Actually, the Oregon Supreme Court's ruling in the case that you're mentioning was eminently reasonable. The measure on the ballot *clearly* addressed separate issues, and the Oreogn Constitution is veyr clear on the issue.
OK, I'm not actually familiar with the issue, aside from the article that I didn't re-read until after posting. I've been living out-of-state until recently (glad to be home!).
The reason why this is important is that they put up tax-cutting measures that then have unrelated stuff tacked on in a single ballot measure. They hope that the promise of lower taxes will attract enough votes to pass the ballot measure regardless of whatever else they stuff into it.
I agree 100% that tacking on multiple unrelated issues on a single ballot measure, bill, or whatever is a very bad thing, and it pisses me off when this happens. I don't mind related issues being lumped together so much.
I personally think that those who write my state's Constitution were wise to specify that every initiative ballot measure must address one, and only one, issue. (it is incredibly easy to put a ballot measure up here, popular democracy at its best, the least we can ask is to be given one question at a time to vote on).
Yeah, and the voter information booklets they send out kick ass.
Especially if the different OSes can access each others' partitions, it might make troubleshooting easier.
Mac OS X can read UFS partitions natively. You can install to a UFS root volume, but apparently there are a couple of bugs with some apps running on UFS, and classic Mac OS can't read UFS, so it's not recommended for average users.
One of the biggest noticeable differences: UFS is case-sensitive; HFS+ is case-insensitive (although it does preserve case). This means two files whose names differ only by case cannot exist in the same directory. This breaks some UNIX stuff that expects "Makefile" and "makefile" to be two different files; on HFS+ they are the same file.
I recently read an article in The Oregonian (newspaper) that said politicians are seriously looking at Oregon's court system; they've made some rather unpopular rulings lately. As I recall the issue the article discussed was regarding a ballot measure that voters passed, but the state Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, because in the eyes of the court, the ballot measure combined two seperate issues on the same measure, which is illegal (as it should be, IMHO), but the two issues really didn't look like they were unrelated at all.
Sorry I don't remember the details, but anyway, don't think everyone in Oregon agrees with the courts on this sort of thing.
If all they did was point DNS, it wouldn't be the referer (HTTP_REFERER) they'd be looking for, but rather the hostname (HTTP_HOST). HTTP_REFERER is set when redirecting from an existing Web site to the new site; if they just pointed DNS to Ford's IP, they're not actually redirecting at all - they just have an additional hostname that points to the Web server, in addition to www.ford.com.
You sound like someone who would like to be in an IT department, but never has been. Most of your suggestions explicitly violate company policy at most large corporations.
1. Many intranet Web sites only work correctly in Internet Explorer, because of incompetent coders. This could be fixed by firing the web design staff and hiring new ones for more money, and training them in company procedures and such. Sometimes, sites operated by your vendors don't work correctly in other browsers; this cannot be fixed.
2. Managers really like Outlook. Exchange does have some nice features. People like the convenience of being able to embed a table in their e-mail message just by copying and pasting from Excel to Outlook, and having it open as a normal e-mail without the recipients having to save an attachment and launch Excel. Bottom line is, managers like it, and they're the ones who pay your salary.
3. Many companies wouldn't punish that, if the user didn't know they were doing it. So, it's already being treated the same way.
4. Documents that employees create that could potentially be saved in RTF files are not the cause of virus propagation. Restricting users wouldn't help.
By the way, regarding #1, my preferred browser is Mozilla. I work for a large DSL ISP. Our internal database system doesn't work in Mozilla. One of the internal telco web sites we use doesn't work in Mozilla. Another internal telco web site might work in Mozilla, except it uses Java for something, and when I tried to get Java to work it crashed.
Windex is an existing trademark of another company, but in a completely different market. Usually, two companies can hold the same trademark in completely different markets that have nothing to do with each other. However, because the Windex name is so generally well known, I'm pretty sure that would not apply here - if General Motors tried to sell a car called the Coca-Cola, GM would lose. IANAL so this is speculation on my part.
However...
