Yup, the MSCE cert is pretty easy, if you A) Pay mucho dinero for classes and a cert, or B) Realize that the general tests (Basic Net, Wkstn, Srvr, etc) that aren't app specific are _really easy_ and a quick d/l of the free practice test will do for prep. The only rub is that the tests cost more than AP/SATs from ETS (yikes!), but in the long run, this doesn't make much difference...
I was able to do most of them without even ociking up any study materials. It isn't that hard if you can think a little bit and pay attention when you are navving around your box.
I haven't looked into the linux cert details, but it seems to be much more worthwhile than a piece of paper that says "Hi, I can install NT as a PDC, and run Back Office!" (replace NT with W2K as needed)...
The difference between the MSCE and RHCE certs seems like the difference between an IT major and an engineering major - "here's what you can do" to "here's what you can do, how you can do it, why you want to do it, and how it works"
Yup, my original Millenium (~$300 when I got it for my nearly new P-100) was a the best card for 2D I ever had in my machines until it got upped to an AGP G200 (it was better than the Mystique 220s by a good shot, too, but had little 3D). I put my RIVA TNT in my NT4 box, and it just can't compare to the 2D speed of the G200 (or really, the old Millen, either). You can really *feel* the difference - I did benchmarks, too (not that I remember them now). Obviously the G200 wasn't hte answer for 3D, either, but hey, the G400 (esp the MAX) is looking pretty sweet there.
I really wish the other manufactures would try to at least reach the 2D performance achieved by the Mystique and older milleniums... 3D is certainly the gravy, but I just don't want to see my windows being drawn, refreshed, etc... The built-on-board AGP SiS graphics on so many motherboards choke at res's above 800x600 higher than 16 bit color... why? In 1995 my card could do 32 bit at 1280x1024 pretty darn quick (with 4MB). 2D performance has not improved as much as it could be, due to the 3D madness (which is fun).
well over 90% of what people use computers for is 2D (like/.!), so they should try and improve 2D performance as well. Sure it may not be the biggest selling point for gamers, but it keeps Matrox cards in (most of) my machines... I do like the TNT for 3D games, but I guess the G400 can take care of that 8^)
I agree - they should have mentioned in the/. article that it was fake, but I figured it was even before I clicked over to it, since it was in the humor category, and 'annulment' kinda tips you off, I'd think...
I didn't mean to imply that you don't have a sense of humor, just take into account the context of the story... if it has a big smelly foot, then I wouldn't get too hot and bothered by it 8^)
That's why there's a big ol' Monty Python foot as the icon for the story... humor... This was the first time I'd heard of FNwire, so it was certainly worth *my* time. I now have another source of enjoyment. The point of/. is (IMHO) to show relevant (and semi-relevant) news items to the 'geek community' and to provide humor and a discussion forum. You could always filter out humor stories if you really want to...
I haven't read Chaos yet, though it's on my list, but Genius was one of the best books in its genre that I've ever picked up. I read it in high school, and much was over my head, but another round through it after four years of physics and engineering really amazes me. Well put together, interesting organiztion, and just well written... I just hopped over to www.around.com... turns out he won one of those funny little prizes (Pulitzer) for both of these. Guess we're not the only ones who think he did a good job 8^)
Many standard PCI cards will run in several different Alpha motherboards - both under Linux and NT (maybe Digital Unix, too, who knows). A Matrox G200 in a 533MHz Alpha 21164 was pretty decent at quake (before my board died and Compaq refused to even *sell* me a new one, much less replace it under warantee)...
With the important thing being the balancing... separate DB and web servers, ads off of a different box... more of that info is included in the Slash source d/l, so take a look..
>Wow, Rob, that "overhype just like a real local newscaster" class is really paying off. What's up for next week? "What THEY Don't Want You To Know About HTML"?
Nope, that's in two weeks - next week is "When Good HTML Goes Bad.... THREE!" (produced by Fox, of course)...
