So, monkey-boy, what you are saying is that the digital watermark will stay along with the Analog sound signal in the air? After it leaves a speaker?
If that is the case, I would imagine that you would hear this watermark, thus making the creation of a watermark a waste of time. Since, nobody wants to buy music that is very poorly recorded with a screeching sound over it.]
Perhaps you should read a little about physics and the reproduction of sound waves.
Well, prior to the sound becoming Analog, it could be on a digital source, such as a file or a Compact Disc. So, if some lame lawyer really wanted to push the point for his client's the RIAA. Then there is a slight chance of that getting to court.
I just figured out how to crack it! Take great quality audio reproduction equipment (Speakers) and then some very high quality audio collection devices (Microphones) and put it all in a proper sound room, or box.
For right and left channel sound you will need to have at least two speakers and at least two microphones and some way of merging the two recordings.
It might be a little far from perfect, but so are MP3's and the sound from the "Cracked" watermarked music.
Wait a minute... Since Sklyarov was arrested for creating a tool to break a protection scheme, does this mean that speakers and microphones are now illegal?
If you reread the Katz post you will notice that he actually refrained from lumping all 15 year olds into the same boat. He did state that while some of them are into the hostility and posturing that gives them a sense of superiority, he also mentioned that some refrain from such acts.
I work in computer sales and I see many diferent people from all walks of life. I can agree with you about how that statement can refer to some older people.
For instance there are these two punks that are near my age that come in every once in a while. They believe that they know everything and everyone else is just not worth their time. They are abrasive, rude and generally dificult to talk with.
A very wise man told me recently that a truly inteligent man knows what he doesn't know. Basically, all that means is that you can learn something new every day, there will always be someone that knows more about something than you do.
I recently got a great deal on a generic laptop. The system is probably nothing to really rave about for most./'ers. Anyway, it has a 400 Mhz AMD K6-2 CPU 96MB of RAM, 4.3GB HD, 15" XGA TFT Screen and it runs beautifully.
Without rebates, without hassle the machine's total cost ended up being just over 950 dollars brand new. Now, that was about 3 months ago and in that time the market has given birth to some sweet deals on laptop systems. There are many with much larger HDs, more RAM and other great features.
However, the ads that I have seen all show prices of just under 1100 or 1200 and that is after the MSN discount. How many Linux users want to use MSN?
Back to my laptop. Running the latest Red Hat 7.1 the system runs smoothly and is also able to use all the pieces of hardware installed. Everything from the sound to the built-in Modem.
If you would be interested in such a laptop post a reply and I will see about getting the company that I work for to post it up on their web site and then I will send a link here.
Has anyone thought of the overhead created when doing such a thing? Windows has never been known as a solid memory manager. Now, you can run multiple user spaces at the same time with several diferent applications. I am sorry, but you need a really powerful system to do this. Especially if you are running any memory intensive tasks.
Now, I know that X is a memory-hog and when you toss on a few extra applications from diferent users, you still need a whole lot of RAM and a very powerful processor.
It is a usefull feature to have that functionality in a system. The only problem is that you need expensive hardware to do that.
What is wrong with setting up X to allow multiple users to open up programs on it. Then simply open up an xterm, su [USERNAME] and then fire up the application that user wants to use. It is much easier on resources and allows home users to easily share a system and still have their own bookmarks or whatever. If typing in netscape at the command line is to dificult for someone then it would be relatively easy to setup scripts that will provide a menu-driven CLI interface to launch applications.
If that is a problem then someone could write up a tcl/tk script to generate a user interface to "switch" users and then open up the application. The tcl/tk script can be robust enough to even allow a user to add additional applications to the start-up menu. Well, I have always wanted a reason to learn some tcl/tk I suppose now is as good a time as any.
If I can get it far enough along look for "Swap User" on Sourceforge.
If Open Source software really wishes to compete in the marketplace with software from commercial sources then OSS needs to become commercialized. What does this mean? Does OSS have to sell out?
Well, it does mean that OSS has to begin advertising. I am not saying the advertising that Red Hat and other makers of OSS and Free software do. I am talking about the philosophy of Open Source Software. That itself needs to be advertised. An Open Source Software Consortium could be created and it would be their job to actually futher the knowledge of the OSS philosophy.
Yes, this would involve marketing campaigns. I know it sounds horrible to think, actually advertising a product, THE HORROR! I mean, if you look at most of today's marketing campaign it is not about the product anymore. The marketers have given up on selling product. Now, they sell peace of mind, time and good karma. Look at those adds and thinkg about what they are saying.
Nike - Just Do It!
Pepsi - The choice of a new generation. (Meaning if you want to be young(time) drink Pepsi)
Microsoft - They have a TV add showing nothing but a server. The voice-over talks about how the opening of the site went great, the IPO even better and now everyone is at a party. So, who's watching the servers? With MS, you don't need to. - Basically they are selling time, peace of mind as well as freedom.
