If you keep grinding that axe, you'll be left with a nub.
Dogfood: Microsoft is rewriting Explorer for Longhorn with.Net. Office is migrating, too. That's the bank, right there, and Microsoft is betting it.
Decompiling: With the right tools, anything can be decompiled. Just ask a Java developer. Nothing special about.Net in that regard.
Ties to Microsoft: In general, you're right. But this is Microsoft, you know. They're not going to suddenly disappear overnight. Also see point 1.
Licensing: You understand wrong. There's no such clause in the.Net Framework license. You may be thinking of a misunderstood clause in an old ODBC license that was brought up in an article last Friday.
Scheduled End-Of-Life: So Microsoft is the only company in the world that's not allowed to declare the end of general support for old software? Even Red Hat is EOL-ing old versions of their distro. Besides, anything that forces (100 million?!) users to upgrade from the atrocity that is Windows 98 is, IMHO, a Good Thing.
(ii) The following additional restrictions apply if you use the SOFTWARE other than solely for internal business purposes. (For applicable licensing terms for all such uses of the SOFTWARE, please contact Microsoft Corporation at (206) 703-4515.) (1) You may commercially distribute the SOFTWARE only in conjunction with and as part of your software product to which you have added significant and primary functionality and value. (2) Unless your software product requires your customer to license Microsoft Office for Windows, or a component of it, in order to operate, you may not reproduce or use the SOFTWARE for commercial distribution in conjunction with a general purpose word processing, spreadsheet, or database software product, or an integrated work or product suite whose components include a general purpose word processing, spreadsheet, or database management software product
except for the exclusive purpose of importing or exporting data to the various formats supported by the SOFTWARE and included in your application (e.g., reading data from and writing data to a single data source at one time). Note: a product which includes limited word processing, spreadsheet, or database components along with other components that provide significant and primary value, such as an accounting product with limited spreadsheet capability, is not considered to be a "general purpose" product.
In other words, you can't use ODBC with another office app/suite, except when reading from or writing to a database. Hmm, isn't that exactly what you'd use ODBC for?
And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids! For the record, I'm just another Speakeasy customer, albeit one without a bully pulpit.
from the speakeasy-dsl-sucks dept.
from the speakeasy-has-spent-two-weeks-without-placing-my-o rder dept.
from the i-thought-premium-price-meant-premium-service dept.
from the even-writing-to-speakeasy's-ceo-gets-no-results dept.
Write an entry in your bloody journal. This is just childish.
They aren't going to win any more of the desktop market by making it look fancier. Microsoft should instead be focusing completely on security, performance, interoperability, stability, and flexibility - you know, all of the things that are allowing Linux to kill Microsoft on the server side.
Somehow, I doubt that the folks working on Aero are the same people responsible for security code auditing. This isn't a mom-and-pop operation, ya know, it's <reverb>Microsoft</reverb>. Besides, screenshots of code in Visual Studio.Net are a dime a dozen and singularly uninteresting. Unless it's the actual source of Explorer.exe, that is.:-)
Whoa, dude. I think your tinfoil hat needs a few more layers.
Why does Microsoft not include a PDF reader? Because if they did, people like you would crucify them for using their monopoly to lock out Adobe. Didn't we just witness this in the browser market? Standard ABM troll: Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Netscape has provided inline plugin install support for years. IIRC, Nav had it before IE. "You need a plugin to view this blah" is hardly exclusive to either Microsoft plugins or Microsoft browsers. If you want to complain about the permissiveness of Microsoft's implementation, go right ahead. I've written ActiveX controls for Windows forms, but I'd never dream of marking one web-safe, because "web-safe ActiveX control" is an oxymoron. But give blame where blame is due.
And what the f*** does.NET have to do with either SoBig.F or Blaster? Or was your post not sufficiently buzzword-compliant?
And in other news... Microsoft announced today that, thanks to a Bill Gates Declaration From On High (tm), every line of code in every Microsoft product, dating back to the company's foundation, has magically, spontaneously, and retroactively fixed itself. This has rendered all of Microsoft's code absolutely secure and error-free. And thanks to the mystical nature of these fixes, end users and sysadmins don't have to patch their systems!
