If you're a school or other educational institute (except for a 'Microsoft Office school'), I see no reason why you should use these expensive products in your curriculum. Schools should not teach how to use a specific product (be it Microsoft Office, StarOffice or Emacs for all I care), they should teach how to indicate 'problems' ('how do I get this information to the intended recipient'), find the means to solve those problems ('why, I can write a letter to do that'), find tools which can be used ('hmmm, Emacs looks like it can handle this job:-)') and use those tools to solve the problem (write letter, save file, print file).
So why not use a cheaper, more open toolset in school? If business feels a need for Microsoft Office courses, they'll gladly provide them to their employees. Why standardize on Microsoft Office in school? I learned to read from simple books, books which I never read anymore. I learned to use a computer using a Commodore 64 and could easily adapt the gained insight to other systems.
Give your student a Microsoft Office course, and (s)he'll be able to use Microsoft Office. Teach them to use information processing equipment and they'll be able to use anything and everything...
(although I still hate having to right click all the time - menu bar, people!).
If you're using the current development version (1.1.x), you'll notice an arrow-shaped button in the top left corner of your image window. Click it (with button-1, usually the left button), and a menu drops down. This is the same menu you get when right-clicking the image.
Well, another day, another media format. Of course, the media companies will happily sell me their products. But I already have Radiohead's 'OK Computer' on CD, so I already paid the license fees. I want to 'upgrade' that CD to the format-du-jour, and am willing to pay the production costs and a little something to make it worthwile for the industry to keep on developing new products. I do NOT want to pay royalties again, since I already did. And since I have always been told that those compact discs are so expensive because of the license fees, this upgrade should be quite cheap, am I right? I mean, I only OWN the piece of plastic, which is cheap. It is the license fee which drives up the price (or so 'they' say). So, just let me upgrade my piece of plastic then...
No, unfortunately I am wrong. But I should be right...
'twould be nice, but those static devices do take a lot more transistors (and die space) than dynamic devices. Which translates into either a bigger die (cost) or less functionality. I think an asynchronous processor would be a better solution, one which can turn down the clock on unused parts to the minimum level needed to keep state (where minimum could be zero is the part allows it). There are devices like this around, although I have yet to see a modern processor do this.
Posted from a nfs-booted iopener, progress in disguise...
//Frank
OK, Intel-bashing is about as fulfilling as Microsoft-bashing, but some people exaggerate... I mean, why waste a whole paragraph complaining about the lack of AGP-support on 8-way Xeon-servers? AGP is only interesting for videocards (never seen an AGP SCSI-card) while 8-way Xeon servers are usually stuffed into some cabinet on raised flooring. Those machines should be able to do without any videocard at all, let alone an AGP-card. Even if you insist on running an OS which can not do without a video card (...), a simple low-end SVGA-thing should be sufficient.
So, bash Intel if you like, but please refrain from bashing your own head when doing so...
Re:Yeah, useless for the common Joe:
on
3D Printers
·
· Score: 2
Say that the process is refined to the point that you can make your own circuit boards(!).
The technology to 'print' circuit boards is already around. Do a search for "Printable polymer-based semiconductor electronics" on your favourite search engine, and you should come up with a couple of links. There's a conference on this stuff in San Francisco, November 2 - 3, 2000 (according to this link I got from Google as a result for my query for "Printable polymer-based semiconductor electronics").
So the judge says search engines are not trespassing, since they do not link knowingly. So, I assume I can link to a search enigne without breaking this broken law. What if I link to a search engine, giving it a querystring in addition to the hostname? Like...
Are you really that concerned that this piece of software is contacting an updates server? Do you have any idea how much software nowadays does this sort of thing? Why is it everyone considers a piece of software that, behind the scenes, checks to see if there are updates of itself an "evil" piece of privacy-invading software?