If they can come up with that crap. Why is OSS unable to? I am far from being a marketing major or a marketing genius, but there has got to be ways to get people to listen and make OSS a household name.
It was said once that the revolution will not be televised. Of course, that statement was televised and so was the revolution. Let's televise our own revolution.
I can agree with that. However, if they are still to stay in business producing free software it is important that people buy their products of the shelves. Not to make someone else rich, but to enrich the Linux experience.
I would have to agree with some of the posts that I have read about buying distros. If my income level was higher, I would definately buy more copies of Linux. As it stands, I download the releases of the OS that I utilize at home.
I believe that it is very important to support the companies that have brought ease of use and a large amount driver support to the OS. If we wish to have these companies continue to create the next release it is only right for us to purchase their products or donate some money to their coffers in another fashion. Doing my part, I advise anyone that is interested in Linux to buy their first release off of a store shelf. I usually mention to them to locate Red Hat or Mandrake.
I started off my love affair with Linux with Red Hat 5.2 after it was mentioned to me by the systems admin where I was working at the time. The book that came with the release I bought was very usefull in getting me started and has a few things that are still relevent with newer releases of Red Hat or any other distro.
Recently, I saw SuSe on the shelf at the local Best Buy and it comes with the whole thing on one DVD as well as several compact discs. I have considered buying it simply to see how Linux loads off of one DVD. I may just pick that up this weekend.
For those of you that believe that buying a Linux distro is a waste of time and money, I have just one thing you should really think about. Take that distro, that you use, and remove all vestiges of code that was created by the company that made that distro. Take a good look at what you have left. In many cases you will have no method of installing your OS. In other cases you will have no method to configure most of your hardware. So, ask yourself, if that company didn't exist would you be able to use Linux?
I am quite certain that most of you would have to say that you would not be able to use it. Think about that the next time you are walking through Wal-Marts and see Mandrake on the shelf, or Best Buy and see SuSe, Mandrake and Red Hat on the shelf.
I have to completly agree with you on the points you mentioned above. I have heard many stroies of people screwed over by mail order as well as web ordered computer systems. There is no humanity involved in the process. Then if you hate the product and want to return it you need to pay the shipping and handling in many cases.
Do you know what the shipping cost of a 21 inch monitor, computer and a monitor is? It is darn pricey especially when you include the needed insurance.
When you break all that down and consider your choice of spending a few bucks more at a local build-it-yourself computer shop there are several things that you can get above mail order service. For one the place is local, you can take your system in there just about any time and get them to service it. Secondly, you deal directly with the people that are involved in the building of your system. By knowing you these people have a vested interest in making sure that you are happy. For that alone I would be willing to spend a few bucks more.
Maybe I am biased because I work part-time at one of those establishments. I can say that there have been many times when people have bought computers from me, solely based on the personalized service that I have provided them. A few of the customers have said that they had had terrible experiences with the giant internet and retail stores and even though they might be paying a few bucks more they find our service far superior.
Of course it could also be the standard two-day turnaround time for nearly all systems serviced in the lab. The fact that the techs know their jobs, the salespeople know what they are talking about and that our philosophy is to form friendships with our clients. Those are things that Dell, Gateway, CompUSA and any of those other huge chain stores will never match.
Think about that, the next time that you are looking to buy a PC or a component. You can go to the cold internet and save a few bucks or go to a local store and make a few friends. In time, most of those small places will end up giving you frequent client discounts that come real close to those internet prices. I know, because we do that all the time.
I work, part-time, for a small computer assembler here in Michigan. I had been pushing Linux as an option for nearly as long as I have worked there. They just don't see a demand or want to support such a product.
To me it makes little sense, since they also provide no support for Windows as well. They could simply take the same stance as they do with Windows and everyone would be happy and they could see a slight increase in their sales on systems.
A great example is the laptop that I own. I was able to purchase it very inexpensively from them without Windows Me on it. I used the money saved to add an additional 64MB to it and loaded up Red Hat 7.1. To my surprise Red Hat 7.1 recognized all pieces of hardware in the laptop.
With Symantec's Norton Ghost being able to generate ext2fs partition back-ups, it would have been trivial for them to offer that as an option on the company web site. They could have made a decent profit on selling these laptops. I am fairly certain that if they just put them up as an option on the web site they would find people asking for those systems.
They just were not interested at all. I will do my best to continue with suggesting Linux as an option. Unfortunately, they will probably continue to brush off Linux regardless of how easy it would be for them to set machines up running it.
The reason is simple. Everyone wants to get potentially damning documents from anyone. If the internet grinds to a halt then you would't be able to get that information from SirCam.
