You betcha. There has been a lot of research over the past 50 years, and much of it ignored - especially research that isn't in English.
A lot of old research is interesting in terms of Patent law. A lot of this research can be used to invalidate patent cliaims - prior art. An idea published 30 years ago simply cannot be legitimately patented now.
Very recently my Dad told me about a new patent assigned to one of his competitors. But my Dad claimed that his colleauge didn't patent that very idea in the 1970s because my dad knew of prior art - my dad had heard a researcher from Germany talk about the same thing at a small conference.
Given prior art, my Dad and his colleauge didn't apply for patent back then. But 35 years later, a company patented the idea. My Dad was pretty pissed!
So Dad and I shlogged through tons of (paper) documents and LoC and other resources trying to help him remember who the speaker was and where the conference was held. After a few weeks of digging, we got a copy of the (hard to locate) conference proceedings, and now that brand new patent looks like it's toast.
Now here's the rub - the only reason why this patent was invalidated was because my dad is still in the industry - and he's well over retirement age. Everyone else my Dad works with thought the patent would toast them. Only my dad, and old researcher with a good memory, could help his company overcome the (invalid) patent. What if my dad was retired? What if he didn't attend that talk in the 1970s? Most people simply wouldn't have known where to look for the prior art. [And not every call for prior art is suitable for Slashdot.]
Old research and old researchers are good - not only for disposing of "new" patents, but for the value of the efforts and lessons learned. So much is forgotten.
VMS, MVS, VM, were (and are) real operating systems with features very competitive with those found in modern day operating systems.
Using those seeds, Sun was able to propel Unix into the business environment, leading to further OS refinement. And Apple's commercialization of the GUI desktop forced the development of Windows and OS/2 (and Gnome and KDE for Unix).
Now OS technology is mature thanks to all the investment of commercial predesessors. Operating systems are stable and robust... and like you alluded, some are free.
Linux and BSD wouldn't be where they are now without those early & significant contributions by industry. Those early investments couldn't be had for "free".
The same thing goes for fuel cell technology. Despite the research, it is very expensive to do research, development, and commercialization - fuel cells have some expensive chemistry instide (platinum, palladium, gold), and most people can't afford to "build their own effective fuel cell in their basement" (although I am interested in hearing about those who do!)
Fuel cells suck ONLY because no one ever commercialized fuel cells 30 years ago.
Fuel cell technology should have been the next leap forward. But it's taken a long time because most investments in fuel cell has been centered around space applications... where light weight, high-performance electrical power is a requirement.
An incredible amount of fuel cell technology was developed in the 1960s and 1970s for space programs - and when you make money on space programs, the bean counters know that there is no reason (financially) to look at other potential markets. That was simply a sign of the times.
Unfortuantely, now most fuel cell expertise has been lost to the retirement of industry experts. Much of the "innovation" in recent years is merely a rehash of research done 30 or 40 years ago, but forgotten because no one back then had a vision for using fuel cells to replace (terrestrial) batteries.
I contend that many modern fuel cell related ideas and patents are really old ideas that have been rediscovered by a new set of researchers unfamiliar with the developments of the past.
It's like we just lost 30 years of ful cell development... too bad, because if the corporations that originally developed this technology had their shareholders in mind, they'd have a slightly longer vision and would be leaders in a new industry.
The poster was making a comment about how Microsoft and others leverage the patent system to monopolize parts of the software industry... even locking out open source approaches.
The comment doesn't make open source advocates look bad at all. Hell, those against open source love the restrictions of intellectual property laws, and therefore are likly saying "Oh, haha, I'm glad they can't given their principles!". On the other hand, Open Source advocates realize that these IP laws are the big reason why the deck is stacked against Open Source philosophies.
Get a grip. The original comment doesn't make anyone look bad.
North American cell phone customers were happily surprised this morning when Merison Vireless released a cell phone so shoddy and crappy that most would be happy to dispose of it.
"I've been waiting for the shittiest cell phone I could," remarked Janice McFarley of Prescott Hills "the phone Merison sold me wasn't that great, but I was planning to keep the unit even though I could no longer afford the service. With this phone, well, it simply has no value! I'd throw it away without a second thought!".
