You make some valid points (what's quicksilver, btw?), and while it's possible to live without a start menu well enough, the thing that I consider to be superior about a start menu is not knowing where the apps are installed (after all, how many Windows users know where their apps are installed, but they all use the start menu), but having a hierarchical way to quickly find them. Take the KDE menu, for example. If I want to run oo.org, I click the KDE menu, point to the Office submenu, and click the component I want to run. On a Mac, AFAICT, if it's an app that's not in the dock (and then you have to know which icon it is), you have to run it from the Applications folder in Finder, or run Spotlight and type its name to find it and run it. While this is generally doable if less convenient, what happens if a user doesn't know the name of the app but knows it's (just for example), a word processor? Typing it in Spotlight has just become a non-option, and digging for it in Finder may succeed but it's harder than what I just described for the KDE menu.
However, that's more of a minor annoyance than a major problem. Not having virtual desktops counts as a major problem, a point I believe even Apple has seen, or they wouldn't be putting them in Leopard. I've used Expose and while it does it's job well enough (took me a while to figure out how to do it, though, but once I found it I thought "Wow, that was simple!" - yes, it's the Mac way ), the reason I use virtual desktops is something expose can't help with (nor is it meant to): organizing my workspace.
Expose is a tool - and a pretty good one - for finding a window that's lost under a bunch of others. Virtual desktops could be called a way of keeping them from getting lost in the first place. For example, I know my browsers are always in desktop 9, email in desktop 6, IM and VoIP in desktop 6, localhost shells in 3, remote host shells in 4, etc. Now, if I've got so many of, say, shells in desktop 4 that I can't find the one I want, then Expose still helps me, so I use it in combination with virtual desktops, but it would do a very poor job of replacing them. That's not a knock on Expose, replacing virtual desktops is just not its intended job; helping you find stuff is its job and it does that very well. It's a brilliant idea, really.
Virtual desktops are just one of those things where the X way is better. Better than the Windows way, the Mac way, or any way:-) It's probably telling that I have a brand new Macbook Pro sitting here on my desk, but I'm typing this in Konqueror on a Linux box. OK, that's partly b/c my personal email goes to this box, but I actually do have a plan to install Kubuntu in Parallels and do a lot of my work in Linux on the Macbook
BTW, would you happen to know how I can get my applications folder visible again? It vanished after I dragged it to the dock as the AC below suggested. Also, he mentions right-clicking things in the dock. How does one do that with a one-button mouse (trackpad)?
I, too, became a first-time Mac user this week (well, with one exception; 9 years ago I briefly used a Mac with OS 7.6.1 at a job, and it sucked horribly. Crashed numerous times every day and was just a general PITA. Windows 95 *was* better than that thing), when I started a new job and was issued a brand new Macbook Pro with a Core 2 Duo and 10.4.8. I'd never used OS X before and haven't touched a Mac in 9 years, so there were some things to learn, but it has generally been a very positive experience. The hardware quality is excellent, and the OS and apps are also very good. I'm primarily a Linux user and in a number of areas still prefer KDE to Mac, but I don't find myself sitting here and constantly wishing I had a Linux machine, something I would be doing if I were using XP. Still, I'm probably going to wind up doing a lot of my work in a Linux VM in Parallels:)
Two things I did find lacking were a virtual desktop manager (now using VirtueDesktop; it has some stability issues and b/c it's a hack, doesn't work as well as virtual desktops in X, but it's usable), and after a week I still think a Start menu would be a good thing to have. There's a reason why KDE, GNOME, Windows, XFCE, and most other desktop environments and window managers use one, and it isn't just to be different from Apple. I'm glad Leopard will have a native virtual desktop manager, thus leaving Vista as the only modern OS without one, but it would be nice if they would provide an optional start menu, too. I've learned how to find apps in Finder and launch them, and while I can get along that way, it's not as good as having a start menu.
However, those quibbles aside, I am very impressed with this Mac for the quality of the hardware, the superiority to Windows in almost all aspects, and the superiority even to Linux in some. This really confirms what I tell people who ask my opinion about what computer to get: if you like to tinker with stuff, get under the hood and see how it works, heavily customize things, etc., then you should take a good look at Linux. If that's not you, and you just want your computer to work, get a Mac. If you have some must-use software that is Windows-only, you can run a copy of Windows in Parallels and it will be well integrated with OS X (I have parallels on this machine, and if I'm running IE in Windows, IE appears in the dock; pretty cool). Either way, I wouldn't recommend to anyone that they buy a Windows machine unless they are a hardcore gamer (in which case they've already got one and wouldn't be asking my advice anyway).
I'm a former employee of Microsoft and would say that Vista does have its good points, but honestly, it's game, set, and match to Mac. XP doesn't measure up to OS X, and while Vista comes closer, it doesn't make the cut either.
I have a large number of Greenlite CFL bulbs in my house (75-watt equiv IIRC). None has any delay and they reach full brightness instantly. All were bought in 2004 and 2005.
As you note, they are not only much cheaper to run but are also very cool compared to incandescent bulbs. If you watch for sales, they can also be had for a very competitive price. I don't know about other areas, but it's possible to sometimes find very low prices on CFLs here in California, subsidized by the electric company (SCE in my area). I think I paid 99 cents for mine.
When I was in Walmart the other day I noticed CFLs for 74 cents. Didn't check the brand and don't know if they have a delay or not. In fact, I wasn't even aware that some of them do have a delay until I read the comments on the article. I've never had ones that did that, and I always bought the cheapest ones I could get. Just lucky, I suppose, since I'm in the camp that would find the delay very annoying.
And people should believe a foul-mouthed AC instead?
OK, here's some information that I think most people will accept as proof of my Microsoft employment: Exchange devs are in Bldg. 34. If you go out the back door of Bldg. 34 the cafeteria is off to your left on roughly a 45-degree angle and the walkway is not covered, so you get a little wet going there on a rainy day. Standing at the same back door, the parking structure for Bldg. 34 is straight away. The cafeteria pizza is great, the coffee at the pseudo-Starbucks stand in there is awful.
