Not to take sides, because honestly, I really don't care... But Intel is hardly leaving the x86 behind.
Intel's IA64 strategy is banking on a few things.
One, that x86 doesn't have much need for 64bit support. They don't think much of our software would be benifited from a 64bit CPU right now, so they aren't going to give consumers a 64bit CPU to use yet. In general I agree with this, for now, it isn't like Microsoft Word would benifit all that much from being 64bit.
Two, the people that do need the 64bit CPU will be in the price range of the current Itanium based computers. These people are those that do scientific calculations, intense server stuff... not Quake players.
Three, they will have the IA64 technology optimized and proven in the future for when it is time to completely drop x86 from the planet, and the software houses will have a head start developing for it.
Basically I think they are using todays Itaniums to get a head start on what they want to have 5 of 10 years up the road for main stream computers.
Now this isn't to say I particularly like the IA64 architecture... but that is what Intel is doing.
I guess what I am really trying to say is, don't count out the x86 CPU from Intel, they aren't through with them yet. I beleive they were aiming at 5~10Ghz with Pentium 4 like x86 designs... which is obviously way ahead of where they are now.
I guess the real test will come when we see how much x86-64 software comes out. And what kind of performance increase comes with it over 32bit versions. Intel could easily have not extended there x86 to 64 bits just to try and bully the software industry into not shipping much 64bit x86 software thus negating any advantage AMD x86-64 might have over Intel x86-32.
Not to take the side of Intel... but as an Electrical Engineer with a good amount of interest in microprocessor design I have to say I like Intels move away from x86. X86 is definitly not even close to the best computer architecture out there.
It does make most sense for AMD to spend there time building a 64-bit x86 processor then it does a completely new architecture atm. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't all benifit greatly from dropping x86. Of course this can't be an overnight change, but it does need to happen.
Eventually you have to break backwards compatibility to move forward without making things ugly. x86 is old, it is overly complex, it is inefficient in many respects, it is time to say good bye. There is a reason the original designers only expected it to be a 3-5 year temporary solution.
This is really nothing new. Anyone with some knowledge of circuits and a logic analyser has always been able to watch the data flow from the smart card. This will allow you to figure out the passwords, allow you to even snoop data, but still makes the smart card mostly useless outside the device. The reason being is Atmel smart cards use a challenge responce authentication protocol.
Without getting into (unfortunetly I did sign a NDA at one point) I will tell you that it is good enough that just being able to snoop data isn't going to help you authenticate the card. They also have nice features that lock the cards after a certain amount of failed attempts and whatnot.
That along with a little data encryption using whatever your favorite algorithm for security is and I would still feel confident in the security behind smart cards.
Basically, Atmel leaves it up to the developer to decide how secure the cards are, but if you enable all there security features, and use a little common sense you will be fine.
What I don't understand is why they can't just post the authentication system specfics on there web site for everyone to see. Security by obscurity isn't neccesary here as the algorithm itself wouldn't help anyone anyway.
I have to say, having developed a product with smart cards, this is pretty interesting.
However, we aren't stupid, we encrypted the data... so it won't get them much. I suggest others do the same thing, and pretty much expect that they have.
sed = Stream EDitor. It is not taken from the Latin, it is basically an acronym.
lex is short for lexical analyser aka a language parser. The strict dictionary definition of Lexical is something related to the words, vocab, or morphemes of a language. Basically what lex lets you do is parse a file based on certain rules which you define in a lex file. This is how languages like Perl and LISP were orginially created.
If you ever learn about compilers you will see Lexical Analysis is a stage in the process.
As far as I know there are no UNIX command based directly on latin words.
Ya, it is a little miss leading, but effectively it is kinda true. Since it pushes 4 things at once at 133Mhz. it is the same as doing one thing at 533Mhz. Same as AMD pushing two things at once doing 133Mhz is the same as doing 1 thing at 266Mhz.
In a way I understand too, it is just easier to explain to the non-technical you are running at 266 instead of 133 or 533 instead of 400 or whatever the case may be then it is to explain that you are using both edges of the clock or using such and such method to get 4 times as much through the bus at one time thus creating this thing, that while it runs no faster in Mhz. then before, preforms x times faster.