You should not need to opt-out of anything. Imagine if there were fifty or so of these companies, each one of these website defacement companies have an opt-out feature. None of them E-mail or even make an attempt to contact you. That is wrong. You would not know that your content is even being altered until you browsed your own site with one or more of these special little applications running on your machine.
When you eventually do that you notice that nearly every word is underlined with purple squiggly lines, yellow, brown, green, red and blue lines. The there are the ones that put the squiggly lines over your words so you have another dozen or so of those on your site. Would you want to see that as a creator of the content? Would you want to see that as a consumer looking at that site?
That is what will happen. These marketing companies are out to take away your rights to view what you wish to view and your rights to create what you wish to create. Imagine if some marketer decided that it would perfectly fine to add some advertisements to the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel, or throw a few banners on the Mona Lisa. Would that be okay? How aout if you picked up the newest Steven King novel or a Charles Dickens novel and saw banners that said Brought to you by Monkey-Rear Enterprises. Would that be okay with you?
The only reasonable way to stop this is to have real legislation designed to truly protect the consumer and the creator of said content.
I read in an earlier post that Bank One had a link to Wells Fargo added to their site. Now, is that right? Personally that is very wrong. Bank One, or any other company should not have to advertise for their competitors without their knowledge.
That would be like having every instance of x-windows on a website aving the windows part underlined linking to Microsoft. Then every instance of Open Source, or Shared Source on Microsoft's website may as well point to something on the EFF site properly explaining the licenses involved.
Let's say you are an author and you are writing a completly free piece of fiction that you are putting up on the web. Would you want your readers distracted by links that someone else feels need to be in your work? These links would completely destroy the integrity of your work. For that alone you should be compensated.
This debate will go on forever. One thing is certain though. The people that care about their rights will do their best to stand up for their rights. The rest will just not care and will click the yellow links.
I find this method of advertising to be rather awfull. While it may never happen, I believe we should write our congressmen and senators and ask, nay demand that they create legislation that will create the following basic rules.
Rule 1
The author of a website has the option of opting in only by adding a new meta-tag to their HTML code stating that they allow this form of advertisements to be displayed on their website.
Rule2
The developer or group that owns the website must be compensated for allowing their content to be altered by third parties. This compensation will increase dramtically if this is a corporate or small business web site that then has competitors advertisements littered about the site.
Rule3
Religous and non-profit organizations shall not have their sites compromised by these forms of advertisements. These sites and operators are also disallowed from being added to any of these adds as it would only be fair to all parties involved.
I am sure there are more rules that people can come up with and still allow these marketers make some sort of a nickel. Anyway, if I was running a website commercial or otherwise and found my content being altered even slightly with material that I find objectionable. Such as, a competitor's link or completly unrelated material, I would immediately get a lawyer and prepare a case against this company and any others like it.
Sure, that will only add to the already large docket of court cases. Unfortunately, there just is no other legal or legislative method of dealing with companies like this.
There are three listings for the word host. The term in use was the 3rd one. Hostess is also listed in the dictionary elsewhere.
host(3) n [ME hoste, host, quest, fr. OF, fr. L hospit-, hospes, fr. hostis] (13c) 1 a: ONE that recieves or entertains quests socially, commercially or officially.
The rest of the meanings are irrelevant to this. While it is common to use Hostess to denote a female host it is also fine to use the word host interchangably while adding male or female before it. Hostess, on the other hand only refers to a female that entertains socially, commercially or officially.
My use of the word was correct and far from improper. Thank you for noticing my use of the inexplicably complex English language.
I have been looking at a few of the posts and while they mention some truly awesome books that are worthy to be shelved in any library they seem to only cover the advanced topics.
Even though I am sure to be flamed for this, I would have to recomend some easy to follow tomes such as the Peter Norton's guides. There are some on Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and I believe server, Windows 2000 family. Recently, there is a Norton's Guide to Linux. While not the most technically challenging of books they can give a reader a fairly strong base knowledge that they can use to enter other more complex areas.
The only major problem with a library stocking computer books on a wide range of subjects is that computer technology changes so rapidly that a book on an OS and even some programming languages is out of date within months of hitting the shelves.
However, I have noticed that some books can last at least a few years before needing to be replaced. I own a well thumbed copy of SAMS Red Hat Linux 6.0 Unleashed. While it is out of date and I use more recent releases of Linux, several areas in this book are still extremely pertinent when it comes to configuring several aspects of Linux.
I would have to recomend books on subjects that are varied and timeless. While UNIX books are not always easy reading this OS has remained relatively unchanged for many years. I am sure that there are several books for various levels of skill regarding UNIX and its cousins.
Don't sue me for not knowing the name of the male host. Anyway, he was showing off one of those new style mobiles phones and mentioned that they have a reset button akin to what desktop PCs have on them. While he was demonstrating the mobile phone it did indeed lock-up on him.