No, she doesn't need a lot of things... she doesn't need a laptop, she doesn't even need a full computer (maybe a thin client). Specific devices for specific needs is the idea. There are a lot of applications for the low-power, dirt cheap processors, there's no denying that... it's just that a blanket statement like the following bothers me: >Could we please get back on track and work on something that computer users really want, like [snipped the list]
When one speaks for *all* computer users (without consulting us all first 8^) you take a chance... therefore, I offered a diffrence of opinion, which is why we get to comment on stories.
Another salient point is that pushing the performance limits leads to lower power consumption per MHz/MIP/whatever, and really *does* help out the dirt-cheap low-power stuff. As the newer lith processes improve, less voltage is required to drive the chip, so power can decrease. Yes, a 1GHz chip will create a lot of heat and use a lot of power, but the same process used on a 500MHz chip will use far less - power changes linear with frequency, and with the square of the voltage difference (a lower voltage can be used at lower frequenciesm since less current is required, due to longer setup times). If we can produce a 1.5GHz chip that sucks 50 watts at 2 volts, a 500MHz chip (same core) that runs at 1.2v would use 6 watts, and I'm sure you could make a much simpler core that wouldn't be as power-sucking in the first place, and get it down further.
Pushing the envelope from several direction can really help (just don't knock it off the table 8^)
Don't you mean SPECfp? That's where alphas have the most advantage. At similar clock speeds, the SPECints aren't that far off for a P3 and Alpha (IIRC)...
I've been told the newer chipset versions have been more stable than the originals, too (stands to reason that things would improve). Asus has a great history of stability, and they have always impressed me greatly. I know someone who just got one of the new FIC Athlon boards, and he's been stress testing it for about 6 days now... so far so good (lots of apps/compiles/games all runs with scripts, most of which serve little purpose than to test all available paths and try to create tough situations for the board/chip). One thing to always check is that the chipset is properly cooled... it never used to be much of a problem, but ever since the BX started pushing to 100MHz, and now others are doing that and more, with more buffers and all sorts of good stuff, heat becomes a problem, especially when sitting beneath a sizzling processor. Just something to think about.
The CPU may be the brain of your system, but a top notch motherboard really makes the difference.
They can take up a lot of extra wires and gates to try to overcome some of the higher speed problems... differential designs are great, but at the expense of increased chip design. At least you can be sure when your data is stable without clocking, though. Really neat stuff.
Well, a K6-2 500 runs ~$45-50 now, which is pretty darn cheap...
>* Negligible power consumption.
D'Oh!
>* Much smaller, less clunky systems (of which a low power, cheap CPU is an important part).
Well, not everyone always really wants this. That's great for nice products, like a Palm, or laptop, but I'd still rather have a 2' tower under my desk, with expansion room, and room to add horsepower as I see fit. It all depends what you want it to do... I wouldn't use a laptop for CAD or numbercrunching - I don't like the limitations of portable devices. I *don't* want my TV, microwave, etc enabled with networking... dreamcast networking is a neat step forward for that platform, and I think centrally controlled lighting (X-10, etc) is a great thing, but thesee things don't need real CPUs.... Many people think they *need* something, and end up never using it... I like to make the most use of what I have...
Regarding Moore's Law (or hypothesism which is a more accurate description) - it can be maintained for a while usng x-ray lithography along with newer SOI and copper technologies, and in a few years, maybe IBM's electron-beam lith will be cheap or fast enough to use with larger scale mass production cards, but we'll have to see. Humans are amazingly inventive creatures who overcome seemingly impossible physical limitations via little tweaks and large leaps (with the tweaks sometimes giving the insight necessary to figure out the leaps...).
As always, the benefits fall to the consumer, who is pretty happy with a 200/333/450 MHz PC processor, but boy, can Excel go fast now, or just look at how smooth Quake IX Arena is now! Most people really don't need such capabilities for their PCs, but gamers do, CAD designers do, coders love fast compiles, accountants are made happier by fast refreshes, and everybody loves it when everything just 'feels' faster.