While this does not constitute absolute proof (and no, I'm not going to tell you my Microsoft email address), any Microsoft employee who works in Bldg. 34, is familiar with it, or even wants to head over there to check it out, can confirm that this information is correct.
I don't even get where you're coming, from, really. I was not endorsing billg for president, indeed, just the opposite. What I said was that even I, as a Microsoft employee (someone who might be expected by many to be partisan in his favor) didn't think it was a good idea, that he's a very smart guy and all, but Microsoft is a meeting-bound, bureaucratic mess.
If you want to find an asshat, I suggest you start with the nearest mirror.
Bill Gates for President? I'm a Microsoft employee, and even I don't think that's a good idea.
Why not? Well, Billg is a very smart guy, he's extremely intense, extremely intelligent - can pick out and remember the smallest details from specs that are hundreds of pages long - and has generally been a pretty good leader for Microsoft. Not many people can make the transition from running a small business with 3 employees to having that business become the biggest software company in the world, with over 60,000 employees. He did, and he did it well. He's got real talent.
However, Microsoft is also a frigging bureaucratic mess of unbelievable proportions. A lot of you have probalby read that Joel on Software article about the shutdown menu in Vista, and the dev's response to it in which he describes a year-long process of weekly meetings mostly spent arguing over design features. The thing is, the whole company is like that. While I'm pretty sure Billg is a nice guy (I don't know him pesonally, but it's my impression) and he's very smart and I'm sure he has far more integrity than most politicians, I don't really want to put anyone who oversaw the creation of such a bureaucracy in charge of the government. After all, it took government far longer to evolve such a horrid bureacracy, Microsoft did it in only 30 years, and most of that happened in the last 20.
So, while I have tremendous respect for Billg for his accomplishments at Microsoft, and also for Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs for their accomplishments, I wouldn't like to see any of them become president of the United States, thank you very much (not that Linus could, because of the stricture on being a citizen by birth, of course).
I work for Microsoft (well, nominally; I'm resigning to puruse other opportunities and today is my last day) and even I can't think of any really compelling reason to dump XP for Vista, and knowing how things usually go with a new OS release, I can think of a few compelling reasons to stand pat with XP: bugs and security flaws, in particular. XP is pretty mature and stable, whereas Vista has yet to undergo the trial by fire of being in general commercial release. I'll wait and see for a while. A good long while. Like SP1 at the earliest.
I've been using Office 2007 final since its internal release day. Outlook performance seems faster than in Office 2003. I haven't noticed a performance difference with other Office apps, but file sizes are a lot smaller thanks to the new format. The new UI takes some getting used to. My jury is still out on whether or not I prefer it to the old UI. Overall, I'd say that unless you really, really need better Outlook performance or have a tried a beta of Office 2007 somewhere and absolutely love the UI and have to have it, there's probably no compelling need for most people to get Office 2007 either.
None of my home machines have Vista or Office 2007, and I have no plans to change that in the foreseeable future, even though I can get the stuff dirt cheap through the company store.
My advice to most people is that if your current XP + Office 2003 setup is stable and meeting your needs, don't rush out to upgrade. Undoing the upgrade would be really really painful if you find yourself regretting it later.
Absolutely. If they've already made you pay an illegal music tax when you don't have any illegal music, that should give you not only the right to go and get some, but immunity if they should happen to catch you doing so.
There is one potential way this crap idea of Universal's could be made to work, though: if all manufacturers of digital music players got together with all record companies and cut a deal something like what BMI, etc. have with radio stations, bars that play recorded music, etc. That is, you all pay us a royalty on the player, and in return, anyone who owns a digital music player is free to pass around music from our libraries to other owners of digital music players.
This would have a lot of benefits for a lot of people. Consumers would be free to do what they want with their music, record companies would get their cut, etc. The only people who'd lose are music stores and DRM software writers, since DRM would no longer be necessary.
Granted, you'd probably have to make it an annual fee system of some sort in order for the record companies to actually continue to get their cut and produce new releases, but it would revolutionize the music business. When record companies had some new music to release, all they'd have to do is put it up on their website or a P2P network and let people download it freely. They'd get paid through the player tax.
And I think most of us would find that sort of one-stop shopping annual fee pretty easy to swallow. Simpler by far than the current mess with different, competing, non-compatible online music stores. It would help avoid whacky situations like the Zune not working with Plays For Sure DRM:)
I admit that there are some implementation difficulties with an annual fee, such as how do you enforce it except by making the music player refuse to play any more music if you don't pay the fee and update its token, but these problems could be solved, and the effort and infrastructure required would probably be no worse than the DRM mess of today. It might take some special smarts in the player, like anonymously reporting playlists so they coudl figure out what was popular and divvy up the funds accordingly, but that too is solveable and easier than DRM.
I work for Microsoft too, for a little while longer, anyway (I'm resigning to pursue other opportunities) and have worked on Exchange. The criticisms people have of Exchange are pretty well founded. E2K7 is a ground-up 64-bit rewrite. Draw your own conclusions as to why.
Why do people use Exchange despite its problems with the Exchange database, trampling on SMTP standards, security holes, etc.?
Because as kludgy as Exchange may be, the set of functions it provides together with Outlook are something business find very valuable. There are three main groupware servers in the market: Exchange, Groupwise, and Domino. I'm not going to speculate on which of those three may be the best on technical merit, but the marketplace has generally chosen Exchange over the others.
Why has no FOSS alternative to Exchange ever gained any traction? Well, for one thing we have a very large installed base and trying to get companies with a large and complex infrastructure to rip it out and replace it with something else is hard as long as what they have is working. Even if the something else is both better and cheaper, getting them to make the switch is hard. If that something else is not better and cheaper, it's impossible. And from the standpoint of businesses where everyone is using Outlook, putting in an open source Exchange replacement, unless Outlook clients could talk to it natively without any extra plug-ins, does not meet the definition of "better."