Are you REALLY sure that that 'updates' server is only there to 'update' the software on your computer? And wouldn't you want to know what those 'updates' exactly are? Assuming you read the license before clicking 'yes' or 'finish' to let the installer do its thing (if there even WAS an explicit confirmation before the software got installed on your system), you agreed to have the installer install a certain piece of software on your box. Now what if the 'update' turns that piece of software into a completely different piece of software, one which you NEVER would agree to having it installed on your system. The 'update' does not ask you for confirmation, it just does its thing. And if you read the license, it probably does not contain any safeguard against this.
So, NO, I'd rather update my software myself, or have a competent sysadmin do it. That way, at least we know what is around on the system, and we know how it got there.
StarOffice (version 5.2) is 'compatible' with this feature. I downloaded the document, and opened it in StarOffice 5.2, and was greeted by... my own hostname...
AbiWord 0.7 is not yet 'compatible'. I have not tried KWord yet.
RedHat/GNOME/KDE & crew have a loooong way to go before they match the user experience of
OS X. It will be hard to even try to match level that since Apple controls the hardware too.
Throw in all the standard OSS tools (gcc/gmake/perl/apache/etc..) and what is there for a geek
not to like too?
Freedom? The core may be free, but the layers on top of that are closed/proprietary, and controlled by a company which might not agree with your goals. Or which might not give enough attention to that nagging bug which is causing you such trouble, since you are only a small company. Or...
Free software has brought us where we are now. Why not let it take us where we want to go tomorrow? Or even today?
It seems to me that what we need is a new boiler-plate agreement for stuff like this... just like the GPL and BSD licenses are set up to easilly protect free software.
I think you can not lump the GPL and the BSD license together when it comes to 'protect(ing) free software'. The BSD license does not offer any protection against what 'Escient' (who the hell makes up these moronic names for these companies?) has done with CDDB. It does not offer the guarantee that something which is free today will also be free tomorrow, since it is ineffective against the 'embrace and extend' tactics now used by 'Escient'. The GPL does offer this protection, so if you really value freedom you are better off using the GPL (for software) and FDL (for documentation). For more info on all those licenses which are used and abused, refer to the Various Licenses and Comments... page on the Free Software Foundation website.
Well, it might not be the very first OS, but is is (one of) the first which provides hardware abstraction, compatibility and scalabiity: IBM OS/360. And now you can try it for yourself:
The Hercules System/370 and ESA/390 Emulator Hercules is a System/370 and ESA/390 emulator which can IPL and execute S/370 and ESA/390 instructions. It can also emulate CKD and FBA DASD, printer, card reader, tape, channel-to-channel adapter, and local non-SNA 3270 devices
So, for some REAL nostalgia, install this on your box, get OS/360 (freeware!), and before you know it you'll be running TSO with 5 users, each pecking away at their 3270 block-mode terminals. Oh, and it can also run Linux/390, so if you've got way too much time on your hand you can run Linux->Hercules->Linux/390->Hercules->OS/360 or something horrible like that.
A T-Ford is no longer a car...
on
Is UNIX An OS?
·
· Score: 1
OK, A T-Ford used to be a car, but nowadays it isn't anymore. It is just a blueprint for a car. But is does not have an airconditioning, or a CD-changer, or a minibar, or a GPS system.
Sure. Go Ahead. Block Napster (and gnutella, and whatnot...) at the ISP if you can. But be aware that the next time you try to call upon your status as 'common carrier' in a court of law, the judge may not agree with you. I mean, you ARE filtering your lines, so you ARE (by law) responsible for what is carried over those lines, like it or not.
I can see the headlines now:
Sony sued for:
carrying child pornography
smuggling weapons-grade crypto to Cuba, N-Korea, etc
'pirating' copyrighted material...
industrial espionage
breaking into private property
Of course, they have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers (those seem to go together), so they might be able to bend the law a bit. But I doubt they'll be able to bend it that far...
have more than 4 IDE devices without going to absurd lengths to do it
The solution is relatively simple: go SCSI for your CD and CD-writer, use IDE for the harddrives. That way, you can have (at least) four harddrives without bothering about the number of drives, the master/slave issues, the slowdowns and other nuisances of IDE. The price difference between a SCSI CD-writer and its IDE counterpart is not that big, and you can get by using a relatively cheap SCSI-card for these applications. I've been using this combination for years now, and it has never failed me.