I mean, Mac tried to tell people there PPC's were faster then Pentiums for years any many wouldn't buy it because it was slower in Mhz. So you can see why they do what they do.
Afterall, it isn't about the Mhz. that should matter to us that really know what is going on, what matters is the increase in memory bandwidth. And that is a very real increase. As it was when AMD went to DDR.
IDE has gotten a lot faster these days but there are still many flaws.
For one, most of the ATA133/ATA100 is a lot of hype. On long transphers (or any transphers that exceed the cache size of the drive) I have yet to see an IDE drive break 30-40 MB/s. In fact, testing an "ATA133" drive on an ATA133 controller vs. an ATA100 controller I saw no gain in speed. There was a gain from ATA66 because the ATA66 bus can't quite sustain 30-40MB/s constant.
Which brings me to another point, like all buses, the 66/100/133 is the peak allowed, it is usually not nearly that fast.
The drive speeds could be higher on IDE. You can get some top notch SCSI drives that run at 15,000 rpm. The best you find with IDE is 7200rpm. The drives would obviously be a little better at filling the bus if they had faster motors.
The IDE bus lacks any intelligence. It is the intelligence you are really paying for on SCSI. The command queues, multitasking bus, ect. ect.
Lastly, SCSI drives are obviously way more expensive, as are there controllers. Of course you are getting a higher quality (read=better built, not faster) product.
Basically what it comes down to in real world performance is no matter what you choise, IDE or SCSI, your disk drives will be the biggest bottleneck in your system by a long shot. If you run a single drive system, or have enough buses so you don't share them SCSI doesn't really provide enough to justify the cost on a desktop in my opinion.
I don't claim to have the answer on how to stop piracy. I also don't believe legislation is even neccesary here.
However, there are a number of rules that must be followed in any legislation made to stop piracy.
1. It can't limit free or open source software in any way shape or form.
2. Reverse engineering must be allowed in all ways, shapes, and forms. I am not saying I should be able to rip off your source code and copy it but I should beable to reverse engineer your stuff so I can re-impliment it my way and get the same results. This is extremely important for competition.
3. Copy protection schemes cannot be made such that they break a legal use of a material. For instance, if I buy a CD I have a right to turn it into MP3's and play it on my computer or other digital device.
If the RIAA wants to sell more music they are going about it the wrong way. It has already been proven that MP3's have not decreased the sales of CDs. I for one download a good bit of MP3's to try out songs. Partially because I am sitting at a computer all day a work, and partially because the radio stations around here play nothing but the same old shit all day long. However, when I find myself listening to the same MP3 frequently I buy the CD. This is the way most people I know use MP3's and if anything it helps the RIAA. Those people that horde MP3's any never pay for the music aren't going to buy CD's even if they can't get there MP3's anymore so going after them is a lost cause.
The fact is Movies, Music, and software industries bring home a lot of cash. Per employee they all bring home more then most other industries. When a company of 30,000 employees bitches while generating more revenue then a company that has 300,000 employees you won't see me feeling sorry for them. Especially since they have more actually money in the bank then most companies that size can even dream of.
You also won't see me feeling sorry for a company thats sole purpose is to make money off the achievements of others while doing very little work themselves.
I have used Dell laptops with the 15" 1600x1200 screen and even though I find they resolution a little high on your average CRT I love it on the LCD. Probably because the LCD is just that much crisper then a CRT would be.
Where it might limit you is gaming, unless you have one hell of a video card. Eitherway, you can always run at 800x600 and have it look just fine.
Actually, XBox seams to have a lot longer load times for me then the PS2 does. In fact, in some instances a selection screen will load, and it takes up to 30 seconds before the graphics for the items being selected load. The PS2 never has any of those issues.
But eitherway, as it has been said many many times, better hardware has little to do with it in the gaming industry. It is nice to have support for HDTV, it is great to have Dolby Digital. But the games have to not suck first.
