometimes just to see what it warns about. It obviously does not warn about the browser hogging memory when that is considered to be a feature.
'just use about:config to change the defaults'. If that is necessary the defaults should be changed, Firefox was intended as a browser for everyone - not just the about:configging/etc/sendmail.cf grokking crowd...
I really hope the memory problems (or features if you prefer) get sorted out as Firefox has quite some momentum behind it. It would be sad to see this momentum lost because of some (mis)feature eating PCs alive...
The day Netscape released the source to Navigator I compiled it and gazed in wonder at this 'real' browser I compiled on my Linux box. I followed the development of the Mozilla project from the failed start based on the old Navigator code via the slow-starting gecko-based suite all the way to the Mozilla suite. Then, suddenly, Firefox (under one if its many names) and Thunderbird appeared. They looked more modern than the Mozilla suite and individually had slightly better performance. I started using the threesome (Firefox, Thunderbird and the suite) next to eachother. For day-to-day browsing I used Firefox, for more involving things the Mozilla suite has always been more appropriate. I have also followed the development of Firefox (and to a lesser extent Thunderbird) closely, building local versions, testing nightlies, etc.
But... my experiences with the latest iterations of Firefox (both the 1.5 series as well as the 2 and 3 development series) have left much to desire. The biggest complaint is the incredible amount of memory the browser consumes - even without any extensions (errr.. Add Ons... Change the name only because Microsoft copies the feature under a different name...?) and with a clean profile. If a browser manages to bring a 2 Ghz system with 768 MB to its knees in a mere half hour of browsing there is something wrong. Unfortunately this often-heard complaint does not seem to get the attention it deserves. Firefox' development strategy being what it is there is not that much opportunity - other than by filing bugs - to influence priorities and design criteria.
So... lately I have switched more and more from using Firefox/Thunderbird to using the Seamonkey suite - the successor to the Mozilla suite. It still feels a bit more dated than Firefox and Thunderbird but it does offer much more in features while having a much smaller memory footprint. Add the Seafox theme and it looks quite a bit like Firefox/Thunderbird.
The way things look now I think Seamonkey will be my browser and mail app of preference. Should Firefox and Thunderbird ever run on top of XULrunner I might switch back but for now I have better things to do with my memory...
If I reboot with the device in the port, as soon as windows comes up (don't hate me) then the mouse jumps to the top of the screen repeatedly
Reminds me of my aunt jumping on a chair when she sees a mouse. Clearly your poor mouse is scared of those Windows which come up (and go down) all the time. Try running something else, it might be less scary to your mouse.
...it should be possible to run a thin client with autonomous capacities on it. 64MB of flash and 128MB of RAM is enough to run quite a few productivity type of applications. I built several thin client type machines based on Virgin Webplayers and Netpliance i-Openers. The former has 64MB of RAM and 48MB of flash, giving it enough capacity to run a stripped version of Debian which can be used when the network or server is not available. As long as the server/network is up it runs as a thin client (using X, rdesktop, vnc, ssh, telnet, 3270, etc). When the server or network goes boom the user can still get something done with the apps which are available locally. When the server or network comes back up the data can be saved and re-opened in the server-hosted version of the app.
This should of course also be possible with Windows CE. given that there are versions of the Office apps for this OS. I prefer to use something more open but even using the default OS these things should be capable of running more than just some remote desktop app...
If you look closely at the reasons you gave for dismissing 'Linux' as 'being ready for grandma' you will see that none of them are caused by any direct deficiency in 'Linux' but rather are caused by inertia in the market when it comes to accepting new systems:
PPPoE CD 'only for Windows'. Most 'Linux' distributions contain a PPPoE implementation which works just fine. All that is needed is some configuration by the user or the user's ISP. The Verizon CD could have configured Linux just like it could have installed and configured
PPPoE on Windows. Shockwave 'not for Linux'. Not because 'Linux' could not run a Shockwave player if one existed, only because Macromedia has thus far not released one.