He brushed it off, saying that the technology is still rather new and that is obviously had some way to go. Personally, I would expect that from an Alpha or Beta product. The phone he was showing was a production model.
Why is everyone okay with production systems and equipment that crash and fail when it comes to information technology? BTW, I believe the phone was running WinCE.
Of course this had nothing to do with Microsoft. Although, Microsoft is wishing to hold all of our personal data like Credit Cards and other information. I am not sure about all of you, but these recent problems with Credit Cards and other things being stolen are the reason that I have always refrained from buying things online.
Does anyone know what operating system was involved as the server that held this critical data? I would imagine it was based on some Microsoft platform due to Micrsoft's laughable security. Although it is also very possible that it was held on servers with terrible administrators.
Is it the server software or the administrators at fault? Could it also be the fault of the person(s) that chose the server platform for this e-commerce site?
I believe that the Linux kernel itself is just entering its tenth year of development plus or minus a few months. I suppose that that would finally make it "good" software to this guy.
Of course the GNU utilities that are packaged with virtually every distribution of Linux have been under development for far longer, as I understand.
Since just over ten years have passed we should use this (ex?) Microsoft employee's justifications to point out that Linux would thus be good software. We can then use something that came from the mindset of Microsoft's culture against itself.
Of course the whole thing would probably back-fire. Since us open source software people aint smart enough to know that most Microsoft products have been along longer than ten years.
Microsoft would still be on top claiming, "While it is true that Linux, the virus, has been developed by crackers for over ten years. We have had teams of professional coders working on our products for more than 10 years. Some products have even been under development since the early 80's!"
The above book chronicles three eras of time, Post-WWIII, TOS and TNG. The book gives the history of Zefram Cochrane and how he invented the warp drive. It is a very interesting read. I would also much rather go along with the history written in that novel than with the inconsistent history of TOS.
I know, that is pure blasphemy! I am going against the grain. Anyway, if you find that book I would suggest reading it. They mention that Cochrane is called "of Alpha Centauri", because that was the first place that he went after testing his warp drive design. He even settled down on the planet for a while.
After living on AC for sometime he decided to leave and he ended up with that energy being that TOS Enterprise ran into.
I do recomend the book, unless you are a TOS purist. Then you will totally hate the novel. Anyway, that is my two cents.
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I saw the film in a preview showing on Monday. It was not as large as an attraction as A.I. was. I had arrived an hour early for this movie and they had not filled the seats.
At the A.I. preview there were more than 60 people not able to get seats half an hour before the film. The A.I. preview took place in a 500+ seat theatre, while the Final Fantasy preview took place in a 300 seat theatre.
Anyway, on to my review. The visuals in this film were absolutely the most amazing computer generated images that I can claim to have seen. Remember the first big full view of the Dinosaurs in the orginal Jurassic Park? These were almost identically awe inspiring.
The story itself was decent for a Final Fantasy game, although nowhere near as in depth. This I would attribute to the lesser amount of time the movie is, in comparison to the length of a Final Fantasy game.
A friend of mine commented on how the lips, while in synch with the voices, barely moved with the conversation. The expressions on the variuous characters faces were also rather awesome. There were a few parts when I would have expected some form of expression, but there wasn't.
I would recomend seeing the film as a matinee as the ending was really not as whiz-bang cool as I would have liked. The climax was nearly anti-climatic.
The very ending left quite a bit to be desired to me. Of course that is me and I expect a tremendous amount from the movies that I see.
This whole thing about collecting a small fee if the photos pass through their software is very much like the adressee paying the envelope maker for receiving one of their envelopes.
At first, I thought it might be like paying the US Mail twice. Once when the sender applies the stamp and then when the envelope is delivered. Of course, then I realized that the "stamp" in this case is the customer's ISP.
I feel that it is terribly wrong to charge for simply being the vehicle that the consumer uses to upload files to their ISP.
Of course Microsoft is working towards a fee for services model of business, even though Microsoft says that is why Linux companies fail. So, I suppose that would mean we might all end up paying for the right to print to a printer since it will one day be a service on a Windows XP machine. Do you think they would charge the consumer or the manufacturer of the printer?
I am not certain, but has the Killustrator name been used for more than 6 months? In all that time Adobe has not noticed that Killustrator was named thus?
Pardon me for being blunt, but shouldn't Adobe have approached the author of Killustrator long before just recently?
Well, I do hope that Adobe loses out on this, otherwise Kword and Abiword could be in jeopardy next.
On to a few other questions though isn't Adobe Illustrator always called Adobe Illustrator and not plain Illustrator? If they can muscle Killustrator could actual human illustrators then sue Adobe for diluting their professional titles?
I believe that that would only be fair as acutal human illustrators have used that as their professional title long before Adobe cam on the scene.
