You've really got to put that in perspective. It's pretty pathetic that you can take the biggest, richest, most powerfull software company on the planet and say that all the new things that they could come up with in 20 years is:
A cheaper mouse.
A slightly more user-friendly spreadsheet.
That's not very impressive at all. Show me some real signs of innovation.
So what happened back when they sent their clients a Word 97 file and their clients only had Word 5/6? The Client went out and bought Word 97.
The upgrade cost a lot. There was a significant difference between 97 and 5/6, which meant training.
The upgrade to StarOffice would not cost a lot (free?). There are not huge differences between Office and StarOffice, which means less training.
In fact, if the client recieved a StarWriter document, they could--for free--install StarOffice, open the file, and then save to whatever format they wanted. It might be a little bit of a hassle, but it cost nothing, 0, the goose egg, whereas a change to a new Word format cost a boatload, a whole bunch, a big enchilada.
Unless some sites were paid by MS to have MS-only stuff on them. I think they did this for several WebTV-only sights. Also, isn't there a site out there that only works properly with a Pentium III? Talk about platform-specific! Not only does it only work with Windows, but only with a specific processor.
Finall, I'd like to mention that sometimes sites will have seperate pages built for different browsers and platforms. In this case, users might feel like they aren't getting the "improved Internet experience" if they aren't surfing with Windows 2000, IE 2000, and the new Pentuim 2000. It'd be a terrible world to live in.
I could care less if others use Linux, I know that I can use it, it takes care of my needs,
Did you read the posted article? Then you must have missed a lot. The author's point is that if MS gains enough [market|mind]share in the world, they would be able to extend HTTP. If that happens they would be able to lock Linux users out of the Web. Then would Linux take care of your needs? If you couldn't use the web?
If your really care about having a useable desktop, then you really *should* care about Mozilla and, yes, even fighting the "War".
Oh shut up. The GPL is not a virus, and if you want to make a non-GPL product, then don't put the GPL code into yours. The intent of the GPL is not to infect others, it's to allow freedom. If the GPL wasn't "viral" than anyone could take the GPL'd code, use it, and not give anything back to the community. It's intended to prevent that from happening.
We all owe a lot to the GPL, so quite your snivelling about it being a Virus and don't use GPL'd software if you don't want to.
So far all the comments so far have basically said that this is a bad idea or that Redhat sucks for some reason another. Allow me to put up my vote that this is a Good Thing, and I'll explain why.
This group may do different things for Open Source then have been done before. Many people think this will be just another non-profit group, and thus won't be effective. We don't however, know how this will be structured. They might do things we never done or even thought of doing before.
Though the article lacks details, it does say that Redhat will be putting at least $8 million into the project. Now everyone is complaining? $8 million dollars for the pursuit of free software? That's wonderfull!
Some complaints might be that Redhat is gaining too much power. Well, I'd like to remind everyone that Redhat continually releases *everything* they write under the GPL, even when people like Mandrake make money selling a product based on theirs.
Even if you are super-paranoid, you should still be happy that Redhat is creating a seperate entity to do some research. Repeat: Redhat is giving up control and money to better the Open Source world!
In short, I think this is wonderfull news and applaud Redhat for what they have done and am glad for their success. They have always been and I believe they will continue to be a Good influence. Anyone that blabers on about Redhat being the next MS is either a troll or a fool.
From everything I have read about the new Coppermine chip, it appears that:
The Athlon 700 is still faster.
The Pentium 733 is not of much use without an i820, which is not available.
33mhz is not that much anyway, especially when you are talking about several hundreds dollars more in cost.
On facts, you are right that they are supposedly shipping a processor with a higher clock spead than AMD. But for all considerations of cost, performance, and reality in general, this announcement means should mean little. I have almost no faith in Intel.
I don't want to make this sound like a plug, but everytime that someone says they like the MS Natural Keyboard, I have to tell them that there is something better out there: the Acer Future Keyboard
It looks rather strange at first because it has strange colors and a touchpad, but trust me, this keyboard is the best. I've tried other keyboards (including the MS one), but this has by far the best touch ever. Try it out for yourself, even if it looks strange.
You'd be correct if had a new 700 MHz processor. Notice, however, that they're only announcing processors starting at that speed, and maybe going above 700 MHz.
I see 700MHz Athlons Now. I only hear about how the next generation will be. Besides, if Intel is only announcing chips that might go above the speed of the competition but still be slower, then they got problems.