WMV video. Windows Media video. Ever wonder why it is called 'Windows' media? If the web was filled with Ogg Theora video it would be the Windows users who would have to download and install software to look at those kittens and kids. The difference is of course that Theora is available for Windows without any problems while 'Windows Media' is available to... 'Windows'. For obvious reasons and to the chagrin of many courts of law all over the globe.
Modern 'Linux' distributions are in most cases perfectly usable by grandma if she is slightly computer literate (which she also needs to be to use a Windows or OS X or whatever system). In many ways they are actually the better option for the average grandma as a Linux system does not degrade as much over time as a Windows system does. The Windows mantra of reinstalling your OS every (insert time frame) to 'freshen up the computer' or some such nonsense generally does not apply to 'Linux' distributions...
Just think of all the crap they tried to sell you that seems like a cold cruel joke and an insult to your intellect today.
Care to elaborate? I have no memory of my parents giving me 'crap that seems like a cold cruel joke today'. I don't think my daughter will have these memories either as I do not try to 'sell her crap'.
I will also refrain from trying to track my child(ren) with the 'friendly' help of Eisner's Disney (he might be gone but his soul(less company) remains) which will literally try to 'sell crap' to my children, preferrably through some insidious marketing campaign aimed at the children to get them to nag their parents. Those damn Disney club (many versions) folders don't even burn well, I generally add them to the fire (woodburning stove) when there is a good blaze going.
You might be able to rebuild the battery for that phone using new cells. With a bit of luck you might even be able to use 'regular' sized (AA, AAA or AAAA) cells to keep down costs. If not, it might still be cheaper and definitely more satisfying to rebuild the battery pack. Satisfying because you saved some space on the dump and saved some money from getting trapped in their marketing-plans... I have done this with countless rechargeable things (from phones via electric toothbrushes to drills and laptop batteries) to great effect.
As someone who lives in far-away, safe and quiet Sweden it also makes me wonder what these people are at. Are they diligently uncovering evidence for some sort of super-Watergate or are they the usual fringe mob of conspiracy theorists? Any Yanks out there who care to comment on this? I know for one that if these accusations were levelled at the Swedish or Dutch government they would be either dispelled with fact or pursued in court and parliament.
For example, no DRM scheme is going to stop me from pointing my camcorder at the screen of my TV and copying a movie
...not yet... just wait a bit. Then you will watch your 'TV' programs on some viewing device which has an identity all of itself. Where you now have cable, you will have something not unlike those 'all you can listen to' schemes for digital music subscription. The programming will only be viewable on a limited number of devices (say six devices). Those devices will work their identity into the picture shown to the user in some hardly-noticable way ('digital watermarking' or something like that), together with whatever flags the broadcaster has added to the digital stream. You videocamera will recognize that watermark/fingerprint and will act accordingly. If it is your 'own' 'content' which is shown it might allow you to record it. Anything else it will probably refuse to record, or it might replace or overlay the watermarked content with something else.
So you will just keep your current videocamera you say? And what are you going to hook that up to when you display device only has digital inputs? Which only show content which has been 'certified'?
So you will just keep your current display device you say? And what are you going to view on that thing when all new 'content' comes in some digital restriction managed form which refuses to be displayed through uncertified devices (say analog out)?
Just do like we did years ago: ditch TV. You'll have more time to live. Trust me.
Are you Phillip *Verisign* Hallam-Baker? As in Verisign US-patent 6,560,634 ("Method of determining unavailability of an internet (sic) domain name.")?
If so, can you go into some detail as to why Verisign applied for a patent on doing several whois searches in parallel? Is it meant to be a defensive patent? Did you (as principal scientist at Verisign) have any influence in the process which led to Verisign applying and getting this patent?
...and the revelation will be in the shape of a many-headed beast of a program. Which will be difficult to excorsize, like Symantec products tend to be. A bug-haunted plague of biblical proportions. No thanks... Next thing you know you'll need some special number to be allowed to run a program...