We have the choice to not buy this canned crap they try to sell us
We have the choice to get our 'art' in some other way, not controlled by the spinmeisters of MPAA/RIAA and their cronies.
Yes, that means you will have to give uo some thinks you may like. But history shows people are able to live without them, and you can find other means of entertainment to fill those gaps left by the black television screen and the silent DvD (and later possibly also CD) player...
Yeah, right, blame the scientists and engineers. Blame the ones who find the information and build the stuff that can be abused.
No, that's not what he said, nor what he implied when he said "...The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make...". At least it is not what I thought when I read this sentence.
I think he is right in saying that people (ALL people) have a social responsibility, and they should think twice before comitting their talents and abilities towards fulfilling some injust goal. No matter whether they are scientists, engineers, programmers, soldiers or lawyers. If someone 'higher up' tells you to do something which you personally KNOW to be part of a scheme to take away freedom and replace it with corporate control, then you can either obey (and keep your job but lose your integrity) or disobey (and keep your sanity but possibly lose your job). Especially in the current market, it is MUCH easier to get a new job than a new 'soul'.
And of course this also goes for those 'higher ups' who give these orders...
AS for the Rewritable function.. only a moron would want that to work - I buy CD blanks for 39 cents each so using a RW is just stupid.
Or maybe someone who is a little more conscious about the tons of waste s/he already produces each year? Or someone who knows those (cyanide-containing) CDR's are not really that harmless when burned or stashed away in some garbage dump? Or someone who wants to use the disks in a DvD-drive (which, as you may know, can not read CDR's but has no problems with CDRW)?
Please think for a minute before calling someone who does not think like you a moron. I do not like being called a moron, and that goes for most people...
1. dissertations are being offered to interested folks. This is GOOD.
2. those interested folks have to pay for them, money which flows into the pockets of some company which probably adds ZERO value (apart from offering a database service, but we'll get to this). This is BAD. Science can only progress when there are giants (and midgets and everything in between) on whose shoulders we can stand. There's no need for a toll booth here, in fact it will only hinder the advance of science.
3; the people behind companies like this one are trying the same old buy-me-a-law trick which gave us laws like the DMCA and aberrations like UCITA. This is BAD. Very BAD. Money talks...
Well, I think the copyright holders for the dissertations (the authors) mostly agree with the fact that this information really wants to be free. So why not make it available for free? If everyone were to add their dissertation to an on-line database (like dmoz.org), and offer the service of mailing it (for some low fee to cover expenses) to interested parties, the information really IS free. And sleezes like contentville will find a dry well where the once suspected an oasis. This is GOOD (tm):-)
If dmoz.org is not sufficient, maybe someone with a server to spare and a few gig's worth of diskspace can put them online, run htDig:: over them, and offer full text search capability?
Maybe Andover is interested? It'll give a lot of page impressions...
The main worry is not misuse in the US, since there is enormous media/public scrutiny. Technology like this in the hands of China/Burma/N.Korea or any of America's puppet dictatorships is the dream-come-true of totalitarian regimes, who can do whatever they want.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but misuse in the land of the free (as long as they pay) and home of the brave IS an issue. Some lobbygroup will get this signed into law, make it mandatory to chip your kids when they go to kindergarten ('they might get kidnapped, so now we can track them'), you insurance will mandate that you get one ('so the emergency service will be able to find you'), etc. Of course, the insurance company (part of a big megacorp) now knows where you are, and when, and starts selling 'anonimized' profiles to marketing firms ('we are concerned with your privacy, if you do not want this then please fill out this 10-page form in Assirian glyphs'). Your kids will get used to the idea that they have this chip inside them, they might even get some small benefits from it ('people with ID-chip through the fast lane, those without show your passports please'), so they probably will think it 'natural' that they can be tracked everywhere.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, J.Edgar Hoover's great-grandson has risen to the top of the F.B.I, and takes up where his predecessor left off. When later questioned by the Senate, he states that 'it was imperative for national security that these people were tracked down'. Although there was no conclusive evidence that those people ever did something wrong, they were put away anyhow, since national security is a serious matter, especially when your own position is at stake.
