Alpha's are like 1960's muscle cars. They're fast, but only because of the brute force under the hood. X86 machines are sleek and smoothe like a Porche because they use brilliant engineering and specialised extensions like SSE. I'll take the Porche over the outdated horsepower any day. Comparisons like that are pointless when the only real factor is speed/$. It makes no difference when you can pay 25% of the price for same performance.
If you need 64-bit integers, huge amounts of RAM, very high-precision FP or large numbers of processors you'll want to avoid x86. But for the vast majority of applications there's little reason to go with anything else.
A bit OT:
I think the reason so many people are infatuated with Alpha is that the assembly code is 'clean' and the processor doesn't have backwards compatibility modes that require a little thinking to get around. The truth is, none of that matters when you need to get a job done.
Watch out for that software. I dropped a whole DB with that thing when I had intended only to drop a table. Thankfully this was a test DB.
Also, a key feature broke in the latest version (1.22): easy editing of MEMO fields.
Here's a fun way to expose a bug in mysqlfront: use double-quotes in your query. Watch the query entry window puke random ASCII. Fun.
Still, it's 50x better than mysqlgui (*HURL*).
Re:While I'm no Windows expert...
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 1
Do yourself a favour and get a tool like Spy++ or SoftICE. Create a program that embeds the IE Webbrowser COM object, and inspect the calls it makes.
You'll see that, as I said, IE makes a lot of calls to shell32.dll, mshtml.dll, urlmon.dll, and further down, gdi.dll, winsock.dll and the like. The only calls that make it to the kernel are basic operations.
Why would Microsoft create a spaghetti mess of "secret undocumented kernel calls" that get made from very high level APIs? According to SoftICE, things work as documented - high level applications call high level DLLs, which call lower level DLLs, and basic calls are made of the kernel - and you're full of shit.
If I developed an application with libcurl in Linux, my calls would go libcurl -> libc -> kernel - much like what we have here.
The "certain GUI functions" in the kernel space are the video drivers. These are similar in purpose to the the Linux fb device, but have proven more of a problem because the fb device is much simpler. Whereas the fb device only gives the developer a frame buffer, Windows video drivers give the developer an API that lets them do blits, draw curves, etc. - things accelerated by video cards.
The lesson there is "don't use a badly written video driver", not "leave that out of the kernel".
Re:Because upgrading IE often hoses your machine.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
IE is not integrated into the kernel. It's part of the shell. There's still a kernel API down a few levels that knows nothing about web pages, or My Computer, Network Neighbourhood and other such shell objects for that matter.
I would argue: browser updates always (shell and UI DLLs are updated by browser upgrades), just don't launch IE or OE for your browsing/email.
> The problem is that you need a basic background in computer science to understand what I just said.
Ignorant, pompous dick... What's your problem? Low UID gone to your head?
No, C was designed to limit the number of keywords required. There's a huge difference. Compare C to pascal. C has less than a dozen keywords and Pascal has almost 100, but neither is more readable if used correctly.
Also, C was not popular until we already had video terminals - and then, C was the UNIX-head-only language until the 80's.
You're so incredibly misinformed about computer history.
I'm going to assume you posted before thinking... Of course they don't profit from ad revenue. Of course X10 is going to pay other people to display their ads. That's the advertising industry.
Backwards compatibility only adds bloat anyway - from the consumer's perspective, downloading a new plugin (or having your favourites shipped with IE 6) is really not a big deal.
Who are we crying for here, anyway? Apple? Small time plugin developers? The end-user on a 14.4 modem?
I know there are a few plugins that will not be rewritten in time for IE 6 - academic simulations and visualizations come to mind - but how can the people who use them expect to be able to run an ancient plugin with a spankin' new browser?
A bit of sprawl? You idiot, Phoenix is among the least dense cities in the world. Dallas is pretty sparse too, come to think of it. Now, Boston, SF and NY. Those are dense cities.