No of course not. Most cars can be retrofitted for ethanol, so that is one of the ways they are looking at for breaking the oil-addiction. Ethanol is a good solution for the first phase of phasing out oil as it does not need big changes in infrastructure. Diesels can generally be retrofitted for biofuels like rapeseed oil (I'm looking into converting our tractor to this fuel at the moment). The next phase might involve other biofuels or the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. Where that hydrogen comes from? Good question, there are many possibilities...
Houses can be - and are being - warmed using wood or wood-pellets (using wood here). Industry can - and does - use biomass instead of fossile fuels. Oil (and/or other fossile biomass) will most likely still be needed as a raw material for the chemical industry but that is not comparable in scale or environmental impact with the use of fossile fuels.
...a huge Irish company... No, of course Microsoft is not an Irish company, but they *do* use Ireland as a base for most European operations. There are Microsoft branch offices in other European countries, but they all source their products from the Irish branch. The reason for this is that Ireland uses a 12.5% tax rate, half (or less) of what the rest of Europe charges. And Ireland is in the EU... And most trade within the EU is tax-free...
Aieee.... I honestly do not think Symantec and 'great products' should be mentioned together in one sentence. I would rather you described Symantec products as grossly invasive (in a technical sense) and often quite unstable. Not to mention the fact that removing a Symantec product from a (Windows) computer is often as hard as removing a worm or virus. This includes manual registry editing and hunting for leftover files. Have a look at your own service site and read some of the problems people encounter and the trouble they have to go through to solve them.
And what about Symantec's business practices... The Spybot S&D fiasco seems to be indicative of a company which does not take its corporate responsibilities to seriously to me.
Whether or not Symantec (or any other company in the protection business) has a hand in creating viruses/worms/malware is something I do not have enough information on to comment on. If someone has any proof that this is indeed the case please speak up...
One of the better ways of reducing the functionality and destabilizing a Windows computer is by installing Symantec software on it. The 'Internet Security' suite is a good example, which has cost me several dozens of hours of my life trying to help my parents to get rid of problems caused directly by it. When this did not turn out to be possible I tried to get rid of all Symantec products alltogether. A simple uninstall will not do for that, noooo.... You have to manually scourge the registry from everything related to Symantec and/or download some hacks from their website to clean up the trash their disfunctional install routine leaves behind.
Not to mention the nuisance of Dell installing Norton antivirus on every new computer, which I have to manually remove (to be replaced with ClamWin free antivirus software).
And why would birds not hunt the 'smartest animals on the planet'? Just like a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a smart ape which can fit the claws and weight-bearing capacity of a bird of prey would be as edible as any other animal. If you doubt this go for a stroll in your friendly local jungle...
OK, this proposal would make it possible to get some more use out of the carbon in coal or other fossile fuels before it hits the atmosphere. Nice, but...
Why not use those algae - or a fuel made out of them - to fire the powerplant itself? Then use the power produced by the plant to do... (insert whatever you want to do with electricity, eg. drive cars? produce hydrogen to drive them? etc.). This way the carbon stays mostly put around the powerplant, ergo no or hardly any CO2 emissions. It might not be the most efficient use of the fuel produced from the algae but it does lead to a greater reduction in emissions.
Another thing to try might be to vacuum/brush out the dust and cobwebs from the CPU/GPU cooler... This did wonders for my Medion (Acer) Aldi-special 2 GHz desktop processor notebrick. Before the operation it regularly shutdown from overheating, after it never did again. It also made the fan behave a bit more ear-friendly as it did not run at full afterburner jetstream whine all the time.
TFA does not mention what the industry suits think on that subject but it does contain the following quotes:
But many retailers and label executives alike point to a more fundamental problem this year: A lack of hit acts. Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, says blame lies with "an absolute, gigantic cesspool of really bad bands."
...
