Why don't people get that this is completely opt-in for AdSense customers? "I'm an AdSense customer and the main reason I picked Google was because they offered only text ads..." Umm, you don't have to have image ads if you don't want them. Jeez.
And there are some things that are better expressed graphically. "Buy this super cute toy!" in image form is so much more convincing.
Anyway, I just think it's funny that every time Google has tried to innovate, this group of people cries foul, "Oh dear lord! The end of Google is nigh!" and pretty much every freakin' time, they actually do something that ends up being super-cool.
Like someone said earlier, I may not have faith in Google, but they haven't let me down yet...
Chili!Soft allows ASP to run on virtually any platform you might have sitting in your datacenters. I'm not MS-lover, and there are plenty of things wrong with ASP, but I'd put it on par with PHP (having done significant development in both languages/environments). Right now, I've written my own appserver in Java that I use to serve content, so I guess I'm part of the servlet crowd.
For the record: the article was rubbish. The person writing it seems to not know the first thing about writing servlets or Java. Extending GenericServlet? Who does that?
Not to mention... ?ul? ?li?any outward-facing glass (doors, security fishbowl) is 90-minute riot glass. That is, it would take a battering ram 90 minutes to break through the glass ?li?Kevlar-reinforced walls ?li?sensors detecting everything from humidity and temperature to biological agents ?/ul? Yeah, pretty much the only thing getting through there is a nuke.:-) ?p? --jeddz
graduated from MIT, probably THE most prestigious technical university in the world
taught at that very university (sometimes even refunding tuition)
created an influential open-source toolkit for creating DB-backed Web sites
written one of the first widely-publicized and published books on the topic of DB-backed Web sites
and did so for free on the Web
started an enterprise open-source software company
created a unique kind of educational program to teach computer science
and was companion to at least two great dogs
What's left for Philip Greenspun to do? What's next? What can we expect this wunderkind turned pundit to come up with next? I mean, besides the obvious of assuring the ADU is successful, AD goes public, etc. How will Philip Greenspun continue this revolution that he helped start?
Stored procedures lock you into a database vendor, since there is no standard stored proc language/syntax.
Which, of course, is exactly what database vendors would like.
If you don't mind that, stored procs are great. But database independence can be A Good Thing [tm], for example, when the university gets a big fat check from Sun Microsystems, and suddenly you're looking at converting everything to Oracle 8.
Anyway, something to think about. You can also encapsulate and hide data, etc. etc. etc. if you keep your data access methods separate so that in case you decide you want to pull user data from an LDAP server instead of the DB, you don't have to change every place you coded that.
I'd like to second the vote for the Canon A5 Zoom. What a pleasure of a camera. My only complaint about the camera is that the top metal plate of the turning-knob-thingy comes off too easily. A problem easily fixed with some superglue...nevertheless.
A must have, though, is a card reader. This RADICALLY changes how you use your camera. I have the USB Cameramate from Microtech. If you're a Wintel user, it allows you to mount the card reader as lettered drives (e.g. G:\), then getting pictures off your card is just a matter of inserting the card, then browsing to the drive and copying pictures off like files. And it's quick since it's USB.
As I understand it, Goo or Soap are NOT part of this particular deal. Read carefully -- neither is mentioned in this article. Why? Because Goo and Soap are owned by ScanSoft, a company that has quietly been acquiring quite a number of products. Will they pay any attention to the Linux market? I doubt it. They're more likely to pay attention to how their products can be used over the Web.
The reason they break up articles into more than one page isn't because they think it might be easier to read (you usually still have to scroll anyway) or because it would take too long to download (it's just text).
The reason they break up articles into more than one page is one reason: more advertisement views. Why stop at showing you one set of ads, when they know that if you're interested in the text, you'll clck through and view several sets of ads.
We shouldn't forget that most anything on the Web in terms of commercial organizations is bent on one thing: profit. That's an awful way to put it, but usability studies and what-not are simply to get people to come back and either (a) view ads to generate revenue, or (b) make you more loyal so that they'll have you as a customer and you'll come back and view more ads to generate revenue.