Slashdot Mirror
So, monkey-boy, what you are saying is that the digital watermark will stay along with the Analog sound signal in the air? After it leaves a speaker?
If that is the case, I would imagine that you would hear this watermark, thus making the creation of a watermark a waste of time. Since, nobody wants to buy music that is very poorly recorded with a screeching sound over it.]
Perhaps you should read a little about physics and the reproduction of sound waves.
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Well, prior to the sound becoming Analog, it could be on a digital source, such as a file or a Compact Disc. So, if some lame lawyer really wanted to push the point for his client's the RIAA. Then there is a slight chance of that getting to court.
I just figured out how to crack it! Take great quality audio reproduction equipment (Speakers) and then some very high quality audio collection devices (Microphones) and put it all in a proper sound room, or box.
For right and left channel sound you will need to have at least two speakers and at least two microphones and some way of merging the two recordings.
It might be a little far from perfect, but so are MP3's and the sound from the "Cracked" watermarked music.
Wait a minute... Since Sklyarov was arrested for creating a tool to break a protection scheme, does this mean that speakers and microphones are now illegal?
I suppose it is all how you interpret the DMCA...
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If you reread the Katz post you will notice that he actually refrained from lumping all 15 year olds into the same boat. He did state that while some of them are into the hostility and posturing that gives them a sense of superiority, he also mentioned that some refrain from such acts.
I work in computer sales and I see many diferent people from all walks of life. I can agree with you about how that statement can refer to some older people.
For instance there are these two punks that are near my age that come in every once in a while. They believe that they know everything and everyone else is just not worth their time. They are abrasive, rude and generally dificult to talk with.
A very wise man told me recently that a truly inteligent man knows what he doesn't know. Basically, all that means is that you can learn something new every day, there will always be someone that knows more about something than you do.
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I recently got a great deal on a generic laptop. The system is probably nothing to really rave about for most
Without rebates, without hassle the machine's total cost ended up being just over 950 dollars brand new. Now, that was about 3 months ago and in that time the market has given birth to some sweet deals on laptop systems. There are many with much larger HDs, more RAM and other great features.
However, the ads that I have seen all show prices of just under 1100 or 1200 and that is after the MSN discount. How many Linux users want to use MSN?
Back to my laptop. Running the latest Red Hat 7.1 the system runs smoothly and is also able to use all the pieces of hardware installed. Everything from the sound to the built-in Modem.
If you would be interested in such a laptop post a reply and I will see about getting the company that I work for to post it up on their web site and then I will send a link here.
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Has anyone thought of the overhead created when doing such a thing? Windows has never been known as a solid memory manager. Now, you can run multiple user spaces at the same time with several diferent applications. I am sorry, but you need a really powerful system to do this. Especially if you are running any memory intensive tasks.
Now, I know that X is a memory-hog and when you toss on a few extra applications from diferent users, you still need a whole lot of RAM and a very powerful processor.
It is a usefull feature to have that functionality in a system. The only problem is that you need expensive hardware to do that.
What is wrong with setting up X to allow multiple users to open up programs on it. Then simply open up an xterm, su [USERNAME] and then fire up the application that user wants to use. It is much easier on resources and allows home users to easily share a system and still have their own bookmarks or whatever. If typing in netscape at the command line is to dificult for someone then it would be relatively easy to setup scripts that will provide a menu-driven CLI interface to launch applications.
If that is a problem then someone could write up a tcl/tk script to generate a user interface to "switch" users and then open up the application. The tcl/tk script can be robust enough to even allow a user to add additional applications to the start-up menu. Well, I have always wanted a reason to learn some tcl/tk I suppose now is as good a time as any.
If I can get it far enough along look for "Swap User" on Sourceforge.
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If Open Source software really wishes to compete in the marketplace with software from commercial sources then OSS needs to become commercialized. What does this mean? Does OSS have to sell out?
Well, it does mean that OSS has to begin advertising. I am not saying the advertising that Red Hat and other makers of OSS and Free software do. I am talking about the philosophy of Open Source Software. That itself needs to be advertised. An Open Source Software Consortium could be created and it would be their job to actually futher the knowledge of the OSS philosophy.
Yes, this would involve marketing campaigns. I know it sounds horrible to think, actually advertising a product, THE HORROR! I mean, if you look at most of today's marketing campaign it is not about the product anymore. The marketers have given up on selling product. Now, they sell peace of mind, time and good karma. Look at those adds and thinkg about what they are saying.
Nike - Just Do It!
Pepsi - The choice of a new generation. (Meaning if you want to be young(time) drink Pepsi)
Microsoft - They have a TV add showing nothing but a server. The voice-over talks about how the opening of the site went great, the IPO even better and now everyone is at a party. So, who's watching the servers? With MS, you don't need to. - Basically they are selling time, peace of mind as well as freedom.