"It's almost like we need a new genre of music," says John Sullivan, chief financial officer of Trans World Entertainment Corp., which operates music stores under the FYE and Coconuts names, among others. "There hasn't been anything fresh to get consumers excited in a while."
Fortunately you can change WM in Gnome, even if there is no 'official' user interface for doing so anymore. I still run Gnome (KDE is nice but cluttered, I have enough physical clutter around me already) with Sawfish. Some bits have rotten (problems with using more than one Pango font, etc) but the thing still shines when it comes to extensibility and flexibility. The project seems to have gotten some new life lately so there is some hope for the future...
Actually I have... checking gmail (which I mainly use as a back-up mailbox for large attachments) is hit-and-miss experience. Sometimes it 'just works', but mostly it does something it shouldn't. Either it keeps on alternating between a blank page and the 'Loading...' message several times a second until I stop it, or it stays on that 'Loading...' page without any further response. This is on firefox (several versions) on Linux, with/without proxies, etc. Now given the use I make of gmail - and the price I pay for it - this does not bother me to much, but even if I were not put off by Big Google is Watching Me crawling my email I would not (be able to) use gmail as my main mailbox. It is not reliable enough...
Why, because there are those golden mountains on the horizon. That is where that friendly lawyer said the class action would take them. And remember, no cure no pay so what have you got to lose?...
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No lawyer needed. They're hardly ever needed, really. If everyone just stopped feeding them their numbers would be reduced to a tolerable level, just like you would do with pigeons in a park or rats in the inner city.
Development of the Mozilla suite has not stopped at all. The name of the project has been changed to SeaMonkey (meant to be spelled with StudlyCaps, unfortunately...) and project management has been turned over to a group of volunteers. SeaMonkey 1.0.2 (the most recent 'stable' release) is what Mozilla 1.8 would have been. There is a SeaMonkey 1.5 development series (which is quite a bit faster than 1.0.x) and a roadmap to move the whole suite to XULRunner (a move which will be made by Firefox and Thunderbird as well). I mostly use SeaMonkey now (instead of Firefox and Thunderbird, and before that Mozilla suite) because of the lower memory use and extra functionality the suite offers.
- extensions (but as I already said I use a clean profile (without extensions) for testing purposes)
- 'it is not a bug but a feature to make your browser faster'. It doesn't make it faster if it thrashes the cache...
- 'I never see the problem on my $_box with $_memory and $_tabs open'. Good for you. Others are less lucky.
- 'use the leak detector extension'. I do sometimes just to see what it warns about. It obviously does not warn about the browser hogging memory when that is considered to be a feature.
- 'just use about:config to change the defaults'. If that is necessary the defaults should be changed, Firefox was intended as a browser for everyone - not just the about:configging
/etc/sendmail.cf grokking crowd...
I really hope the memory problems (or features if you prefer) get sorted out as Firefox has quite some momentum behind it. It would be sad to see this momentum lost because of some (mis)feature eating PCs alive...The day Netscape released the source to Navigator I compiled it and gazed in wonder at this 'real' browser I compiled on my Linux box. I followed the development of the Mozilla project from the failed start based on the old Navigator code via the slow-starting gecko-based suite all the way to the Mozilla suite. Then, suddenly, Firefox (under one if its many names) and Thunderbird appeared. They looked more modern than the Mozilla suite and individually had slightly better performance. I started using the threesome (Firefox, Thunderbird and the suite) next to eachother. For day-to-day browsing I used Firefox, for more involving things the Mozilla suite has always been more appropriate. I have also followed the development of Firefox (and to a lesser extent Thunderbird) closely, building local versions, testing nightlies, etc.