Interesting article. But did you have to be such an asshole about it?
Yours truly,
Keith
P.S.: If your power is still out tonight, I hope this burning karma lights your path.
Re:Semi-OT: Don't whine. Do something about it.
on
Buying a New TV?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The submitter asked about a low-cost, high-quality replacement for a faulty 10-year old TV. You responded by calling him, in so many words, a materialistic, amoral, intellectually bankrupt pig.
I double-dog dare you to try that in the real world. Go to your nearest Best Buy, walk up to the first customer you see in the TV section, and without solicitation, repeat everything you said here. Be sure to report back to us if you manage to make it out of the store without somebody turning it into a punchup.
A bit of advice for you, kid. Before you hit Submit, ask yourself this question: How would this person react if I said this to their face? If you don't have the balls to say it in the real world, you probably shouldn't post it here.
...functioning as a portable harddrive as well (the zen can most likely do this too.)
I'm not sure if things have changed with the NX, but the original Zen can not be mounted by the operating system as a removable HD, at least not with Creative's drivers. You have to go through a special Nomad Explorer app to transfer files. iPod, OTOH, mounts directly.
Re:This guy doesn't get it
on
Is Louder Better?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Actually, Rush has been getting progressively heavier and louder since Roll The Bones. Boy, was that album a mess. Someone in another thread mentioned how Presto was too bright and lacking in bass. Well, for RTB, producer Rupert Hine overcompensated by clipping all the highs, too. Neil Peart does really cool stuff with cymbals. You'd never know it from RTB. The mid-range is so overwhelming, I can't tell the difference between my home theater setup and my clock radio when playing that CD.
Once they got out on tour for RTB, everyone told them how much better the new stuff sounded live. That was the end of Hine's association with Rush. They went back to Peter Collins, whom they had worked with through the '80s, for Counterparts. He brought in some guy nicknamed "Caveman" to engineer. The result was a very broad range of sounds. Some of the more complex arrangements, like Nobody's Hero and Cold Fire were quite clean and crisp, like '80s Rush. But heavier songs like Animate and Stick It Out have a dirtier, garage-band sound. IIRC, Geddy used an old amp with burned-out tubes to get that big, thick, heavy bass sound.
And it's been all downhill (or uphill, depending on your opinion of Rush's synth-happy days:-) ) from there, which leads us to Vapor Trails. They decided to take their time with that album, mostly because Neil had completely dropped out for a couple of years. They spent over a year in the studio. And when your as well-established* as Rush, the record companies don't meddle as much as they would with some flavor-of-the-month copycat band. So Rush certainly got the sound they wanted out of Vapor Trails. And if the results sound loud on the album, you should have heard it live. Damn.
I said Rush. She approved. Later that day she started talking to me about Rush Limbaugh.
Dude, you work with Ann Coulter? That must really suck.
Re:They have to make SOME money!
on
QT 3.2 Released
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
We don't disagree all that much. The Trolls have earned every kroner they've made from Commercial QT/Win. More power to 'em.
But the presence of a GPL'd QT/Win doesn't change the fact that closed source development requires the purchase of a Commercial license. Their existing customers either continue to pay up, or they have to open their own apps, which is probably not feasable for the licensee. And, unlike that half-assed Non-Commercial license, the GPL has real weight behind it. Trolltech should have an easier time sniffing out GPL violators with the weight of the FSF and thousands of rabid Open Source advocates behind them. Who would get more attention, some random Norwegian lawyer, or Bruce Perens?:-)
In fact, I've often wondered about Trolltech's understanding of the GPL. That QT-Interest archive I mentioned earlier is rather revealing. Here's their solution to the lack of Free QT/Win: Do all of your development on a platform supported by Free QT, like Linux, Mac OS X, or any ol' proprietary Unix you happen to have lying around the office. Once you've got something ready to ship, prepare the makefiles for the Windows build, then find somebody who has a legally purchased Commercial license of QT/Win, but has not contributed to your code, to do the build for you. Is it just me, or is that a really hazy interpretation of the linking clause of the GPL? Just because your Commercial-license-owning benefactor didn't contribute to the code, it's OK for him to link to a non-Free 3rd party library on your behalf?