You don't really think that the Athlon is going to stay at 700MHz do you?
I was thinking how cool things could get if you had one of these things and some hand scripts. See, this is how I imagine my morning:
At 7:00 My Laptop downloads all of the current Slashdot articles and comments and converts them to a doc file or some other format that a PalmOS can read.
Then, my computer copies these files over to a free CF card (or a Microdrive for very busy mornings).
When I leave the house, I slap that card into my Palm, and viola! I can read slashdot on the bus, during traffic, at the dentist's office, whatever, in Math class, whatever.
Of course, this is just one idea. My friend has a CD of about 640MB of just about every old text known to man kind. I could theoretically walk around with half of that volume with me.
As a student, I could have a dictionary, a thesuarus (SP?), even an enyclopedia, and all of them could use a search command. The possibilities with mobile storage is really great. Anybody else have ideas?
But how would you like it if suddenly your telnet session to some machine got killed because someone else's telnet session got really aggressive. Or even is someone was playing solitare, and it's process went a little wild. Wouldn't that be really annoying?
The point of the article is that it doesn't matter what OS we are all using. I was trying to say that it matters to me. If I have to pay for an upgrade just because MS is not willing to fix a bug, there is a problem. I didn't say Win95 sucks. I said Win95 has a bug that MS will not fix, therefor Linux is better for me and my system. Therefore, the OS matters for me.
I don't know where you are coming from with this 6 month trial version thing. I don't know about you, but I need to use my computer longer than 6 months, and I don't want it rendered useless at the end of that time.
Oh, and your "RedHat is more expensive than NT" argument "is pathetic" as you would say. I just downloaded the 6.1 ISO, and for free. NT is not free.
P.S. Think before you post, and actually read someones comment before you attack them.
While I admit that these seems rather interesting, and perhaps even somewhat usefull, I want to know if anyone could tell me:
Why would anyone ever want processes to kill each other randomly? And why would you ever want a process to kill an administrator?
It says that you may have big monsters represent important processes. But if they are attacked, they still get reniced! I don't want init or kswapd to be put on a low priority. That's absurd.
The idea of being able to graphically move to different computers and kill processes is a good idea. Making the system into some kind of ecosystem probably isn't.
Lastly, is it really a good idea to be ripping a BFG shot onto your helpless little system. I don't want all of my processes dying suddenly.
If you have been using all of the things that you need and they never crash and you never need to do anything more, than consider yourself lucky. I have never had so much luck with Windows.
If all of the apps that I need for Linux worked well for Windows--like emacs, TeX, an ftp server , bash, and telnet--I would still not use Windows. I just can't rely upon it. Linux never goes down on me. I can rely upon Linux.
Take for instance my situation with a K6-2 400. This chip has problems with Windows 95 because of something to do with a timing loop. The bug is well known and causes Windows to give a GPF one half the times it tries to boot. Microsoft has released a patch, but not for Windows 95a, which happens to be the version I have.
Essentially what they are saying is that if I am using 95a, I'm not important. So now, half the time I boot, I have to reboot. And this is just one example. Sometimes my mouse stops working randomly. Anytime I update drivers in Windows it's like running around in circles.
In short, we should advocate Linux of Windows 95 because 95 is unstable. I've never used NT because it's too expensive. That's why it shouldn't be a standard.
according to Microsoft, Linux has not affected sales of Windows NT.
Yeah, they forgot to mention that according to Microsoft:
NT is C2 compliant
Windows 200 was out 2 years ago.
Benchmarks show that NT is 5 times faster than anything on earth.
Windows 2000 Supreme Data Center will replace all of your softwar solution needs.
The Paper Clip is your friend.
Hotmail does not have any issues which question certain small elements of limited security.
Passport will allow you to never have to think about spending money ever again!
Or this one's good:
The NT market is so huge and powerful, it could drop a few thousand seats and Microsoft wouldn't notice,"
The Party is all powerfull. You must conform to the Party. There is no other choice. Follow the lead of the Party.
HP said "it is not ready for mission-critical heavy database and transaction serving functionality".
Yes, so on your way out make sure you buy your copy of Windows 2000 Supreme Platinum Developer Professional Enteprise Data Center Software Solution Gold Edition.
Anyway, it seems the Gartner group is just spewing the same old hash. I thought they were one of the groups to be trusted. I guess I was wrong.