Sorry to take such a dour viewpoint -- just calling it like I see it.
The question (albeit slightly-off-topic) that I'd love answered is this: do non-salaried workers (i.e. contractors) ever get a chance to do new things? In almost all cases that I've been involved in working with contractors, it's been the case that they were hired to do a specific task, and no more.
One of the benefits of salaried employees (non-tangible benefits) is that they have the freedom to try other jobs if they feel so inclined. Contractors are paid to do one job, and that's it.
Is this the case where others work? I'd love to go freelance, but I'm afraid that I'd only be able to work where I have my strengths. Right now, I can do a little bit of everything if I want.
That's funny -- but true. Their sales people are clueless. You just have to play along with their games to get a technician out. All MediaOne needs is a MAC address to do the installation.
But your story reminded me of a similar experience with MediaOne. Yeah!
It was really strange to read this article -- it was an almost exact re-telling my experiences with MediaOne and BellAtlantic.
I moved to Cambridge in February (a move based almost solely on the availability of bandwidth...I'm such a loser.;-) ), and immediately signed up for MediaOne cable modem service. They installed it, the guy didn't mind me hooking up my Linux box, and I was connected at really decent speeds. I never noticed much slow down -- well, occasionally a slight slow-down around 5-6 pm -- but never dipped below, say, ISDN speeds.
Well, in June, I got a flyer in the mail from BellAtlantic saying that DSL service was available in my neighborhood, and I wasn't all that interested until I saw they offered 7.1 Mbps speeds. After wiping up the drool, I called them up and signed up for BA DSL service. They came, they installed, they left. The guy even checked the line, and I saw with my own eyes that the bandwidth was hovering around 6.5 Mbps (not the advertised 7.1 -- but I wasn't complaining!)
Cut to me, setting it up on my system. First of all, the domain name they assign you (unlike the nice myname.ne.mediaone.net that MediaOne assigns you) turns out to be something like: adsl-192-168-288-112.more.crap.even.more.crap.bell atlantic.net. Disgusting -- having to type that everytime. And the whole point of having a host/domain name is lost when they put the actual IP address in the host name. *sigh*
That not withstanding, I forged ahead. At least, I thought, I'd have blazing 6.5 Mbps speeds! Well, it turns out that the only time I ever got anywhere NEAR that speed was when I was on the phone with their tech support, and they asked me to download a test file from one of their servers, a mere 3 hops away. Of course I'm going to get decent speeds if I'm going straight to one of your servers and downloading! But anywhere else, I was lucky to even get T-1 speeds.
Why? Because BA.net's network topology was designed by monkeys. OK, maybe not, but it certainly felt that way. Not only did it route traffic through 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0 addresses, it took 11 hops just to get out of BA.net's subnet! And then, apparently, BA.net has never heard of private peering, so all their traffic dumps into public exchanges located in Nome, Alaska (ok, so it was NJ) but any traffic that I wanted routed was almost certainly sent through the Garden State, even if that traffic was to MIT or BBN.
Ping times, needless to say, were dismal: at least 2-3 times slower than what I was experiencing with MediaOne. It's a good thing I never cancelled my MediaOne -- after a week of wrestling with them and their tech support, I unplugged the DSL modem (anyone want to buy one cheap?;-) ) and plugged the cable modem back in.
So now, not only am I getting better performance from my network connection, I pay less than half of what I was paying with BA.net. How do these DSL providers expect to stay in business with prices like that?
Anyway, just wanted to echo Garfinkel's comments. If you didn't believe him, maybe you'll believe me, though I have no idea why you'd trust me over a respected journalist.;-)
Are there any resources out there that DO go beneath the surface? I'd love to write some of my own Apache modules (in C) and would like to know some of the nuts&bolts without walking through all of the httpd code.
Nevertheless, I plan on picking up a copy of this book. 8)
--jeddz
p.s. every time I think about moderating a topic, I end up posting to it!
It's a great point. Regardless of what they find with this guy, his life is already destroyed.