The new "KrapPhone", with a limited feature set and shoddy quality, is perfect for service providers that are looking to milk customers that have very little money. Robert Slaton of Merison Vireless explained to us that they could make a tidy profit on welfare mothers and the homeless.
"We find that welfare mothers would like a cell phone, but they can't afford the $30 monthly fees. With this totally crappy phone, we can sell them service, make a tidy profit, and the destitute will be able to remain only 3 or 4 payments behind on their rent. Once they default on our charges, they can simply throw away the phone under the guise of it's crappiness.
Heck, just integrate this into a cell phone and you're all set. That way, I don't have to carry or recharge or configure anything else.
I want a small cellphone with a big display (unlike most cellphones of today... small phone, but only 25% of it has a display)
Even better, make one side of the phone all display, and put a keypad on the other side.
The current problem with the cell phone market in the states is that the hardware is provided almost exclusively by the cell phone companies. And those companies have no vision or concept or desire for PDAs.
Sorry, but it is incredibly naive of you to assume that only "computer idiots" fall for these scams.
They are very convincing... stealing all the branding of a legit informational email. I'll tell you, my mom and dad just cannot tell the difference between http://www.citibank.com/signup/account.jsp and http://www.citibank.com@192.168.0.1/acct.jsp.
These scams can be compelling to people who don't understand that ALL email should be untrusted, and that all URLs within email should be untrusted, and that all forms that you fill out should be untrusted.
Ya, sure it is, But I'm a lazy bastard. I don't want to print to PS or PDF. I just want a freakin' menu option called "Print Preview" that fires up a print preview window (gv driven or otherwise).
Sure, I can print to a file, and then open that file with a PS viewer without printing... I know that. That doesn't solve my issue.
I only use Linux. My desktop machine at works runs Linux, and my desktop machine at home runs Linux. No "dual boot" or anything like that.
Is Mac OS X good? Yeah. I'd say it's pretty darn compelling, and all Linux application developers should take a good long look at OS X in order to learn to see where it succeeds.
Running Linux on the Desktop does not make my day easier. Printing, clipboarding, decent-quality video drivers, fonts, app consistency - these are all still major issues that impact the further deployment of Linux on the desktop.
The amazing part of OS X is it's integration and consistency. Simply put, it's a cohesive environment, built as if one very talented person built almost all the applications. Every Linux distribution is years behind it in that category (although things are very slowly getting better!)
It's hard to force UI and feature standards upon desktop applications in the world of open source - the distributedness and the lack of centralization of open source makes it hard to achieve that level of clarity.
So the next question is - can it be done in Linux? Is it even possible to build guidelines and services that make it possible for an open source project to achieve what Apple has done for OS X?
If I ever buy a laptop, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be a Mac running OS X.
PS - every application should have a "print preview"! Damn it!
"The practice of selling U.S. products abroad at prices keyed to the local market is longstanding. It's not unusual, it doesn't violate public policy and it's certainly not illegal. But publishers are still coming to terms with the dramatic change in the law."
Just you wait - I wager that new laws and publisher licensing rules will be created that manages to severely curb such importation. Heck, it works with prescription drugs: "oh, the drugs are unsafe in Canada!". Bullshit!
Congress is all for screwing all of us. Freakin' fascism is back.
No, you're grossly misinterpreting the Massachusetts policy.
Microsoft isn't excluded from bidding, as proprietary, closed-source products are not prohibited. ONLY if all things are equal is a preference given to open "products".
Microsoft can bid, and they can win if they prove that their product is superior than open source alternatives. However, if they are virtual equals, open source must win by policy.
The Massachusetts policy, as drafted, doesn't preclude the use of closed-source or proprietary systems. Many news articles seem to miss this important point, making it sound like it's a closed-source mandate.
Instead, the policy states that a preference should be given to open standards (such as open-standard document types, SSL, SQL, Postscript, email standards, open-source products, the RFCs, etc).
The policy as drafted also clearly states that when proprietary systems are judged to be superior to their closed system counterparts (in terms of direct and indirect costs, features, compatability with existing systems, reliability, etc), the proprietary options must be selected.