EULA's are of course horribly unreadable. On the other hand, there really is no reason to bother trying to read it.
It isn't a signed contract. It only comes up on the first run of most programs, or when it is installed. There is absolutely no guarentee that the person using the software ever clicked yes to accept the EULA. Maybe somebody else did? There is no way to prove it because there is no signature involved, and no witness required.
I am pretty possitive you would get nothing if you took a user to court over the EULA. If MS thought that was enough they wouldn't have bothered with all the other shit like activation codes and the like.
In my mind EULA's are a lot like disclaimers, and we all know just because you put "Using this might kill you" doens't stop you from getting screwed when somebody does exactly that.
Of course if MS made every user sign a legally binding contract it would create so much of a hassle everyone would be turning Open Source.
DXR3 is supported by the open source community. The drivers used to be a crap shoot, and didn't always work, but they have made huge steps in the last 6 months. dxr3.sourceforge.net has all the info. The 0.12 release works well for me with MPlayer. I haven't done any VGA overlay though, I strickly use TV out when using the DXR3.
That is totally bullshit. There EULA might say that, but even if it does it would only reply to the machine there stuff is on.
If you aren't running there software anymore then I think you can legally tell them to go screw. I know I would and if they wanted to take the time to take me to court over it that is there right.
I don't think they can even get legal evidence you accepted the EULA without proving first you are running there products, which they can't prove unless they look at your machine, which they have no right to do unless you have accepted there EULA. Keep in mind the EULA isn't something accepted at time of purchase, it is something accepted at time of use. And it has to be machine/copy-of-software specific, because the fact I have sat down at a windows machine in a lab at school can't give them the right to search my home machine for pirated software.
I agree, they should pay for it. Should MS be able to come in and say, you have 60 days to prove all your software is legit... Hell no. For a school with that many computers that is unreasonable. If I ran the show I would make sure all the licenses and stuff were organized such that I was always ready for an audit, but I recognize that rarely happens. MS doesn't have any right to even touch those computers unless they can prove to a judge they have probable cause there is piracy going on there and get a search warrant. From what I hear the BSA and MS usually don't have warrants when they do there audits.
If they BSA/MS is going to come knocking on my door they better come with a federal warrant to search everything or all they are going to get is my middle finger in there face. And I don't even have anything to hide, it is just a matter of principal.
I would love to see the schools drop everything MS and do it nice and publically.
That is completely not true. That is like saying an ISP has the right to go through each customers computer.
As a network administrator you have the right to decided what you let them send others on the network and what you let them receive over the network but you have no right to inspect there personal machine.
Now in a business environment if you are responsible for upkeep on the individual systems as well as the network I can understand your point of view, but not all networks work that way.
Actually MSIE was made for the ground up for Mac. In fact... maybe the Windows IE developers could get together with the Mac IE developers and fix the broken png implementation in IE 6 for Windows... Guess that would make too much sense though..
You talk alot about Sparc, MIPS, and Alpha in that question of yours. Yes, those are all relatively low volume products, yes they do cost a lot of money. However, the Itanium is almost like Intels version of those products, done in a slightly different way. Even though they are made in lower volumes they are still profitable because the people buying them will pay a lot more for a system. Sun can sell a 64-processor UltraSpac III system for in the realm of a million dollars and more. If you don't think they are making a nasty profit of of that you are nuts. That is why they keep advancing the technology.
People love to through buzz words like 64-bit vs. 32-bit and stuff like that but when it comes down to it what do you need on your desktop? If you are using your PC for basic development or coding there is not much to be gained from a 64-bit core at all. You don't really need anymore precision. If you are talking about scientific applications then maybe you do need the 64-bit core.
I am not saying that desktop PC's won't eventually go to 64-bit cores. However, even if you were to get a cheap Itanium right now it would perform no better, and possibly worse then your high end AMD and Intel x86 processors because few of your applications would take advantage of the core.
This question will be better asked for when Intel puts a processor on there desktop timeline that utilizes IA-64 technology.
Re:AIM Releases Linux Client...