If they can come up with that crap. Why is OSS unable to? I am far from being a marketing major or a marketing genius, but there has got to be ways to get people to listen and make OSS a household name.
It was said once that the revolution will not be televised. Of course, that statement was televised and so was the revolution. Let's televise our own revolution.
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I can agree with that. However, if they are still to stay in business producing free software it is important that people buy their products of the shelves. Not to make someone else rich, but to enrich the Linux experience.
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I would have to agree with some of the posts that I have read about buying distros. If my income level was higher, I would definately buy more copies of Linux. As it stands, I download the releases of the OS that I utilize at home.
I believe that it is very important to support the companies that have brought ease of use and a large amount driver support to the OS. If we wish to have these companies continue to create the next release it is only right for us to purchase their products or donate some money to their coffers in another fashion. Doing my part, I advise anyone that is interested in Linux to buy their first release off of a store shelf. I usually mention to them to locate Red Hat or Mandrake.
I started off my love affair with Linux with Red Hat 5.2 after it was mentioned to me by the systems admin where I was working at the time. The book that came with the release I bought was very usefull in getting me started and has a few things that are still relevent with newer releases of Red Hat or any other distro.
Recently, I saw SuSe on the shelf at the local Best Buy and it comes with the whole thing on one DVD as well as several compact discs. I have considered buying it simply to see how Linux loads off of one DVD. I may just pick that up this weekend.
For those of you that believe that buying a Linux distro is a waste of time and money, I have just one thing you should really think about. Take that distro, that you use, and remove all vestiges of code that was created by the company that made that distro. Take a good look at what you have left. In many cases you will have no method of installing your OS. In other cases you will have no method to configure most of your hardware. So, ask yourself, if that company didn't exist would you be able to use Linux?
I am quite certain that most of you would have to say that you would not be able to use it. Think about that the next time you are walking through Wal-Marts and see Mandrake on the shelf, or Best Buy and see SuSe, Mandrake and Red Hat on the shelf.
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I have to completly agree with you on the points you mentioned above. I have heard many stroies of people screwed over by mail order as well as web ordered computer systems. There is no humanity involved in the process. Then if you hate the product and want to return it you need to pay the shipping and handling in many cases.
Do you know what the shipping cost of a 21 inch monitor, computer and a monitor is? It is darn pricey especially when you include the needed insurance.
When you break all that down and consider your choice of spending a few bucks more at a local build-it-yourself computer shop there are several things that you can get above mail order service. For one the place is local, you can take your system in there just about any time and get them to service it. Secondly, you deal directly with the people that are involved in the building of your system. By knowing you these people have a vested interest in making sure that you are happy. For that alone I would be willing to spend a few bucks more.
Maybe I am biased because I work part-time at one of those establishments. I can say that there have been many times when people have bought computers from me, solely based on the personalized service that I have provided them. A few of the customers have said that they had had terrible experiences with the giant internet and retail stores and even though they might be paying a few bucks more they find our service far superior.
Of course it could also be the standard two-day turnaround time for nearly all systems serviced in the lab. The fact that the techs know their jobs, the salespeople know what they are talking about and that our philosophy is to form friendships with our clients. Those are things that Dell, Gateway, CompUSA and any of those other huge chain stores will never match.
Think about that, the next time that you are looking to buy a PC or a component. You can go to the cold internet and save a few bucks or go to a local store and make a few friends. In time, most of those small places will end up giving you frequent client discounts that come real close to those internet prices. I know, because we do that all the time.
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I work, part-time, for a small computer assembler here in Michigan. I had been pushing Linux as an option for nearly as long as I have worked there. They just don't see a demand or want to support such a product.
To me it makes little sense, since they also provide no support for Windows as well. They could simply take the same stance as they do with Windows and everyone would be happy and they could see a slight increase in their sales on systems.
A great example is the laptop that I own. I was able to purchase it very inexpensively from them without Windows Me on it. I used the money saved to add an additional 64MB to it and loaded up Red Hat 7.1. To my surprise Red Hat 7.1 recognized all pieces of hardware in the laptop.
With Symantec's Norton Ghost being able to generate ext2fs partition back-ups, it would have been trivial for them to offer that as an option on the company web site. They could have made a decent profit on selling these laptops. I am fairly certain that if they just put them up as an option on the web site they would find people asking for those systems.
They just were not interested at all. I will do my best to continue with suggesting Linux as an option. Unfortunately, they will probably continue to brush off Linux regardless of how easy it would be for them to set machines up running it.
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The reason is simple. Everyone wants to get potentially damning documents from anyone. If the internet grinds to a halt then you would't be able to get that information from SirCam.
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You should not need to opt-out of anything. Imagine if there were fifty or so of these companies, each one of these website defacement companies have an opt-out feature. None of them E-mail or even make an attempt to contact you. That is wrong. You would not know that your content is even being altered until you browsed your own site with one or more of these special little applications running on your machine.