It's pretty simple, but some people are against it because it can in fact hurt segments of the software and IT consulting industries.
In any case, right now, the policy says that with all things being equal, open source is preferred.
I can't speak for my entire organization, but I can speak for my department of 20 people.
We've made the switch away from Microsoft. About 2/3 of us use RH9; the other 1/3rd use Mac OS X. I'm one of the linux guys.
In a nutshell, we've managed (with some pain) to completely unload Microsoft. Pretty good, eh?
Our primary Office products are Open Office and Mozilla (for Web & Email).
Needless to say, we are an IT-centric organization, so we can take care of ourselves pretty well. In addition, our organization never standardized on the "viral" Microsoft practices, namely "MS-Exchange".
The savings? Well, for starters, there is the fee for Microsoft Office for 20 people. Plus we were able to get rid of our IT support guy (he was a contractor - we paid about $50k/year for his services - VERY PART TIME).
That's all pretty substantial $$$ - and it's money that flows right out the door.
The downside? Well, none really. It was difficult at first - we had a bunch of older docs in Visio and PPT 2000 format and stuff like that.
Now we have one PC in the office just for Windows.
It's kind like the old days when you had an unused microfiche machine in the back room.
I tried out iTunes too. I also noticed the "maximize" thing. It is strange behavior in the Windows world, but I guess it's standard for the Mac world. Well, this application isn't running under a Mac UI, so they should address it. To be honest, it isn't a big deal... it's just the principle of the thing. I'm not a big fan of the brushed metal look either. I can see Apple promoting their brand here - that must be why they chose to go in that direction. Either that, or it was just faster to get it out the door that way.
The performance didn't seem to bother me - I have a 1.4 Ghz Athlon and 512MB of RAM and a decent video card and a crappy audio card. I'm running w2k, however... that might make a difference.
I don't think it's the best Windows program ever.
That'd be Mozilla.
But is is the best, most complete "Music Environment" that I've used on any platform. Winamp is good, but it just doesn't have the same feature set and ease-of-use that iTunes has.
OK, I just did it... I tried iTunes for the first time.
My Sister has a Mac and has used iTunes since the spring - and she has told me on several times how much she loves it.
I don't own a Mac (or an iPod), but for my sister to give a glowing review is a rarity - so I figured I'd try the windows version when it came out.
I'm a 20% Windows user. The other 80% of the time I'm a linux guy, with Linux on my main machines at work and at home. But I also have a Windows 2000 PC at home for things like Visio and Microsoft Money [blush].
So I fired up that w2k machine and then fired up Mozilla and downloaded the iTunes for Windows software. The download was uneventful. I fired up the installer.
The installer is much like any other Windows installer - a license agreement and some basic questions about the install process, and you're good to go. I did have to reboot after the installation, but hey, I'm used to that with Windows.
After the reboot I fired up iTunes. I checked out the internet radio stuff (very easy to use), and then I went right to the iTunes store and started poking around. I did some searches for some stuff I'd expect them to have (Pink Floyd, Beck, etc)... and found everything that I was looking for.
The search feature was very easy to use: basically, you just type what you're looking for and it gives you a sorted result set. Pretty basic stuff.
From there I "previewed" some of the results. Simply clicking on a line item plays a portion of the song. It was good quality, and they had a nice fade-in/fade-out.
From there, I decided "what the hell" and downloaded Beck's latest album. The price was $9.99, which is a bit cheaper than the cheap stores.
iTunes asked me to log in or to set up a new account. Of course, I chose to set up a new account. It asked me for some very basic information - the biggest thing being my credit card information.
Then the download began. It was fast and uneventful.
After the download, I figured I'd burn the Beck album on a CD. Usually this is a pain in the butt for me, since I have crappy manufacturer-provided CD burning software.
This is where iTunes was INCREDIBLE. It opened my CDR drive and asked me to insert a disk. I did. From there, it told me to click "burn". I did. And then it burned the album.
It was way easy. You have to ask why other software is so much more a pain in the butt.
15 minutes later the CD was done, and iTunes gave me a little "ding!". I popped the new CD out of the drive and played it in my regular old CD player. Flawless.