But... my experiences with the latest iterations of Firefox (both the 1.5 series as well as the 2 and 3 development series) have left much to desire. The biggest complaint is the incredible amount of memory the browser consumes - even without any extensions (errr.. Add Ons... Change the name only because Microsoft copies the feature under a different name...?) and with a clean profile. If a browser manages to bring a 2 Ghz system with 768 MB to its knees in a mere half hour of browsing there is something wrong. Unfortunately this often-heard complaint does not seem to get the attention it deserves. Firefox' development strategy being what it is there is not that much opportunity - other than by filing bugs - to influence priorities and design criteria.
So... lately I have switched more and more from using Firefox/Thunderbird to using the Seamonkey suite - the successor to the Mozilla suite. It still feels a bit more dated than Firefox and Thunderbird but it does offer much more in features while having a much smaller memory footprint. Add the Seafox theme and it looks quite a bit like Firefox/Thunderbird.
The way things look now I think Seamonkey will be my browser and mail app of preference. Should Firefox and Thunderbird ever run on top of XULrunner I might switch back but for now I have better things to do with my memory...
Reminds me of my aunt jumping on a chair when she sees a mouse. Clearly your poor mouse is scared of those Windows which come up (and go down) all the time. Try running something else, it might be less scary to your mouse.
This should of course also be possible with Windows CE. given that there are versions of the Office apps for this OS. I prefer to use something more open but even using the default OS these things should be capable of running more than just some remote desktop app...
Shockwave 'not for Linux'. Not because 'Linux' could not run a Shockwave player if one existed, only because Macromedia has thus far not released one.
Modern 'Linux' distributions are in most cases perfectly usable by grandma if she is slightly computer literate (which she also needs to be to use a Windows or OS X or whatever system). In many ways they are actually the better option for the average grandma as a Linux system does not degrade as much over time as a Windows system does. The Windows mantra of reinstalling your OS every (insert time frame) to 'freshen up the computer' or some such nonsense generally does not apply to 'Linux' distributions...
Care to elaborate? I have no memory of my parents giving me 'crap that seems like a cold cruel joke today'. I don't think my daughter will have these memories either as I do not try to 'sell her crap'.
I will also refrain from trying to track my child(ren) with the 'friendly' help of Eisner's Disney (he might be gone but his soul(less company) remains) which will literally try to 'sell crap' to my children, preferrably through some insidious marketing campaign aimed at the children to get them to nag their parents. Those damn Disney club (many versions) folders don't even burn well, I generally add them to the fire (woodburning stove) when there is a good blaze going.
You might be able to rebuild the battery for that phone using new cells. With a bit of luck you might even be able to use 'regular' sized (AA, AAA or AAAA) cells to keep down costs. If not, it might still be cheaper and definitely more satisfying to rebuild the battery pack. Satisfying because you saved some space on the dump and saved some money from getting trapped in their marketing-plans... I have done this with countless rechargeable things (from phones via electric toothbrushes to drills and laptop batteries) to great effect.
As someone who lives in far-away, safe and quiet Sweden it also makes me wonder what these people are at. Are they diligently uncovering evidence for some sort of super-Watergate or are they the usual fringe mob of conspiracy theorists? Any Yanks out there who care to comment on this? I know for one that if these accusations were levelled at the Swedish or Dutch government they would be either dispelled with fact or pursued in court and parliament.
So you will just keep your current videocamera you say? And what are you going to hook that up to when you display device only has digital inputs? Which only show content which has been 'certified'?
So you will just keep your current display device you say? And what are you going to view on that thing when all new 'content' comes in some digital restriction managed form which refuses to be displayed through uncertified devices (say analog out)?
Just do like we did years ago: ditch TV. You'll have more time to live. Trust me.
If so, can you go into some detail as to why Verisign applied for a patent on doing several whois searches in parallel? Is it meant to be a defensive patent? Did you (as principal scientist at Verisign) have any influence in the process which led to Verisign applying and getting this patent?
Also I notice you have applied for patents yourself, eg. 20040205135 (application number for "Control and management of electronic messaging"). What are your reasons for doing so?