Exchange is big. It's complex. It has a huge amount of code in it. Making a true FOSS drop-in Exchange replacement would be very difficult. You can duplicate the functionality pretty well, and many FOSS projects have (Kolab might be the best of those, and it's also very complex, and maintains it's own internal RPM database of its components, which I find just ugly), but AFAIK none of them is really a drop-in replacement for Exchange. If anyone could really make one, it might get adopted widely for its cost savings, but I'm not holding my breath. The alternatives out there are good enough to use in a business that does not yet have a groupware server and is setting one up, but not good enough to drive out Exchange where it's already established
Meanwhile, Exchange 2007 is a real improvement over previous versions. Faster. More secure. Exchange Edge is aimed straight at shops that are all Exchange except for Sendmail or other *nix-based servers on the network edge. We've raised the bar for how how much any FOSS Exchange replacement has to achieve to displace Exchange.
I lived there for eight years, speak business level Japanese, and never lived in any of the "gaijin ghetto" (for those who don't know about them, these aren't ghettos in the usual sense, but pricier areas of major cities (esp. in Tokyo) where a significant number of foreigners tend to live beacause of proximity to entertainment districts like Roppongi and the relative ease of getting along there if you speak little or no Japanese) areas, and the only time I ever worked for a foreign-owned company was in the last year and a half or so I lived there, when my Japanese-owned employer was acquired by a foreign company.
Is there racism in Japan? Yes, some. Is it insitutionalized? Yes, in fact, that's probably one of the better places to look for it. Did I ever encounter racism there? Yes, sometimes. There are people who get there knickers in a bunch over it, and there are people who just take their business elsewhere. I fall much more into the latter category than the former. I haven't been to nearly as many countries as you have, but I've been to a bunch and lived in two other than my native one. Haven't been to Australia, but all the Australians I've met seem like about the least racist people I've run across (although Singaporeans also rank very highly here; I like Singapore better than anywhere else I've been, partly for that reason).
People who have lived in both Japan and Korean tell me that Korea is in a whole different league than Japan when it comes to racism. Maybe you haven't been there, but if you have, perhaps you could give us your take on that, along with how much time you spent in either place and how well you speak either language? Not trolling, just interested.
As far as racial pecking orders go, I have to tell you that yes, being white in Japan absolutely helps. Being white and a native English speaker probably helps even a little more. Other East Asians (my wife is a non-Japanese East Asian) rank somewhat lower than that, and South Asians, Hispanics, and blacks are rather down the pecking order still, although there are cases where that helped (being black could help you get a Japanese girlfriend, sometimes).
Another thing about Japan that many people mistakenly label as racism is you go out to rent an apartment and speak little or no Japanese, and the real estate agent and landlord(s) you're dealing with speak little or none of your language. You find they don't want to deal with you, but that's not racism, it's practicality, and I have no problem with people refusing to rent to those who cannot communicate effectively in Japanese. If you can't speak Japanese, rent an apartment in a gaijin house, that's what they're there for. Or get an English-speaking real estate agent in one of the expensive gaijin ghetto areas and let him/her handle it all for you.
The last place I lived there, when I rented a house, was in a nice, quiet little neighborhood of Kawasaki. I was changing employers and moving out of my company housing but wanted to remain in the area, so I went to a couple of real estate offices. One was clearly racist and didn't want to deal with me, my level of Japanese notwithstanding. The second one was fine. I told them what I was looking for, and they said that there weren't many places like that available in the area, but they'd check their books (no computerized MLS system there ) and they came up with a place that sounded perfect and called the landlord.
I could have filled the landlord's side of the conversation in on paper. "A foreigner? Does he speak Japanese? He does? OK, send him over.":) I went over, saw the house, met the landlord, and liked both very much and they liked me too. I lived there for three years and they were not just nice landlords but nice next-door neighbors. When I got married, they warmly welcomed my wife, even though she didn't speak Japanese well and is a non-Japanese Asian.
In conclusion, yes, Japan has racist elements in some places, but it's not nearly as bad as many people make out. I would characterize the problem as being that most Japanese aren't racists, but there is a strong streak of institutionalized racism, and that is a problem.
When I got my real estate license this year and joined my local board of Realtors, I was thrilled in a way no one around me understands (agents are generally not the most computer-clued people around, and with years of sysadmin experience, they love having me around the office ) to find that logging in to our MLS system requires a one-time pad. I smile every time I use it, and wish my bank had as much clue as the my local MLS does.
Granted, their motivation was to stop agents' letting non-members use their MLS account, but the end result is the same: knowing my userid and PIN isn't enough, you'd also have to steal my one-time PAD generator to get into my account. OTOH WRT security clue, they don't have an https login, so if you did compromise my userid and PIN by packet sniffing, then the only barrier that remains *is* just finding a way to steal it. This is non-trivial, but I see no reason to lower the bar at all.
BTW, are there any other Linux-using real estate agents here on/.? Or any agents at all, for that matter? I won't be surprised if the answer is "no":)
What he should do depends in large part on how much he is willing to suffer for people to whom he owes nothing, and who are unlikely to defend him or even thank him. Disclosure could negatively impact (read "seriously screw up") his life for years to come.
He has already fulfilled his basic moral and ethical obligation, which was to disclose the problem to the company's management, tell them everything he knew, and make his best recommendations on how to handle it.
Beyond that, the moral, ethical, and possible legal IANAL) onus to disclose is on the company.
If your friend believes that he has an obligation to go beyond this, things to consider are (IANAL):
1) It may be either civilly or criminally illegal for him to disclose. This can vary widely depending on country and locality, so he needs to consider if he is willing to go be fined, imprisoned, or successfully sued as the price of disclosure;
2) Even if there is no statute explicitly making that disclosure illegal, the company may attempt to sue him for disclosure of trade secrets, etc., anyway and see what sticks. His contract may also contain language directly pertaining to that; if it does, he needs to watch out;
3) They are certain to turn on him for disclosure, even if they don't or can't sue him. Managers know other managers and he will get a ready-made reputation as a consultant who can't keep his mouth shut. Consultants who breach confidentiality have a much harder time finding work;
4) Does he have anyone who depends on him? I have a family to support, and my moral obligation to provide them with food, shelter, and clothing trumps any obligation I may or may not have to companies or individuals whose data may or may not have been compromised. I would do what he has already done: provide a full report to management, along with my recommendations. Then I would shut my pie hole. I owe that to my wife and children.
