There is policy like this at EarthMindLinkSpring (wtfe) (not going to rant about local politics here..)
Anyway, Earthspring's AUP prohibits portscanning and may even prevent the use of BO (which would also prohibit SMS and VNC, et al). When they brought this up in indoctrination, I freaked..
It turns out that they selectively enforce this rule (and some others) to get spammers and kiddies, but I don't like having it there at all.
There is something to the point that they can do whatever they want on their network, but it seems awfully restrictive when all a user buys from them is an IP and a mailbox..
(This is the dialup AUP, which applies to ADSL too)
<ot rantlevel=moderate>
Then again these are the same guys who (get this)
shut off your email box when you go over their 5 meg quota.. causing all of your email, including their invoices(!) to bounce.. this of course means the bot that sends out invoices removes your address (it bounced, right?) and you don't get your bill... not to mention getting kicked off every listserv you are on, etc
</ot>
anyway,
adric at ccactus dot com (has almost finished paying off ELNK from that fiasco)
This certainly seems to be the case with vendors, which is why we try not to be one. When we sell new hardware to someone, we itemize the warranty/support info on the invoices and quotes. Basically they get 90 days support on our labour of assembly, and we sell everything as installed on their network, but beyond that we do a hard sell: either buy a service contract, or pay hourly at our standard rates if we have to come out there.
I blame the big OEMs (cough, IBM, Gateway, Compaq) for tricking people (lusers) into thinking that anything you buy comes with a lifetime of really crappy tech support..
Anyway
-adric at ccactus dot com, consulting in the 404 and beyond
Here's hoping GNUCash speeds on it's way past the functionality of existing commercial programs.
Here's why:
Last week, a client of ours started seeing fatal data corruption in their financial software. It had been a couple weeks since they had migrated to the new '2000' version of the software. The problem is so bad that they had to restore from backup and re-enter 1/2 day's transactions by hand. A quick check of the SIG on the ISV's website for the product showed at least one other user with the exact same problems, and at least one other consultant advising a freeze on '2000' installations for the forseeable future (he had seen the problem before, too).
It's Monday now and the client has been backing up his data files twice a day, running is single user mode, trying to avoid any more trouble while he waits for the vendor to issue a patch. This is bad enough, but his only other options are:
Go back to the '1999' version, which is known to be more stable. Of course this would mean inputing about two weeks worth of transactions by hand. (!)
Go to another vendor's software. Of course this would mean manually entering all of the data for (at least) 2000 manually (!!)
We've been trying to convince these folks to go to a free software solution for awhile, but this isn't the way we wanted to do it. Their entire business is locked up in the proprietary database of this (expensive) commercial software...If the ISV screws this up further, they'll have an easy court case to win and no business for the three years it takes to settle.
I just thought I'd waste a packet here because I want Bruce and/. to know I felt they did the right thing, and that it is an important issue.
My father is a journalist, and now a journalism professor, and I do not fondly remember the trouble he used to get into when he reported what some state insurance commisioner said, and they later changed their mind. ( and I'll probably be trying to get him to work this into his class on media.)
On the other hand, it might be said that there is a difference in reporting fact A and that some one said A in public. I think this tripped up people in this mess. People say things all the time, in many media, but they are not press releases or legal papers.
After the Project Gutenberg exposure on/. today I was invested with the idea for a needed piece of software (mentioned in a few/. posts). Two things seem needed, both of the same purpose:
A client program that can suck an etext out of PG (et al) straight (or nearly directly) into a PDA (palm3 here, etc)
A cgi/script to do nearly the same thing on the server end (that is, mangle the etext into a DOC and then a pdb) (The example given in the slashpost is AvantGo, a nifty web page caching system for Palms and such. When it works, all you do is click on a link in your browser and the helper/etc queue the pdb up in your Installer)
As is only proper, I intend to hack on this myself (client first), but am hoping to have help. I am a lousy hacker in java perl and python, but learning as best I can.
I figure to start in on the client using the best case scenario: a unix system with palm doc tools, pilot-link, pilot-link-perl and pyrite (the palmos module for python). Once I get something running, I will try and exchange palm doc tools code for perl or python code, eventually getting it into one module. (I intend to attempt it first with python, but I am quite open to perl, too) I would like to try and implement the serverside as a perl or python CGI (as I am without a better idea). Someone better than me could probably whip out a java1.1 client for multiplatform if some java code for making DOC files can be found, and the same goes for a servlet. I'll poke around and see if any such codes is in any of the obvious places.
Anyway, these are my ideas. I would like yours. Feel free to flood my mailbox, etc. Email to adric@adric.com and try and put something like VP in the subject line so I can filter it from the spam:) A copy of this document and anything later will be at my site at: adric.home.mindspring.com under hacks.
Oh yeah, I propose a name for this beast: VacuumPress
This document is copyright 18 nov 99 by adric@adric.com (me!) and any software resulting from it will be DFSG / OpenSource compliant.
I'm with you there. I too have a great deal more enthusiasm than useful experience. I joined the list anyway, if only to lurk and learn from the pros. I invite you to do the same. --adric@adric.com "Impossible is a word you humans use entirely too often" -Seven, Star Trek: Voyager
Slashdot Mirror
There is policy like this at EarthMindLinkSpring (wtfe) (not going to rant about local politics here..)