True, it says that they'll be "shipping before the end of 2000". Below that, however, there's an update that says "summer of 2001". Though I hope the VGA[1]/PCI version is available by then (soon!), I wouldn't hold my breath.
The price on the website was CDN$300 a while ago. No, I have absolutely no proof of that.
[1] MDA over PCI was not doable, so their new product will emulate VGA. As well, I believe Windows NT will not boot with anything less than MCGA.
It's an inexpensive (compared to the price of a computer with a built-in serial console) add-on that gives any PC with an ISA slot serial console capabilites.
Once you read all the man pages? I think you just hilighted the problem. The easiest (and more likely to be widely accepted) way to prevent sniffing is to use low-layer protocol-invisible encryption. People won't accept a mix of confusing settings and protocols.
Besides, 90% of your web browsing is clear text. I wouldn't want anyone knowing what I read or post on the web. Or are you going to tunnel _everything_ through a wired box somewhere?
Are you retarted? You have to put some trust in your operating system - are you sure that Windows is passing every packet through Zonealarm? Are you safe from bugs in your IP stack? Are you sure that the attacks you see in Zonealarm weren't spuriously generated by Windows itself?
After shooting 5 minutes of DV footage on someone else's camera, I want to bring the video home to edit on my PC. Instead of borrowing their DV camera or buying my own, all I need is a PCMCIA FireWire card to transfer footage and a NIC to bring it back out to my laptop editing machine. That's an absurd, fabricated scenario. Bravo.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus he's not even using fingerd - just some script he wrote himself to listen on port 70 and spit out ~$USER/.plan.
Yeah, 2^48 * 512 == 2^50 * 128 (128 PB), but the latter does not make it clear that the kernel supports 2^48 512-byte sectors.
Alpha's are like 1960's muscle cars. They're fast, but only because of the brute force under the hood. X86 machines are sleek and smoothe like a Porche because they use brilliant engineering and specialised extensions like SSE. I'll take the Porche over the outdated horsepower any day.
Comparisons like that are pointless when the only real factor is speed/$. It makes no difference when you can pay 25% of the price for same performance.
If you need 64-bit integers, huge amounts of RAM, very high-precision FP or large numbers of processors you'll want to avoid x86. But for the vast majority of applications there's little reason to go with anything else.
A bit OT:
I think the reason so many people are infatuated with Alpha is that the assembly code is 'clean' and the processor doesn't have backwards compatibility modes that require a little thinking to get around. The truth is, none of that matters when you need to get a job done.
Hah. I think that review is parody. Shameless overanalysis of market-driven pop.
I would argue that it's the browser's fault if it "freaks out" when it encounters a bad page.
Ah, so that's why the //gs sounded so good.
Watch out for that software. I dropped a whole DB with that thing when I had intended only to drop a table. Thankfully this was a test DB.
Also, a key feature broke in the latest version (1.22): easy editing of MEMO fields.
Here's a fun way to expose a bug in mysqlfront: use double-quotes in your query. Watch the query entry window puke random ASCII. Fun.
Still, it's 50x better than mysqlgui (*HURL*).
Do yourself a favour and get a tool like Spy++ or SoftICE. Create a program that embeds the IE Webbrowser COM object, and inspect the calls it makes.
You'll see that, as I said, IE makes a lot of calls to shell32.dll, mshtml.dll, urlmon.dll, and further down, gdi.dll, winsock.dll and the like. The only calls that make it to the kernel are basic operations.
Why would Microsoft create a spaghetti mess of "secret undocumented kernel calls" that get made from very high level APIs? According to SoftICE, things work as documented - high level applications call high level DLLs, which call lower level DLLs, and basic calls are made of the kernel - and you're full of shit.
If I developed an application with libcurl in Linux, my calls would go libcurl -> libc -> kernel - much like what we have here.
