If you were only writing a journal for you and you alone, you would not have it on the internet. You want positive responses to your thoughts, otherwise you would keep them private.
You know, it's quite common for people to be interested in what people think about their views, positive or negative. Other points of view can be quite educational, even if you don't agree with them.
I tried contacting the company that produced the Infobase, but the support number for the company is no longer connected, and their email address bounces. I seem to have an orphan dataset.
<irony>
Well thank $DEITY you didn't use open-source software, because there are all sorts of support issues with that!
</irony>
Seriously, though, if the company is still in business, it shouldn't be that hard to contact them. Look at their domain records for contact info, business directories for their area, etc.
While I agree with the philosophy, unfortunately it's unrealistic. Reason: so many browsers, worst among them Netscape 4, try to support CSS and fail so miserably that a standards-complaint CSS page is likely to be unreadable. And, unfortunately, some people still use NS4 and old versions of IE.
That's why you should hide your CSS from Netscape 4.x using one of its many bugs. If your page is written correctly, it should work just fine without CSS.
Serving different stylesheets to different browsers is all very well, but you have to do quite a bit of work to avoid completely destroying the cachability of your stylesheets.
I remember not long after NT 4.0 came out (about service pack 2 time). It came bundled with Internet Explorer 2, yet when attempting to download a later version of Internet Explorer or a service pack, the MS download website kept telling me to upgrade my browser. In order to get the latest version of IE (4.0, I think), I had to download Netscape first, and then download IE with that.
The guy who told you to check the faq was especially obnoxious, as if you had no clue at all...
Obnoxious? He confused two completely different things! Ogg is merely a wrapper format, it has no bearing on the algorithm used to represent the audio. Sorry, but anybody who is qualified to talk about flac vs vorbis simply wouldn't make that mistake.
Altruism is important, but ultimately people make most decisions on an economic basis. And people develop Open Source software for the recognition and geek-chic fame they get, for the opportunity to be the key player in a project when perhaps they are more of a cog in their day job
The term "Open-Source" was specifically coined to promote open development as a sound business decision. That is the difference between Free software and Open-Source software - there is no "software should be libre" ideal, only "open development can make you more money".
If you're using IE, you're running a piece of software *on your machine* which is advertising and providing the ability for a web page to basically screw your system up. If precisely this happens...well, you should have tried another browser.:-)
At any given time there are a dozen or so security holes in Internet Explorer. Right now there are 19 security holes in the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all patches and service packs applied.
Well Linux has immense mindshare. There are a hell of a lot of people out there with Linux experience, more so, probably, than OpenBSD. These people will probably prefer Linux, or at least want it as an option. Sun are probably in the best position to make a distribution for their own hardware, they certainly have the expertise.
And this is only value if it actualy works.
Why would Sun release a non-functional distribution?
The idea that this is corporate greed rights all wrongs is really getting old. The catch all justification of our times. Where is this going to end?
Probably when publically traded companies aren't at risk of being sued by shareholders who want a return on their investment. It's a little hard to justify ignoring a potential money making asset when you can be slapped with a lawsuit for doing so.
Then why IBM has chosen Linux (not BSD!) for their new RS6K series?
I don't see the connection. If IBM choose Linux over BSD, or BSD over Linux, they are still just providing an operating system for their clients.
the more operating systems running on their hardware, the better.
Better for whom? For us, customers? Most likely. For Sun, a hardware vendor? Most unlikely.
Care to explain your reasoning? If a hardware platform doesn't run the operating system I want it to well, I won't buy it. The same goes for virtually everybody else on the planet. Sun understands this.
I believe, however, it depends on what business model they use.
Of course. And I don't believe selling operating systems is a core component in Sun's business model. Which is why "competition" with any other operating system isn't really competition at all - they won't care if you take it off, they care about supplying a high-quality version of Linux for their customers.
Re:Is KDE trying to be Windows?
on
KDE 3.1 Released
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A quick scan through the new features is almost like reading about the new features introduced in a previous version of Windows.
I don't see that at all.
Internet Explorer doesn't have a download manager.
Windows doesn't have anything even close to quanta.
Windows doesn't come with a large selection of games or educational tools.
Windows doesn't come with an advanced editor like kate.
Internet Explorer doesn't have tabbed browsing.
Explorer doesn't transparently browse remote filesystems over ssh.
Explorer doesn't let you edit meta-data in things like jpeg files.
Windows still doesn't have support for multiple desktops
Windows still doesn't have a taskbar as functional as KDE's
Windows still doesn't have decent scripting of gui applications.