He's fun to name-drop, but where is Bruce when you need him?:-)
Re:$1550 just to use it? No thanks.
on
QT 3.2 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Take all the.h files from X gpl'd qt and port the c++ over to windows. Tada! You have your gpl'd qt. If you don't want to do it, don't complain when you cannot use it gpl'd.
My issue is that it is completely unnecessary to tear down the X11 version and reconstruct it for Windows when the finished product already exists. It is called QT/Win 3.2, it comes straight from the source at Trolltech, and the only thing keeping it out of the hacking public's hands is Trolltech's insistence on tilting at Microsoft's windmills, developers be damned.
I guess it's the attitude that honks me off. This passive-aggressive "We don't serve your kind" subtext that permeates the text of Trolltech's web site. Is that good evangelism for Open Source? I don't think so. It's little more than preaching to the choir. If anything, it's making things worse. Look at how well "You're either with us, or against us." worked for Dubya.
Re:$1550 just to use it? No thanks.
on
QT 3.2 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
$1550? That's nothing. Chump change.
The problem is not that QT/Win is not free-as-in-beer. The problem is that QT/Win is not Free-as-in-speech.
Trolltech released a Non-Commercial edition of QT/Win 2.3. The license basically said you couldn't make one thin dime off anything built with the Non-Comm edition, and since it was incompatible with the GPL, you had to add an exception to your license. Nobody took that license seriously, and Commercial license sales dropped. Trolltech was forced to end the line after that one release. (IMHO, had they gone GPL in the first place, they wouldn't have had that problem. The GPL gets respect.)
Not that you could find that out from their FAQs. You have to go digging through the QT-Interest mailing list archives. All the FAQ has is flippant sayings like "When Windows is completely Open Source...". Bah. Like Microsoft really cares about Trolltech. Windows-based developers are the only ones getting screwed.
In the end, Trolltech decided that "Windows compatible" and "Free/Open Source" are mutually exclusive. (Pay no attention to the cross-platformOpen Sourceprojects behind the curtain.)
Next time there's a thunderstorm warning in your area, watch your front door. When somebody from the National Weather Service arrives to personally inform you of the warning, you be sure to let us know, OK?
And don't forget that, long before Outlook existed, malware writers were tricking unsuspecting users into falling for trojans and hoaxes by claiming to be from Microsoft.
Well, Windows XP doesn't have an equivalent to setting up a small partition and mounting it as/boot. It simply places its loader files on C:. From there, you can install the OS files on another drive. We have some servers at work configured like this. C: is the loader and a DOS partition, and D: holds \WINNT, \Program Files, etc.
What I find odd is that NEC would ship a notebook in that state. For general users, that is a decidedly non-standard configuration.
Simoniker got to a Windows patch alert before Michael or Timothy this week. Both the submitter and Simoniker delivered the news in a straightforward, unbiased manner, with no cheap shot at the end.
Obviously, Timothy couldn't stand for that. So, to restore the imbalance, he posted this old-news bullshit submission. Reader mod points burn, ad impressions go up, and the already insufferably smug Anyone But Microsoft zealots get more insufferable.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashbots.
The landscape form factor makes it look bigger than it really is. Check these stats out:
Sony UX50: 103.0 x 86.5 x 17.9 mm
Sony NX80V: 131.5 x 71.9 x 21.8 mm
Palm Tungsten T: 101.6 x 75.0 x 15.2 mm (closed)
It's a little "wider" than most PDAs, but it's only marginally larger in the other dimensions than a T|T, which is pretty darned small. palminfocenter.com has a picture of a Sony executive holding up a UX50 "prototype". In context, it looks rather normal-sized.
The notion is to try and bring the money and excitement of NASCAR and Formula One racing into space.
Hmm. Good ol' boys turning left while trying to make a demolition derby not look like a demolition derby, or Bernie Ecclestone's High-Speed Parade Lap Revue.:-) Maybe WRC is more like it.