A lot of the technology research that is motivated by processor market and communications market allows for greater gains in other highly specific areas... look how far graphics cards have come in the last few years. Everyone gains from this, as long as they realize that even last months technology is good enough for most people (see the Gateway commercial where the guy is bringing home a T5 (can't help thinking about Cray) and sees the signs put up for a T6)...
Of course, if things continue to push the way they have, we might continue to see more power-sucking features that force out old computer faster (fade in/out pull down menus in Win2k?! I mean, really - it's a menu, not an ancient scroll from D&D). I haven't upgraded a processor in any of my boxes for over a year now (the horror), but a couple running at 450 leaves me pretty happy, and I'll wait a little while before I make a large leap to a really screaming CPU/vid upgrade... I also just spent a lot moving into a new house, so that saps the tech budget a little, too 8^)
Life is good in the commodity PC market for buyers, though. Take advantage of it.
Yeah, reaction times can be cut down by anticipation, and the more fluid the motion of the visual cues on the screen (other players, direction of rocket fire 8^) the better you can anticipate and therefore avoid getting fragged... In terms of video, I can't even stand watching most Real Player or other streaming video... I don't mind grain, and color problems as much I can't stand seeing someone's half rendered face in the wrong spot for the words said, or a baseball bat hitting a ball well after the crack (or missing it totally), due to frame drops... Even the nickelodians at the old shoe store I went to as a kid (back in the real early 80s) had better motion than most of these. Granted, bandwith is a big consideration for these videos, not CPU power, but All Video Should Be Smooth Video(sm), and I can't wait until TV goes full to progressive scan - interlacing is a pain...
I'm very picky about a lot of things, but I'm easily amused (probably why I read/.)... funny how that works...
Mmmmm.... Pong - look at http://www.ttinet.com/pjf/pong/ shows that pong needs even a decent CPU (it is Java, after all)...
Yes, but if the machine does 30 fps, it will drop below that on occasion, causing frame drops and visual discomfort 8^) If you can get 60/90/130 fps, you know that even worst case scenarios will keep you visually happy. Anything higher than your monitor refresh rate is just bragging gravy anyway...
as for now, my celery (300a@450) and TNT(1) are just fine for my games, and another 300a@450 with a Matrox G200 is perfect for all of my NT stuff...
>We humans have an irrational interest in what we consider to be 'round numbers' whereby we feel that a year with a 'round number' or, in this case, a processor clocked at one will in some way be extra-better as it were over previous incarnations than if it did not have that round number in it's name.
Like Dogbert said - "They're so BIG.... and ROUND!!!"
Yup, the savings are considerable for built-in SCSI on-board. A real Adaptec 2940UW (or 3940, or the new U2Ws) on board increases the board price far less than buying a separate card (like I have)... Check out the prices on the equivalent Asus boards w/ and w/o the built in SCSI (just as a reference). Pretty decent... though Tekram makes some nice SCSI cards that are fully AHA-29xx compatable (they used to use Adaptec chips,if I remember, they still might for some), and they are *way* cheaper than the real Adaptecs... I have no personal experience with them, though some of my friends swear by them...
I'm still waiting for the dual-Athlon board, but I'm not holding my breath, either 8^)
Was that an IDE hard drive (or CD) / burner combo? I've got a single celeron (300@450) and I can easily surf the web (including pdf d/l & displays), run that with e-mail open (with background checking), and do plenty of other things (including some small compiles) and the writing never takes up more than ~10-15% CPU, no matter if it's a CD -> CD burn or a image -> CD burn... herein lies the advantage of SCSI (AHA-2940 UW with Plextor 40 UW, Plextor 20/8/2 U, and IBM 10krpm UW)... nice transfers handled well without a lot of CPU intervention. Most of the CPU is used by the cute (read: useless) animations in Easy CD Creator...