That's all I've done so far.
It's impressive how simple iTunes is and how well it works. It doesn't do amazing things - but it does what it does very very well.
Now I see. iTunes is simple and elegant. I'm going to try to download the same music off the net and see how well I do. Although I've downloaded music off the net before, it has never been so freakin' simple.
I hope Linux developers take heed of Apple's progress in simplicity. I'm not an Apple fan, but I must say that iTunes is on the top of the heap so far.
Two friends gave me their old 486-based PCs, and I had an older "M-Tech" Socket 7 board.
At the end I had one usable PC: - soundblaster (ISA) card, circa 1992. - Sony proprietary CD-ROM drive, 1992 - AT-style case, circa 1989 - M-Tech Socket7 motherboard, circa 1997 - Gateway keyboard, very old, AT-style - Circa-1990 floppy - 1 GB HDD (maybe from 1993-4?) - 128 MB of RAM - 300 mhz Cyrix MII cpu! - a new 802.11b PCI card - Win98 (I hate it too, but it fits!) - Some cheap old PCI VGA card, (4 MB VRAM I think)
So... for $40 (for the 802.11b), one of my less fortunate neighbors has a usable PC for email, surfing, wordprocessing, etc!
Sure, some parts were over 10 years old. But it is a surprisingly usable machine. I only wish that I put a 2 GB drive in there at the time. 1 GB is quite limiting these days.
- A Mac - Two Windows 98 machines - Three Windows 2000 machines - A Windows XP machine
This drive would be just right for that task. It doesn't need to be fast, nor does it need fast access. It doesn't need to be all that reliable either - the only sad thing would be if someone needed to do a restore AND the Maxtor failed on the same day (or week, given my family tech support contract - or lack thereof).
A little rsync, a little ssh, everyone with a DSL. Throw in a big HDD like this Maxtor running on an old piece of hardware and you're done!
The author has concluded that many security papers do not address the cost of security - and he's right.
But anyone who is going to make a business decision regarding security can and will recognize that cost is a factor. Just because not all papers focus on cost doesn't mean that their conclusions are flawed.
The author fails to present any facts that support his implied position that the costs of securing the Microsoft model is a lower cost.
The author has written an article about his opinions. He provides few facts that support his opinion. This article is not informative to me - someone who needs to make decisions.
I don't care about his opinions. Give me facts that help me decide what to do in my organizations.
My only landline is VoIP. I work in a large organization - telephonically, we're closely coupled with Verizon.
In any case, VoIP hasn't been the smoothest road to go down. I've had relibility issues at my desktop, and the phones and back-end are often down/rebooted for "maintenance".
I'm all for no regulation, but one thing is for sure: the quality of service should be guarenteed to be as good or better than standard analog service. Right now, I feel I'm on the bleeding edge.
Don't get me wrong: VoIP is cool, and it is fundamentally different than typical analog service - so the same exact regulations need not apply.
But there should be strong rules in place in terms of quality of service.
These days, printer cost should be measured almost solely by the price of it's consumables. For a little more accuracy, you may optionally add the initial price of the printer.
Isn't Lexmark's total cost of ownership (TCO) of consumer-class products way more than it's higher-quality competitors? Then why do people buy them? Because the REAL costs are purposely hidden by Lexmark (and some others in the industry).
Yeah yeay - "Buyer Beware". Bullshit. A company the size of Lexmark should be more respectable - but clearly it has become OK to screw customers if you can trick them. To hell with making higher-quality, lower-cost products - an idea once called "competition" by those old-shcool capitalists. Instead, let's just screw our customers.
Slashdot Mirror
You betcha. There has been a lot of research over the past 50 years, and much of it ignored - especially research that isn't in English.
A lot of old research is interesting in terms of Patent law. A lot of this research can be used to invalidate patent cliaims - prior art. An idea published 30 years ago simply cannot be legitimately patented now.
Very recently my Dad told me about a new patent assigned to one of his competitors. But my Dad claimed that his colleauge didn't patent that very idea in the 1970s because my dad knew of prior art - my dad had heard a researcher from Germany talk about the same thing at a small conference.