...but I was pissed when I found that Google completely removed this page from their news site.
Funny. When I used Google's regular Web search, that Seattle Times article was the first one to come up. Maybe that's why the logo in the corner of the News search page has "BETA" in it. Sorry. No grand conspiracy, just pre-release software.
So why can't they do something like that here in the States? What's holding them back - red tape, technical issues?
What holds up everything in American telecoms: The Last Mile. Our most common high-speed internet connections come from adapting the existing infrastructure, namely phone and cable TV. Nobody wants to run another line without justifying the cost. That's why rural areas were the last to get cable (and some may still be waiting!), while there's miles of dark fibre under many big cities.
Japan is a logical place for something like this because the population is so incredibly dense. They wouldn't be able to break even after 15 months, except for that last mile connecting a tremendous number of households. You just can't get that kind of bang-for-the-buck in Montana!:-)
Now, 2 cynical questions:
How are the Terms Of Service? Are they as liberal as, say, Speakeasy, or is it a Comcast-style "pay triple for VPN" scam?
Are they really breaking even after 15 months? Or are they breaking even after 12, and making the contract 15 to ensure some profit? Not that that's a bad thing in particular. My Inner Accountant thinks it's perfectly logical.:-)
Ah, scaling. I do believe that was Chapter 2 of How To Lie With Statistics. (And thank you, Dr. Schlossnagel, for making that book required reading in your Statistics class.) How about some raw numbers? For all we know, the unscaled difference between MSO and OOo is as marginal as a Q3A benchmark between a GF FX 5900 Ultra and a Radeon 9800 Pro.
And were both MSO and OOo "quick loaders" used on Windows? (And do please note the spelling. You do want to be cited as a credible source, don't you?)
Slashdot Mirror
If you keep grinding that axe, you'll be left with a nub.
My turn to add emphasis...
In other words, you can't use ODBC with another office app/suite, except when reading from or writing to a database. Hmm, isn't that exactly what you'd use ODBC for?
And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids! For the record, I'm just another Speakeasy customer, albeit one without a bully pulpit.
Funny how the editor of Your Rights Online is so quick to suppress dissent.
Write an entry in your bloody journal. This is just childish.
Somehow, I doubt that the folks working on Aero are the same people responsible for security code auditing. This isn't a mom-and-pop operation, ya know, it's <reverb>Microsoft</reverb>. Besides, screenshots of code in Visual Studio .Net are a dime a dozen and singularly uninteresting. Unless it's the actual source of Explorer.exe, that is. :-)
Whoa, dude. I think your tinfoil hat needs a few more layers.
Why does Microsoft not include a PDF reader? Because if they did, people like you would crucify them for using their monopoly to lock out Adobe. Didn't we just witness this in the browser market? Standard ABM troll: Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Netscape has provided inline plugin install support for years. IIRC, Nav had it before IE. "You need a plugin to view this blah" is hardly exclusive to either Microsoft plugins or Microsoft browsers. If you want to complain about the permissiveness of Microsoft's implementation, go right ahead. I've written ActiveX controls for Windows forms, but I'd never dream of marking one web-safe, because "web-safe ActiveX control" is an oxymoron. But give blame where blame is due.
And what the f*** does .NET have to do with either SoBig.F or Blaster? Or was your post not sufficiently buzzword-compliant?
And in other news... Microsoft announced today that, thanks to a Bill Gates Declaration From On High (tm), every line of code in every Microsoft product, dating back to the company's foundation, has magically, spontaneously, and retroactively fixed itself. This has rendered all of Microsoft's code absolutely secure and error-free. And thanks to the mystical nature of these fixes, end users and sysadmins don't have to patch their systems!
Grow up, Michael.
Interesting article. But did you have to be such an asshole about it?
Yours truly,
Keith
P.S.: If your power is still out tonight, I hope this burning karma lights your path.
The submitter asked about a low-cost, high-quality replacement for a faulty 10-year old TV. You responded by calling him, in so many words, a materialistic, amoral, intellectually bankrupt pig.