Finally, whatever path he intends to take - saying nothing further, contacting the customers directly, or spreading it across as much of the Web as possible - it would be a *very* good idea for him to consult with a lawyer, and get answers to these questions:
- In my country/locality, what are my legal obligations? - In my country/locality, what are my legal risks if I make any kind of disclosure that is not legally required? - In my country/locality, what are my legal risks from making a disclosure, even if that disclosure is legally required?
Oh, one more thing - if he decides against disclosure, draw up a plan for how that legacy software might be usable on Linux machines running WINE. It may be a lot harder for a Win32 worm to affect one of those than a Windows 98 machine, and even if it's not, the security wrappers you can put around the machine using iptables will likely render the worm unable to function even if it successfully infects the machine. If the WINE approach won't work, then propose running Windows 98 in VM Ware under Linux - the security layer made possible by the host OS still applies, even if the guest OS is totally porous.
The three funniest things I've seen on the Internet this year, in order of appearance:
1) The Border Patrol game 2) The Hadji Girl video 3) "But hang on to vi, you'll still need a decent text editor."
Note to people who want to mod me down for having a politically incorrect sense of humor: I believe the correct moderation here would be -1 Troll rather than -1 Flamebait. Not that I'm trolling; I really do think you'll need to hang onto vi to have a decent text editor.
I agree. It's their code and they can do what they want, but the only countries/militaries that will abide by this license are those that are already clearly the "good guys." That is, they subscribe to the Geneva Conventions, follow them (mostly; I doubt anyone does so completely) and are not in the habit of starting wars of aggression to expand their territory, do not use their military to terrorize their own popular, have firm civilian control over a non-corrupt (OK, reasonably; see the part about the Geneva Conventions) military, etc. Basically, this means NATO and the nations closely aligned with NATO, either formally or at least by ideals.
Basically, this means that if Syria, North Korea, Iran, China, or thinks it could use their code to its advantage and its enemies' disadvantage, they won't give a rat's arse about the license. If they even bother to read it.
This isn't meant to be a commentary on whether the NATO countries and those aligned with them are necessarily doing the right thing in all circumstances. I know there are those who will say the US shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, and others who will say they waited too long and should have done it ages ago, maybe even right after the first Persian Gulf War. There are those who will say NATO waited to long to take on Milosevic. There are those will say NATO should not have gotten involved at all. Afghanistan. So, let's have none of that.
However, overall I think we could agree that the NATO nations and others who subscribe to the same rules of conduct are generally "the good guys" and are not out to harm their own populations or anyone else, use force only when they believe it necessary and without other recourse, and make great efforts in good faith to minimize civilian casualties. As opposed to ones who tend to land on the other side; they generally believe there's no such thing as a civilian, are often not GC signatories, and have a general "anything goes" attitude towards armed conflict.
It is those sorts, who hold no generally accepted rules of war or international conduct in any regard, who will also hold the license in no regard whatsoever.
You sound like a person who read a funny quote (and it's not even all that funny) but never configured a Cisco. I love IOS. You don't often hear some describe a CLI only OS as being intuitive, but IOS is extremely intuitive. It sets a standard that no *nix shell comes close to in that regard.
I don't really have much interest in putting Linux on my Linksys, but I'd love to be able to install IOS on it:)
But Gore did have an understanding of how the Internet worked, he made it his business to be informed on relevant subjects when he was a congresscritter. He talked to and listened to subject matter experts, and he wrote position papers and popular articles that clearly showed an understanding of the basic concepts.
If that's the case, where did his bogoscience global warming movies come from?
Listening to what he has to say, I find it far more plausible that he was always like this; he just hid it better before. Now that he's no longer an office holder and probably never will be again, he's letting it all hang out.
redbath had a good argument for why the 486sx wasn't really slimy, and I stand corrected on that point. However, "Everybody does it" is hardly an argument for something being not slimy. If everybody does a slimy thing, that does not make the thing any less slimy.
Many here are on/. would say that Microsoft does, or at least has done in the past, some slimy things. They are hardly the only company, in our out of the software business, to use monopoly power and underhanded tactics to crush competition instead of competing in the market place solely on price and merit, but that does not make abuse of monopoly power and the use of underhanded tactics less slimy. It just means the slim is widespread.
If we assume, for example, that my initial statement was correct and all 486SX chips were just a standard 486 with the math coprocessor disabled (and some of them really were; you can bet that not *all* 486SX ships failed the FPU tests) that would be slimy. How so: it would be ripping off the people who paid for a 486DX, since it would mean that the 486DX could be sold profitably at the price point of the SX, since it was completely the *same* chip.
We see a similar case with XP Home versus XP Pro. What is XP Home, exactly? XP Pro with some compile flags turned off. SMP support, for instance.
I'm transitioning from IT to sales, so I'm not in disagreement with the idea that a thing is worth whatever the market will pay for it, but that doesn't mean there isn't some slimy-feeling stuff that goes on. If I can sell the crippled product at a profit - esp. if it costs me slightly more to cripple it than to just send it out the door as-is - I'd rather be able to sell the full product to everyone at the price of the crippled product. But, my job is to get the highest price for a thing that I can when I have my sales hat on, and the lowest price when I have my purchasing hat on, so I don't do that. I understand the reasons, but can't say that I really enjoy them.
I'll throw in a couple more bits of chip trivia here to round out mr_mischief's excellent summary. The 32/32 386 was not originally called 386DX, it was just the 80386. The first 386 chips, debuting at 16 MHz (my first one was a 20, with a whopping 4 meg of 80 ns RAM, $840 for the chip, RAM, and motherboard) were 32-bit on a 32-bit bus. The 386SX was released later, as a way of cutting the cost, and the 386DX name appeared at that point to differentiate it from its 32/16 cousin.