But no, this will never happen in the US of A. Right?
to verify a single package. The verification checks a number of things, amongst which is an md5 hash of the installed files. While not completely watertight (it checks against a database which is on the same system, so it is possible and feasible to change the md5 hashvalues for installed files), it is a good start. If you put the RPM database on a CD (read-only, no CDRW, no multisession) you can tighten this test.
The RPM system also supports PGP-signed package files. You can check these signatures with the
rpm --checksig <package_file>
command (this also checks the package file md5 hash). You need the PGP (or GPG) keys from your vendor, get them from their website or from a retail CD.
So? Turning tabs into windows (and the other way) was nothing new back then. Yes, I read the patent, all of it, and could not find a reason to call it anything but useless and void. Hence my comment. This patent is 'Yet Another Excuse For A Lawsuit'. May it be shot to pieces...
Grabbing some features together and calling them an innovation does not make it patentable. Unfortunately, the USPTO seems to think it is. Hope this madness does not cross the ocean to infect our European patent system.
This 'patent' was filed in 1994, and issued in 1996. In 1994 I remember using IBM OS/2 v2.1 (released in may 1993), and beta's (the so-called "performance edition") of 3.x (later to be known as "Warp", formally launched in october 1994). OS/2 2.1 already had tabbed widgets (notebooks). This alone should void the patent I'd say. Up yours, Adobe!
This billboard (only a static, traditional, paper version I'm afraid...) is a job ad for the Dutch public broadcasting foundation (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting). They maintain the www.omroep.nl website which is the hub for the other public broadcaster's sites. They make a point of using Unix for their website and related operations, and are in the market for sysadmins and developers. So if you're interested and feel California is getting dangerous, what with all the forest fires and such...
Oh, but I do have problems with this. Please define 'illegal'. If you mean 'violating ANY law', then I can assure you most of us are (potential) targets for the Carnivorous boxen. I sometimes send out mail with details on decrypting access-controlled media like DvD's, which is illegal under the DMCA. Poof, illegal, so sniff 'm. Or I might warn people about the shoddy quality of some program. Poof, illegal under UCITA-derived laws. So, they now have legal grounds to sniff on my email? I hope my 2048-bit GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) key is long enough... I'd rather they restrict the use of these means to certain alleged crimes, like they are supposed to do with phone taps and such. Not just any 'illegal' activity...
Slashdot Mirror
If you're a school or other educational institute (except for a 'Microsoft Office school'), I see no reason why you should use these expensive products in your curriculum. Schools should not teach how to use a specific product (be it Microsoft Office, StarOffice or Emacs for all I care), they should teach how to indicate 'problems' ('how do I get this information to the intended recipient'), find the means to solve those problems ('why, I can write a letter to do that'), find tools which can be used ('hmmm, Emacs looks like it can handle this job :-)') and use those tools to solve the problem (write letter, save file, print file).
So why not use a cheaper, more open toolset in school? If business feels a need for Microsoft Office courses, they'll gladly provide them to their employees. Why standardize on Microsoft Office in school? I learned to read from simple books, books which I never read anymore. I learned to use a computer using a Commodore 64 and could easily adapt the gained insight to other systems.
Give your student a Microsoft Office course, and (s)he'll be able to use Microsoft Office. Teach them to use information processing equipment and they'll be able to use anything and everything...