I double-dog dare you to try that in the real world. Go to your nearest Best Buy, walk up to the first customer you see in the TV section, and without solicitation, repeat everything you said here. Be sure to report back to us if you manage to make it out of the store without somebody turning it into a punchup.
A bit of advice for you, kid. Before you hit Submit, ask yourself this question: How would this person react if I said this to their face? If you don't have the balls to say it in the real world, you probably shouldn't post it here.
I'm not sure if things have changed with the NX, but the original Zen can not be mounted by the operating system as a removable HD, at least not with Creative's drivers. You have to go through a special Nomad Explorer app to transfer files. iPod, OTOH, mounts directly.
Actually, Rush has been getting progressively heavier and louder since Roll The Bones. Boy, was that album a mess. Someone in another thread mentioned how Presto was too bright and lacking in bass. Well, for RTB, producer Rupert Hine overcompensated by clipping all the highs, too. Neil Peart does really cool stuff with cymbals. You'd never know it from RTB. The mid-range is so overwhelming, I can't tell the difference between my home theater setup and my clock radio when playing that CD.
Once they got out on tour for RTB, everyone told them how much better the new stuff sounded live. That was the end of Hine's association with Rush. They went back to Peter Collins, whom they had worked with through the '80s, for Counterparts. He brought in some guy nicknamed "Caveman" to engineer. The result was a very broad range of sounds. Some of the more complex arrangements, like Nobody's Hero and Cold Fire were quite clean and crisp, like '80s Rush. But heavier songs like Animate and Stick It Out have a dirtier, garage-band sound. IIRC, Geddy used an old amp with burned-out tubes to get that big, thick, heavy bass sound.
And it's been all downhill (or uphill, depending on your opinion of Rush's synth-happy days :-) ) from there, which leads us to Vapor Trails. They decided to take their time with that album, mostly because Neil had completely dropped out for a couple of years. They spent over a year in the studio. And when your as well-established* as Rush, the record companies don't meddle as much as they would with some flavor-of-the-month copycat band. So Rush certainly got the sound they wanted out of Vapor Trails. And if the results sound loud on the album, you should have heard it live. Damn.
*: Rock and Roll Speak for "old". :-)
Dude, you work with Ann Coulter? That must really suck.
We don't disagree all that much. The Trolls have earned every kroner they've made from Commercial QT/Win. More power to 'em.
But the presence of a GPL'd QT/Win doesn't change the fact that closed source development requires the purchase of a Commercial license. Their existing customers either continue to pay up, or they have to open their own apps, which is probably not feasable for the licensee. And, unlike that half-assed Non-Commercial license, the GPL has real weight behind it. Trolltech should have an easier time sniffing out GPL violators with the weight of the FSF and thousands of rabid Open Source advocates behind them. Who would get more attention, some random Norwegian lawyer, or Bruce Perens? :-)
In fact, I've often wondered about Trolltech's understanding of the GPL. That QT-Interest archive I mentioned earlier is rather revealing. Here's their solution to the lack of Free QT/Win: Do all of your development on a platform supported by Free QT, like Linux, Mac OS X, or any ol' proprietary Unix you happen to have lying around the office. Once you've got something ready to ship, prepare the makefiles for the Windows build, then find somebody who has a legally purchased Commercial license of QT/Win, but has not contributed to your code, to do the build for you. Is it just me, or is that a really hazy interpretation of the linking clause of the GPL? Just because your Commercial-license-owning benefactor didn't contribute to the code, it's OK for him to link to a non-Free 3rd party library on your behalf?
He's fun to name-drop, but where is Bruce when you need him? :-)
Agreed. If I had the time, I would. In fact, somebody beat me to it.
My issue is that it is completely unnecessary to tear down the X11 version and reconstruct it for Windows when the finished product already exists. It is called QT/Win 3.2, it comes straight from the source at Trolltech, and the only thing keeping it out of the hacking public's hands is Trolltech's insistence on tilting at Microsoft's windmills, developers be damned.
