I'm still convinced that Sun's whining is not necessarily the real reason XP doesn't ship with the the JVM. The way I see it, by not including the JVM, but including support for MS-only scripting technologies, they passively discourage third parties from implementing with Java. The reason is fairly straightforward, if you are John Q. User who just bought a computer with XP Home, and you go to a site which requires Java, are you going to wait 20 minutes for the JVM to download and install? Probably not, however, if you go to an alternative site which makes heavy use of MS technologies, you can just surf right on, and will likely bypass all Java-enabled sites entirely. If your website is e-commerce in any way, would you want to use a technology which puts obstacles between you and your customers' money.
Microsoft's warning that the page won't display correctly if the JVM is not downloaded is similar to the error messages people got when they ran Windows 3.x on top of DR-DOS. It puts FUD into the users and steers them away from non-MS technologies.
But keep in mind that corporate censorship does not come from any moral basis, its all about money. I guarantee you that if G-rated movies were not popular, no studio would touch them, nor would any theater. As people don't want to see NC-17 movies, theaters won't show them, and studios will tone down content in such movies to be R isntead.
Also, the difference between R and NC-17 is that people under 17 can go into an R movie with a parent, but with NC-17 no children are permitted at all.
In a way though, you could make the argument that ratings are good thing for movies. Because of the ratings system, the only thing preventing a director from sticking in too much violence or porn into a movie is strictly the marketplace. Prior to 1968 (when the ratings system was introduced in the USA), movies had to meet certain content requirements, there were things (such as anything even remotely sexual, compared to today's standards) or overly violent. Movies like Scream, Spaceballs, and The Matrix would probably never have been released if not for the ratings system were not in place.
Here is my reasoning. Basically, the rating is a warning that a movie has this kind of content. People cannot make the argument that a movie must be legally censored because the director can say "Look, this movie has an R rating, you know it has an R-rating, if you don't like it, you don't have to see it." Prior to the rating system, someone could go see a movie, deem it objectionable, and have it banned. Now the only thing preventing a director from putting too much sex or violence in a movie is the marketplace, if people don't see NC-17 movies because they are NC-17, then a director will try not to make the movie NC-17. However, if more people see PG or PG-13 movies instead of R movies, then the director will try to shoot for a PG or PG-13 movie. I have to disagree with your assertion that the MPAA tries to prevent R rated movies from selling because they rate them R. The MPAA cannot force people to go see an NC-17 rated movie (yet?), if people don't want to see such movies, and make their movie choices based on those ratings, then its up to the director or studio to correct the problem.
One could say the same thing happened to TV since they introduced the ratings system.
Under no circumstances should you whistleblow in this case. Unless people were going to get hurt or killed, or something really bad is going to happen if you don't, then keep your mouth shut (this is only code, not a matter of life or death). Not only will you lose your job if you do whistleblow, but no one else will ever hire you, especially if any legal procedings make it into the spotlight. Sure, the law "protects" whistleblowers, but you and your family still need a roof over their heads and food to eat.
If you do have moral reservations, or more importantly, you worry that you yourself may be implicated for this violation (and yes, it IS a violation), then you should start looking for a new job. You don't even have to tell your boss that this GPL violation is the reason you are leaving. If you feel the fecal excrement is about to impact the rotating blowing device, then leave immediately... no one can nail you for it. If you don't and this were to happen, well... look at the employees of Enron and/or BCCI, they are not on anyone's short list to be hired.
Learning C as your first language, without any prior computer experience may not be the most clever thing to do
I can't agree with this. Many a programmer got their start with C. Besides, since every "new" language out there is an offshoot of C in one way or another (C++, Perl, PHP, and to a certain extent, Java), it makes sense to learn this language first as it will make those derivative languages far easier to understand.
Live dangerously! Free everything you New and Delete everything you Malloc:)
Excellent book on C Socket Programming
on
C
·
· Score: 1
While we're on the subject of good books, one that should definitly be looked at if you are getting started with any kind of socket programming in C is The Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Sockets: C Version. It is short (~100 or so pages), to the point(lots of examples which actually work with linux and cygwin if you dare), and most importantly, CHEAP ($15)
Imagine running a laptop for a month without a single charge.