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 1
AOL has a linux client... It sucks compared to gaim and other linux AIM clients. It also sucks compared to the Windows client created by AOL themselves. But they do have one availible....
I am a junior/3rd year student at Georgia Tech. I took both of those classes back in my freshmen year. Cheat finder exsisted back in those days as well, but it seams they have changed there algorithms because a lot less people were labeled cheaters in the past.
One problem I have is there definition of cheating not only includes copying the work of others but mearly discussing the projects in any way, shape, or form with a fellow student. At least that is what I was told specifically by a TA back when I took the class. Copying work is most certainly cheating. However, in college other students are great tools to learn from and there is no reason why discussing strategies for solving a problem shouldn't be allowed. I believe we like to call that cooperative learning? I remember reading some studies about how well that worked in a psych class I took at Tech....
The other problem is the simple nature of the problems could cause many students to use similar methods that could be picked up by cheat finder. I happen to know a freshmen who struggled greatly in the class and came to me for help on many occassions. This particular student never discussed the projects with any other people in the class, and never shared code, but was picked up for cheating because there were trends in his code that matched other students. I realize that by the strict and stupid nature of there defition of cheating he couldn't even ask me about solving some of his problems (I didn't write any code for him, just gave him so ideas how do to certain things since he had never coded before) but the fact is he now knows the material and deserves to get the B his grades earned him and not an F for all the time in effort he put into learning it.
The CS department needs to focus more on teaching there students rather then catching them for cheating. Maybe if they focused there effort on creating a class that better taught the material less students wouldn't feel the need to use the students which already know the material as a crutch to make it through. Especially in a class required by all majors.
Before you jump down Tom's throat maybe you should re-read his article. He was surprised that the AthlonMP fried, and contacted Siemens (the maker of the motherboard) and they were the ones that told him the chips probe was not good enough for such a problem. In fact it appears Siemens was wrong and it was the motherboard, or the motherboard chipset that wasn't polling the probe enough to catch the problem.
What this means is you should make sure that your AthlonXP motherboards support the use of the added temp probe, and that they are actually good enough to catch the error and pull the plug before the processor dies.
Intels solution is still the better solution because the chip has an internal circuit that handles the temp situation so no matter what the motherboard is doing it will not fry the chip.
That being said...don't be an idiot and make sure your heatsink is installed properly, and check your fan every once in a while and you will be fine with the AthlonXP chip.
I have been programming for years. I learned on Pascal and C. What is most important about learning to program is just that, learning to program. No matter what language you use, as long as you are learning the skills required to program you will be fine. Pascal certainly isn't a widely used programming language like C is, but learning it first taught me how to think and solve problems with a computer, and that is all that mattered.
The idea behind knowing how to program is not seeing how many languages you can learn, but making sure that if you have to code in a new language you have the neccesary skills to pick it up and run with it.
What it comes down to is what you want to do, and what size company you work for.
If you are looking to make the jump to management from Engineering then an MBA will most certainly help you out in a large company.
In a small company that is a very company specific question. In the place I work an MBA would be of no use, because we are all engineers, though some of us do more administration then others. In a case like I am in an MSEE would be better then an MBA by far.
If you work for a medium to large size company an MBA could help greatly. Because everyone likes a manager that understands the technical side of things as well, especially if they have been on the technical side of things before. I know I would rather report to an x-engineer with administration skills then some idiot in a suit that knows nothing about how I do what I do or what it requires...aka the Dilbert complex
Having pay-as-you-go for companies is not a bad idea at all. Think of it this way, large companies work strictly of a budget. When it comes time to purchase new software/hardware that has to come from the budget. If they have been paying on a monthly/yearly basis for there software then it is no longer an issue to figure out where the money for the new software is going to come from, as long as the new products microsoft releases don't cost the company any more a month then the previous produts.
In short, the company knows exaclty what there software is costing them in order to work it into the budget every year, they are able to always have the newest software, and MS is insured they will make there money. There are definitly down sides to subscription software as well, but many companies will see it as I have just presented it.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to take sides, because honestly, I really don't care... But Intel is hardly leaving the x86 behind.
