You could do this with VMware. Run another copy of Linux inside a VM, and suspend the VM when you need to shut the box down for a while. Very simple.
This is not the most efficient way to use a computer, of course -- you'd probably want to dedicate your resources to the application instead of to a virtual machine environment -- but technically this does get the job done.
This is a good move on their part. Palm OS licensees are faced with the conundrum that their OS supplier is also one of their competitors. It's the DSL/ILEC thing all over again. Considering that PDA vendors have the illusion of being able to go to Microsoft for their OS instead (I call it an illusion because Microsoft is a competitior to everyone whether they realize it or not), Palm OS needs to make a better effort to appear hardware-neutral. This is a good way of doing it.
Frankly, I think that console mfrs should do the same thing. Sony and Nintendo should license their console OS's to anyone who wants to build the boxes (imagine the variety we'd see!).
The problem with the PC business is that nobody makes any real money from PC's except for Intel and Microsoft. It's a perfect picture of the problem with commodity vs. non-commodity equipment. People consider PC's to be commodity hardware, but that's not the case. A PC is built mostly with commodity hardware -- everything except the CPU and the operating system. Uncoincidentally, the makers of those two components are the only ones able to set their price points high enough to make any real money. (One has some decent competition, and therefore can't set their prices too high... the other has a monopoly and can set their prices outrageously high.)
This is why the fall of the MS monopoly is inevitable. Once the market realizes that the OS can be commoditized as well, Microsoft will be lucky to keep any of the low end at all. Why sell a $500 computer containing a $100 operating system, when you can sell a $400 computer with a free one?
.NET is doomed to be a digital Petri dish for viruses. This is because Microsoft will rush it to market. Every day that passes without.NET being completed is another day that J2EE continues to entrench itself in the enterprise. This is happening because J2EE is actual good technology.
Microsoft has to get some of the.NET framework rolled out quickly. And they're going to do that the same way they always do: by skipping most of the security QA they should be doing.
Rest assured that.NET will be every bit as secure as Windows XP -- i.e. not secure at all.
Come on people, you're totally missing the point here. Micro$oft is a huge software house with thousands of programmers and the financial resources to run new projects for years before they bring in any revenue. If they wanted MS Office to run on Linux, they'd write a native version instead of porting the Mac or Windows version. The reason they haven't done it is because they don't want to give Linux any more credibility than it already has. Not too difficult to figure out here, folks.
Look for MS Office for Linux to appear once Linux begins to take off on the desktop without them, and some other office suite is about to run away with the market share. Then they'll pre-announce something.
As usual, the Slashdot groupthink refers to BBS's as a "thing of the past." Listen folks, BBS's are not dead. Dialup is dead, yes. BBS's have moved to the Internet. Those that didn't evolve have died off. Those that did, are thriving. Click to log on. Telnet, SSH, web, your choice. Client software, the whole works. Some BBS programs are even evolving into nice-looking groupware systems.
You can bet your bitbucket that I'm going to drive this point straight home when I'm interviewed for the BBS documentary. BBS's are not dead.
Back in December 2000, I made a prediction that in December 2001, trade rag writers would be publishing articles making predictions for 2002. Looks like I was right. Damn I'm good!
You'd be surprised how ignorant some IT undergrads are. Remember, many of them are people who didn't know what to do with their lives, so they looked around for something that looked like it would pay a lot of money and chose IT.
Even the graduates aren't all that bright sometimes. I once was reading the program at a graduation and it listed all the students' thesis subjects. One of them was entitled "Object Oriented Programming: Visual Basic vs. Visual C++". Talk about having your head in the sand.
Most people here seem to be posting wildly about giant enterprise-scale packages. The truth is that most businesses are small businesses. Not only are they flexible, but they can really appreciate the cost savings associated with a free operating system.
I don't know what's available in the open source realm, but if you're ok with a commercial package, you might want to try ACCPAC. This is a mature package, originally from the DOS/Windows world, and recently migrated to Linux. It's got all the usual stuff: accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger... this is a package that I've seen CFO's really enjoy working with, to the point where they detest having to use anything else. Give it a try.
If you're on a limited budget (as most people are when putting together home data centers) I highly recommend the STEN shelving units from Ikea. These are designed for workshop shelves, but they make excellent low-end computer racks. They're available in full and half sizes, and you can expand your rack horizontally by bolting them together (which is accomplished very easily using the included hardware). They're just the right size and shape for computer equipment, and since they're made of wood, you can easily screw things into the posts - such as power strips, small hubs, etc.