When you eventually do that you notice that nearly every word is underlined with purple squiggly lines, yellow, brown, green, red and blue lines. The there are the ones that put the squiggly lines over your words so you have another dozen or so of those on your site. Would you want to see that as a creator of the content? Would you want to see that as a consumer looking at that site?
That is what will happen. These marketing companies are out to take away your rights to view what you wish to view and your rights to create what you wish to create. Imagine if some marketer decided that it would perfectly fine to add some advertisements to the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel, or throw a few banners on the Mona Lisa. Would that be okay? How aout if you picked up the newest Steven King novel or a Charles Dickens novel and saw banners that said Brought to you by Monkey-Rear Enterprises. Would that be okay with you?
The only reasonable way to stop this is to have real legislation designed to truly protect the consumer and the creator of said content.
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I read in an earlier post that Bank One had a link to Wells Fargo added to their site. Now, is that right? Personally that is very wrong. Bank One, or any other company should not have to advertise for their competitors without their knowledge.
That would be like having every instance of x-windows on a website aving the windows part underlined linking to Microsoft. Then every instance of Open Source, or Shared Source on Microsoft's website may as well point to something on the EFF site properly explaining the licenses involved.
Let's say you are an author and you are writing a completly free piece of fiction that you are putting up on the web. Would you want your readers distracted by links that someone else feels need to be in your work? These links would completely destroy the integrity of your work. For that alone you should be compensated.
This debate will go on forever. One thing is certain though. The people that care about their rights will do their best to stand up for their rights. The rest will just not care and will click the yellow links.
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I find this method of advertising to be rather awfull. While it may never happen, I believe we should write our congressmen and senators and ask, nay demand that they create legislation that will create the following basic rules.
Rule 1
The author of a website has the option of opting in only by adding a new meta-tag to their HTML code stating that they allow this form of advertisements to be displayed on their website.
Rule2
The developer or group that owns the website must be compensated for allowing their content to be altered by third parties. This compensation will increase dramtically if this is a corporate or small business web site that then has competitors advertisements littered about the site.
Rule3
Religous and non-profit organizations shall not have their sites compromised by these forms of advertisements. These sites and operators are also disallowed from being added to any of these adds as it would only be fair to all parties involved.
I am sure there are more rules that people can come up with and still allow these marketers make some sort of a nickel. Anyway, if I was running a website commercial or otherwise and found my content being altered even slightly with material that I find objectionable. Such as, a competitor's link or completly unrelated material, I would immediately get a lawyer and prepare a case against this company and any others like it.
Sure, that will only add to the already large docket of court cases. Unfortunately, there just is no other legal or legislative method of dealing with companies like this.
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There are three listings for the word host. The term in use was the 3rd one. Hostess is also listed in the dictionary elsewhere.
host(3) n [ME hoste, host, quest, fr. OF, fr. L hospit-, hospes, fr. hostis] (13c) 1 a: ONE that recieves or entertains quests socially, commercially or officially.
The rest of the meanings are irrelevant to this. While it is common to use Hostess to denote a female host it is also fine to use the word host interchangably while adding male or female before it. Hostess, on the other hand only refers to a female that entertains socially, commercially or officially.
My use of the word was correct and far from improper. Thank you for noticing my use of the inexplicably complex English language.
I have been looking at a few of the posts and while they mention some truly awesome books that are worthy to be shelved in any library they seem to only cover the advanced topics.
Even though I am sure to be flamed for this, I would have to recomend some easy to follow tomes such as the Peter Norton's guides. There are some on Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and I believe server, Windows 2000 family. Recently, there is a Norton's Guide to Linux. While not the most technically challenging of books they can give a reader a fairly strong base knowledge that they can use to enter other more complex areas.
The only major problem with a library stocking computer books on a wide range of subjects is that computer technology changes so rapidly that a book on an OS and even some programming languages is out of date within months of hitting the shelves.
However, I have noticed that some books can last at least a few years before needing to be replaced. I own a well thumbed copy of SAMS Red Hat Linux 6.0 Unleashed. While it is out of date and I use more recent releases of Linux, several areas in this book are still extremely pertinent when it comes to configuring several aspects of Linux.
I would have to recomend books on subjects that are varied and timeless. While UNIX books are not always easy reading this OS has remained relatively unchanged for many years. I am sure that there are several books for various levels of skill regarding UNIX and its cousins.
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I know her name. She is more than cute, she is nearly smokin'. Anyway, I was talking about the male host. I have no clue what his name is.
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Don't sue me for not knowing the name of the male host. Anyway, he was showing off one of those new style mobiles phones and mentioned that they have a reset button akin to what desktop PCs have on them. While he was demonstrating the mobile phone it did indeed lock-up on him.