Given prior art, my Dad and his colleauge didn't apply for patent back then. But 35 years later, a company patented the idea. My Dad was pretty pissed!
So Dad and I shlogged through tons of (paper) documents and LoC and other resources trying to help him remember who the speaker was and where the conference was held. After a few weeks of digging, we got a copy of the (hard to locate) conference proceedings, and now that brand new patent looks like it's toast.
Now here's the rub - the only reason why this patent was invalidated was because my dad is still in the industry - and he's well over retirement age. Everyone else my Dad works with thought the patent would toast them. Only my dad, and old researcher with a good memory, could help his company overcome the (invalid) patent. What if my dad was retired? What if he didn't attend that talk in the 1970s? Most people simply wouldn't have known where to look for the prior art. [And not every call for prior art is suitable for Slashdot.]
Old research and old researchers are good - not only for disposing of "new" patents, but for the value of the efforts and lessons learned. So much is forgotten.
How true.
VMS, MVS, VM, were (and are) real operating systems with features very competitive with those found in modern day operating systems.
Using those seeds, Sun was able to propel Unix into the business environment, leading to further OS refinement. And Apple's commercialization of the GUI desktop forced the development of Windows and OS/2 (and Gnome and KDE for Unix).
Now OS technology is mature thanks to all the investment of commercial predesessors. Operating systems are stable and robust... and like you alluded, some are free.
Linux and BSD wouldn't be where they are now without those early & significant contributions by industry. Those early investments couldn't be had for "free".
The same thing goes for fuel cell technology. Despite the research, it is very expensive to do research, development, and commercialization - fuel cells have some expensive chemistry instide (platinum, palladium, gold), and most people can't afford to "build their own effective fuel cell in their basement" (although I am interested in hearing about those who do!)
Fuel cells suck ONLY because no one ever commercialized fuel cells 30 years ago.
Fuel cell technology should have been the next leap forward. But it's taken a long time because most investments in fuel cell has been centered around space applications... where light weight, high-performance electrical power is a requirement.
An incredible amount of fuel cell technology was developed in the 1960s and 1970s for space programs - and when you make money on space programs, the bean counters know that there is no reason (financially) to look at other potential markets. That was simply a sign of the times.
Unfortuantely, now most fuel cell expertise has been lost to the retirement of industry experts. Much of the "innovation" in recent years is merely a rehash of research done 30 or 40 years ago, but forgotten because no one back then had a vision for using fuel cells to replace (terrestrial) batteries.
I contend that many modern fuel cell related ideas and patents are really old ideas that have been rediscovered by a new set of researchers unfamiliar with the developments of the past.
It's like we just lost 30 years of ful cell development... too bad, because if the corporations that originally developed this technology had their shareholders in mind, they'd have a slightly longer vision and would be leaders in a new industry.
I've sold two things on Ebay - total value about $20.. and I can use Buy It Now.
I guess you're wrong.
It's called satire.
The poster was making a comment about how Microsoft and others leverage the patent system to monopolize parts of the software industry... even locking out open source approaches.
The comment doesn't make open source advocates look bad at all. Hell, those against open source love the restrictions of intellectual property laws, and therefore are likly saying "Oh, haha, I'm glad they can't given their principles!". On the other hand, Open Source advocates realize that these IP laws are the big reason why the deck is stacked against Open Source philosophies.
Get a grip. The original comment doesn't make anyone look bad.
It's simple: make sure that the card is well-supported with decent drivers, and you have a sale!
Ignore suport for Linux... and you're not even on the radar for me.
North American cell phone customers were happily surprised this morning when Merison Vireless released a cell phone so shoddy and crappy that most would be happy to dispose of it.
"I've been waiting for the shittiest cell phone I could," remarked Janice McFarley of Prescott Hills "the phone Merison sold me wasn't that great, but I was planning to keep the unit even though I could no longer afford the service. With this phone, well, it simply has no value! I'd throw it away without a second thought!".
The new "KrapPhone", with a limited feature set and shoddy quality, is perfect for service providers that are looking to milk customers that have very little money. Robert Slaton of Merison Vireless explained to us that they could make a tidy profit on welfare mothers and the homeless.