That would sure be nice, I do a lot of development on my laptop and just for shits and giggles one day I decided to do a typical build of a Visual C++ project on battery... unbelievable, each partial build (1 file change out of 10 or so files) would cost me about about 3% battery life!
I have Redhat Linux 7.2 on a second laptop and just starting that up eats 10% of the battery... ouch!
According to this, the key to good e-commerce site design is that it should be as easy to buy something from your site as it is to walk into a 7-11 with a $10 bill and buy some milk. I think it makes perfect sense, as there are way too many sites which make the process of buying something so friggin' cumbersome that you just give up and go to the next vendor.
Where I am, all these so-called CLECs never once provided service to me, and that was after this so called deregulation BS. Not one made any investment to wire up anyone who could not get DSL already. Maybe if some of these companies had not wasted their resources trying to compete with Ma Bell (which you will never win), they should have taken some of their venture capital and actually ran some wires out to underserved, but wealthy areas. This way, they would actually have a useful commodity (a "last-mile" link which they could rent out to the phone/cable companies if they wanted to) and people like me.
But, since these businesses didn't do that, they are gone now. I'm all for this bill, anything that hastens my access to broadband is a good thing. At this point, I really don't give a rat's ass from whom I get it (Verizon, Comcast, etc.), just as long as I eventually get it.
I also don't understand why CLECs think they should be entitled to use Ma Bell's Central Offices, wires, boxes, and other equipment. Ma Bell paid for it, installed it, ran it, set it up, maintained it, etc. Ma Bell should be allowed to charge for it what it wants to. These CLECs can do the same thing if they wanted to.
If you haven't tried a recent Linux distribution, you will be pleasantly surprised at its evolution.
I recently had the experience of installing Redhat 7.2 onto a laptop. Yes, the install was easy, but I made a mistake in setting up the resolution for X which could not be corrected from within X at all. Xconfigurator was of no help either. I had no choice but to go back to the install and try to reinstall X and try again, but even that did not work. Ultimately, I had to redo the *entire* install from scratch to solve my problem.
So sure, maybe it is easy to use (if you're lucky), but is there some kind of windowing manager out there which allows you to change the screen resolution and color depth just by right clicking the mouse? Yea, I know this might be somewhat off topic, but I'd like to know.
BTW though, the laptop is now running flawlessly with the corrected installation I did, no problems at all.
Ok, you have a solution in place. It works. Some sales guy wants you to change your solution that works.
Because of this, Microsoft may never conquer the existing commercial market for clustered computing. They are using an educational backdrop to essentially get free testing for a cluster of their machines so that if it looks good, they can sell it to new clients who want to get into this sort of thing before those clients go to a linux based solution
That MIGHT make sense if he didn't need hardware too.
True, but given that a Beowulf cluster is supposed to run on off-the-shelf hardware, you could probably go on the cheap for it. In some companies, their clusters are simply huge rooms full of throwaway machines that are just replaced with the same exact machine when one dies (boy would I love to go through their trash!). The volume discounts you could get on that kind of purchasing alone would significantly reduce the hardware costs.
I don't know the default status of the basic SMTP server in Windows
The SMTP server is not an open relay in a stock install of IIS in Windows 2000. It can be configured to act as one however, but you need to enable this feature deliborately.
This did take up some hard drive space, but was very convinant for the customers. Is this a bad thing too?
Not at all, hard disks are so big now the the space issue isn't a big deal anymore. Plus, its extremely convenient when you are adding new hardware to a machine and you don't have to fiddle around looking for the original Windows CD.
Re:"Netscape-style plug-in modules" - HUH?
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
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· Score: 1
I'm running XP Pro w/ IE 6 and have never had any problems viewing PDF's on the fly.
That was my experience as well. Additionally though, the version IE 6 with XP that I use was the "stock" installation that comes with the software. I'm not sure why everyone else is having problems viewing PDFs in IE6/XP ?