It's both the value and curse of our media. Things explode even before there is a chance for our legal system to decide one way or another.
True, we have to give credit to law enforcement officials for a "job well done," but everyone has rights, including alleged pedophiles. I think one of the ways our legal systems need revamping is in how it goes about releasing this sort of information.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the freedom of information, but freedom at the cost of destroying a life? Who knows for certain what this guy did? All we have our reports from an organization who lives and breathes by finding these kinds of monsters, but who's to say that Naughton is until a judge or jury decides?
At least keep the poor schlep's name confidential.
I would like to be one, I really would. But I lack the one quality that would, without question, allow me into the folds, the inner circle: being a woman.
Now, before I get slammed for being either naive or cold-hearted, let me explain. I am (mostly) white, (mostly) male, (mostly) hetero and (mostly) Protestant. But I'm also compassionate, empathetic, and eager to help those around me. God knows I've been helped in the past in one way or another, and I know what it's like to be marginalized and oppressed. Do I know what the world is like from a woman's perspective? No. Just like I don't understand what it's like to be black in a white society, gay in a hetero culture, and a spirtual person where temples and mosques and forests and skies are not considered "real" places of worship.
Does this mean I can't be a feminist? Seemingly. Because not only am I not one of "us" (the women), I am one of "them" (the men) -- a member of the group of oppressors.
I understand the perspective: it's important to have a group of people that you feel safe with, and when that group is a collection of people with a common suffering, the last person you want in your group is someone who reminds you of that suffering.
It saddens me, but I'm afraid that's just the way of things. In a world I try so hard to make better, I ended up, by no control of my own, being part of the dominant, oppressing group.
And sadly for me, I'm not totally white (I'm half Asian), I'm not totally hetero (won't get into that...not ready yet.;-) ), I'm not totally Christian (lots of leanings towards Buddhism and others).
But I am totally male. *sigh*
--jeddz
P.S. I have a feeling I'll get flamed for this, but I just had to get that off my chest. Be gentle.
Ahhh...so the downside of geek women comes out! I figured alls I needed to do was to get me one of dem dere geek women, and my life would be complete.;-) Nevertheless, a conversation in my relationship:
ME: Sweetie, I'd like to get a new motherboard and a couple of new processors to upgrade my desktop. HER: Uh-huh. And how much is that going to cost? ME: Cheap! Like only $600, because you see, I'm going to overclock those two bad boys with this new board that Asus has... HER: No. ME: But...but...I could move my old motherboard to the gateway machine, and so it would be like getting two new computers for the price of on... HER: Have you paid off the last batch of computer stuff you bought? ME: Well...ummm... HER: No.
So I wonder if I have it any better.;-)
"That second bedroom WILL be a server room if I have my way about it!"
There are always some interesting implications when Microsoft decides to buy out a company for their product, implications that should interest the Linux community. Whenever a company is bought out by Microsoft, my assumption is that any sort of a Linux port is out of the question. Is this right? I'm not up on my anti-trust laws, but this seems like snuffing out the competition by owning the market that supports the competition. Much like Barnes & Noble couldn't buy up all the book warehouses in the company to put Amazon out of business, it seems like there should be checks in place to keep Microsoft from buying up all the application "warehouses."
You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still. But the purchase by Microsoft shouldn't surprise anyone. Someone's already noted that they have some very tight integration with MS Office, Visio was started by ex-Microsoft employees, plus the Vision offices are in Seattle! I'm just surprised this didn't happen sooner -- Microsoft could've paid less than the $1.6B they coughed up.
I read the bit by the ServerObjects people. Can anyone out there enlighten us to the difference between RLE encoding and LZW encoding, and whether their mutually interchangeable to the end user?
If this whole thing is because of the LZW encoding, why not all switch to RLE encoding? ('cept, of course, that it creates a bigger image.)
Slashdot Mirror
...even those produced by Netscape.com.
How deliciously ironic.