It seems to me that I use virtually all of these features on a regular basis. Yes, some of them have been done before. Yes, a lot of the features are available via third party software in Windows. But this doesn't mean that KDE is copying Windows. It means that people using KDE and people using Windows need a lot of the same features.
There have been a number of interoperability improvements, for instance palm and exchange compatibility, but this isn't the same as copying windows. It simply means that KDE is trying to be as compatible with your other systems as possible.
For OpenBSD they couldn't care less other than to keep them waiting and to keep possible competition at a distance.
If Sun want to create a distro, fine. It won't be to profit from the distro though - it will merely be a "value-add" to the hardware. As such, competition is hardly something they would be scared of - the more operating systems running on their hardware, the better.
It doesn't matter what soource control system you use, you still own your own code. If the company making the source control product goes nuts, then you just have to abandon them.
Exactly. You have to put time & effort into evaluating other tools, learning whatever you decide upon, and transferring your code over to that system. Most of the time, you cannot transfer the repositories between different systems, only the current code.
If the vendor is showing signs of "going nuts", it would be silly to start to use their tools. Some people would argue that the recent licensing silliness with bitkeeper is a danger sign, but I don't want to get into that argument.
Free software is NOT always the best option.
All other things being equal, I would disagree. All other things are not usually equal, however, so you have to decide on a case-by-case basis. A free alternative is always a good thing, even if you don't use it, it keeps the proprietary vendors on their toes.
Especially for large businesses which are concerned about the potential license taint
License taint? Your code is not a derivative of the version control system you use, there is no tainting issue. The common open-source licenses have no usage restrictions, unlike bitkeeper's license.
and support issues.
Open vs proprietary support issues have been discussed over and over. Companies support free software, companies support proprietary software. You have a choice of which companies you go to with open-source software, you don't with proprietary software. There's no issue here.
...my school district just installed php onto their IIS (long story, freakin morons...) server. so, since i won't touch asp (whatever bastardized incarnation m$ decides this week) i figured i'd convert alot of our site to php.
Kasparov, indeed any world class chess player, eliminates huge swaths of moves based on simple pattern recognition.
I can't tell whether you are trying to agree or disagree with me, so I'll just point out that this is evaluation.
He dosen't calculate that general strategy but he'll definately take it into account.
Of course he calculates it. Otherwise, where does it come from? Somebody whispers it into his ear? It magically pops into his head? Every decision we make is a calculation. A person might not be conciously aware of every factor that leads to the result, but it's still a calculation.
The computer has to calculate all kinds of moves, but Kasparov doesn't even have to consider them because he knows they don't make sense in this position.
Surely that means that Kasparov has evaluated them? Otherwise there would be no way of knowing that they don't make sense. Discarding very low-quality moves may be something he does unconciously, but he's still evaluating them.
They can analyze moves faster and remember more about their opponent's technique
...the computer can apply the rules ridiculously fast.
You are saying yourself that the computer is better at chess. It's clear to see that the computer is better at chess - it can beat the world's best players.
What I think you are actually trying to say is that computers aren't smarter than humans yet. I agree. Crunching numbers is not a sign of intelligence in computers.
However, this new computer is smarter than the old one. It does more in less computations.
Isn't there some magical algorithm that produces an unique checksum number for a file, and if it were missing chunks wouldn't that reflect in that magical number? Don't most P2P networks use this magical MD5 checksum algorithm to ensure files aren't screwed up?
Yes, but the client supplies the checksum. There's nothing to stop a client from sending a phony checksum.
In any case, the checksum only really protects against things getting screwed up through the transfer - if they are screwed up to begin with, the checksum isn't going to help at all.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, it's quite common for people to be interested in what people think about their views, positive or negative. Other points of view can be quite educational, even if you don't agree with them.
<irony>
Well thank $DEITY you didn't use open-source software, because there are all sorts of support issues with that!
</irony>
Seriously, though, if the company is still in business, it shouldn't be that hard to contact them. Look at their domain records for contact info, business directories for their area, etc.
That's why you should hide your CSS from Netscape 4.x using one of its many bugs. If your page is written correctly, it should work just fine without CSS.
More info.
Serving different stylesheets to different browsers is all very well, but you have to do quite a bit of work to avoid completely destroying the cachability of your stylesheets.
I remember not long after NT 4.0 came out (about service pack 2 time). It came bundled with Internet Explorer 2, yet when attempting to download a later version of Internet Explorer or a service pack, the MS download website kept telling me to upgrade my browser. In order to get the latest version of IE (4.0, I think), I had to download Netscape first, and then download IE with that.