I guess it's the attitude that honks me off. This passive-aggressive "We don't serve your kind" subtext that permeates the text of Trolltech's web site. Is that good evangelism for Open Source? I don't think so. It's little more than preaching to the choir. If anything, it's making things worse. Look at how well "You're either with us, or against us." worked for Dubya.
The problem is not that QT/Win is not free-as-in-beer. The problem is that QT/Win is not Free-as-in-speech.
Trolltech released a Non-Commercial edition of QT/Win 2.3. The license basically said you couldn't make one thin dime off anything built with the Non-Comm edition, and since it was incompatible with the GPL, you had to add an exception to your license. Nobody took that license seriously, and Commercial license sales dropped. Trolltech was forced to end the line after that one release. (IMHO, had they gone GPL in the first place, they wouldn't have had that problem. The GPL gets respect.)
Not that you could find that out from their FAQs. You have to go digging through the QT-Interest mailing list archives. All the FAQ has is flippant sayings like "When Windows is completely Open Source...". Bah. Like Microsoft really cares about Trolltech. Windows-based developers are the only ones getting screwed.
In the end, Trolltech decided that "Windows compatible" and "Free/Open Source" are mutually exclusive. (Pay no attention to the cross-platform Open Source projects behind the curtain.)
But I'm not bitter.
Next time there's a thunderstorm warning in your area, watch your front door. When somebody from the National Weather Service arrives to personally inform you of the warning, you be sure to let us know, OK?
And don't forget that, long before Outlook existed, malware writers were tricking unsuspecting users into falling for trojans and hoaxes by claiming to be from Microsoft.
Microsoft Windows Update
You're welcome.
Well, Windows XP doesn't have an equivalent to setting up a small partition and mounting it as /boot. It simply places its loader files on C:. From there, you can install the OS files on another drive. We have some servers at work configured like this. C: is the loader and a DOS partition, and D: holds \WINNT, \Program Files, etc.
What I find odd is that NEC would ship a notebook in that state. For general users, that is a decidedly non-standard configuration.
Simoniker got to a Windows patch alert before Michael or Timothy this week. Both the submitter and Simoniker delivered the news in a straightforward, unbiased manner, with no cheap shot at the end.
Obviously, Timothy couldn't stand for that. So, to restore the imbalance, he posted this old-news bullshit submission. Reader mod points burn, ad impressions go up, and the already insufferably smug Anyone But Microsoft zealots get more insufferable.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashbots.
The landscape form factor makes it look bigger than it really is. Check these stats out:
It's a little "wider" than most PDAs, but it's only marginally larger in the other dimensions than a T|T, which is pretty darned small. palminfocenter.com has a picture of a Sony executive holding up a UX50 "prototype". In context, it looks rather normal-sized.
Hmm. Good ol' boys turning left while trying to make a demolition derby not look like a demolition derby, or Bernie Ecclestone's High-Speed Parade Lap Revue. :-) Maybe WRC is more like it.
Funny. When I used Google's regular Web search, that Seattle Times article was the first one to come up. Maybe that's why the logo in the corner of the News search page has "BETA" in it. Sorry. No grand conspiracy, just pre-release software.
What holds up everything in American telecoms: The Last Mile. Our most common high-speed internet connections come from adapting the existing infrastructure, namely phone and cable TV. Nobody wants to run another line without justifying the cost. That's why rural areas were the last to get cable (and some may still be waiting!), while there's miles of dark fibre under many big cities.
Japan is a logical place for something like this because the population is so incredibly dense. They wouldn't be able to break even after 15 months, except for that last mile connecting a tremendous number of households. You just can't get that kind of bang-for-the-buck in Montana! :-)
Now, 2 cynical questions:
Ah, scaling. I do believe that was Chapter 2 of How To Lie With Statistics. (And thank you, Dr. Schlossnagel, for making that book required reading in your Statistics class.) How about some raw numbers? For all we know, the unscaled difference between MSO and OOo is as marginal as a Q3A benchmark between a GF FX 5900 Ultra and a Radeon 9800 Pro.
And were both MSO and OOo "quick loaders" used on Windows? (And do please note the spelling. You do want to be cited as a credible source, don't you?)