--jeddz
Why don't people get that this is completely opt-in for AdSense customers? "I'm an AdSense customer and the main reason I picked Google was because they offered only text ads..." Umm, you don't have to have image ads if you don't want them. Jeez.
And there are some things that are better expressed graphically. "Buy this super cute toy!" in image form is so much more convincing.
Anyway, I just think it's funny that every time Google has tried to innovate, this group of people cries foul, "Oh dear lord! The end of Google is nigh!" and pretty much every freakin' time, they actually do something that ends up being super-cool.
Like someone said earlier, I may not have faith in Google, but they haven't let me down yet...
~jeddz
Chili!Soft allows ASP to run on virtually any platform you might have sitting in your datacenters. I'm not MS-lover, and there are plenty of things wrong with ASP, but I'd put it on par with PHP (having done significant development in both languages/environments). Right now, I've written my own appserver in Java that I use to serve content, so I guess I'm part of the servlet crowd.
For the record: the article was rubbish. The person writing it seems to not know the first thing about writing servlets or Java. Extending GenericServlet? Who does that?
--Jeff
While reading aloud a JonKatz post:
- Everytime the phrase "post-Columbine" is mentioned, you drink.
- Everytime the phrase "geek alienation" is mentioned, you drink.
- When JonKatz starts empathizing with the Goths, you take two drinks.
- ...
I challenge anyone out there to get past the first paragraph without falling off their ergonomic swivel chairs in a drunken stupor!--jeddz
I've been reading some of the comments out there, and a lot of them resonate the following:
;-)
"If only IE ran on {Linux,FreeBSD,OpenBSD}, I could ditch that crappy Windows {98,NT,2000} for a REAL operating system!"
Well, let's do the math here: gain a non-paying IE customer and lose a paying Windows customer, or keep the paying Windows customer?
I think it's clear they aren't going to port. Which of course, blows the whole IE-on-Mac argument out of the water...
--jeddz
--jeddz
Not to mention... ?ul? ?li?any outward-facing glass (doors, security fishbowl) is 90-minute riot glass. That is, it would take a battering ram 90 minutes to break through the glass ?li?Kevlar-reinforced walls ?li?sensors detecting everything from humidity and temperature to biological agents ?/ul? Yeah, pretty much the only thing getting through there is a nuke. :-) ?p? --jeddz
--jeddz
If it's got problems, it's not a 10.
--jeddz
- graduated from MIT, probably THE most prestigious technical university in the world
- taught at that very university (sometimes even refunding tuition)
- created an influential open-source toolkit for creating DB-backed Web sites
- written one of the first widely-publicized and published books on the topic of DB-backed Web sites
- and did so for free on the Web
- started an enterprise open-source software company
- created a unique kind of educational program to teach computer science
- and was companion to at least two great dogs
What's left for Philip Greenspun to do? What's next? What can we expect this wunderkind turned pundit to come up with next? I mean, besides the obvious of assuring the ADU is successful, AD goes public, etc. How will Philip Greenspun continue this revolution that he helped start?--jeddz
Which, of course, is exactly what database vendors would like.
If you don't mind that, stored procs are great. But database independence can be A Good Thing [tm], for example, when the university gets a big fat check from Sun Microsystems, and suddenly you're looking at converting everything to Oracle 8.
Anyway, something to think about. You can also encapsulate and hide data, etc. etc. etc. if you keep your data access methods separate so that in case you decide you want to pull user data from an LDAP server instead of the DB, you don't have to change every place you coded that.
A must have, though, is a card reader. This RADICALLY changes how you use your camera. I have the USB Cameramate from Microtech. If you're a Wintel user, it allows you to mount the card reader as lettered drives (e.g. G:\), then getting pictures off your card is just a matter of inserting the card, then browsing to the drive and copying pictures off like files. And it's quick since it's USB.
As I understand it, Goo or Soap are NOT part of this particular deal. Read carefully -- neither is mentioned in this article. Why? Because Goo and Soap are owned by ScanSoft, a company that has quietly been acquiring quite a number of products. Will they pay any attention to the Linux market? I doubt it. They're more likely to pay attention to how their products can be used over the Web.