"We find that welfare mothers would like a cell phone, but they can't afford the $30 monthly fees. With this totally crappy phone, we can sell them service, make a tidy profit, and the destitute will be able to remain only 3 or 4 payments behind on their rent. Once they default on our charges, they can simply throw away the phone under the guise of it's crappiness.
Heck, just integrate this into a cell phone and you're all set. That way, I don't have to carry or recharge or configure anything else.
I want a small cellphone with a big display (unlike most cellphones of today... small phone, but only 25% of it has a display)
Even better, make one side of the phone all display, and put a keypad on the other side.
The current problem with the cell phone market in the states is that the hardware is provided almost exclusively by the cell phone companies. And those companies have no vision or concept or desire for PDAs.
Sorry, but it is incredibly naive of you to assume that only "computer idiots" fall for these scams.
They are very convincing... stealing all the branding of a legit informational email. I'll tell you, my mom and dad just cannot tell the difference between http://www.citibank.com/signup/account.jsp and http://www.citibank.com@192.168.0.1/acct.jsp.
These scams can be compelling to people who don't understand that ALL email should be untrusted, and that all URLs within email should be untrusted, and that all forms that you fill out should be untrusted.
Ya, sure it is, But I'm a lazy bastard. I don't want to print to PS or PDF. I just want a freakin' menu option called "Print Preview" that fires up a print preview window (gv driven or otherwise).
Sure, I can print to a file, and then open that file with a PS viewer without printing... I know that. That doesn't solve my issue.
I want ease of use. I want one stop shopping.
I only use Linux. My desktop machine at works runs Linux, and my desktop machine at home runs Linux. No "dual boot" or anything like that.
Is Mac OS X good? Yeah. I'd say it's pretty darn compelling, and all Linux application developers should take a good long look at OS X in order to learn to see where it succeeds.
Running Linux on the Desktop does not make my day easier. Printing, clipboarding, decent-quality video drivers, fonts, app consistency - these are all still major issues that impact the further deployment of Linux on the desktop.
The amazing part of OS X is it's integration and consistency. Simply put, it's a cohesive environment, built as if one very talented person built almost all the applications. Every Linux distribution is years behind it in that category (although things are very slowly getting better!)
It's hard to force UI and feature standards upon desktop applications in the world of open source - the distributedness and the lack of centralization of open source makes it hard to achieve that level of clarity.
So the next question is - can it be done in Linux? Is it even possible to build guidelines and services that make it possible for an open source project to achieve what Apple has done for OS X?
If I ever buy a laptop, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be a Mac running OS X.
PS - every application should have a "print preview"! Damn it!
"The practice of selling U.S. products abroad at prices keyed to the local market is longstanding. It's not unusual, it doesn't violate public policy and it's certainly not illegal. But publishers are still coming to terms with the dramatic change in the law."
Just you wait - I wager that new laws and publisher licensing rules will be created that manages to severely curb such importation. Heck, it works with prescription drugs: "oh, the drugs are unsafe in Canada!". Bullshit!
Congress is all for screwing all of us. Freakin' fascism is back.
No, you're grossly misinterpreting the Massachusetts policy.
Microsoft isn't excluded from bidding, as proprietary, closed-source products are not prohibited. ONLY if all things are equal is a preference given to open "products".
Microsoft can bid, and they can win if they prove that their product is superior than open source alternatives. However, if they are virtual equals, open source must win by policy.
The Massachusetts policy, as drafted, doesn't preclude the use of closed-source or proprietary systems. Many news articles seem to miss this important point, making it sound like it's a closed-source mandate.
Instead, the policy states that a preference should be given to open standards (such as open-standard document types, SSL, SQL, Postscript, email standards, open-source products, the RFCs, etc).
The policy as drafted also clearly states that when proprietary systems are judged to be superior to their closed system counterparts (in terms of direct and indirect costs, features, compatability with existing systems, reliability, etc), the proprietary options must be selected.
It's pretty simple, but some people are against it because it can in fact hurt segments of the software and IT consulting industries.
In any case, right now, the policy says that with all things being equal, open source is preferred.
I can't speak for my entire organization, but I can speak for my department of 20 people.