If you're using the current development version (1.1.x), you'll notice an arrow-shaped button in the top left corner of your image window. Click it (with button-1, usually the left button), and a menu drops down. This is the same menu you get when right-clicking the image.
Well, another day, another media format. Of course, the media companies will happily sell me their products. But I already have Radiohead's 'OK Computer' on CD, so I already paid the license fees. I want to 'upgrade' that CD to the format-du-jour, and am willing to pay the production costs and a little something to make it worthwile for the industry to keep on developing new products. I do NOT want to pay royalties again, since I already did. And since I have always been told that those compact discs are so expensive because of the license fees, this upgrade should be quite cheap, am I right? I mean, I only OWN the piece of plastic, which is cheap. It is the license fee which drives up the price (or so 'they' say). So, just let me upgrade my piece of plastic then...
No, unfortunately I am wrong. But I should be right...
'twould be nice, but those static devices do take a lot more transistors (and die space) than dynamic devices. Which translates into either a bigger die (cost) or less functionality. I think an asynchronous processor would be a better solution, one which can turn down the clock on unused parts to the minimum level needed to keep state (where minimum could be zero is the part allows it). There are devices like this around, although I have yet to see a modern processor do this.
Posted from a nfs-booted iopener, progress in disguise...
//Frank
OK, Intel-bashing is about as fulfilling as Microsoft-bashing, but some people exaggerate... I mean, why waste a whole paragraph complaining about the lack of AGP-support on 8-way Xeon-servers? AGP is only interesting for videocards (never seen an AGP SCSI-card) while 8-way Xeon servers are usually stuffed into some cabinet on raised flooring. Those machines should be able to do without any videocard at all, let alone an AGP-card. Even if you insist on running an OS which can not do without a video card (...), a simple low-end SVGA-thing should be sufficient.
So, bash Intel if you like, but please refrain from bashing your own head when doing so...
The technology to 'print' circuit boards is already around. Do a search for "Printable polymer-based semiconductor electronics" on your favourite search engine, and you should come up with a couple of links. There's a conference on this stuff in San Francisco, November 2 - 3, 2000 (according to this link I got from Google as a result for my query for "Printable polymer-based semiconductor electronics").
So the judge says search engines are not trespassing, since they do not link knowingly. So, I assume I can link to a search enigne without breaking this broken law. What if I link to a search engine, giving it a querystring in addition to the hostname? Like...
I could go on, but I won't. I assume this would be legal, right?
Are you REALLY sure that that 'updates' server is only there to 'update' the software on your computer? And wouldn't you want to know what those 'updates' exactly are? Assuming you read the license before clicking 'yes' or 'finish' to let the installer do its thing (if there even WAS an explicit confirmation before the software got installed on your system), you agreed to have the installer install a certain piece of software on your box. Now what if the 'update' turns that piece of software into a completely different piece of software, one which you NEVER would agree to having it installed on your system. The 'update' does not ask you for confirmation, it just does its thing. And if you read the license, it probably does not contain any safeguard against this.
So, NO, I'd rather update my software myself, or have a competent sysadmin do it. That way, at least we know what is around on the system, and we know how it got there.
StarOffice (version 5.2) is 'compatible' with this feature. I downloaded the document, and opened it in StarOffice 5.2, and was greeted by... my own hostname...
AbiWord 0.7 is not yet 'compatible'. I have not tried KWord yet.
Freedom? The core may be free, but the layers on top of that are closed/proprietary, and controlled by a company which might not agree with your goals. Or which might not give enough attention to that nagging bug which is causing you such trouble, since you are only a small company. Or...
Free software has brought us where we are now. Why not let it take us where we want to go tomorrow? Or even today?