The reason they break up articles into more than one page isn't because they think it might be easier to read (you usually still have to scroll anyway) or because it would take too long to download (it's just text).
The reason they break up articles into more than one page is one reason: more advertisement views. Why stop at showing you one set of ads, when they know that if you're interested in the text, you'll clck through and view several sets of ads.
We shouldn't forget that most anything on the Web in terms of commercial organizations is bent on one thing: profit. That's an awful way to put it, but usability studies and what-not are simply to get people to come back and either (a) view ads to generate revenue, or (b) make you more loyal so that they'll have you as a customer and you'll come back and view more ads to generate revenue.
Sorry to take such a dour viewpoint -- just calling it like I see it.
--jeddz
Any chance you can post a picture of what it looks like? ;-)
The question (albeit slightly-off-topic) that I'd love answered is this: do non-salaried workers (i.e. contractors) ever get a chance to do new things? In almost all cases that I've been involved in working with contractors, it's been the case that they were hired to do a specific task, and no more.
One of the benefits of salaried employees (non-tangible benefits) is that they have the freedom to try other jobs if they feel so inclined. Contractors are paid to do one job, and that's it.
Is this the case where others work? I'd love to go freelance, but I'm afraid that I'd only be able to work where I have my strengths. Right now, I can do a little bit of everything if I want.
--jeddz
But your story reminded me of a similar experience with MediaOne. Yeah!
--jeddz
I moved to Cambridge in February (a move based almost solely on the availability of bandwidth...I'm such a loser. ;-) ), and immediately signed up for MediaOne cable modem service. They installed it, the guy didn't mind me hooking up my Linux box, and I was connected at really decent speeds. I never noticed much slow down -- well, occasionally a slight slow-down around 5-6 pm -- but never dipped below, say, ISDN speeds.
Well, in June, I got a flyer in the mail from BellAtlantic saying that DSL service was available in my neighborhood, and I wasn't all that interested until I saw they offered 7.1 Mbps speeds. After wiping up the drool, I called them up and signed up for BA DSL service. They came, they installed, they left. The guy even checked the line, and I saw with my own eyes that the bandwidth was hovering around 6.5 Mbps (not the advertised 7.1 -- but I wasn't complaining!)
Cut to me, setting it up on my system. First of all, the domain name they assign you (unlike the nice myname.ne.mediaone.net that MediaOne assigns you) turns out to be something like: adsl-192-168-288-112.more.crap.even.more.crap.bell atlantic.net. Disgusting -- having to type that everytime. And the whole point of having a host/domain name is lost when they put the actual IP address in the host name. *sigh*
That not withstanding, I forged ahead. At least, I thought, I'd have blazing 6.5 Mbps speeds! Well, it turns out that the only time I ever got anywhere NEAR that speed was when I was on the phone with their tech support, and they asked me to download a test file from one of their servers, a mere 3 hops away. Of course I'm going to get decent speeds if I'm going straight to one of your servers and downloading! But anywhere else, I was lucky to even get T-1 speeds.
Why? Because BA.net's network topology was designed by monkeys. OK, maybe not, but it certainly felt that way. Not only did it route traffic through 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0 addresses, it took 11 hops just to get out of BA.net's subnet! And then, apparently, BA.net has never heard of private peering, so all their traffic dumps into public exchanges located in Nome, Alaska (ok, so it was NJ) but any traffic that I wanted routed was almost certainly sent through the Garden State, even if that traffic was to MIT or BBN.
Ping times, needless to say, were dismal: at least 2-3 times slower than what I was experiencing with MediaOne. It's a good thing I never cancelled my MediaOne -- after a week of wrestling with them and their tech support, I unplugged the DSL modem (anyone want to buy one cheap? ;-) ) and plugged the cable modem back in.
So now, not only am I getting better performance from my network connection, I pay less than half of what I was paying with BA.net. How do these DSL providers expect to stay in business with prices like that?