Intel's IA64 strategy is banking on a few things.
One, that x86 doesn't have much need for 64bit support. They don't think much of our software would be benifited from a 64bit CPU right now, so they aren't going to give consumers a 64bit CPU to use yet. In general I agree with this, for now, it isn't like Microsoft Word would benifit all that much from being 64bit.
Two, the people that do need the 64bit CPU will be in the price range of the current Itanium based computers. These people are those that do scientific calculations, intense server stuff... not Quake players.
Three, they will have the IA64 technology optimized and proven in the future for when it is time to completely drop x86 from the planet, and the software houses will have a head start developing for it.
Basically I think they are using todays Itaniums to get a head start on what they want to have 5 of 10 years up the road for main stream computers.
Now this isn't to say I particularly like the IA64 architecture... but that is what Intel is doing.
I guess what I am really trying to say is, don't count out the x86 CPU from Intel, they aren't through with them yet. I beleive they were aiming at 5~10Ghz with Pentium 4 like x86 designs... which is obviously way ahead of where they are now.
I guess the real test will come when we see how much x86-64 software comes out. And what kind of performance increase comes with it over 32bit versions. Intel could easily have not extended there x86 to 64 bits just to try and bully the software industry into not shipping much 64bit x86 software thus negating any advantage AMD x86-64 might have over Intel x86-32.
Not to take the side of Intel... but as an Electrical Engineer with a good amount of interest in microprocessor design I have to say I like Intels move away from x86. X86 is definitly not even close to the best computer architecture out there.
It does make most sense for AMD to spend there time building a 64-bit x86 processor then it does a completely new architecture atm. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't all benifit greatly from dropping x86. Of course this can't be an overnight change, but it does need to happen.
Eventually you have to break backwards compatibility to move forward without making things ugly. x86 is old, it is overly complex, it is inefficient in many respects, it is time to say good bye. There is a reason the original designers only expected it to be a 3-5 year temporary solution.
This is really nothing new. Anyone with some knowledge of circuits and a logic analyser has always been able to watch the data flow from the smart card. This will allow you to figure out the passwords, allow you to even snoop data, but still makes the smart card mostly useless outside the device. The reason being is Atmel smart cards use a challenge responce authentication protocol.
Without getting into (unfortunetly I did sign a NDA at one point) I will tell you that it is good enough that just being able to snoop data isn't going to help you authenticate the card. They also have nice features that lock the cards after a certain amount of failed attempts and whatnot.
That along with a little data encryption using whatever your favorite algorithm for security is and I would still feel confident in the security behind smart cards.
Basically, Atmel leaves it up to the developer to decide how secure the cards are, but if you enable all there security features, and use a little common sense you will be fine.
What I don't understand is why they can't just post the authentication system specfics on there web site for everyone to see. Security by obscurity isn't neccesary here as the algorithm itself wouldn't help anyone anyway.
I have to say, having developed a product with smart cards, this is pretty interesting.
However, we aren't stupid, we encrypted the data... so it won't get them much. I suggest others do the same thing, and pretty much expect that they have.
sed = Stream EDitor. It is not taken from the Latin, it is basically an acronym.
lex is short for lexical analyser aka a language parser. The strict dictionary definition of Lexical is something related to the words, vocab, or morphemes of a language. Basically what lex lets you do is parse a file based on certain rules which you define in a lex file. This is how languages like Perl and LISP were orginially created.
If you ever learn about compilers you will see Lexical Analysis is a stage in the process.
As far as I know there are no UNIX command based directly on latin words.
Ya, it is a little miss leading, but effectively it is kinda true. Since it pushes 4 things at once at 133Mhz. it is the same as doing one thing at 533Mhz. Same as AMD pushing two things at once doing 133Mhz is the same as doing 1 thing at 266Mhz.
In a way I understand too, it is just easier to explain to the non-technical you are running at 266 instead of 133 or 533 instead of 400 or whatever the case may be then it is to explain that you are using both edges of the clock or using such and such method to get 4 times as much through the bus at one time thus creating this thing, that while it runs no faster in Mhz. then before, preforms x times faster.