Obnoxious? He confused two completely different things! Ogg is merely a wrapper format, it has no bearing on the algorithm used to represent the audio. Sorry, but anybody who is qualified to talk about flac vs vorbis simply wouldn't make that mistake.
Nope, you are thinking of Free software.
The term "Open-Source" was specifically coined to promote open development as a sound business decision. That is the difference between Free software and Open-Source software - there is no "software should be libre" ideal, only "open development can make you more money".
They were just really long words.
I think it's one of the perks of subscribing, isn't it? The subscribers don't get the dupes...
At any given time there are a dozen or so security holes in Internet Explorer. Right now there are 19 security holes in the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all patches and service packs applied.
FLAC and Ogg are already integrated. Ogg is simply a container file format, it has nothing to do with audio compression. You are thinking of Vorbis.
See the FAQ.
Speak Freely is a program for communicating between two computers. See the FAQ.
GNOMEMeeting lets you phone normal telephones.
So well known that you forgot a bit of it :)
#include <stdio.h>Well Linux has immense mindshare. There are a hell of a lot of people out there with Linux experience, more so, probably, than OpenBSD. These people will probably prefer Linux, or at least want it as an option. Sun are probably in the best position to make a distribution for their own hardware, they certainly have the expertise.
Why would Sun release a non-functional distribution?
Probably when publically traded companies aren't at risk of being sued by shareholders who want a return on their investment. It's a little hard to justify ignoring a potential money making asset when you can be slapped with a lawsuit for doing so.
I don't see the connection. If IBM choose Linux over BSD, or BSD over Linux, they are still just providing an operating system for their clients.
Care to explain your reasoning? If a hardware platform doesn't run the operating system I want it to well, I won't buy it. The same goes for virtually everybody else on the planet. Sun understands this.
Of course. And I don't believe selling operating systems is a core component in Sun's business model. Which is why "competition" with any other operating system isn't really competition at all - they won't care if you take it off, they care about supplying a high-quality version of Linux for their customers.
I don't see that at all.
It seems to me that I use virtually all of these features on a regular basis. Yes, some of them have been done before. Yes, a lot of the features are available via third party software in Windows. But this doesn't mean that KDE is copying Windows. It means that people using KDE and people using Windows need a lot of the same features.
There have been a number of interoperability improvements, for instance palm and exchange compatibility, but this isn't the same as copying windows. It simply means that KDE is trying to be as compatible with your other systems as possible.
There is a feature guide that details a lot of this.
If Sun want to create a distro, fine. It won't be to profit from the distro though - it will merely be a "value-add" to the hardware. As such, competition is hardly something they would be scared of - the more operating systems running on their hardware, the better.
Exactly. You have to put time & effort into evaluating other tools, learning whatever you decide upon, and transferring your code over to that system. Most of the time, you cannot transfer the repositories between different systems, only the current code.
If the vendor is showing signs of "going nuts", it would be silly to start to use their tools. Some people would argue that the recent licensing silliness with bitkeeper is a danger sign, but I don't want to get into that argument.
All other things being equal, I would disagree. All other things are not usually equal, however, so you have to decide on a case-by-case basis. A free alternative is always a good thing, even if you don't use it, it keeps the proprietary vendors on their toes.
License taint? Your code is not a derivative of the version control system you use, there is no tainting issue. The common open-source licenses have no usage restrictions, unlike bitkeeper's license.
Open vs proprietary support issues have been discussed over and over. Companies support free software, companies support proprietary software. You have a choice of which companies you go to with open-source software, you don't with proprietary software. There's no issue here.
Why didn't you just carry on using perl? You can use perl with iis just fine.
I can't tell whether you are trying to agree or disagree with me, so I'll just point out that this is evaluation.
Of course he calculates it. Otherwise, where does it come from? Somebody whispers it into his ear? It magically pops into his head? Every decision we make is a calculation. A person might not be conciously aware of every factor that leads to the result, but it's still a calculation.
Surely that means that Kasparov has evaluated them? Otherwise there would be no way of knowing that they don't make sense. Discarding very low-quality moves may be something he does unconciously, but he's still evaluating them.
Uh-huh.
You are saying yourself that the computer is better at chess. It's clear to see that the computer is better at chess - it can beat the world's best players.
What I think you are actually trying to say is that computers aren't smarter than humans yet. I agree. Crunching numbers is not a sign of intelligence in computers.
However, this new computer is smarter than the old one. It does more in less computations.
Yes, but would sites in .emacs only be available to broadband users?
Yes, but the client supplies the checksum. There's nothing to stop a client from sending a phony checksum.
In any case, the checksum only really protects against things getting screwed up through the transfer - if they are screwed up to begin with, the checksum isn't going to help at all.