Anyway, just wanted to echo Garfinkel's comments. If you didn't believe him, maybe you'll believe me, though I have no idea why you'd trust me over a respected journalist. ;-)
--jeddz
Nevertheless, I plan on picking up a copy of this book. 8)
--jeddz
p.s. every time I think about moderating a topic, I end up posting to it!
It's both the value and curse of our media. Things explode even before there is a chance for our legal system to decide one way or another.
True, we have to give credit to law enforcement officials for a "job well done," but everyone has rights, including alleged pedophiles. I think one of the ways our legal systems need revamping is in how it goes about releasing this sort of information.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the freedom of information, but freedom at the cost of destroying a life? Who knows for certain what this guy did? All we have our reports from an organization who lives and breathes by finding these kinds of monsters, but who's to say that Naughton is until a judge or jury decides?
At least keep the poor schlep's name confidential.
--jeddz
I would like to be one, I really would. But I lack the one quality that would, without question, allow me into the folds, the inner circle: being a woman.
Now, before I get slammed for being either naive or cold-hearted, let me explain. I am (mostly) white, (mostly) male, (mostly) hetero and (mostly) Protestant. But I'm also compassionate, empathetic, and eager to help those around me. God knows I've been helped in the past in one way or another, and I know what it's like to be marginalized and oppressed. Do I know what the world is like from a woman's perspective? No. Just like I don't understand what it's like to be black in a white society, gay in a hetero culture, and a spirtual person where temples and mosques and forests and skies are not considered "real" places of worship.
Does this mean I can't be a feminist? Seemingly. Because not only am I not one of "us" (the women), I am one of "them" (the men) -- a member of the group of oppressors.
I understand the perspective: it's important to have a group of people that you feel safe with, and when that group is a collection of people with a common suffering, the last person you want in your group is someone who reminds you of that suffering.
It saddens me, but I'm afraid that's just the way of things. In a world I try so hard to make better, I ended up, by no control of my own, being part of the dominant, oppressing group.
And sadly for me, I'm not totally white (I'm half Asian), I'm not totally hetero (won't get into that...not ready yet. ;-) ), I'm not totally Christian (lots of leanings towards Buddhism and others).
But I am totally male. *sigh*
--jeddz
P.S. I have a feeling I'll get flamed for this, but I just had to get that off my chest. Be gentle.
ME: Sweetie, I'd like to get a new motherboard and a couple of new processors to upgrade my desktop.
HER: Uh-huh. And how much is that going to cost?
ME: Cheap! Like only $600, because you see, I'm going to overclock those two bad boys with this new board that Asus has...
HER: No.
ME: But...but...I could move my old motherboard to the gateway machine, and so it would be like getting two new computers for the price of on...
HER: Have you paid off the last batch of computer stuff you bought?
ME: Well...ummm...
HER: No.
So I wonder if I have it any better. ;-)
"That second bedroom WILL be a server room if I have my way about it!"
--jeddz
There are always some interesting implications when Microsoft decides to buy out a company for their product, implications that should interest the Linux community. Whenever a company is bought out by Microsoft, my assumption is that any sort of a Linux port is out of the question. Is this right? I'm not up on my anti-trust laws, but this seems like snuffing out the competition by owning the market that supports the competition. Much like Barnes & Noble couldn't buy up all the book warehouses in the company to put Amazon out of business, it seems like there should be checks in place to keep Microsoft from buying up all the application "warehouses."
You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still. But the purchase by Microsoft shouldn't surprise anyone. Someone's already noted that they have some very tight integration with MS Office, Visio was started by ex-Microsoft employees, plus the Vision offices are in Seattle! I'm just surprised this didn't happen sooner -- Microsoft could've paid less than the $1.6B they coughed up.
--jeddz
$17.97 on Amazon! Woo-hoo!
--jeddz
I read the bit by the ServerObjects people. Can anyone out there enlighten us to the difference between RLE encoding and LZW encoding, and whether their mutually interchangeable to the end user?
If this whole thing is because of the LZW encoding, why not all switch to RLE encoding? ('cept, of course, that it creates a bigger image.)
--jeddz