He brushed it off, saying that the technology is still rather new and that is obviously had some way to go. Personally, I would expect that from an Alpha or Beta product. The phone he was showing was a production model.
Why is everyone okay with production systems and equipment that crash and fail when it comes to information technology? BTW, I believe the phone was running WinCE.
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Of course this had nothing to do with Microsoft. Although, Microsoft is wishing to hold all of our personal data like Credit Cards and other information. I am not sure about all of you, but these recent problems with Credit Cards and other things being stolen are the reason that I have always refrained from buying things online.
Does anyone know what operating system was involved as the server that held this critical data? I would imagine it was based on some Microsoft platform due to Micrsoft's laughable security. Although it is also very possible that it was held on servers with terrible administrators.
Is it the server software or the administrators at fault? Could it also be the fault of the person(s) that chose the server platform for this e-commerce site?
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I believe that the Linux kernel itself is just entering its tenth year of development plus or minus a few months. I suppose that that would finally make it "good" software to this guy.
Of course the GNU utilities that are packaged with virtually every distribution of Linux have been under development for far longer, as I understand.
Since just over ten years have passed we should use this (ex?) Microsoft employee's justifications to point out that Linux would thus be good software. We can then use something that came from the mindset of Microsoft's culture against itself.
Of course the whole thing would probably back-fire. Since us open source software people aint smart enough to know that most Microsoft products have been along longer than ten years.
Microsoft would still be on top claiming, "While it is true that Linux, the virus, has been developed by crackers for over ten years. We have had teams of professional coders working on our products for more than 10 years. Some products have even been under development since the early 80's!"
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The above book chronicles three eras of time, Post-WWIII, TOS and TNG. The book gives the history of Zefram Cochrane and how he invented the warp drive. It is a very interesting read. I would also much rather go along with the history written in that novel than with the inconsistent history of TOS. I know, that is pure blasphemy! I am going against the grain. Anyway, if you find that book I would suggest reading it. They mention that Cochrane is called "of Alpha Centauri", because that was the first place that he went after testing his warp drive design. He even settled down on the planet for a while. After living on AC for sometime he decided to leave and he ended up with that energy being that TOS Enterprise ran into. I do recomend the book, unless you are a TOS purist. Then you will totally hate the novel. Anyway, that is my two cents. -- .sig seperator
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I saw the film in a preview showing on Monday. It was not as large as an attraction as A.I. was. I had arrived an hour early for this movie and they had not filled the seats.
At the A.I. preview there were more than 60 people not able to get seats half an hour before the film. The A.I. preview took place in a 500+ seat theatre, while the Final Fantasy preview took place in a 300 seat theatre.
Anyway, on to my review. The visuals in this film were absolutely the most amazing computer generated images that I can claim to have seen. Remember the first big full view of the Dinosaurs in the orginal Jurassic Park? These were almost identically awe inspiring.
The story itself was decent for a Final Fantasy game, although nowhere near as in depth. This I would attribute to the lesser amount of time the movie is, in comparison to the length of a Final Fantasy game.
A friend of mine commented on how the lips, while in synch with the voices, barely moved with the conversation. The expressions on the variuous characters faces were also rather awesome. There were a few parts when I would have expected some form of expression, but there wasn't.
I would recomend seeing the film as a matinee as the ending was really not as whiz-bang cool as I would have liked. The climax was nearly anti-climatic.
The very ending left quite a bit to be desired to me. Of course that is me and I expect a tremendous amount from the movies that I see.
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This whole thing about collecting a small fee if the photos pass through their software is very much like the adressee paying the envelope maker for receiving one of their envelopes.
At first, I thought it might be like paying the US Mail twice. Once when the sender applies the stamp and then when the envelope is delivered. Of course, then I realized that the "stamp" in this case is the customer's ISP.
I feel that it is terribly wrong to charge for simply being the vehicle that the consumer uses to upload files to their ISP.
Of course Microsoft is working towards a fee for services model of business, even though Microsoft says that is why Linux companies fail. So, I suppose that would mean we might all end up paying for the right to print to a printer since it will one day be a service on a Windows XP machine. Do you think they would charge the consumer or the manufacturer of the printer?
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I am not certain, but has the Killustrator name been used for more than 6 months? In all that time Adobe has not noticed that Killustrator was named thus?
Pardon me for being blunt, but shouldn't Adobe have approached the author of Killustrator long before just recently?
Well, I do hope that Adobe loses out on this, otherwise Kword and Abiword could be in jeopardy next.
On to a few other questions though isn't Adobe Illustrator always called Adobe Illustrator and not plain Illustrator? If they can muscle Killustrator could actual human illustrators then sue Adobe for diluting their professional titles?
I believe that that would only be fair as acutal human illustrators have used that as their professional title long before Adobe cam on the scene.
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