The 486SX actually did have a math coprocessor, it was just disabled on-chip and the 486SX was then sold for less money. An impressive (if kind of slimy) piece of marketing sleight of hand by Intel.
And those heady days of overclocking the crap out of Celerons on an Abit BP-6 motherboard. I had two Celeron 300As running at 455 MHz, reliably.
Me too, and Highway Star. It's hard to keep your foot off the floor when that's on your car stereo. Well, here in the greater LA area it's not, b/c you're in gridlock all the time anyway, but I hear it's hard to do that in some places:-p
And what, you may ask (or not) was Iron Butterfly really trying to say? The answer, my friends, is not blowin' in the wind. The answer is "In the Garden of Eden, baby, don't you know that I love you?" but in a stunning tour de force of out-morrisoning Jim Morrison, it came out as "innagaddadavida" and the name stuck.
That's already been done, this might just make it a little easier.
As the father of a couple of young children, I see this technology as a good thing. So will you, when you have kids. Not to use it for spying them, but as a safety device. In the terrible event of a child obduction, a concealed cell phone could make all the difference. Think of it as a Lo Jack for your kid, and ditch the tinfoil hat.
YMMV, of course, there are probably areas where cable is no good either, but it might be worth a try.
I've been using Time Warner Roadrunner in SoCal for about 3 years now, and I am very pleased with the quality. I've never had an outage or any other problems. I don't recall what my down/up speeds are, but I'm inferring 5 mbps down. At least, I can sustain 4.8 mbps downloads as long as the FTP site on the other end has the bandwidth to spare, and that's about as much as you're likely to get out of a 5 megabit WAN link using TCP. Most common large download: Linux install ISOs. If a connection can sustain around 4.8 mbps on something that big, it's pretty stable.
I'm currently using Roadrunner residential, but for over a year used Roadrunner Business Class where I used to live, and that was also very good. I don't think it had an SLA, but it did have some static IPs, a Time Warner-supplied router instead of just a cable modem, and a static IP for both their router and mine. Everything inside of my router (using two wasn't necessary, but I want my network edge to be under my control) was NATted, but I could have added some extra static IPs for a small fee.
Before getting RR, I first tried Speakeasy. They said I was within acceptable range of the CO (about 12,000 feet) and set me up with an account and sent me the DSL install kit. I hooked everything up and waited for it to be turned up. A few days later, somebody from Speakeasy calls up and asks how I like my DSL (at least I give them credit for being proactive on that point). I said "I dunno, it's not turned on yet." He said it was turned on a couple days before. The modem wasn't syncing at all. This led to a three-week "he said she said" clusterfsck between Speakeasy (who provides the backhaul), Covad (who owns the DSLAM), and PacBell (who owns the copper, and in whose CO the DSLAM is located). Any of you who've ever dealth with a telco in a professional capacity (been there, done that, too, which made it pretty easy to recognize what was going on) know exactly what I'm talking about.
During the three weeks, the only person who actually helped me was a PacBell lineman who came out to do a test at the demarc point. Before he came out, I'd connected the DSL modem at the demarc and it wouldn't sync there either, which eliminated my house wiring as a source of the problem. He put his testing device on the line at the demarc and said he could sync it there, but that the tester could sync under conditions where a DSL modem wouldn't have a chance. He also told me that the 12,000 feet figure I'd been given for distance from the CO was way off. His father in law lived one street over from me and a few blocks closer to the CO, and he said it was 15,000 feet from the CO to there, and that even that connection was suboptimal but he'd set it up himself and made it work as well as possible. He said it was really unlikely that DSL would work at all in my location.
I reported this back to Speakeasy, who said they would set up a conference between me, a tier 3 support person at Speakeasy, and Covad. I called at the appointed time only to find the tier 3 person at Speakeasy had blown off the appointment. Wasn't even in the office. That's the point at which I told them to just cancel the service. Once I said I was canceling, all pretense of politeness vanished. Their support guys really sucked. I don't say that lightly, because of done support and I know how hard it can be, but it's true. The lack of professionalism displayed by everyone at Speakeasy except the sales guy who called up to ask how my DSL was doing in the beginning has guaranteed that I will never, ever, no matter what, do business with Speakeasy again. All my friends know this story, too, and guess what? They all have broadband, but none of them use Speakeasy. That day, I called Roadrunner Business Class. The sales guy knew the answer to every question I asked, without having to look anything up. I asked how soon they could install, and he told me "We're booked for two days, but I can have
I agree completely. To the end user, the different distros, different versions of gcc and glibc that they use, etc., mean nothing.
Since 1998, when I started using Linux, my main distros have been, in order: Red Hat, TurboLinux, Red Hat again, Debian, and Kubuntu. Changing distros was as simple as installing the new distro and telling the installer to mount my old/home. Along the way, I also switched from WFVM 95 to Afterstep to Windowmaker to Gnome to KDE without much pain.
That said, I think LSB is basically a good thing, but really, the danger of forking in Linux is vastly overblown. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, in all the years in which there was no LSB, no fork (that is, an incompatible kernel or other major component) happened.
Would a single standard in some areas help software developers? Yes, but mostly proprietary ones if they wanted to distribute a universally installable binary. However, proprietary software is not something about which the community cares very much. Not only is this a non-issue for me, but it's not that great of a barrier to proprietary software distribution, either: just distribute a statically linked binary with a shell script to install it in some reasonable place like/usr/local (OK,/opt might be better, but not many of us have a separate/opt so it might not work well).
At the end of the day, LSB is fine, but if we didn't have it, it wouldn't kill us. Didn't kill us when we didn't have it, or even hurt us much. Let's not over-inflate its importance.
Well, it depends on the agent. Last year when my wife and I bought a house, we were so disappointed - no disgusted - with our agent it goes beyond words. If we didn't have a friend who is a commercial broker watching our backs (and everything our agent did), it could have been very messy.
Our experience with that left us both thinking "We could do waaaay better than that ourselves." So, I just recently passed the license exam and will start working in real estate next month while continuing my IT career, at least for now. My wife's studying for her license and will do real estate full time. It's amazing how many of the best agents and brokers I've met have a story like this. Their own bad experience with some idiot led them go into the business because they were sure they'd be better. And they were.