You are absolutely correct. In fact, I mentioned that in my comment right after I mentioned all the options users have. I myself learned best from just touchtyping. I found it easier to just go "cold turkey" and not look at the keys at all.
I made the switch to Dvorak about 1 year ago, and I'll try and give you the skinny.
You don't need special hardware for a dvorak keyboard. All keyboards are the same. The only thing different is the way that the software interprets the key-presses. That said, I have seen keyboards that have a little switch and will send different signals based on your choice.
To make things easier, you can either rearrange the keys or buy little stickers of letters and put them on your keys. To find the map for a dvorak keyboard, just look through a search engine. That said, I found it easier to force myself not to look at the keys while learning. This was rather easy since all of the keys were wrong.
To setup your dvorak keyboard in Linux, you need to set it up in 2 different places: 1)The Console and 2) In X. For the console on a Redhat system, it is one of the special options in Linuxconf. For other distros, ask someone or look at some documentation. For X, you can either run xmodmap everytime you log in (put it in your.xinitrc) or change the correct line in your.Xdefaults file to point to the location of the modmap file (it's named dvorak.xmodmap). Again, this is my experience with Redhat. For other distros, further documentation is required.
I have found dvorak to be much faster. Some say it is not, but even if it isn't, it requires a lot less moving of your hands.
In closing, I just have to recommend to everyone the most fantastic keyboard I have ever scene: The Acer Future Keyboard I don't work for Acer or anything, I just think this keyboard is the best thing since sliced bread. I know it looks funny, but having a touch-pad right in the middle of the keyboard with the cursor keys is really great for everyday use (although, I admit it is terrible for playing Quake).
Does anyone else think that Octanium would have sounded really cool. I'm not a big fan of Intel and I think we should ditch the Merced for Alphas, but Octanium just sounds powerfull, doesn't it? Almost like a hotrod. This may be the most important decision for Intel's marketing department in years, and they probably have a whole team of people on it, and Itanium sounds dumb, and that's the best the could come up with, but you gotta give them credit for not naming the thing Pentium 2000. That would have been really great.
My roommate and I have been pondering a perfect solution (as far as we can tell) to the problem of needing paper: Star Trek tablets! Those little things that Captin Picard and the other officers are always reading off of. I want one. Here are a few advantages:
1. A big screen, with really good display/resolution. This could be made just as nice as paper, and could even be adjusted to one's eyes.
2. You could scribble on it. The biggest advantage of paper that I can see right now is that you can whip out a pen and right things on it. My hope is that in the future, we will be able to take a printable document format and just scribble all over it. If you've done a lot of editing essays and such for school, you know that the only way to do this is with actual paper. Now, with a good editable format, we would no longer be limited in that way. Anybody could email their buddy a rough draft, have him scribble some stuff on it, and email the diff back. It would be great.
3. You can take it anywhere. If you make it steardy, you could fit it in a back pack, or a brief case. Scribble down some ideas or read a book on the bus. Look through some notes while waiting in line at the fast food joint.
4. Back-ups. If you throw in some wireless networking, you could easily save a back-up to your computer or your favorite FTP site. That way, you can always get to you file, and it will never be losed.
Most of what I outlined above is already possible with different devices, but I can't think of anything that combines them all. I really would be willing to blow 300-500 dollars and something this usefull. Any body else think a Star Trek tablet would be really cool?
Wow, this is really great. I just have two questions: 1. Does anyone know how good the support for the iMac is. I know that USB support is in the works, but how reliable is it? How well would an iMac install go? 2. Now that we have this wonderful PPC distrobution, does someone know of a good place to get PPC hardware? Are those motherboards ever going to come? I hope that in the futer PPC, Alpha, and perhaps even Sparc systems will become much more mainstream. It would be great to pick which processor you want to run and not have to worry about incompatabilities.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not very impressive at all. Show me some real signs of innovation.
So what happened back when they sent their clients a Word 97 file and their clients only had Word 5/6? The Client went out and bought Word 97.
The upgrade cost a lot. There was a significant difference between 97 and 5/6, which meant training.
The upgrade to StarOffice would not cost a lot (free?). There are not huge differences between Office and StarOffice, which means less training.