I'm planning an SMP system, but after those other purchases (and a new house), I'm way out of $$$......
>Of course, each one of these 'domains' is a standards war waiting to happen, and in the meantime lots of XML is being deployed now with custom homebrew schemas. It has enormous potential to interoperate better than proprietary formats, but it is not the magic solution to data interoperability
This is what I noticed, and why it doesn't seem like XML is all that big a deal... if everyone is going to have their own formats/layouts anyway, it doesn't make much of a solution. Granted, it would make conversion filters far easier to write, but doesn't really solve a lot of things...
Unless you're big on privacy... through the web person search, you could get not only the person's on-campus address and phone#, but their home phone and address! Not information that should be publicly available in most cases, especially whe someone takes the time to not have their number listed.. and home address? People shouldn't be getting that if you have a campus address defined... I think the phone numbers myay be gone now (I sent off a few e-mails, and alerted several students there), but the home address still remains...
Rutgers as also been very slow getting networking into the majority of the res halls... many were still running through an over-clogged dialup last year (can't say this year - I don't visit anymore). Napster + dialup = pain, no matter what 8^)
I've read a lot about how XML is the greatest thing since sliced bread, apparently enabling many different things, from website interoperability, office documents, making toast & eggs, an XML parser in the core of OS X, and now people are talking about making/etc/ files XML... I don't get it. Not just the/etc stuff, I don't understand what the big deal is about XML. It doesn't seem like the big panacea that will cure all of our standards problems and create world peace that many people seem to be making it out to be. In fact, I don't see very many reasons why I'd use it for *anything*...
This is an honest request for information - please enlighten me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, the MSCE cert is pretty easy, if you
A) Pay mucho dinero for classes and a cert, or
B) Realize that the general tests (Basic Net, Wkstn, Srvr, etc) that aren't app specific are _really easy_ and a quick d/l of the free practice test will do for prep. The only rub is that the tests cost more than AP/SATs from ETS (yikes!), but in the long run, this doesn't make much difference...
I was able to do most of them without even ociking up any study materials. It isn't that hard if you can think a little bit and pay attention when you are navving around your box.
I haven't looked into the linux cert details, but it seems to be much more worthwhile than a piece of paper that says "Hi, I can install NT as a PDC, and run Back Office!" (replace NT with W2K as needed)...
The difference between the MSCE and RHCE certs seems like the difference between an IT major and an engineering major - "here's what you can do" to "here's what you can do, how you can do it, why you want to do it, and how it works"
my $.05 (darn oil prices)
Yup, my original Millenium (~$300 when I got it for my nearly new P-100) was a the best card for 2D I ever had in my machines until it got upped to an AGP G200 (it was better than the Mystique 220s by a good shot, too, but had little 3D). I put my RIVA TNT in my NT4 box, and it just can't compare to the 2D speed of the G200 (or really, the old Millen, either). You can really *feel* the difference - I did benchmarks, too (not that I remember them now). Obviously the G200 wasn't hte answer for 3D, either, but hey, the G400 (esp the MAX) is looking pretty sweet there.
/.!), so they should try and improve 2D performance as well. Sure it may not be the biggest selling point for gamers, but it keeps Matrox cards in (most of) my machines... I do like the TNT for 3D games, but I guess the G400 can take care of that 8^)
I really wish the other manufactures would try to at least reach the 2D performance achieved by the Mystique and older milleniums... 3D is certainly the gravy, but I just don't want to see my windows being drawn, refreshed, etc... The built-on-board AGP SiS graphics on so many motherboards choke at res's above 800x600 higher than 16 bit color... why? In 1995 my card could do 32 bit at 1280x1024 pretty darn quick (with 4MB). 2D performance has not improved as much as it could be, due to the 3D madness (which is fun).
well over 90% of what people use computers for is 2D (like
I agree - they should have mentioned in the /. article that it was fake, but I figured it was even before I clicked over to it, since it was in the humor category, and 'annulment' kinda tips you off, I'd think...