The thing is, being a good agent is all about customer service. It's very much like being an independent consultant in IT. You work for a brokerage, but you're an independent contractor and you're generally responsible for finding your own customers. Just like in IT consulting, being technically competent isn't enough. To be successful, esp. in the long term, you have to provide excellent customer service. The kind of service that makes people recommend you to their friends and give you referrals.
If you have good customer service skills (we both do), you can translate those to real estate. Of course, you need a brain too, to be good (last I checked, it was still there), of course.
I am a nice person (honest ) and next month when I receive my license and start working, there'll be at least one nice real estate agent who shows up with a laptop booting Linux:-)
You're spot on. I used to live in Viet Nam, and I never once saw a shop even selling legit software, because nearly all individuals, and even most businesses, couldn't afford that stuff. I wouldn't even know where to buy a legit copy of Windows there. Neither would my (Vietnamese) wife. The only non-pirated software I ever saw in Viet Nam was on new systems from name manufacturers like Compaq, which came with a factory preload of (at least) Windows XP.
In Viet Nam, computer stores generally sell only hardware. They don't deal in pirated software (that I ever saw; that's sold in shops that sell only software), but they also don't deal in legit software, because they'd never sell any even if they did. A legit copy of MS Office Professional or Photoshop costs more than what most people make in a month in Saigon, and more than what many people make in a year in the countryside. If the disparity between income and software prices were that great in the United States, we'd have a 90% piracy rate, too.
If the BSA thinks that piracy rate somehow translates into massive numbers of lost sales, they're even farther out of touch with reality than we believe. For the reasons mentioned above, as many others here have noted, if people in countries like Viet Nam couldn't buy pirated software they would buy none at all because they simply couldn't afford it.
What does that 90% piracy rate really represent, then? Simply this: the price that the makers of proprietary software pay to prevent FOSS from completely taking over the developing world. If the BSA could and did prevent all pirated software from being sold there, all that would happen is every PC that now runs pirated software in those countries would be running some flavor of Linux or BSD, and OpenOffice.org, Koffice, and Gimp would rule the day. The proprietary vendors would probably never regain their foothold in those places. They know this, and that's why they largely turn a blind eye to the rampant piracy there. If they stop doing so, it'll be the best boost FOSS could ask for in the developing world. So I hope they start working as hard as possible on anti-piracy enforcement right away:-)
A good set of the basic skills others have mentioned, and one other key skill:
The ability to solve, or at least attempt to solve, most problems by yourself. That is, if something's wrong, you can describe the problem well enough to put some relevant search terms into Google and find some likely answers. The extent of your problem solving skills should not be asking the sysadmin.
I've met countless people who were very good at using a category of application software - Photoshop wizards, spreadsheet aces, etc., who could only use a computer as long as it was functioning normally. If there was even the slightest abnormality, they were stuck. IMO, they were not computer literate, because they understood only the applications they used; they did not understand computers.
Now *that* is a definition of computer literacy: you have a working understanding of computers and the OS you use and can solve problems when something is wrong.
Interesting, maybe, but worth pursuing? I dunno. I don't think I'd want to fly in a plane that could be shot down by a script kiddie with a Pringles can:p
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You make some valid points (what's quicksilver, btw?), and while it's possible to live without a start menu well enough, the thing that I consider to be superior about a start menu is not knowing where the apps are installed (after all, how many Windows users know where their apps are installed, but they all use the start menu), but having a hierarchical way to quickly find them. Take the KDE menu, for example. If I want to run oo.org, I click the KDE menu, point to the Office submenu, and click the component I want to run. On a Mac, AFAICT, if it's an app that's not in the dock (and then you have to know which icon it is), you have to run it from the Applications folder in Finder, or run Spotlight and type its name to find it and run it. While this is generally doable if less convenient, what happens if a user doesn't know the name of the app but knows it's (just for example), a word processor? Typing it in Spotlight has just become a non-option, and digging for it in Finder may succeed but it's harder than what I just described for the KDE menu.
:-) It's probably telling that I have a brand new Macbook Pro sitting here on my desk, but I'm typing this in Konqueror on a Linux box. OK, that's partly b/c my personal email goes to this box, but I actually do have a plan to install Kubuntu in Parallels and do a lot of my work in Linux on the Macbook
However, that's more of a minor annoyance than a major problem. Not having virtual desktops counts as a major problem, a point I believe even Apple has seen, or they wouldn't be putting them in Leopard. I've used Expose and while it does it's job well enough (took me a while to figure out how to do it, though, but once I found it I thought "Wow, that was simple!" - yes, it's the Mac way ), the reason I use virtual desktops is something expose can't help with (nor is it meant to): organizing my workspace.
Expose is a tool - and a pretty good one - for finding a window that's lost under a bunch of others. Virtual desktops could be called a way of keeping them from getting lost in the first place. For example, I know my browsers are always in desktop 9, email in desktop 6, IM and VoIP in desktop 6, localhost shells in 3, remote host shells in 4, etc. Now, if I've got so many of, say, shells in desktop 4 that I can't find the one I want, then Expose still helps me, so I use it in combination with virtual desktops, but it would do a very poor job of replacing them. That's not a knock on Expose, replacing virtual desktops is just not its intended job; helping you find stuff is its job and it does that very well. It's a brilliant idea, really.
Virtual desktops are just one of those things where the X way is better. Better than the Windows way, the Mac way, or any way
BTW, would you happen to know how I can get my applications folder visible again? It vanished after I dragged it to the dock as the AC below suggested. Also, he mentions right-clicking things in the dock. How does one do that with a one-button mouse (trackpad)?