I mean, Mac tried to tell people there PPC's were faster then Pentiums for years any many wouldn't buy it because it was slower in Mhz. So you can see why they do what they do.
Afterall, it isn't about the Mhz. that should matter to us that really know what is going on, what matters is the increase in memory bandwidth. And that is a very real increase. As it was when AMD went to DDR.
IDE has gotten a lot faster these days but there are still many flaws.
For one, most of the ATA133/ATA100 is a lot of hype. On long transphers (or any transphers that exceed the cache size of the drive) I have yet to see an IDE drive break 30-40 MB/s. In fact, testing an "ATA133" drive on an ATA133 controller vs. an ATA100 controller I saw no gain in speed. There was a gain from ATA66 because the ATA66 bus can't quite sustain 30-40MB/s constant.
Which brings me to another point, like all buses, the 66/100/133 is the peak allowed, it is usually not nearly that fast.
The drive speeds could be higher on IDE. You can get some top notch SCSI drives that run at 15,000 rpm. The best you find with IDE is 7200rpm. The drives would obviously be a little better at filling the bus if they had faster motors.
The IDE bus lacks any intelligence. It is the intelligence you are really paying for on SCSI. The command queues, multitasking bus, ect. ect.
Lastly, SCSI drives are obviously way more expensive, as are there controllers. Of course you are getting a higher quality (read=better built, not faster) product.
Basically what it comes down to in real world performance is no matter what you choise, IDE or SCSI, your disk drives will be the biggest bottleneck in your system by a long shot. If you run a single drive system, or have enough buses so you don't share them SCSI doesn't really provide enough to justify the cost on a desktop in my opinion.
I don't claim to have the answer on how to stop piracy. I also don't believe legislation is even neccesary here.
However, there are a number of rules that must be followed in any legislation made to stop piracy.
1. It can't limit free or open source software in any way shape or form.
2. Reverse engineering must be allowed in all ways, shapes, and forms. I am not saying I should be able to rip off your source code and copy it but I should beable to reverse engineer your stuff so I can re-impliment it my way and get the same results. This is extremely important for competition.
3. Copy protection schemes cannot be made such that they break a legal use of a material. For instance, if I buy a CD I have a right to turn it into MP3's and play it on my computer or other digital device.
If the RIAA wants to sell more music they are going about it the wrong way. It has already been proven that MP3's have not decreased the sales of CDs. I for one download a good bit of MP3's to try out songs. Partially because I am sitting at a computer all day a work, and partially because the radio stations around here play nothing but the same old shit all day long. However, when I find myself listening to the same MP3 frequently I buy the CD. This is the way most people I know use MP3's and if anything it helps the RIAA. Those people that horde MP3's any never pay for the music aren't going to buy CD's even if they can't get there MP3's anymore so going after them is a lost cause.
The fact is Movies, Music, and software industries bring home a lot of cash. Per employee they all bring home more then most other industries. When a company of 30,000 employees bitches while generating more revenue then a company that has 300,000 employees you won't see me feeling sorry for them. Especially since they have more actually money in the bank then most companies that size can even dream of.
You also won't see me feeling sorry for a company thats sole purpose is to make money off the achievements of others while doing very little work themselves.
Please please please don't convince people more cookies are a good idea......
I have used Dell laptops with the 15" 1600x1200 screen and even though I find they resolution a little high on your average CRT I love it on the LCD. Probably because the LCD is just that much crisper then a CRT would be.
Where it might limit you is gaming, unless you have one hell of a video card. Eitherway, you can always run at 800x600 and have it look just fine.
Actually, XBox seams to have a lot longer load times for me then the PS2 does. In fact, in some instances a selection screen will load, and it takes up to 30 seconds before the graphics for the items being selected load. The PS2 never has any of those issues.
But eitherway, as it has been said many many times, better hardware has little to do with it in the gaming industry. It is nice to have support for HDTV, it is great to have Dolby Digital. But the games have to not suck first.