I didn't mean to imply that you don't have a sense of humor, just take into account the context of the story... if it has a big smelly foot, then I wouldn't get too hot and bothered by it 8^)
That's why there's a big ol' Monty Python foot as the icon for the story... humor... This was the first time I'd heard of FNwire, so it was certainly worth *my* time. I now have another source of enjoyment. The point of /. is (IMHO) to show relevant (and semi-relevant) news items to the 'geek community' and to provide humor and a discussion forum. You could always filter out humor stories if you really want to...
I haven't read Chaos yet, though it's on my list, but Genius was one of the best books in its genre that I've ever picked up. I read it in high school, and much was over my head, but another round through it after four years of physics and engineering really amazes me. Well put together, interesting organiztion, and just well written... I just hopped over to www.around.com... turns out he won one of those funny little prizes (Pulitzer) for both of these. Guess we're not the only ones who think he did a good job 8^)
Many standard PCI cards will run in several different Alpha motherboards - both under Linux and NT (maybe Digital Unix, too, who knows). A Matrox G200 in a 533MHz Alpha 21164 was pretty decent at quake (before my board died and Compaq refused to even *sell* me a new one, much less replace it under warantee)...
With the important thing being the balancing... separate DB and web servers, ads off of a different box... more of that info is included in the Slash source d/l, so take a look..
>measured in somethingortheothers
Joules, I believe...
Sure isn't equivalent to Volts, though 8^)
>I'd be surprised if the etching gun sold for less than $50 grand.
I'd be surprised if it didn't 'sell' for an order of magnitude or two above that...
>Wow, Rob, that "overhype just like a real local newscaster" class is really paying off. What's up for next week? "What THEY Don't Want You To Know About HTML"?
Nope, that's in two weeks - next week is "When Good HTML Goes Bad.... THREE!" (produced by Fox, of course)...
No, she doesn't need a lot of things... she doesn't need a laptop, she doesn't even need a full computer (maybe a thin client). Specific devices for specific needs is the idea. There are a lot of applications for the low-power, dirt cheap processors, there's no denying that... it's just that a blanket statement like the following bothers me:
>Could we please get back on track and work on something that computer users really want, like
[snipped the list]
When one speaks for *all* computer users (without consulting us all first 8^) you take a chance... therefore, I offered a diffrence of opinion, which is why we get to comment on stories.
Another salient point is that pushing the performance limits leads to lower power consumption per MHz/MIP/whatever, and really *does* help out the dirt-cheap low-power stuff. As the newer lith processes improve, less voltage is required to drive the chip, so power can decrease. Yes, a 1GHz chip will create a lot of heat and use a lot of power, but the same process used on a 500MHz chip will use far less - power changes linear with frequency, and with the square of the voltage difference (a lower voltage can be used at lower frequenciesm since less current is required, due to longer setup times). If we can produce a 1.5GHz chip that sucks 50 watts at 2 volts, a 500MHz chip (same core) that runs at 1.2v would use 6 watts, and I'm sure you could make a much simpler core that wouldn't be as power-sucking in the first place, and get it down further.
Pushing the envelope from several direction can really help (just don't knock it off the table 8^)
Don't you mean SPECfp? That's where alphas have the most advantage. At similar clock speeds, the SPECints aren't that far off for a P3 and Alpha (IIRC)...
I've been told the newer chipset versions have been more stable than the originals, too (stands to reason that things would improve). Asus has a great history of stability, and they have always impressed me greatly. I know someone who just got one of the new FIC Athlon boards, and he's been stress testing it for about 6 days now... so far so good (lots of apps/compiles/games all runs with scripts, most of which serve little purpose than to test all available paths and try to create tough situations for the board/chip). One thing to always check is that the chipset is properly cooled... it never used to be much of a problem, but ever since the BX started pushing to 100MHz, and now others are doing that and more, with more buffers and all sorts of good stuff, heat becomes a problem, especially when sitting beneath a sizzling processor. Just something to think about.