I, too, became a first-time Mac user this week (well, with one exception; 9 years ago I briefly used a Mac with OS 7.6.1 at a job, and it sucked horribly. Crashed numerous times every day and was just a general PITA. Windows 95 *was* better than that thing), when I started a new job and was issued a brand new Macbook Pro with a Core 2 Duo and 10.4.8. I'd never used OS X before and haven't touched a Mac in 9 years, so there were some things to learn, but it has generally been a very positive experience. The hardware quality is excellent, and the OS and apps are also very good. I'm primarily a Linux user and in a number of areas still prefer KDE to Mac, but I don't find myself sitting here and constantly wishing I had a Linux machine, something I would be doing if I were using XP. Still, I'm probably going to wind up doing a lot of my work in a Linux VM in Parallels :)
Two things I did find lacking were a virtual desktop manager (now using VirtueDesktop; it has some stability issues and b/c it's a hack, doesn't work as well as virtual desktops in X, but it's usable), and after a week I still think a Start menu would be a good thing to have. There's a reason why KDE, GNOME, Windows, XFCE, and most other desktop environments and window managers use one, and it isn't just to be different from Apple. I'm glad Leopard will have a native virtual desktop manager, thus leaving Vista as the only modern OS without one, but it would be nice if they would provide an optional start menu, too. I've learned how to find apps in Finder and launch them, and while I can get along that way, it's not as good as having a start menu.
However, those quibbles aside, I am very impressed with this Mac for the quality of the hardware, the superiority to Windows in almost all aspects, and the superiority even to Linux in some. This really confirms what I tell people who ask my opinion about what computer to get: if you like to tinker with stuff, get under the hood and see how it works, heavily customize things, etc., then you should take a good look at Linux. If that's not you, and you just want your computer to work, get a Mac. If you have some must-use software that is Windows-only, you can run a copy of Windows in Parallels and it will be well integrated with OS X (I have parallels on this machine, and if I'm running IE in Windows, IE appears in the dock; pretty cool). Either way, I wouldn't recommend to anyone that they buy a Windows machine unless they are a hardcore gamer (in which case they've already got one and wouldn't be asking my advice anyway).
I'm a former employee of Microsoft and would say that Vista does have its good points, but honestly, it's game, set, and match to Mac. XP doesn't measure up to OS X, and while Vista comes closer, it doesn't make the cut either.
I have a large number of Greenlite CFL bulbs in my house (75-watt equiv IIRC). None has any delay and they reach full brightness instantly. All were bought in 2004 and 2005.
As you note, they are not only much cheaper to run but are also very cool compared to incandescent bulbs. If you watch for sales, they can also be had for a very competitive price. I don't know about other areas, but it's possible to sometimes find very low prices on CFLs here in California, subsidized by the electric company (SCE in my area). I think I paid 99 cents for mine.
When I was in Walmart the other day I noticed CFLs for 74 cents. Didn't check the brand and don't know if they have a delay or not. In fact, I wasn't even aware that some of them do have a delay until I read the comments on the article. I've never had ones that did that, and I always bought the cheapest ones I could get. Just lucky, I suppose, since I'm in the camp that would find the delay very annoying.
And people should believe a foul-mouthed AC instead?
OK, here's some information that I think most people will accept as proof of my Microsoft employment: Exchange devs are in Bldg. 34. If you go out the back door of Bldg. 34 the cafeteria is off to your left on roughly a 45-degree angle and the walkway is not covered, so you get a little wet going there on a rainy day. Standing at the same back door, the parking structure for Bldg. 34 is straight away. The cafeteria pizza is great, the coffee at the pseudo-Starbucks stand in there is awful.
While this does not constitute absolute proof (and no, I'm not going to tell you my Microsoft email address), any Microsoft employee who works in Bldg. 34, is familiar with it, or even wants to head over there to check it out, can confirm that this information is correct.
I don't even get where you're coming, from, really. I was not endorsing billg for president, indeed, just the opposite. What I said was that even I, as a Microsoft employee (someone who might be expected by many to be partisan in his favor) didn't think it was a good idea, that he's a very smart guy and all, but Microsoft is a meeting-bound, bureaucratic mess.
If you want to find an asshat, I suggest you start with the nearest mirror.
Bill Gates for President? I'm a Microsoft employee, and even I don't think that's a good idea.
Why not? Well, Billg is a very smart guy, he's extremely intense, extremely intelligent - can pick out and remember the smallest details from specs that are hundreds of pages long - and has generally been a pretty good leader for Microsoft. Not many people can make the transition from running a small business with 3 employees to having that business become the biggest software company in the world, with over 60,000 employees. He did, and he did it well. He's got real talent.
However, Microsoft is also a frigging bureaucratic mess of unbelievable proportions. A lot of you have probalby read that Joel on Software article about the shutdown menu in Vista, and the dev's response to it in which he describes a year-long process of weekly meetings mostly spent arguing over design features. The thing is, the whole company is like that. While I'm pretty sure Billg is a nice guy (I don't know him pesonally, but it's my impression) and he's very smart and I'm sure he has far more integrity than most politicians, I don't really want to put anyone who oversaw the creation of such a bureaucracy in charge of the government. After all, it took government far longer to evolve such a horrid bureacracy, Microsoft did it in only 30 years, and most of that happened in the last 20.
So, while I have tremendous respect for Billg for his accomplishments at Microsoft, and also for Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs for their accomplishments, I wouldn't like to see any of them become president of the United States, thank you very much (not that Linus could, because of the stricture on being a citizen by birth, of course).
I work for Microsoft (well, nominally; I'm resigning to puruse other opportunities and today is my last day) and even I can't think of any really compelling reason to dump XP for Vista, and knowing how things usually go with a new OS release, I can think of a few compelling reasons to stand pat with XP: bugs and security flaws, in particular. XP is pretty mature and stable, whereas Vista has yet to undergo the trial by fire of being in general commercial release. I'll wait and see for a while. A good long while. Like SP1 at the earliest.
I've been using Office 2007 final since its internal release day. Outlook performance seems faster than in Office 2003. I haven't noticed a performance difference with other Office apps, but file sizes are a lot smaller thanks to the new format. The new UI takes some getting used to. My jury is still out on whether or not I prefer it to the old UI. Overall, I'd say that unless you really, really need better Outlook performance or have a tried a beta of Office 2007 somewhere and absolutely love the UI and have to have it, there's probably no compelling need for most people to get Office 2007 either.