We've made the switch away from Microsoft. About 2/3 of us use RH9; the other 1/3rd use Mac OS X. I'm one of the linux guys.
In a nutshell, we've managed (with some pain) to completely unload Microsoft. Pretty good, eh?
Our primary Office products are Open Office and Mozilla (for Web & Email).
Needless to say, we are an IT-centric organization, so we can take care of ourselves pretty well. In addition, our organization never standardized on the "viral" Microsoft practices, namely "MS-Exchange".
The savings? Well, for starters, there is the fee for Microsoft Office for 20 people. Plus we were able to get rid of our IT support guy (he was a contractor - we paid about $50k/year for his services - VERY PART TIME).
That's all pretty substantial $$$ - and it's money that flows right out the door.
The downside? Well, none really. It was difficult at first - we had a bunch of older docs in Visio and PPT 2000 format and stuff like that.
Now we have one PC in the office just for Windows.
It's kind like the old days when you had an unused microfiche machine in the back room.
I tried out iTunes too. I also noticed the "maximize" thing. It is strange behavior in the Windows world, but I guess it's standard for the Mac world. Well, this application isn't running under a Mac UI, so they should address it. To be honest, it isn't a big deal... it's just the principle of the thing. I'm not a big fan of the brushed metal look either. I can see Apple promoting their brand here - that must be why they chose to go in that direction. Either that, or it was just faster to get it out the door that way.
The performance didn't seem to bother me - I have a 1.4 Ghz Athlon and 512MB of RAM and a decent video card and a crappy audio card. I'm running w2k, however... that might make a difference.
I don't think it's the best Windows program ever.
That'd be Mozilla.
But is is the best, most complete "Music Environment" that I've used on any platform. Winamp is good, but it just doesn't have the same feature set and ease-of-use that iTunes has.
OK, I just did it... I tried iTunes for the first time.
My Sister has a Mac and has used iTunes since the spring - and she has told me on several times how much she loves it.
I don't own a Mac (or an iPod), but for my sister to give a glowing review is a rarity - so I figured I'd try the windows version when it came out.
I'm a 20% Windows user. The other 80% of the time I'm a linux guy, with Linux on my main machines at work and at home. But I also have a Windows 2000 PC at home for things like Visio and Microsoft Money [blush].
So I fired up that w2k machine and then fired up Mozilla and downloaded the iTunes for Windows software. The download was uneventful. I fired up the installer.
The installer is much like any other Windows installer - a license agreement and some basic questions about the install process, and you're good to go. I did have to reboot after the installation, but hey, I'm used to that with Windows.
After the reboot I fired up iTunes. I checked out the internet radio stuff (very easy to use), and then I went right to the iTunes store and started poking around. I did some searches for some stuff I'd expect them to have (Pink Floyd, Beck, etc)... and found everything that I was looking for.
The search feature was very easy to use: basically, you just type what you're looking for and it gives you a sorted result set. Pretty basic stuff.
From there I "previewed" some of the results. Simply clicking on a line item plays a portion of the song. It was good quality, and they had a nice fade-in/fade-out.
From there, I decided "what the hell" and downloaded Beck's latest album. The price was $9.99, which is a bit cheaper than the cheap stores.
iTunes asked me to log in or to set up a new account. Of course, I chose to set up a new account. It asked me for some very basic information - the biggest thing being my credit card information.
Then the download began. It was fast and uneventful.
After the download, I figured I'd burn the Beck album on a CD. Usually this is a pain in the butt for me, since I have crappy manufacturer-provided CD burning software.
This is where iTunes was INCREDIBLE. It opened my CDR drive and asked me to insert a disk. I did. From there, it told me to click "burn". I did. And then it burned the album.
It was way easy. You have to ask why other software is so much more a pain in the butt.
15 minutes later the CD was done, and iTunes gave me a little "ding!". I popped the new CD out of the drive and played it in my regular old CD player. Flawless.
That's all I've done so far.
It's impressive how simple iTunes is and how well it works. It doesn't do amazing things - but it does what it does very very well.
Now I see. iTunes is simple and elegant. I'm going to try to download the same music off the net and see how well I do. Although I've downloaded music off the net before, it has never been so freakin' simple.