I think you can not lump the GPL and the BSD license together when it comes to 'protect(ing) free software'. The BSD license does not offer any protection against what 'Escient' (who the hell makes up these moronic names for these companies?) has done with CDDB. It does not offer the guarantee that something which is free today will also be free tomorrow, since it is ineffective against the 'embrace and extend' tactics now used by 'Escient'. The GPL does offer this protection, so if you really value freedom you are better off using the GPL (for software) and FDL (for documentation). For more info on all those licenses which are used and abused, refer to the Various Licenses and Comments... page on the Free Software Foundation website.
Hercules is a System/370 and ESA/390 emulator which can IPL and execute S/370 and ESA/390 instructions. It can also emulate CKD and FBA DASD, printer, card reader, tape, channel-to-channel adapter, and local non-SNA 3270 devices
So, for some REAL nostalgia, install this on your box, get OS/360 (freeware!), and before you know it you'll be running TSO with 5 users, each pecking away at their 3270 block-mode terminals. Oh, and it can also run Linux/390, so if you've got way too much time on your hand you can run Linux->Hercules->Linux/390->Hercules->OS/360 or something horrible like that.
OK, A T-Ford used to be a car, but nowadays it isn't anymore. It is just a blueprint for a car. But is does not have an airconditioning, or a CD-changer, or a minibar, or a GPS system.
Right?
I can see the headlines now:
Sony sued for:
Of course, they have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers (those seem to go together), so they might be able to bend the law a bit. But I doubt they'll be able to bend it that far...
The solution is relatively simple: go SCSI for your CD and CD-writer, use IDE for the harddrives. That way, you can have (at least) four harddrives without bothering about the number of drives, the master/slave issues, the slowdowns and other nuisances of IDE. The price difference between a SCSI CD-writer and its IDE counterpart is not that big, and you can get by using a relatively cheap SCSI-card for these applications. I've been using this combination for years now, and it has never failed me.
We have the choice to not buy this canned crap they try to sell us
We have the choice to get our 'art' in some other way, not controlled by the spinmeisters of MPAA/RIAA and their cronies.
Yes, that means you will have to give uo some thinks you may like. But history shows people are able to live without them, and you can find other means of entertainment to fill those gaps left by the black television screen and the silent DvD (and later possibly also CD) player...
No, that's not what he said, nor what he implied when he said "...The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make...". At least it is not what I thought when I read this sentence.
I think he is right in saying that people (ALL people) have a social responsibility, and they should think twice before comitting their talents and abilities towards fulfilling some injust goal. No matter whether they are scientists, engineers, programmers, soldiers or lawyers. If someone 'higher up' tells you to do something which you personally KNOW to be part of a scheme to take away freedom and replace it with corporate control, then you can either obey (and keep your job but lose your integrity) or disobey (and keep your sanity but possibly lose your job). Especially in the current market, it is MUCH easier to get a new job than a new 'soul'.
And of course this also goes for those 'higher ups' who give these orders...
Or maybe someone who is a little more conscious about the tons of waste s/he already produces each year? Or someone who knows those (cyanide-containing) CDR's are not really that harmless when burned or stashed away in some garbage dump? Or someone who wants to use the disks in a DvD-drive (which, as you may know, can not read CDR's but has no problems with CDRW)?
Please think for a minute before calling someone who does not think like you a moron. I do not like being called a moron, and that goes for most people...
OK, here's the deal:
:-)
1. dissertations are being offered to interested folks. This is GOOD.
2. those interested folks have to pay for them, money which flows into the pockets of some company which probably adds ZERO value (apart from offering a database service, but we'll get to this). This is BAD. Science can only progress when there are giants (and midgets and everything in between) on whose shoulders we can stand. There's no need for a toll booth here, in fact it will only hinder the advance of science.
3; the people behind companies like this one are trying the same old buy-me-a-law trick which gave us laws like the DMCA and aberrations like UCITA. This is BAD. Very BAD. Money talks...