The CPU may be the brain of your system, but a top notch motherboard really makes the difference.
They can take up a lot of extra wires and gates to try to overcome some of the higher speed problems... differential designs are great, but at the expense of increased chip design. At least you can be sure when your data is stable without clocking, though. Really neat stuff.
>* Dirt cheap price (i.e. a fast CPU for $20).
Well, a K6-2 500 runs ~$45-50 now, which is pretty darn cheap...
>* Negligible power consumption.
D'Oh!
>* Much smaller, less clunky systems (of which a low power, cheap CPU is an important part).
Well, not everyone always really wants this. That's great for nice products, like a Palm, or laptop, but I'd still rather have a 2' tower under my desk, with expansion room, and room to add horsepower as I see fit. It all depends what you want it to do... I wouldn't use a laptop for CAD or numbercrunching - I don't like the limitations of portable devices. I *don't* want my TV, microwave, etc enabled with networking... dreamcast networking is a neat step forward for that platform, and I think centrally controlled lighting (X-10, etc) is a great thing, but thesee things don't need real CPUs.... Many people think they *need* something, and end up never using it... I like to make the most use of what I have...
Regarding Moore's Law (or hypothesism which is a more accurate description) - it can be maintained for a while usng x-ray lithography along with newer SOI and copper technologies, and in a few years, maybe IBM's electron-beam lith will be cheap or fast enough to use with larger scale mass production cards, but we'll have to see. Humans are amazingly inventive creatures who overcome seemingly impossible physical limitations via little tweaks and large leaps (with the tweaks sometimes giving the insight necessary to figure out the leaps...).
As always, the benefits fall to the consumer, who is pretty happy with a 200/333/450 MHz PC processor, but boy, can Excel go fast now, or just look at how smooth Quake IX Arena is now! Most people really don't need such capabilities for their PCs, but gamers do, CAD designers do, coders love fast compiles, accountants are made happier by fast refreshes, and everybody loves it when everything just 'feels' faster.
A lot of the technology research that is motivated by processor market and communications market allows for greater gains in other highly specific areas... look how far graphics cards have come in the last few years. Everyone gains from this, as long as they realize that even last months technology is good enough for most people (see the Gateway commercial where the guy is bringing home a T5 (can't help thinking about Cray) and sees the signs put up for a T6)...
Of course, if things continue to push the way they have, we might continue to see more power-sucking features that force out old computer faster (fade in/out pull down menus in Win2k?! I mean, really - it's a menu, not an ancient scroll from D&D). I haven't upgraded a processor in any of my boxes for over a year now (the horror), but a couple running at 450 leaves me pretty happy, and I'll wait a little while before I make a large leap to a really screaming CPU/vid upgrade... I also just spent a lot moving into a new house, so that saps
the tech budget a little, too 8^)
Life is good in the commodity PC market for buyers, though. Take advantage of it.
Yeah, reaction times can be cut down by anticipation, and the more fluid the motion of the visual cues on the screen (other players, direction of rocket fire 8^) the better you can anticipate and therefore avoid getting fragged... In terms of video, I can't even stand watching most Real Player or other streaming video... I don't mind grain, and color problems as much I can't stand seeing someone's half rendered face in the wrong spot for the words said, or a baseball bat hitting a ball well after the crack (or missing it totally), due to frame drops... Even the nickelodians at the old shoe store I went to as a kid (back in the real early 80s) had better motion than most of these. Granted, bandwith is a big consideration for these videos, not CPU power, but All Video Should Be Smooth Video(sm), and I can't wait until TV goes full to progressive scan - interlacing is a pain...
/.)... funny how that works...