I've got a setup like this in my basement and it's very nice -- attractive and functional.
There may be an interesting side effect here. The moment WMA format becomes implemented in hardware in any significant scale, the format is effectively "fixed" -- since you can't force people to go out and buy a new DVD player every year, you have to make sure that all new audio and video programs are playable on those Version 1 chips.
This means that WMA is no longer a moving target for anyone who wants to reverse engineer the format and put together a compatible player. Undoubtedly the Evil Empire will unleash swarms of lawyers at the first person who does it, but the effort could be lead overseas (that is, until Microsoft realizes that buying the US government wasn't enough and begins to start buying other governments as well).
eBay would be the best place to start (although you have to filter out the commercial distributors who use eBay to sell brand new merchandise). You could also try your local classified ads; many communities have publications like the "Pennysaver" containing nothing but this type of stuff.
While it's fun to think about modifying these appliances to run Linux in your kitchen (or whatever), it's important to remember that if you're really looking to put together something useful -- as opposed to re-engineering an iPaq or iOpener for the hack value -- you're probably better off getting a bargain-basement used laptop. Most of us here already have a home LAN, a Linux server, and a broadband connection, right? You don't really need a very beefy laptop to accomplish the "appliance" task. Enough memory to run X and perhaps a local browser, a color display, something to boot from, and an Ethernet adapter. I've got an old AST Ascentia J over here, complete with its wonderous 16 MB RAM and 500 MB disk. But it's got a usable color display and a built-in pointer. The battery was shot so I just threw it away. A call to/sbin/hdparm keeps the hard disk from spinning except when it's being used, so it's easy on power too.
Think twice and you can save some money. No special tinkering required.
I for one would welcome MS Office for Linux. There's absolutely no way I'd use it myself, but think of the possibilities:
Serve up MS Office to X-based thin clients, without the need for Terminal Server licensing and/or Citrix licensing, both which consume huge amounts of money.
Users of MS Office for Linux are using Linux!!! Office on Linux is one step away from Microsoft.
Finally, and I think this is important... people would use it, and as a result it would force Microsoft to realize that Linux has desktop potential. Even if they wanted to kill the product later on, they wouldn't be able to do it easily, because the bean counters would say "Hey, this product is selling very well, why stop it?"
Remember, with no platform advantage, Microsoft has to play fair in the Linux world. Let them come. Let them play on the level playing field. The sooner this happens, the sooner the world can abandon Windows.
If there were ever a time to make an exception and allow a comment to be moderated up to 6 or 7, the above post would be it. I can't believe how many people here are actually believing the tripe in this article, which basically suggests that Microsoft won so many markets because they actually had better products. SoftwareJanitor's post is spot-on: Microsoft had (and has) enough monopoly ca$h to keep plugging along until they eventually get it right. Most other software companies can't afford that, so they just end up folding.
Come on now, do you really think that a product as awful as Exchange would get very far if it didn't have Microsoft's money behind it?
Give no credit to Microsoft here. They're the bad guys and they will continue to be the bad guys for the foreseeable future. Don't be swayed by this moron.
Don't kid yourself. There is no shortage of XBoxes. Microsoft is very carefully and deliberately manipulating the distribution and marketing of the XBox to create an astroturf-like imitation of the "Tickle-me Elmo effect." They want people to believe that XBox is so hot that you'd better run out and snatch one before they're all gone, but the reality is that everyone who wants an XBox will eventually get one. Mark my words: inventory will find its way into stores in plentiful supply two weeks before Christmas.
Some people here are saying things like "why not just do 2 or more runs in the first place?" To that I say that if you're wiring up 50 work areas and you have the premise wiring folks already on site, go for it; it's only slightly more expensive to have them run multiple cables.
But what happens when you have a single location that needs more Ethernet? That's the target market here. Instead of getting the premise wiring guys back on site to haul more cable, you just use this jack to fan-out more ports. Conventionally this is done using those little desktop mini-hubs, but putting it inside the wallbox instead of on the desk (or worse, on the floor beneath the desk) makes it neater and more difficult to break.
In future CableHome-based networks, CAT software could go one step further, essentially saying, ?Pardon, NAT, but what?s that behind you?? Or, CAT could replace NAT altogether, at least in equipment hand-picked by MSOs for home-network service packages.