EULA's are of course horribly unreadable. On the other hand, there really is no reason to bother trying to read it.
It isn't a signed contract. It only comes up on the first run of most programs, or when it is installed. There is absolutely no guarentee that the person using the software ever clicked yes to accept the EULA. Maybe somebody else did? There is no way to prove it because there is no signature involved, and no witness required.
I am pretty possitive you would get nothing if you took a user to court over the EULA. If MS thought that was enough they wouldn't have bothered with all the other shit like activation codes and the like.
In my mind EULA's are a lot like disclaimers, and we all know just because you put "Using this might kill you" doens't stop you from getting screwed when somebody does exactly that.
Of course if MS made every user sign a legally binding contract it would create so much of a hassle everyone would be turning Open Source.
DXR3 is supported by the open source community. The drivers used to be a crap shoot, and didn't always work, but they have made huge steps in the last 6 months. dxr3.sourceforge.net has all the info. The 0.12 release works well for me with MPlayer. I haven't done any VGA overlay though, I strickly use TV out when using the DXR3.
That is totally bullshit. There EULA might say that, but even if it does it would only reply to the machine there stuff is on.
If you aren't running there software anymore then I think you can legally tell them to go screw. I know I would and if they wanted to take the time to take me to court over it that is there right.
I don't think they can even get legal evidence you accepted the EULA without proving first you are running there products, which they can't prove unless they look at your machine, which they have no right to do unless you have accepted there EULA. Keep in mind the EULA isn't something accepted at time of purchase, it is something accepted at time of use. And it has to be machine/copy-of-software specific, because the fact I have sat down at a windows machine in a lab at school can't give them the right to search my home machine for pirated software.
I agree, they should pay for it. Should MS be able to come in and say, you have 60 days to prove all your software is legit... Hell no. For a school with that many computers that is unreasonable. If I ran the show I would make sure all the licenses and stuff were organized such that I was always ready for an audit, but I recognize that rarely happens. MS doesn't have any right to even touch those computers unless they can prove to a judge they have probable cause there is piracy going on there and get a search warrant. From what I hear the BSA and MS usually don't have warrants when they do there audits.
If they BSA/MS is going to come knocking on my door they better come with a federal warrant to search everything or all they are going to get is my middle finger in there face. And I don't even have anything to hide, it is just a matter of principal.
I would love to see the schools drop everything MS and do it nice and publically.
That is completely not true. That is like saying an ISP has the right to go through each customers computer.
As a network administrator you have the right to decided what you let them send others on the network and what you let them receive over the network but you have no right to inspect there personal machine.
Now in a business environment if you are responsible for upkeep on the individual systems as well as the network I can understand your point of view, but not all networks work that way.
Actually MSIE was made for the ground up for Mac. In fact... maybe the Windows IE developers could get together with the Mac IE developers and fix the broken png implementation in IE 6 for Windows... Guess that would make too much sense though..
You talk alot about Sparc, MIPS, and Alpha in that question of yours. Yes, those are all relatively low volume products, yes they do cost a lot of money. However, the Itanium is almost like Intels version of those products, done in a slightly different way. Even though they are made in lower volumes they are still profitable because the people buying them will pay a lot more for a system. Sun can sell a 64-processor UltraSpac III system for in the realm of a million dollars and more. If you don't think they are making a nasty profit of of that you are nuts. That is why they keep advancing the technology.
People love to through buzz words like 64-bit vs. 32-bit and stuff like that but when it comes down to it what do you need on your desktop? If you are using your PC for basic development or coding there is not much to be gained from a 64-bit core at all. You don't really need anymore precision. If you are talking about scientific applications then maybe you do need the 64-bit core.
I am not saying that desktop PC's won't eventually go to 64-bit cores. However, even if you were to get a cheap Itanium right now it would perform no better, and possibly worse then your high end AMD and Intel x86 processors because few of your applications would take advantage of the core.
This question will be better asked for when Intel puts a processor on there desktop timeline that utilizes IA-64 technology.
AOL has a linux client... It sucks compared to gaim and other linux AIM clients. It also sucks compared to the Windows client created by AOL themselves. But they do have one availible....