I really like the name Lindex. It's not close enough to Windows that Microsoft can complain, and not confusingly similar to Windex because it's in a completely different market, and the combination has some interesting connotations.
I'll be running Mac OS on my desktop for a long time, because the Mac has consistency. OSX is a bit broken right now, but getting better; in the mean time I run OS9 and it does everything I need my desktop system to do. My Slackware boxes are in the other room.
Apple has published specifications on exactly how an application should look and behave. Applications are expected to adhere to these specs. Not only do these specifications exist, but they HAVE existed for YEARS - it's not a new thing that application developers are just starting to think about.
Examples of official standards that have been in place on the Mac for at least four years: configuration options should be called Preferences, and should be the last item in the Edit menu (which of course comes after the File menu). When asking whether to save a document before closing it, the buttons should never be Yes and No, but rather OK, Cancel and Don't Save.
Windowshading is one of the features I miss a lot on Mac OS X; I hope Apple brings it back soon! In the mean time I have to drag windows to the side to get them out of the way, since minimizing is such a pain in the ass.
The behavior should, of course, be configurable on any platform. If you want double-clicking the title bar to maximize, you should have that option. If I want it to windowshade, I should have that option. If Steve Jobs wants it to minimize, he should have that option.
This used to be true, back in the day before Macs had 3D accelerators in them, but no more. Macs have the same video card and drivers problems as the PC, just to a lesser extent.
If you use the video card that came with your system, it'll be fully supported by Apple, and any OS upgrade will generally include good, working drivers. I've had no problems whatsoever with the ATi Rage 128 Pro in my iMac; I can't really speak from experience about other cards and configurations. If your experience differs from mine, perhaps you could share?
(Yes I know mine's not actually a card, it's on-board.)
This is one of the primary reasons I love Mac OS. I don't have to fight with it. There's no registry to become corrupt. No swiss-cheese web server turned on by default. No video drivers that aren't compatible with OS upgrades. Applications aren't deeply tied to each other and integrated into the operating system - in fact, parts of the operating system aren't even integrated into the operating system - so installing an app doesn't automatically overwrite a DLL file with an old version that isn't compatible with an existing app. My iMac is on its 16th month, and while I'm sure the January 7th announcements will have me drooling again, I won't feel a pressing need to upgrade for a long time to come.
Unfortunately, most people can't see past the transparent plastic, and refuse to accept anything bearing the Apple logo as a legitimate tool.
By the way, yes, I know Macs can have problems. In general the most complex issues can be resolved by a trained monkey in under two hours, and faster with an experienced human. Note that using untrained monkeys is not recommended.
Now, we aren't stupid. We know that it's simply a keystroke or two they need to enter into their computer, but their almost refusal to change us back finally made us just give up and accept their service.
From what I understand, that's not true. Provisioning a line for DSL actually involves physically plugging wires in. True, plugging them in only takes a few minutes, but the task has to be assigned to a technician who also has a lot of others to take care of. You really don't want them to mess it up, either. In addition to plugging the wires in, they also have to send a request to another technician to enter some numbers into a computer system, and that technician also has others to do. I'm sure there's something else that must be done as well - I don't work at a telco, so I don't know. Of course all of this is after the slot/port on the DSLAM has been allocated. I'm sure none of this is very optimized and could be done much more efficiently, but why bother streamlining?
Deprovisioning is the same process in reverse, and takes just as long.
My recommendation: document everything fully, and complain to your local public utilities commission.
Ameritech is incompetent (they don't even have an ATM network); that doesn't make them evil. Verizon is evil.
I work for a national DSL ISP. We opened a trouble ticket with Verizon for a no sync issue. They dispatched a field technician to verify sync at the NID. The field tech closed the ticket, marking it "No trouble found - OK per customer." The end user says he never spoke to the tech (though he did see him), and it still doesn't work.
So, I called Verizon and was fortunate enough to get one of their non-evil techs on the phone. He ran some tests, and concluded that the field tech LIED. If he had actually verified sync at the NID, the test results would have been different. They're sending another field tech out.
To the tech I spoke with on the phone: thank you so much for being honest, and really doing your job. I really appreciate that. We need more like you.