I will terminate not only my Comcast@home subscription, but my cable television subscription as well
Unfortunately, Comcast is so big that they most likely won't care that one person drops their services. There are plenty of others, like myself, who would *love* to get Comcast@Home (or whatever they call it now) if Comcast bothered to make it available to me. Unless everyone were to drop their service at once, this would not be an effective means of protest.
and some sites which I visit are, by their nature, *CLASSIFIED* in content
If something is classified, why would be online in any form? Theoretically, every ISP probably is doing the same thing as Comcast here (if the allegations that they are indeed mining their cached content are true), so either way, this "classified" information is going to end up in someone else's hands.
I'm not sure what kind of contract you had your beta testers sign when they agreed to do the testing, but I'm sure it specified clearly that not only is your IP confidential, but that it is strictly your IP and they have no rights to it. Since they willingly agreed to these terms, there is no real argument for them here.
Even in the absence of that though, since you (or your company) created the IP, you intrinsically own it. No one else, either a tester or otherwise, has any legal claim to your code.
"How dare you insult my programming skills, we must battle to the death!"
If memory serves, the Klingons came up with a way of doing "play fights" among warriors to settle disputes so that one or both would not end up dead. The primary reason for this was that in times of war, so many warriors would die in fights such as these that victory would not be possible.
However, sometimes it is better to have fewer coders working on a major project:)
I hate to defend Enron...but you should probably wait until the facts are straightened out before jumping to too many conclusions.
You're absolutely right... I was attempting to stress the irony of it all. But you're right, a lot of what happened with Enron is perfectly legal. I actually find fault with the employees for not diversifying their investment portfolios.
The Bush campaign registered every derogatory domain name they could think of
In an ironic twist, Hillary did not register hillary2000.com, which ended up in the hands of a group of people who were strongly against her candidacy.
The funny part was that people from Hillary's campaign would post messages on the hillary2000.com site saying things like:
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still convinced that Sun's whining is not necessarily the real reason XP doesn't ship with the the JVM. The way I see it, by not including the JVM, but including support for MS-only scripting technologies, they passively discourage third parties from implementing with Java. The reason is fairly straightforward, if you are John Q. User who just bought a computer with XP Home, and you go to a site which requires Java, are you going to wait 20 minutes for the JVM to download and install? Probably not, however, if you go to an alternative site which makes heavy use of MS technologies, you can just surf right on, and will likely bypass all Java-enabled sites entirely. If your website is e-commerce in any way, would you want to use a technology which puts obstacles between you and your customers' money.
Microsoft's warning that the page won't display correctly if the JVM is not downloaded is similar to the error messages people got when they ran Windows 3.x on top of DR-DOS. It puts FUD into the users and steers them away from non-MS technologies.
Corporate censorship at its finest.
But keep in mind that corporate censorship does not come from any moral basis, its all about money. I guarantee you that if G-rated movies were not popular, no studio would touch them, nor would any theater. As people don't want to see NC-17 movies, theaters won't show them, and studios will tone down content in such movies to be R isntead.
Also, the difference between R and NC-17 is that people under 17 can go into an R movie with a parent, but with NC-17 no children are permitted at all.
In a way though, you could make the argument that ratings are good thing for movies. Because of the ratings system, the only thing preventing a director from sticking in too much violence or porn into a movie is strictly the marketplace. Prior to 1968 (when the ratings system was introduced in the USA), movies had to meet certain content requirements, there were things (such as anything even remotely sexual, compared to today's standards) or overly violent. Movies like Scream, Spaceballs, and The Matrix would probably never have been released if not for the ratings system were not in place.
Here is my reasoning. Basically, the rating is a warning that a movie has this kind of content. People cannot make the argument that a movie must be legally censored because the director can say "Look, this movie has an R rating, you know it has an R-rating, if you don't like it, you don't have to see it." Prior to the rating system, someone could go see a movie, deem it objectionable, and have it banned. Now the only thing preventing a director from putting too much sex or violence in a movie is the marketplace, if people don't see NC-17 movies because they are NC-17, then a director will try not to make the movie NC-17. However, if more people see PG or PG-13 movies instead of R movies, then the director will try to shoot for a PG or PG-13 movie. I have to disagree with your assertion that the MPAA tries to prevent R rated movies from selling because they rate them R. The MPAA cannot force people to go see an NC-17 rated movie (yet?), if people don't want to see such movies, and make their movie choices based on those ratings, then its up to the director or studio to correct the problem.