..
.. causing all of your email, including their invoices(!) to bounce .. this of course means the bot that sends out invoices removes your address (it bounced, right?) and you don't get your bill ... not to mention getting kicked off every listserv you are on, etc
Anyway, Earthspring's AUP prohibits portscanning and may even prevent the use of BO (which would also prohibit SMS and VNC, et al). When they brought this up in indoctrination, I freaked..
It turns out that they selectively enforce this rule (and some others) to get spammers and kiddies, but I don't like having it there at all.
There is something to the point that they can do whatever they want on their network, but it seems awfully restrictive when all a user buys from them is an IP and a mailbox
(This is the dialup AUP, which applies to ADSL too)
<ot rantlevel=moderate>
Then again these are the same guys who (get this)
shut off your email box when you go over their 5 meg quota
</ot>
anyway,
adric at ccactus dot com (has almost finished paying off ELNK from that fiasco)
This certainly seems to be the case with vendors, which is why we try not to be one. When we sell new hardware to someone, we itemize the warranty/support info on the invoices and quotes. Basically they get 90 days support on our labour of assembly, and we sell everything as installed on their network, but beyond that we do a hard sell: either buy a service contract, or pay hourly at our standard rates if we have to come out there.
I blame the big OEMs (cough, IBM, Gateway, Compaq) for tricking people (lusers) into thinking that anything you buy comes with a lifetime of really crappy tech support..
Anyway
-adric at ccactus dot com, consulting in the 404 and beyond
Here's hoping GNUCash speeds on it's way past the functionality of existing commercial programs.
Here's why:
Last week, a client of ours started seeing fatal data corruption in their financial software. It had been a couple weeks since they had migrated to the new '2000' version of the software. The problem is so bad that they had to restore from backup and re-enter 1/2 day's transactions by hand. A quick check of the SIG on the ISV's website for the product showed at least one other user with the exact same problems, and at least one other consultant advising a freeze on '2000' installations for the forseeable future (he had seen the problem before, too).
It's Monday now and the client has been backing up his data files twice a day, running is single user mode, trying to avoid any more trouble while he waits for the vendor to issue a patch. This is bad enough, but his only other options are:
We've been trying to convince these folks to go to a free software solution for awhile, but this isn't the way we wanted to do it. Their entire business is locked up in the proprietary database of this (expensive) commercial software...If the ISV screws this up further, they'll have an easy court case to win and no business for the three years it takes to settle.
Happy Monday All!
adricI just thought I'd waste a packet here because I want Bruce and /. to know I felt they did the right thing, and that it is an important issue.
My father is a journalist, and now a journalism professor, and I do not fondly remember the trouble he used to get into when he reported what some state insurance commisioner said, and they later changed their mind. ( and I'll probably be trying to get him to work this into his class on media.)
On the other hand, it might be said that there is a difference in reporting fact A and that some one said A in public. I think this tripped up people in this mess. People say things all the time, in many media, but they are not press releases or legal papers.
My two cents,
adric--
sigless -- palm3 is down the hall
After the Project Gutenberg exposure on /. today I was invested with the idea for a needed piece of software (mentioned in a few /. posts). Two things seem needed, both of the same purpose:
- A client program that can suck an etext out of PG (et al) straight (or nearly directly) into a PDA (palm3 here, etc)
- A cgi/script to do nearly the same thing on the server end (that is, mangle the etext into a DOC and then a pdb) (The example given in the slashpost is AvantGo, a nifty web page caching system for Palms and such. When it works, all you do is click on a link in your browser and the helper/etc queue the pdb up in your Installer)
As is only proper, I intend to hack on this myself (client first), but am hoping to have help. I am a lousy hacker in java perl and python, but learning as best I can.I figure to start in on the client using the best case scenario: a unix system with palm doc tools, pilot-link, pilot-link-perl and pyrite (the palmos module for python). Once I get something running, I will try and exchange palm doc tools code for perl or python code, eventually getting it into one module. (I intend to attempt it first with python, but I am quite open to perl, too) I would like to try and implement the serverside as a perl or python CGI (as I am without a better idea). Someone better than me could probably whip out a java1.1 client for multiplatform if some java code for making DOC files can be found, and the same goes for a servlet. I'll poke around and see if any such codes is in any of the obvious places.
Anyway, these are my ideas. I would like yours. Feel free to flood my mailbox, etc. Email to adric@adric.com and try and put something like VP in the subject line so I can filter it from the spam :) A copy of this document and anything later will be at my site at: adric.home.mindspring.com under hacks.
Oh yeah, I propose a name for this beast: VacuumPress
This document is copyright 18 nov 99 by adric@adric.com (me!) and any software resulting from it will be DFSG / OpenSource compliant.I'm with you there. I too have a great deal more enthusiasm than useful experience. I joined the list anyway, if only to lurk and learn from the pros. I invite you to do the same. --adric@adric.com "Impossible is a word you humans use entirely too often" -Seven, Star Trek: Voyager