I'm very picky about a lot of things, but I'm easily amused (probably why I read
Mmmmm.... Pong - look at http://www.ttinet.com/pjf/pong/ shows that pong needs even a decent CPU (it is Java, after all)...
Yes, but if the machine does 30 fps, it will drop below that on occasion, causing frame drops and visual discomfort 8^) If you can get 60/90/130 fps, you know that even worst case scenarios will keep you visually happy. Anything higher than your monitor refresh rate is just bragging gravy anyway...
as for now, my celery (300a@450) and TNT(1) are just fine for my games, and another 300a@450 with a Matrox G200 is perfect for all of my NT stuff...
>We humans have an irrational interest in what we consider to be 'round numbers' whereby we feel that a year with a 'round number' or, in this case, a processor clocked at one will in some way be extra-better as it were over previous incarnations than if it did not have that round number in it's name.
Like Dogbert said - "They're so BIG.... and ROUND!!!"
Yup, the savings are considerable for built-in SCSI on-board. A real Adaptec 2940UW (or 3940, or the new U2Ws) on board increases the board price far less than buying a separate card (like I have)... Check out the prices on the equivalent Asus boards w/ and w/o the built in SCSI (just as a reference). Pretty decent... though Tekram makes some nice SCSI cards that are fully AHA-29xx compatable (they used to use Adaptec chips,if I remember, they still might for some), and they are *way* cheaper than the real Adaptecs... I have no personal experience with them, though some of my friends swear by them...
I'm still waiting for the dual-Athlon board, but I'm not holding my breath, either 8^)
Was that an IDE hard drive (or CD) / burner combo? I've got a single celeron (300@450) and I can easily surf the web (including pdf d/l & displays), run that with e-mail open (with background checking), and do plenty of other things (including some small compiles) and the writing never takes up more than ~10-15% CPU, no matter if it's a CD -> CD burn or a image -> CD burn... herein lies the advantage of SCSI (AHA-2940 UW with Plextor 40 UW, Plextor 20/8/2 U, and IBM 10krpm UW)... nice transfers handled well without a lot of CPU intervention. Most of the CPU is used by the cute (read: useless) animations in Easy CD Creator...
I'm planning an SMP system, but after those other purchases (and a new house), I'm way out of $$$......
Hmmm... nerds has been a candy for what... 15 years now? I remember eating them in grade school... mmm sugar.
Geek is a little old, though I'm glad it no longer refers to biting chicken or snake heads off...
>Of course, each one of these 'domains' is a standards war waiting to happen, and in the meantime lots of XML is being deployed now with custom homebrew schemas. It has enormous potential to interoperate better than proprietary formats, but it is not the magic solution to data interoperability
This is what I noticed, and why it doesn't seem like XML is all that big a deal... if everyone is going to have their own formats/layouts anyway, it doesn't make much of a solution. Granted, it would make conversion filters far easier to write, but doesn't really solve a lot of things...
Unless you're big on privacy... through the web person search, you could get not only the person's on-campus address and phone#, but their home phone and address! Not information that should be publicly available in most cases, especially whe someone takes the time to not have their number listed.. and home address? People shouldn't be getting that if you have a campus address defined... I think the phone numbers myay be gone now (I sent off a few e-mails, and alerted several students there), but the home address still remains...
Rutgers as also been very slow getting networking into the majority of the res halls... many were still running through an over-clogged dialup last year (can't say this year - I don't visit anymore). Napster + dialup = pain, no matter what 8^)
I've read a lot about how XML is the greatest thing since sliced bread, apparently enabling many different things, from website interoperability, office documents, making toast & eggs, an XML parser in the core of OS X, and now people are talking about making /etc/ files XML... I don't get it. Not just the /etc stuff, I don't understand what the big deal is about XML. It doesn't seem like the big panacea that will cure all of our standards problems and create world peace that many people seem to be making it out to be. In fact, I don't see very many reasons why I'd use it for *anything*...
This is an honest request for information - please enlighten me.
Thanks!