Great. I can see it now: cable companies ramrodding legislation into place forcing people to use firewalls that totally drop their security and allow access from the outside so they can count the number of hosts behind the firewall. They say NAT, but let's not forget that most NAT implementations are sold, at least in part, as firewall solutions. Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about firewalls knows that the single most important function of a firewall is to prevent hosts on the outside from looking in!!!
At the very least, cable MSOs involved in CableHome want a counting mechanism, with parameters set by them, that specifies a maximum number of connected devices. Until then, all indicators point to DOCSIS 1.1, which includes methods to monitor bandwidth consumption (how much is used per customer) and speed (who?s bursting at what rates).
Better equipment has bandwidth management capabilities. Throttle it down to wherever you want. No big deal.
So yes, I personally, won't have to deal with this on my own system, but my relatives will. And guess who will get called to deal with 'computer problems' every time their system crashes.
You're not obligated to do Windows maintenance for your relatives. I made the decision to stop fixing computer problems for my family and friends a couple of years ago, if they're using Windows. It was a little rough at first but now they know better than to bother me. Except for my mother-in-law -- she runs Linux on her home computer, and not surprisingly she doesn't bug me much because it doesn't break!
Well, since it's Massachussetts, obviously the well-funded lobbyists from Ximian are exerting some influence here. For as we know, Ximian is an extremely powerful megacorporation -- one of the few software powerhouses big enough to take on Microsoft. They have a lot of highly paid lawyers and lobbyists, and as a result they are very influential towards their state government.
I'm proficient with the Arrowpoint (now Cisco CSS) load balancers, and they truly are amazing pieces of equipment.
The thing to remember, though, is that a load balancer is only as good as the servers you've put behind it. I manage a big hosting network with lots of these boxes, and it's not uncommon to see an entire site come down during times of extremely heavy load. Inevitably it's a network of Windows servers that comes down. The site gets lots of traffic for whatever reason, then one of the servers bluescreens or otherwise crashes. The load balancer does its job: takes that server out of the rotation, and the traffic gets sent to the other servers in the farm. The problem with Windows servers, though, is that with the increased load resulting from one server being out of the rotation, is that they start crashing too. This effect propagates exponentially until there aren't any servers left.
And before you say "oh, he's just Microsoft bashing" keep this in mind: some of our customers run Arrowpoint/Cisco load balancers with Linux or Solaris servers, and these networks never die. In fact, the servers keep up so well that sometimes if there's an improperly configured load balancer, it will crash instead. (There's a per-port buffer size limitation that you have to stay inside of. Windows can't pump out data fast enough to blow it up, but Linux and Solaris both can.)
The real problem with the PTO is that they make money when a patent is awarded. Therefore they are motivated to award as many patents as possible. This needs to change before the "patent everything" mindset will stop getting its way every time.
Slashdot Mirror
You could do this with VMware. Run another copy of Linux inside a VM, and suspend the VM when you need to shut the box down for a while. Very simple.
This is not the most efficient way to use a computer, of course -- you'd probably want to dedicate your resources to the application instead of to a virtual machine environment -- but technically this does get the job done.
This is a good move on their part. Palm OS licensees are faced with the conundrum that their OS supplier is also one of their competitors. It's the DSL/ILEC thing all over again. Considering that PDA vendors have the illusion of being able to go to Microsoft for their OS instead (I call it an illusion because Microsoft is a competitior to everyone whether they realize it or not), Palm OS needs to make a better effort to appear hardware-neutral. This is a good way of doing it.
Frankly, I think that console mfrs should do the same thing. Sony and Nintendo should license their console OS's to anyone who wants to build the boxes (imagine the variety we'd see!).
The problem with the PC business is that nobody makes any real money from PC's except for Intel and Microsoft. It's a perfect picture of the problem with commodity vs. non-commodity equipment. People consider PC's to be commodity hardware, but that's not the case. A PC is built mostly with commodity hardware -- everything except the CPU and the operating system. Uncoincidentally, the makers of those two components are the only ones able to set their price points high enough to make any real money. (One has some decent competition, and therefore can't set their prices too high... the other has a monopoly and can set their prices outrageously high.)
This is why the fall of the MS monopoly is inevitable. Once the market realizes that the OS can be commoditized as well, Microsoft will be lucky to keep any of the low end at all. Why sell a $500 computer containing a $100 operating system, when you can sell a $400 computer with a free one?