In fact, if the client recieved a StarWriter document, they could--for free--install StarOffice, open the file, and then save to whatever format they wanted. It might be a little bit of a hassle, but it cost nothing, 0, the goose egg, whereas a change to a new Word format cost a boatload, a whole bunch, a big enchilada.
Unless some sites were paid by MS to have MS-only stuff on them. I think they did this for several WebTV-only sights. Also, isn't there a site out there that only works properly with a Pentium III? Talk about platform-specific! Not only does it only work with Windows, but only with a specific processor.
Finall, I'd like to mention that sometimes sites will have seperate pages built for different browsers and platforms. In this case, users might feel like they aren't getting the "improved Internet experience" if they aren't surfing with Windows 2000, IE 2000, and the new Pentuim 2000. It'd be a terrible world to live in.
Did you read the posted article? Then you must have missed a lot. The author's point is that if MS gains enough [market|mind]share in the world, they would be able to extend HTTP. If that happens they would be able to lock Linux users out of the Web. Then would Linux take care of your needs? If you couldn't use the web?
If your really care about having a useable desktop, then you really *should* care about Mozilla and, yes, even fighting the "War".
I put the viral part in quotes as a gesture meaning that I use the original author's words, but don't believe in them. It's a form of written sarcasm.
Oh shut up. The GPL is not a virus, and if you want to make a non-GPL product, then don't put the GPL code into yours. The intent of the GPL is not to infect others, it's to allow freedom. If the GPL wasn't "viral" than anyone could take the GPL'd code, use it, and not give anything back to the community. It's intended to prevent that from happening.
We all owe a lot to the GPL, so quite your snivelling about it being a Virus and don't use GPL'd software if you don't want to.
In short, I think this is wonderfull news and applaud Redhat for what they have done and am glad for their success. They have always been and I believe they will continue to be a Good influence. Anyone that blabers on about Redhat being the next MS is either a troll or a fool.
Hurrah for the wonderfull news!
On facts, you are right that they are supposedly shipping a processor with a higher clock spead than AMD. But for all considerations of cost, performance, and reality in general, this announcement means should mean little. I have almost no faith in Intel.
It looks rather strange at first because it has strange colors and a touchpad, but trust me, this keyboard is the best. I've tried other keyboards (including the MS one), but this has by far the best touch ever. Try it out for yourself, even if it looks strange.
I see 700MHz Athlons Now. I only hear about how the next generation will be. Besides, if Intel is only announcing chips that might go above the speed of the competition but still be slower, then they got problems.
You don't really think that the Athlon is going to stay at 700MHz do you?
- At 7:00 My Laptop downloads all of the current Slashdot articles and comments and converts them to a doc file or some other format that a PalmOS can read.
- Then, my computer copies these files over to a free CF card (or a Microdrive for very busy mornings).
- When I leave the house, I slap that card into my Palm, and viola! I can read slashdot on the bus, during traffic, at the dentist's office, whatever, in Math class, whatever.
Of course, this is just one idea. My friend has a CD of about 640MB of just about every old text known to man kind. I could theoretically walk around with half of that volume with me.As a student, I could have a dictionary, a thesuarus (SP?), even an enyclopedia, and all of them could use a search command. The possibilities with mobile storage is really great. Anybody else have ideas?
Thanks for the comment! Now I just have to find that blasted CD of mine (I think it is in some drawer somewhere).
I don't know where you are coming from with this 6 month trial version thing. I don't know about you, but I need to use my computer longer than 6 months, and I don't want it rendered useless at the end of that time.
Oh, and your "RedHat is more expensive than NT" argument "is pathetic" as you would say. I just downloaded the 6.1 ISO, and for free. NT is not free.
P.S. Think before you post, and actually read someones comment before you attack them.
Why would anyone ever want processes to kill each other randomly? And why would you ever want a process to kill an administrator?
It says that you may have big monsters represent important processes. But if they are attacked, they still get reniced! I don't want init or kswapd to be put on a low priority. That's absurd.
The idea of being able to graphically move to different computers and kill processes is a good idea. Making the system into some kind of ecosystem probably isn't.
Lastly, is it really a good idea to be ripping a BFG shot onto your helpless little system. I don't want all of my processes dying suddenly.
If you have been using all of the things that you need and they never crash and you never need to do anything more, than consider yourself lucky. I have never had so much luck with Windows.