One could say the same thing happened to TV since they introduced the ratings system.
Under no circumstances should you whistleblow in this case. Unless people were going to get hurt or killed, or something really bad is going to happen if you don't, then keep your mouth shut (this is only code, not a matter of life or death). Not only will you lose your job if you do whistleblow, but no one else will ever hire you, especially if any legal procedings make it into the spotlight. Sure, the law "protects" whistleblowers, but you and your family still need a roof over their heads and food to eat.
If you do have moral reservations, or more importantly, you worry that you yourself may be implicated for this violation (and yes, it IS a violation), then you should start looking for a new job. You don't even have to tell your boss that this GPL violation is the reason you are leaving. If you feel the fecal excrement is about to impact the rotating blowing device, then leave immediately... no one can nail you for it. If you don't and this were to happen, well... look at the employees of Enron and/or BCCI, they are not on anyone's short list to be hired.
Learning C as your first language, without any prior computer experience may not be the most clever thing to do
I can't agree with this. Many a programmer got their start with C. Besides, since every "new" language out there is an offshoot of C in one way or another (C++, Perl, PHP, and to a certain extent, Java), it makes sense to learn this language first as it will make those derivative languages far easier to understand.
Live dangerously! Free everything you New and Delete everything you Malloc :)
While we're on the subject of good books, one that should definitly be looked at if you are getting started with any kind of socket programming in C is The Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Sockets: C Version. It is short (~100 or so pages), to the point(lots of examples which actually work with linux and cygwin if you dare), and most importantly, CHEAP ($15)
Go check it out here
Microsoft having to write software themselves because the code they would otherwise steal is GPLed.
Isn't that kinda insulting to anyone who writes GPL software? :)
Imagine running a laptop for a month without a single charge.
That would sure be nice, I do a lot of development on my laptop and just for shits and giggles one day I decided to do a typical build of a Visual C++ project on battery... unbelievable, each partial build (1 file change out of 10 or so files) would cost me about about 3% battery life!
I have Redhat Linux 7.2 on a second laptop and just starting that up eats 10% of the battery... ouch!
According to this, the key to good e-commerce site design is that it should be as easy to buy something from your site as it is to walk into a 7-11 with a $10 bill and buy some milk. I think it makes perfect sense, as there are way too many sites which make the process of buying something so friggin' cumbersome that you just give up and go to the next vendor.
Where I am, all these so-called CLECs never once provided service to me, and that was after this so called deregulation BS. Not one made any investment to wire up anyone who could not get DSL already. Maybe if some of these companies had not wasted their resources trying to compete with Ma Bell (which you will never win), they should have taken some of their venture capital and actually ran some wires out to underserved, but wealthy areas. This way, they would actually have a useful commodity (a "last-mile" link which they could rent out to the phone/cable companies if they wanted to) and people like me.
But, since these businesses didn't do that, they are gone now. I'm all for this bill, anything that hastens my access to broadband is a good thing. At this point, I really don't give a rat's ass from whom I get it (Verizon, Comcast, etc.), just as long as I eventually get it.
I also don't understand why CLECs think they should be entitled to use Ma Bell's Central Offices, wires, boxes, and other equipment. Ma Bell paid for it, installed it, ran it, set it up, maintained it, etc. Ma Bell should be allowed to charge for it what it wants to. These CLECs can do the same thing if they wanted to.
is when the most commonly used Xwindows application is not Xterm ;)
If you haven't tried a recent Linux distribution, you will be pleasantly surprised at its evolution.
I recently had the experience of installing Redhat 7.2 onto a laptop. Yes, the install was easy, but I made a mistake in setting up the resolution for X which could not be corrected from within X at all. Xconfigurator was of no help either. I had no choice but to go back to the install and try to reinstall X and try again, but even that did not work. Ultimately, I had to redo the *entire* install from scratch to solve my problem.