I hope Linux developers take heed of Apple's progress in simplicity. I'm not an Apple fan, but I must say that iTunes is on the top of the heap so far.
Now I wish there was an iTunes for Linux.
Two friends gave me their old 486-based PCs, and I had an older "M-Tech" Socket 7 board.
At the end I had one usable PC:
- soundblaster (ISA) card, circa 1992.
- Sony proprietary CD-ROM drive, 1992
- AT-style case, circa 1989
- M-Tech Socket7 motherboard, circa 1997
- Gateway keyboard, very old, AT-style
- Circa-1990 floppy
- 1 GB HDD (maybe from 1993-4?)
- 128 MB of RAM
- 300 mhz Cyrix MII cpu!
- a new 802.11b PCI card
- Win98 (I hate it too, but it fits!)
- Some cheap old PCI VGA card, (4 MB VRAM I think)
So... for $40 (for the 802.11b), one of my less fortunate neighbors has a usable PC for email, surfing, wordprocessing, etc!
Sure, some parts were over 10 years old. But it is a surprisingly usable machine. I only wish that I put a 2 GB drive in there at the time.
1 GB is quite limiting these days.
I back up the family network.
- A Mac
- Two Windows 98 machines
- Three Windows 2000 machines
- A Windows XP machine
This drive would be just right for that task. It doesn't need to be fast, nor does it need fast access. It doesn't need to be all that reliable either - the only sad thing would be if someone needed to do a restore AND the Maxtor failed on the same day (or week, given my family tech support contract - or lack thereof).
A little rsync, a little ssh, everyone with a DSL. Throw in a big HDD like this Maxtor running on an old piece of hardware and you're done!
The author has concluded that many security papers do not address the cost of security - and he's right.
But anyone who is going to make a business decision regarding security can and will recognize that cost is a factor. Just because not all papers focus on cost doesn't mean that their conclusions are flawed.
The author fails to present any facts that support his implied position that the costs of securing the Microsoft model is a lower cost.
The author has written an article about his opinions. He provides few facts that support his opinion. This article is not informative to me - someone who needs to make decisions.
I don't care about his opinions. Give me facts that help me decide what to do in my organizations.
Just like they say "Harvard Business School Graduate, G.W. Bush".
Oh, no they don't.
Yep! ANT is crazy! A weaker, multi-platform, single languange "make".
Yeah, make isn't the best, but it works, it's complete, and people use it for everything. Except Java.
Sure you could use ANT for other languages. I've yet to see it embrased for anything other than Java.
So much for the multi-platformness of Ant.
My only landline is VoIP. I work in a large organization - telephonically, we're closely coupled with Verizon.
In any case, VoIP hasn't been the smoothest road to go down. I've had relibility issues at my desktop, and the phones and back-end are often down/rebooted for "maintenance".
I'm all for no regulation, but one thing is for sure: the quality of service should be guarenteed to be as good or better than standard analog service. Right now, I feel I'm on the bleeding edge.
Don't get me wrong: VoIP is cool, and it is fundamentally different than typical analog service - so the same exact regulations need not apply.
But there should be strong rules in place in terms of quality of service.
I've never seen a picture of Dave Barry, but he must be really fat - why else would he have it in for low-flow toilets?
All I know is that they save me significant $ on my water bill, are quieter, and operate more reliably than my old crappy toilets.
But then again, if I was pooping out huge bricks, well, it might be harder to flush 'em in a low-flo.
These days, printer cost should be measured almost solely by the price of it's consumables. For a little more accuracy, you may optionally add the initial price of the printer.
Isn't Lexmark's total cost of ownership (TCO) of consumer-class products way more than it's higher-quality competitors? Then why do people buy them? Because the REAL costs are purposely hidden by Lexmark (and some others in the industry).
Yeah yeay - "Buyer Beware". Bullshit. A company the size of Lexmark should be more respectable - but clearly it has become OK to screw customers if you can trick them. To hell with making higher-quality, lower-cost products - an idea once called "competition" by those old-shcool capitalists. Instead, let's just screw our customers.
Nice long-term vision, eh?