According to the NY Times article, only 10,000 of the 300,000 (or 3%) damaged lines have not been restored, most of those in Chinatown the surrounding area.
The town I live in has a population of around 10,000 people.
Quite frankly, I really don't care WHAT my pc looks like - as long as it does what I want it to do - and if I'm using a Mac, that means graphics and multimedia ONLY.
Of course the appearance of my computers has no bearing on their function, although I do occasionally get compliments on my server's paint job. My PC does what I want (it's a server that occasionally doubles as a desktop system), and my iMac does what I want (all my desktop needs). My 486 even does what I want - an extra test box I can play with, and the only floppy drive in the house.
Graphics and multimedia? I have no Adobe or Macromedia software installed, save Acrobat Reader and the Flash and Shockwave plug-ins of course. I do have some music software, but so does my friend on his PC.
For me, Macs don't mean gaming, web browsing, or things like that.
I don't spend much time playing games; the one I play most is Unreal Tournament. Looking forward to Quake 4 and Warcraft III. I'm writing this with Mozilla 0.9.6 (yes, I sometimes use nightly builds, but keep the milestones around too). Of course I use BB Edit to write HTML and Perl code. For me, this is what Macs mean, and I'd be surprised if they didn't fit the vast majority of your needs too.
I heard awhile back that Apple and the FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD teams were working together on a unified BSD packaging system derived from ports and apt that would allow packages to be installed across Darwin/Free/Net/OpenBSD. Anyone know what the status of this project is? Does it look like it will actually be adopted in favor of ports? Will there be a Linux version too?
Slashdot Mirror
um, since when do VPNs have to be on ports 50 and 51?
Actually, the Oregon Supreme Court's ruling in the case that you're mentioning was eminently reasonable. The measure on the ballot *clearly* addressed separate issues, and the Oreogn Constitution is veyr clear on the issue.
OK, I'm not actually familiar with the issue, aside from the article that I didn't re-read until after posting. I've been living out-of-state until recently (glad to be home!).
The reason why this is important is that they put up tax-cutting measures that then have unrelated stuff tacked on in a single ballot measure. They hope that the promise of lower taxes will attract enough votes to pass the ballot measure regardless of whatever else they stuff into it.
I agree 100% that tacking on multiple unrelated issues on a single ballot measure, bill, or whatever is a very bad thing, and it pisses me off when this happens. I don't mind related issues being lumped together so much.
I personally think that those who write my state's Constitution were wise to specify that every initiative ballot measure must address one, and only one, issue. (it is incredibly easy to put a ballot measure up here, popular democracy at its best, the least we can ask is to be given one question at a time to vote on).
Yeah, and the voter information booklets they send out kick ass.
Especially if the different OSes can access each others' partitions, it might make troubleshooting easier.
Mac OS X can read UFS partitions natively. You can install to a UFS root volume, but apparently there are a couple of bugs with some apps running on UFS, and classic Mac OS can't read UFS, so it's not recommended for average users.
One of the biggest noticeable differences: UFS is case-sensitive; HFS+ is case-insensitive (although it does preserve case). This means two files whose names differ only by case cannot exist in the same directory. This breaks some UNIX stuff that expects "Makefile" and "makefile" to be two different files; on HFS+ they are the same file.
Of course, just after I hit Submit, I found the link to the article:
Rulings may put Oregon courts on trial next year
The article is dated 11/26/01 and the only keep one month available for free online, so that link may expire soon.
I recently read an article in The Oregonian (newspaper) that said politicians are seriously looking at Oregon's court system; they've made some rather unpopular rulings lately. As I recall the issue the article discussed was regarding a ballot measure that voters passed, but the state Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, because in the eyes of the court, the ballot measure combined two seperate issues on the same measure, which is illegal (as it should be, IMHO), but the two issues really didn't look like they were unrelated at all.
Sorry I don't remember the details, but anyway, don't think everyone in Oregon agrees with the courts on this sort of thing.