.NET is doomed to be a digital Petri dish for viruses. This is because Microsoft will rush it to market. Every day that passes without .NET being completed is another day that J2EE continues to entrench itself in the enterprise. This is happening because J2EE is actual good technology.
.NET framework rolled out quickly. And they're going to do that the same way they always do: by skipping most of the security QA they should be doing.
.NET will be every bit as secure as Windows XP -- i.e. not secure at all.
Microsoft has to get some of the
Rest assured that
You can count on it.
Come on people, you're totally missing the point here. Micro$oft is a huge software house with thousands of programmers and the financial resources to run new projects for years before they bring in any revenue. If they wanted MS Office to run on Linux, they'd write a native version instead of porting the Mac or Windows version. The reason they haven't done it is because they don't want to give Linux any more credibility than it already has. Not too difficult to figure out here, folks.
Look for MS Office for Linux to appear once Linux begins to take off on the desktop without them, and some other office suite is about to run away with the market share. Then they'll pre-announce something.
As usual, the Slashdot groupthink refers to BBS's as a "thing of the past." Listen folks, BBS's are not dead. Dialup is dead, yes. BBS's have moved to the Internet. Those that didn't evolve have died off. Those that did, are thriving. Click to log on. Telnet, SSH, web, your choice. Client software, the whole works. Some BBS programs are even evolving into nice-looking groupware systems.
You can bet your bitbucket that I'm going to drive this point straight home when I'm interviewed for the BBS documentary. BBS's are not dead.
Back in December 2000, I made a prediction that in December 2001, trade rag writers would be publishing articles making predictions for 2002. Looks like I was right. Damn I'm good!
Even the graduates aren't all that bright sometimes. I once was reading the program at a graduation and it listed all the students' thesis subjects. One of them was entitled "Object Oriented Programming: Visual Basic vs. Visual C++". Talk about having your head in the sand.
We've known for a long time that Osama bil Gates is a digital terrorist, the ring leader of the "Active Qaeda" terrorist network.
Most people here seem to be posting wildly about giant enterprise-scale packages. The truth is that most businesses are small businesses. Not only are they flexible, but they can really appreciate the cost savings associated with a free operating system.
I don't know what's available in the open source realm, but if you're ok with a commercial package, you might want to try ACCPAC. This is a mature package, originally from the DOS/Windows world, and recently migrated to Linux. It's got all the usual stuff: accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger... this is a package that I've seen CFO's really enjoy working with, to the point where they detest having to use anything else. Give it a try.
If you're on a limited budget (as most people are when putting together home data centers) I highly recommend the STEN shelving units from Ikea. These are designed for workshop shelves, but they make excellent low-end computer racks. They're available in full and half sizes, and you can expand your rack horizontally by bolting them together (which is accomplished very easily using the included hardware). They're just the right size and shape for computer equipment, and since they're made of wood, you can easily screw things into the posts - such as power strips, small hubs, etc.
I've got a setup like this in my basement and it's very nice -- attractive and functional.
There may be an interesting side effect here. The moment WMA format becomes implemented in hardware in any significant scale, the format is effectively "fixed" -- since you can't force people to go out and buy a new DVD player every year, you have to make sure that all new audio and video programs are playable on those Version 1 chips.
This means that WMA is no longer a moving target for anyone who wants to reverse engineer the format and put together a compatible player. Undoubtedly the Evil Empire will unleash swarms of lawyers at the first person who does it, but the effort could be lead overseas (that is, until Microsoft realizes that buying the US government wasn't enough and begins to start buying other governments as well).
eBay would be the best place to start (although you have to filter out the commercial distributors who use eBay to sell brand new merchandise). You could also try your local classified ads; many communities have publications like the "Pennysaver" containing nothing but this type of stuff.
While it's fun to think about modifying these appliances to run Linux in your kitchen (or whatever), it's important to remember that if you're really looking to put together something useful -- as opposed to re-engineering an iPaq or iOpener for the hack value -- you're probably better off getting a bargain-basement used laptop. Most of us here already have a home LAN, a Linux server, and a broadband connection, right? You don't really need a very beefy laptop to accomplish the "appliance" task. Enough memory to run X and perhaps a local browser, a color display, something to boot from, and an Ethernet adapter. I've got an old AST Ascentia J over here, complete with its wonderous 16 MB RAM and 500 MB disk. But it's got a usable color display and a built-in pointer. The battery was shot so I just threw it away. A call to /sbin/hdparm keeps the hard disk from spinning except when it's being used, so it's easy on power too.