I am a junior/3rd year student at Georgia Tech. I took both of those classes back in my freshmen year. Cheat finder exsisted back in those days as well, but it seams they have changed there algorithms because a lot less people were labeled cheaters in the past.
One problem I have is there definition of cheating not only includes copying the work of others but mearly discussing the projects in any way, shape, or form with a fellow student. At least that is what I was told specifically by a TA back when I took the class. Copying work is most certainly cheating. However, in college other students are great tools to learn from and there is no reason why discussing strategies for solving a problem shouldn't be allowed. I believe we like to call that cooperative learning? I remember reading some studies about how well that worked in a psych class I took at Tech....
The other problem is the simple nature of the problems could cause many students to use similar methods that could be picked up by cheat finder. I happen to know a freshmen who struggled greatly in the class and came to me for help on many occassions. This particular student never discussed the projects with any other people in the class, and never shared code, but was picked up for cheating because there were trends in his code that matched other students. I realize that by the strict and stupid nature of there defition of cheating he couldn't even ask me about solving some of his problems (I didn't write any code for him, just gave him so ideas how do to certain things since he had never coded before) but the fact is he now knows the material and deserves to get the B his grades earned him and not an F for all the time in effort he put into learning it.
The CS department needs to focus more on teaching there students rather then catching them for cheating. Maybe if they focused there effort on creating a class that better taught the material less students wouldn't feel the need to use the students which already know the material as a crutch to make it through. Especially in a class required by all majors.
Exactly... A little insulation of the PCB and it doesn't matter what frequency the 3gio is running at.
Before you jump down Tom's throat maybe you should re-read his article. He was surprised that the AthlonMP fried, and contacted Siemens (the maker of the motherboard) and they were the ones that told him the chips probe was not good enough for such a problem. In fact it appears Siemens was wrong and it was the motherboard, or the motherboard chipset that wasn't polling the probe enough to catch the problem.
What this means is you should make sure that your AthlonXP motherboards support the use of the added temp probe, and that they are actually good enough to catch the error and pull the plug before the processor dies.
Intels solution is still the better solution because the chip has an internal circuit that handles the temp situation so no matter what the motherboard is doing it will not fry the chip.
That being said...don't be an idiot and make sure your heatsink is installed properly, and check your fan every once in a while and you will be fine with the AthlonXP chip.
I have been programming for years. I learned on Pascal and C. What is most important about learning to program is just that, learning to program. No matter what language you use, as long as you are learning the skills required to program you will be fine. Pascal certainly isn't a widely used programming language like C is, but learning it first taught me how to think and solve problems with a computer, and that is all that mattered.
The idea behind knowing how to program is not seeing how many languages you can learn, but making sure that if you have to code in a new language you have the neccesary skills to pick it up and run with it.
Not a Dumb question.
What it comes down to is what you want to do, and what size company you work for.
If you are looking to make the jump to management from Engineering then an MBA will most certainly help you out in a large company.
In a small company that is a very company specific question. In the place I work an MBA would be of no use, because we are all engineers, though some of us do more administration then others. In a case like I am in an MSEE would be better then an MBA by far.
If you work for a medium to large size company an MBA could help greatly. Because everyone likes a manager that understands the technical side of things as well, especially if they have been on the technical side of things before. I know I would rather report to an x-engineer with administration skills then some idiot in a suit that knows nothing about how I do what I do or what it requires...aka the Dilbert complex
Having pay-as-you-go for companies is not a bad idea at all. Think of it this way, large companies work strictly of a budget. When it comes time to purchase new software/hardware that has to come from the budget. If they have been paying on a monthly/yearly basis for there software then it is no longer an issue to figure out where the money for the new software is going to come from, as long as the new products microsoft releases don't cost the company any more a month then the previous produts. In short, the company knows exaclty what there software is costing them in order to work it into the budget every year, they are able to always have the newest software, and MS is insured they will make there money. There are definitly down sides to subscription software as well, but many companies will see it as I have just presented it.