If all they did was point DNS, it wouldn't be the referer (HTTP_REFERER) they'd be looking for, but rather the hostname (HTTP_HOST). HTTP_REFERER is set when redirecting from an existing Web site to the new site; if they just pointed DNS to Ford's IP, they're not actually redirecting at all - they just have an additional hostname that points to the Web server, in addition to www.ford.com.
Since when CNN is a news site ?
When comparing it to Slashdot.
You sound like someone who would like to be in an IT department, but never has been. Most of your suggestions explicitly violate company policy at most large corporations.
1. Many intranet Web sites only work correctly in Internet Explorer, because of incompetent coders. This could be fixed by firing the web design staff and hiring new ones for more money, and training them in company procedures and such. Sometimes, sites operated by your vendors don't work correctly in other browsers; this cannot be fixed.
2. Managers really like Outlook. Exchange does have some nice features. People like the convenience of being able to embed a table in their e-mail message just by copying and pasting from Excel to Outlook, and having it open as a normal e-mail without the recipients having to save an attachment and launch Excel. Bottom line is, managers like it, and they're the ones who pay your salary.
3. Many companies wouldn't punish that, if the user didn't know they were doing it. So, it's already being treated the same way.
4. Documents that employees create that could potentially be saved in RTF files are not the cause of virus propagation. Restricting users wouldn't help.
By the way, regarding #1, my preferred browser is Mozilla. I work for a large DSL ISP. Our internal database system doesn't work in Mozilla. One of the internal telco web sites we use doesn't work in Mozilla. Another internal telco web site might work in Mozilla, except it uses Java for something, and when I tried to get Java to work it crashed.
Windex is an existing trademark of another company, but in a completely different market. Usually, two companies can hold the same trademark in completely different markets that have nothing to do with each other. However, because the Windex name is so generally well known, I'm pretty sure that would not apply here - if General Motors tried to sell a car called the Coca-Cola, GM would lose. IANAL so this is speculation on my part.
However...
I really like the name Lindex. It's not close enough to Windows that Microsoft can complain, and not confusingly similar to Windex because it's in a completely different market, and the combination has some interesting connotations.
Command-Option-W, close (not minimize) all windows within the current application, prompting to save changes if necessary.
I'll be running Mac OS on my desktop for a long time, because the Mac has consistency. OSX is a bit broken right now, but getting better; in the mean time I run OS9 and it does everything I need my desktop system to do. My Slackware boxes are in the other room.
Apple has published specifications on exactly how an application should look and behave. Applications are expected to adhere to these specs. Not only do these specifications exist, but they HAVE existed for YEARS - it's not a new thing that application developers are just starting to think about.
Examples of official standards that have been in place on the Mac for at least four years: configuration options should be called Preferences, and should be the last item in the Edit menu (which of course comes after the File menu). When asking whether to save a document before closing it, the buttons should never be Yes and No, but rather OK, Cancel and Don't Save.
Windowshading is one of the features I miss a lot on Mac OS X; I hope Apple brings it back soon! In the mean time I have to drag windows to the side to get them out of the way, since minimizing is such a pain in the ass.
The behavior should, of course, be configurable on any platform. If you want double-clicking the title bar to maximize, you should have that option. If I want it to windowshade, I should have that option. If Steve Jobs wants it to minimize, he should have that option.
Can I start canning air too?
Of course, but watch out for the competition...
This used to be true, back in the day before Macs had 3D accelerators in them, but no more. Macs have the same video card and drivers problems as the PC, just to a lesser extent.
If you use the video card that came with your system, it'll be fully supported by Apple, and any OS upgrade will generally include good, working drivers. I've had no problems whatsoever with the ATi Rage 128 Pro in my iMac; I can't really speak from experience about other cards and configurations. If your experience differs from mine, perhaps you could share?
(Yes I know mine's not actually a card, it's on-board.)
This is one of the primary reasons I love Mac OS. I don't have to fight with it. There's no registry to become corrupt. No swiss-cheese web server turned on by default. No video drivers that aren't compatible with OS upgrades. Applications aren't deeply tied to each other and integrated into the operating system - in fact, parts of the operating system aren't even integrated into the operating system - so installing an app doesn't automatically overwrite a DLL file with an old version that isn't compatible with an existing app. My iMac is on its 16th month, and while I'm sure the January 7th announcements will have me drooling again, I won't feel a pressing need to upgrade for a long time to come.