So sure, maybe it is easy to use (if you're lucky), but is there some kind of windowing manager out there which allows you to change the screen resolution and color depth just by right clicking the mouse? Yea, I know this might be somewhat off topic, but I'd like to know.
BTW though, the laptop is now running flawlessly with the corrected installation I did, no problems at all.
Ok, you have a solution in place. It works. Some sales guy wants you to change your solution that works.
Because of this, Microsoft may never conquer the existing commercial market for clustered computing. They are using an educational backdrop to essentially get free testing for a cluster of their machines so that if it looks good, they can sell it to new clients who want to get into this sort of thing before those clients go to a linux based solution
That MIGHT make sense if he didn't need hardware too.
True, but given that a Beowulf cluster is supposed to run on off-the-shelf hardware, you could probably go on the cheap for it. In some companies, their clusters are simply huge rooms full of throwaway machines that are just replaced with the same exact machine when one dies (boy would I love to go through their trash!). The volume discounts you could get on that kind of purchasing alone would significantly reduce the hardware costs.
I don't know the default status of the basic SMTP server in Windows
The SMTP server is not an open relay in a stock install of IIS in Windows 2000. It can be configured to act as one however, but you need to enable this feature deliborately.
This did take up some hard drive space, but was very convinant for the customers. Is this a bad thing too?
Not at all, hard disks are so big now the the space issue isn't a big deal anymore. Plus, its extremely convenient when you are adding new hardware to a machine and you don't have to fiddle around looking for the original Windows CD.
Best of luck to you both!
I'm running XP Pro w/ IE 6 and have never had any problems viewing PDF's on the fly.
That was my experience as well. Additionally though, the version IE 6 with XP that I use was the "stock" installation that comes with the software. I'm not sure why everyone else is having problems viewing PDFs in IE6/XP ?
I will terminate not only my Comcast@home subscription, but my cable television subscription as well
Unfortunately, Comcast is so big that they most likely won't care that one person drops their services. There are plenty of others, like myself, who would *love* to get Comcast@Home (or whatever they call it now) if Comcast bothered to make it available to me. Unless everyone were to drop their service at once, this would not be an effective means of protest.
and some sites which I visit are, by their nature, *CLASSIFIED* in content
If something is classified, why would be online in any form? Theoretically, every ISP probably is doing the same thing as Comcast here (if the allegations that they are indeed mining their cached content are true), so either way, this "classified" information is going to end up in someone else's hands.
I'm not sure what kind of contract you had your beta testers sign when they agreed to do the testing, but I'm sure it specified clearly that not only is your IP confidential, but that it is strictly your IP and they have no rights to it. Since they willingly agreed to these terms, there is no real argument for them here.
Even in the absence of that though, since you (or your company) created the IP, you intrinsically own it. No one else, either a tester or otherwise, has any legal claim to your code.
"How dare you insult my programming skills, we must battle to the death!"
If memory serves, the Klingons came up with a way of doing "play fights" among warriors to settle disputes so that one or both would not end up dead. The primary reason for this was that in times of war, so many warriors would die in fights such as these that victory would not be possible.
However, sometimes it is better to have fewer coders working on a major project :)
I hate to defend Enron...but you should probably wait until the facts are straightened out before jumping to too many conclusions.
You're absolutely right... I was attempting to stress the irony of it all. But you're right, a lot of what happened with Enron is perfectly legal. I actually find fault with the employees for not diversifying their investment portfolios.
Did anyone read the Enron Human Rights Statement? The part concerning "fair compensation" for employees was quite laughable :)
Honorable mentions also go to the clause concerning the conducting of businesses according to given laws, along with the section concerning "Respect".
I read the strangest headlines today:
This feels like one of those "parallel universe/time travel" episodes they used to have on Superfriends!
The Bush campaign registered every derogatory domain name they could think of
In an ironic twist, Hillary did not register hillary2000.com, which ended up in the hands of a group of people who were strongly against her candidacy.
The funny part was that people from Hillary's campaign would post messages on the hillary2000.com site saying things like:
So much for free speech!