...and the revelation will be in the shape of a many-headed beast of a program. Which will be difficult to excorsize, like Symantec products tend to be. A bug-haunted plague of biblical proportions. No thanks... Next thing you know you'll need some special number to be allowed to run a program...
No of course not. Most cars can be retrofitted for ethanol, so that is one of the ways they are looking at for breaking the oil-addiction. Ethanol is a good solution for the first phase of phasing out oil as it does not need big changes in infrastructure. Diesels can generally be retrofitted for biofuels like rapeseed oil (I'm looking into converting our tractor to this fuel at the moment). The next phase might involve other biofuels or the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. Where that hydrogen comes from? Good question, there are many possibilities...
Houses can be - and are being - warmed using wood or wood-pellets (using wood here). Industry can - and does - use biomass instead of fossile fuels. Oil (and/or other fossile biomass) will most likely still be needed as a raw material for the chemical industry but that is not comparable in scale or environmental impact with the use of fossile fuels.
More on this? Sure, look here (Irish unit lets Microsoft cut taxes in U.S., Europe) or here (Microsoft Corp.'s Round Island One unit is Ireland's most profitable company). Or do like I did to get $insert_favourite_search_engine to produce these results: search on 'Microsoft ireland eu tax'...
And what about Symantec's business practices... The Spybot S&D fiasco seems to be indicative of a company which does not take its corporate responsibilities to seriously to me.
Whether or not Symantec (or any other company in the protection business) has a hand in creating viruses/worms/malware is something I do not have enough information on to comment on. If someone has any proof that this is indeed the case please speak up...
Not to mention the nuisance of Dell installing Norton antivirus on every new computer, which I have to manually remove (to be replaced with ClamWin free antivirus software).
So, Symantec? Just Say No!
And why would birds not hunt the 'smartest animals on the planet'? Just like a rose by any other name smells as sweet, a smart ape which can fit the claws and weight-bearing capacity of a bird of prey would be as edible as any other animal. If you doubt this go for a stroll in your friendly local jungle...
OK, this proposal would make it possible to get some more use out of the carbon in coal or other fossile fuels before it hits the atmosphere. Nice, but...
Why not use those algae - or a fuel made out of them - to fire the powerplant itself? Then use the power produced by the plant to do... (insert whatever you want to do with electricity, eg. drive cars? produce hydrogen to drive them? etc.). This way the carbon stays mostly put around the powerplant, ergo no or hardly any CO2 emissions. It might not be the most efficient use of the fuel produced from the algae but it does lead to a greater reduction in emissions.
Another thing to try might be to vacuum/brush out the dust and cobwebs from the CPU/GPU cooler... This did wonders for my Medion (Acer) Aldi-special 2 GHz desktop processor notebrick. Before the operation it regularly shutdown from overheating, after it never did again. It also made the fan behave a bit more ear-friendly as it did not run at full afterburner jetstream whine all the time.
Fortunately you can change WM in Gnome, even if there is no 'official' user interface for doing so anymore. I still run Gnome (KDE is nice but cluttered, I have enough physical clutter around me already) with Sawfish. Some bits have rotten (problems with using more than one Pango font, etc) but the thing still shines when it comes to extensibility and flexibility. The project seems to have gotten some new life lately so there is some hope for the future...
Actually I have... checking gmail (which I mainly use as a back-up mailbox for large attachments) is hit-and-miss experience. Sometimes it 'just works', but mostly it does something it shouldn't. Either it keeps on alternating between a blank page and the 'Loading...' message several times a second until I stop it, or it stays on that 'Loading...' page without any further response. This is on firefox (several versions) on Linux, with/without proxies, etc. Now given the use I make of gmail - and the price I pay for it - this does not bother me to much, but even if I were not put off by Big Google is Watching Me crawling my email I would not (be able to) use gmail as my main mailbox. It is not reliable enough...
Why, because there are those golden mountains on the horizon. That is where that friendly lawyer said the class action would take them. And remember, no cure no pay so what have you got to lose? ...