Unfortunately, most people can't see past the transparent plastic, and refuse to accept anything bearing the Apple logo as a legitimate tool.
By the way, yes, I know Macs can have problems. In general the most complex issues can be resolved by a trained monkey in under two hours, and faster with an experienced human. Note that using untrained monkeys is not recommended.
Now, we aren't stupid. We know that it's simply a keystroke or two they need to enter into their computer, but their almost refusal to change us back finally made us just give up and accept their service.
From what I understand, that's not true. Provisioning a line for DSL actually involves physically plugging wires in. True, plugging them in only takes a few minutes, but the task has to be assigned to a technician who also has a lot of others to take care of. You really don't want them to mess it up, either. In addition to plugging the wires in, they also have to send a request to another technician to enter some numbers into a computer system, and that technician also has others to do. I'm sure there's something else that must be done as well - I don't work at a telco, so I don't know. Of course all of this is after the slot/port on the DSLAM has been allocated. I'm sure none of this is very optimized and could be done much more efficiently, but why bother streamlining?
Deprovisioning is the same process in reverse, and takes just as long.
My recommendation: document everything fully, and complain to your local public utilities commission.
Ameritech is incompetent (they don't even have an ATM network); that doesn't make them evil. Verizon is evil.
I work for a national DSL ISP. We opened a trouble ticket with Verizon for a no sync issue. They dispatched a field technician to verify sync at the NID. The field tech closed the ticket, marking it "No trouble found - OK per customer." The end user says he never spoke to the tech (though he did see him), and it still doesn't work.
So, I called Verizon and was fortunate enough to get one of their non-evil techs on the phone. He ran some tests, and concluded that the field tech LIED. If he had actually verified sync at the NID, the test results would have been different. They're sending another field tech out.
To the tech I spoke with on the phone: thank you so much for being honest, and really doing your job. I really appreciate that. We need more like you.
According to the NY Times article, only 10,000 of the 300,000 (or 3%) damaged lines have not been restored, most of those in Chinatown the surrounding area.
The town I live in has a population of around 10,000 people.
Quite frankly, I really don't care WHAT my pc looks like - as long as it does what I want it to do - and if I'm using a Mac, that means graphics and multimedia ONLY.
Of course the appearance of my computers has no bearing on their function, although I do occasionally get compliments on my server's paint job. My PC does what I want (it's a server that occasionally doubles as a desktop system), and my iMac does what I want (all my desktop needs). My 486 even does what I want - an extra test box I can play with, and the only floppy drive in the house.
Graphics and multimedia? I have no Adobe or Macromedia software installed, save Acrobat Reader and the Flash and Shockwave plug-ins of course. I do have some music software, but so does my friend on his PC.
For me, Macs don't mean gaming, web browsing, or things like that.
I don't spend much time playing games; the one I play most is Unreal Tournament. Looking forward to Quake 4 and Warcraft III. I'm writing this with Mozilla 0.9.6 (yes, I sometimes use nightly builds, but keep the milestones around too). Of course I use BB Edit to write HTML and Perl code. For me, this is what Macs mean, and I'd be surprised if they didn't fit the vast majority of your needs too.
PowerPCs are cooler running chips.
Or did you mean cooler running IA-32 chips that can run Microsoft Windows?
You'd probably use cans of compressed air...
Well, I understand they've already added Objective C++. I wouldn't be surprised if they added more in the future.
um, wasn't there a grey CD in the box labeled "Developer Tools"?
Thanks, I couldn't remember the name of the thingie, and was too lazy to hunt for it. :-)
I heard awhile back that Apple and the FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD teams were working together on a unified BSD packaging system derived from ports and apt that would allow packages to be installed across Darwin/Free/Net/OpenBSD. Anyone know what the status of this project is? Does it look like it will actually be adopted in favor of ports? Will there be a Linux version too?