The "certain GUI functions" in the kernel space are the video drivers. These are similar in purpose to the the Linux fb device, but have proven more of a problem because the fb device is much simpler. Whereas the fb device only gives the developer a frame buffer, Windows video drivers give the developer an API that lets them do blits, draw curves, etc. - things accelerated by video cards.
The lesson there is "don't use a badly written video driver", not "leave that out of the kernel".
IE is not integrated into the kernel. It's part of the shell. There's still a kernel API down a few levels that knows nothing about web pages, or My Computer, Network Neighbourhood and other such shell objects for that matter.
I would argue: browser updates always (shell and UI DLLs are updated by browser upgrades), just don't launch IE or OE for your browsing/email.
> The problem is that you need a basic background in computer science to understand what I just said.
Ignorant, pompous dick... What's your problem? Low UID gone to your head?
Don't be stupid. When it's no longer profitable for Microsoft to pay the fine, they will stop selling their product in Europe.
Weight at sea level, maybe. He meant Mass: 27.3 kg.
No, C was designed to limit the number of keywords required. There's a huge difference. Compare C to pascal. C has less than a dozen keywords and Pascal has almost 100, but neither is more readable if used correctly.
Also, C was not popular until we already had video terminals - and then, C was the UNIX-head-only language until the 80's.
You're so incredibly misinformed about computer history.
I'm going to assume you posted before thinking... Of course they don't profit from ad revenue. Of course X10 is going to pay other people to display their ads. That's the advertising industry.
For spelling every single word of that sentence correctly.
Moron. You just described C.
Where are you downloading OpenUnix from exactly? I couldn't find a downloadable version on the Caldera site.
Displays stuff currently on my front page. Or was it always like that?
Backwards compatibility only adds bloat anyway - from the consumer's perspective, downloading a new plugin (or having your favourites shipped with IE 6) is really not a big deal.
Who are we crying for here, anyway? Apple? Small time plugin developers? The end-user on a 14.4 modem?
I know there are a few plugins that will not be rewritten in time for IE 6 - academic simulations and visualizations come to mind - but how can the people who use them expect to be able to run an ancient plugin with a spankin' new browser?
A bit of sprawl? You idiot, Phoenix is among the least dense cities in the world. Dallas is pretty sparse too, come to think of it. Now, Boston, SF and NY. Those are dense cities.
Not in old cities. In Berlin, for example, street addresses go from 1 to N on one side, and N+1 to 2N on the other. It's a pain in the ass.
True, it says that they'll be "shipping before the end of 2000". Below that, however, there's an update that says "summer of 2001". Though I hope the VGA[1]/PCI version is available by then (soon!), I wouldn't hold my breath.
The price on the website was CDN$300 a while ago. No, I have absolutely no proof of that.
[1] MDA over PCI was not doable, so their new product will emulate VGA. As well, I believe Windows NT will not boot with anything less than MCGA.
Try http://www.realweasel.com/
It's an inexpensive (compared to the price of a computer with a built-in serial console) add-on that gives any PC with an ISA slot serial console capabilites.
Once you read all the man pages? I think you just hilighted the problem. The easiest (and more likely to be widely accepted) way to prevent sniffing is to use low-layer protocol-invisible encryption. People won't accept a mix of confusing settings and protocols.
Besides, 90% of your web browsing is clear text. I wouldn't want anyone knowing what I read or post on the web. Or are you going to tunnel _everything_ through a wired box somewhere?
Are you retarted? You have to put some trust in your operating system - are you sure that Windows is passing every packet through Zonealarm? Are you safe from bugs in your IP stack? Are you sure that the attacks you see in Zonealarm weren't spuriously generated by Windows itself?
After shooting 5 minutes of DV footage on someone else's camera, I want to bring the video home to edit on my PC. Instead of borrowing their DV camera or buying my own, all I need is a PCMCIA FireWire card to transfer footage and a NIC to bring it back out to my laptop editing machine.
That's an absurd, fabricated scenario. Bravo.