Well, I think the copyright holders for the dissertations (the authors) mostly agree with the fact that this information really wants to be free. So why not make it available for free? If everyone were to add their dissertation to an on-line database (like dmoz.org), and offer the service of mailing it (for some low fee to cover expenses) to interested parties, the information really IS free. And sleezes like contentville will find a dry well where the once suspected an oasis. This is GOOD (tm)
If dmoz.org is not sufficient, maybe someone with a server to spare and a few gig's worth of diskspace can put them online, run htDig:: over them, and offer full text search capability?
Maybe Andover is interested? It'll give a lot of page impressions...
Sorry to burst your bubble, but misuse in the land of the free (as long as they pay) and home of the brave IS an issue. Some lobbygroup will get this signed into law, make it mandatory to chip your kids when they go to kindergarten ('they might get kidnapped, so now we can track them'), you insurance will mandate that you get one ('so the emergency service will be able to find you'), etc. Of course, the insurance company (part of a big megacorp) now knows where you are, and when, and starts selling 'anonimized' profiles to marketing firms ('we are concerned with your privacy, if you do not want this then please fill out this 10-page form in Assirian glyphs'). Your kids will get used to the idea that they have this chip inside them, they might even get some small benefits from it ('people with ID-chip through the fast lane, those without show your passports please'), so they probably will think it 'natural' that they can be tracked everywhere.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, J.Edgar Hoover's great-grandson has risen to the top of the F.B.I, and takes up where his predecessor left off. When later questioned by the Senate, he states that 'it was imperative for national security that these people were tracked down'. Although there was no conclusive evidence that those people ever did something wrong, they were put away anyhow, since national security is a serious matter, especially when your own position is at stake.
But no, this will never happen in the US of A. Right?
On RPM-based distributions, you can run:
rpm -Va
to verify all installed packages, or
rpm -V <package>
to verify a single package. The verification checks a number of things, amongst which is an md5 hash of the installed files. While not completely watertight (it checks against a database which is on the same system, so it is possible and feasible to change the md5 hashvalues for installed files), it is a good start. If you put the RPM database on a CD (read-only, no CDRW, no multisession) you can tighten this test.
The RPM system also supports PGP-signed package files. You can check these signatures with the
rpm --checksig <package_file>
command (this also checks the package file md5 hash). You need the PGP (or GPG) keys from your vendor, get them from their website or from a retail CD.
So? Turning tabs into windows (and the other way) was nothing new back then. Yes, I read the patent, all of it, and could not find a reason to call it anything but useless and void. Hence my comment. This patent is 'Yet Another Excuse For A Lawsuit'. May it be shot to pieces...
Grabbing some features together and calling them an innovation does not make it patentable. Unfortunately, the USPTO seems to think it is. Hope this madness does not cross the ocean to infect our European patent system.
This 'patent' was filed in 1994, and issued in 1996. In 1994 I remember using IBM OS/2 v2.1 (released in may 1993), and beta's (the so-called "performance edition") of 3.x (later to be known as "Warp", formally launched in october 1994). OS/2 2.1 already had tabbed widgets (notebooks). This alone should void the patent I'd say. Up yours, Adobe!
This billboard (only a static, traditional, paper version I'm afraid...) is a job ad for the Dutch public broadcasting foundation (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting). They maintain the www.omroep.nl website which is the hub for the other public broadcaster's sites. They make a point of using Unix for their website and related operations, and are in the market for sysadmins and developers. So if you're interested and feel California is getting dangerous, what with all the forest fires and such...
Oh, but I do have problems with this. Please define 'illegal'. If you mean 'violating ANY law', then I can assure you most of us are (potential) targets for the Carnivorous boxen. I sometimes send out mail with details on decrypting access-controlled media like DvD's, which is illegal under the DMCA. Poof, illegal, so sniff 'm. Or I might warn people about the shoddy quality of some program. Poof, illegal under UCITA-derived laws. So, they now have legal grounds to sniff on my email? I hope my 2048-bit GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) key is long enough... I'd rather they restrict the use of these means to certain alleged crimes, like they are supposed to do with phone taps and such. Not just any 'illegal' activity...