If all of the apps that I need for Linux worked well for Windows--like emacs, TeX, an ftp server , bash, and telnet--I would still not use Windows. I just can't rely upon it. Linux never goes down on me. I can rely upon Linux.
Take for instance my situation with a K6-2 400. This chip has problems with Windows 95 because of something to do with a timing loop. The bug is well known and causes Windows to give a GPF one half the times it tries to boot. Microsoft has released a patch, but not for Windows 95a, which happens to be the version I have.
Essentially what they are saying is that if I am using 95a, I'm not important. So now, half the time I boot, I have to reboot. And this is just one example. Sometimes my mouse stops working randomly. Anytime I update drivers in Windows it's like running around in circles.
In short, we should advocate Linux of Windows 95 because 95 is unstable. I've never used NT because it's too expensive. That's why it shouldn't be a standard.
OSes Irrelevant to you, Linux better for me.
according to Microsoft, Linux has not
affected sales of Windows NT.
Yeah, they forgot to mention that according to Microsoft:
Or this one's good:
The NT market is so huge and powerful, it
could drop a few thousand seats and
Microsoft wouldn't notice,"
The Party is all powerfull. You must conform to the Party. There is no other choice. Follow the lead of the Party.
HP said "it is not ready for
mission-critical heavy database and
transaction serving functionality".
Yes, so on your way out make sure you buy your copy of Windows 2000 Supreme Platinum Developer Professional Enteprise Data Center Software Solution Gold Edition.
Anyway, it seems the Gartner group is just spewing the same old hash. I thought they were one of the groups to be trusted. I guess I was wrong.
You are absolutely correct. In fact, I mentioned that in my comment right after I mentioned all the options users have. I myself learned best from just touchtyping. I found it easier to just go "cold turkey" and not look at the keys at all.
In closing, I just have to recommend to everyone the most fantastic keyboard I have ever scene: The Acer Future Keyboard I don't work for Acer or anything, I just think this keyboard is the best thing since sliced bread. I know it looks funny, but having a touch-pad right in the middle of the keyboard with the cursor keys is really great for everyday use (although, I admit it is terrible for playing Quake).
Hope this helped!
Does anyone else think that Octanium would have sounded really cool. I'm not a big fan of Intel and I think we should ditch the Merced for Alphas, but Octanium just sounds powerfull, doesn't it? Almost like a hotrod. This may be the most important decision for Intel's marketing department in years, and they probably have a whole team of people on it, and Itanium sounds dumb, and that's the best the could come up with, but you gotta give them credit for not naming the thing Pentium 2000. That would have been really great.
My roommate and I have been pondering a perfect solution (as far as we can tell) to the problem of needing paper: Star Trek tablets! Those little things that Captin Picard and the other officers are always reading off of. I want one. Here are a few advantages:
1. A big screen, with really good display/resolution. This could be made just as nice as paper, and could even be adjusted to one's eyes.
2. You could scribble on it. The biggest advantage of paper that I can see right now is that you can whip out a pen and right things on it. My hope is that in the future, we will be able to take a printable document format and just scribble all over it. If you've done a lot of editing essays and such for school, you know that the only way to do this is with actual paper. Now, with a good editable format, we would no longer be limited in that way. Anybody could email their buddy a rough draft, have him scribble some stuff on it, and email the diff back. It would be great.
3. You can take it anywhere. If you make it steardy, you could fit it in a back pack, or a brief case. Scribble down some ideas or read a book on the bus. Look through some notes while waiting in line at the fast food joint.
4. Back-ups. If you throw in some wireless networking, you could easily save a back-up to your computer or your favorite FTP site. That way, you can always get to you file, and it will never be losed.
Most of what I outlined above is already possible with different devices, but I can't think of anything that combines them all. I really would be willing to blow 300-500 dollars and something this usefull. Any body else think a Star Trek tablet would be really cool?
Hmmm.....my link doesn't seem to be working. Any body else?
Wow, this is really great. I just have two questions: 1. Does anyone know how good the support for the iMac is. I know that USB support is in the works, but how reliable is it? How well would an iMac install go? 2. Now that we have this wonderful PPC distrobution, does someone know of a good place to get PPC hardware? Are those motherboards ever going to come? I hope that in the futer PPC, Alpha, and perhaps even Sparc systems will become much more mainstream. It would be great to pick which processor you want to run and not have to worry about incompatabilities.
Also, it seems from your explination that this would be a great voting system. So much for my witty comment.