Think twice and you can save some money. No special tinkering required.
- Serve up MS Office to X-based thin clients, without the need for Terminal Server licensing and/or Citrix licensing, both which consume huge amounts of money.
- Users of MS Office for Linux are using Linux!!! Office on Linux is one step away from Microsoft.
- Finally, and I think this is important
... people would use it, and as a result it would force Microsoft to realize that Linux has desktop potential. Even if they wanted to kill the product later on, they wouldn't be able to do it easily, because the bean counters would say "Hey, this product is selling very well, why stop it?"
Remember, with no platform advantage, Microsoft has to play fair in the Linux world. Let them come. Let them play on the level playing field. The sooner this happens, the sooner the world can abandon Windows.If there were ever a time to make an exception and allow a comment to be moderated up to 6 or 7, the above post would be it. I can't believe how many people here are actually believing the tripe in this article, which basically suggests that Microsoft won so many markets because they actually had better products. SoftwareJanitor's post is spot-on: Microsoft had (and has) enough monopoly ca$h to keep plugging along until they eventually get it right. Most other software companies can't afford that, so they just end up folding.
Come on now, do you really think that a product as awful as Exchange would get very far if it didn't have Microsoft's money behind it?
Give no credit to Microsoft here. They're the bad guys and they will continue to be the bad guys for the foreseeable future. Don't be swayed by this moron.
Don't kid yourself. There is no shortage of XBoxes. Microsoft is very carefully and deliberately manipulating the distribution and marketing of the XBox to create an astroturf-like imitation of the "Tickle-me Elmo effect." They want people to believe that XBox is so hot that you'd better run out and snatch one before they're all gone, but the reality is that everyone who wants an XBox will eventually get one. Mark my words: inventory will find its way into stores in plentiful supply two weeks before Christmas.
Some people here are saying things like "why not just do 2 or more runs in the first place?" To that I say that if you're wiring up 50 work areas and you have the premise wiring folks already on site, go for it; it's only slightly more expensive to have them run multiple cables.
But what happens when you have a single location that needs more Ethernet? That's the target market here. Instead of getting the premise wiring guys back on site to haul more cable, you just use this jack to fan-out more ports. Conventionally this is done using those little desktop mini-hubs, but putting it inside the wallbox instead of on the desk (or worse, on the floor beneath the desk) makes it neater and more difficult to break.
Heh. To every Microsoftie who ever said "Open source does not innovate," I humbly submit this amazing technology as proof positive that you are wrong.
Well, since it's Massachussetts, obviously the well-funded lobbyists from Ximian are exerting some influence here. For as we know, Ximian is an extremely powerful megacorporation -- one of the few software powerhouses big enough to take on Microsoft. They have a lot of highly paid lawyers and lobbyists, and as a result they are very influential towards their state government.
I'm proficient with the Arrowpoint (now Cisco CSS) load balancers, and they truly are amazing pieces of equipment.
The thing to remember, though, is that a load balancer is only as good as the servers you've put behind it. I manage a big hosting network with lots of these boxes, and it's not uncommon to see an entire site come down during times of extremely heavy load. Inevitably it's a network of Windows servers that comes down. The site gets lots of traffic for whatever reason, then one of the servers bluescreens or otherwise crashes. The load balancer does its job: takes that server out of the rotation, and the traffic gets sent to the other servers in the farm. The problem with Windows servers, though, is that with the increased load resulting from one server being out of the rotation, is that they start crashing too. This effect propagates exponentially until there aren't any servers left.
And before you say "oh, he's just Microsoft bashing" keep this in mind: some of our customers run Arrowpoint/Cisco load balancers with Linux or Solaris servers, and these networks never die. In fact, the servers keep up so well that sometimes if there's an improperly configured load balancer, it will crash instead. (There's a per-port buffer size limitation that you have to stay inside of. Windows can't pump out data fast enough to blow it up, but Linux and Solaris both can.)
A book called The Root of All Evil?
Didn't someone already write Bill Gates' biography a couple of years ago?
The real problem with the PTO is that they make money when a patent is awarded. Therefore they are motivated to award as many patents as possible. This needs to change before the "patent everything" mindset will stop getting its way every time.