None of my home machines have Vista or Office 2007, and I have no plans to change that in the foreseeable future, even though I can get the stuff dirt cheap through the company store.
My advice to most people is that if your current XP + Office 2003 setup is stable and meeting your needs, don't rush out to upgrade. Undoing the upgrade would be really really painful if you find yourself regretting it later.
Absolutely. If they've already made you pay an illegal music tax when you don't have any illegal music, that should give you not only the right to go and get some, but immunity if they should happen to catch you doing so.
:)
There is one potential way this crap idea of Universal's could be made to work, though: if all manufacturers of digital music players got together with all record companies and cut a deal something like what BMI, etc. have with radio stations, bars that play recorded music, etc. That is, you all pay us a royalty on the player, and in return, anyone who owns a digital music player is free to pass around music from our libraries to other owners of digital music players.
This would have a lot of benefits for a lot of people. Consumers would be free to do what they want with their music, record companies would get their cut, etc. The only people who'd lose are music stores and DRM software writers, since DRM would no longer be necessary.
Granted, you'd probably have to make it an annual fee system of some sort in order for the record companies to actually continue to get their cut and produce new releases, but it would revolutionize the music business. When record companies had some new music to release, all they'd have to do is put it up on their website or a P2P network and let people download it freely. They'd get paid through the player tax.
And I think most of us would find that sort of one-stop shopping annual fee pretty easy to swallow. Simpler by far than the current mess with different, competing, non-compatible online music stores. It would help avoid whacky situations like the Zune not working with Plays For Sure DRM
I admit that there are some implementation difficulties with an annual fee, such as how do you enforce it except by making the music player refuse to play any more music if you don't pay the fee and update its token, but these problems could be solved, and the effort and infrastructure required would probably be no worse than the DRM mess of today. It might take some special smarts in the player, like anonymously reporting playlists so they coudl figure out what was popular and divvy up the funds accordingly, but that too is solveable and easier than DRM.
I work for Microsoft too, for a little while longer, anyway (I'm resigning to pursue other opportunities) and have worked on Exchange. The criticisms people have of Exchange are pretty well founded. E2K7 is a ground-up 64-bit rewrite. Draw your own conclusions as to why.
Why do people use Exchange despite its problems with the Exchange database, trampling on SMTP standards, security holes, etc.?
Because as kludgy as Exchange may be, the set of functions it provides together with Outlook are something business find very valuable. There are three main groupware servers in the market: Exchange, Groupwise, and Domino. I'm not going to speculate on which of those three may be the best on technical merit, but the marketplace has generally chosen Exchange over the others.
Why has no FOSS alternative to Exchange ever gained any traction? Well, for one thing we have a very large installed base and trying to get companies with a large and complex infrastructure to rip it out and replace it with something else is hard as long as what they have is working. Even if the something else is both better and cheaper, getting them to make the switch is hard. If that something else is not better and cheaper, it's impossible. And from the standpoint of businesses where everyone is using Outlook, putting in an open source Exchange replacement, unless Outlook clients could talk to it natively without any extra plug-ins, does not meet the definition of "better."
Exchange is big. It's complex. It has a huge amount of code in it. Making a true FOSS drop-in Exchange replacement would be very difficult. You can duplicate the functionality pretty well, and many FOSS projects have (Kolab might be the best of those, and it's also very complex, and maintains it's own internal RPM database of its components, which I find just ugly), but AFAIK none of them is really a drop-in replacement for Exchange. If anyone could really make one, it might get adopted widely for its cost savings, but I'm not holding my breath. The alternatives out there are good enough to use in a business that does not yet have a groupware server and is setting one up, but not good enough to drive out Exchange where it's already established
Meanwhile, Exchange 2007 is a real improvement over previous versions. Faster. More secure. Exchange Edge is aimed straight at shops that are all Exchange except for Sendmail or other *nix-based servers on the network edge. We've raised the bar for how how much any FOSS Exchange replacement has to achieve to displace Exchange.
Exactly how much time did you spend in Japan?
:) I went over, saw the house, met the landlord, and liked both very much and they liked me too. I lived there for three years and they were not just nice landlords but nice next-door neighbors. When I got married, they warmly welcomed my wife, even though she didn't speak Japanese well and is a non-Japanese Asian.
I lived there for eight years, speak business level Japanese, and never lived in any of the "gaijin ghetto" (for those who don't know about them, these aren't ghettos in the usual sense, but pricier areas of major cities (esp. in Tokyo) where a significant number of foreigners tend to live beacause of proximity to entertainment districts like Roppongi and the relative ease of getting along there if you speak little or no Japanese) areas, and the only time I ever worked for a foreign-owned company was in the last year and a half or so I lived there, when my Japanese-owned employer was acquired by a foreign company.
Is there racism in Japan? Yes, some. Is it insitutionalized? Yes, in fact, that's probably one of the better places to look for it. Did I ever encounter racism there? Yes, sometimes. There are people who get there knickers in a bunch over it, and there are people who just take their business elsewhere. I fall much more into the latter category than the former. I haven't been to nearly as many countries as you have, but I've been to a bunch and lived in two other than my native one. Haven't been to Australia, but all the Australians I've met seem like about the least racist people I've run across (although Singaporeans also rank very highly here; I like Singapore better than anywhere else I've been, partly for that reason).
People who have lived in both Japan and Korean tell me that Korea is in a whole different league than Japan when it comes to racism. Maybe you haven't been there, but if you have, perhaps you could give us your take on that, along with how much time you spent in either place and how well you speak either language? Not trolling, just interested.
As far as racial pecking orders go, I have to tell you that yes, being white in Japan absolutely helps. Being white and a native English speaker probably helps even a little more. Other East Asians (my wife is a non-Japanese East Asian) rank somewhat lower than that, and South Asians, Hispanics, and blacks are rather down the pecking order still, although there are cases where that helped (being black could help you get a Japanese girlfriend, sometimes).
Another thing about Japan that many people mistakenly label as racism is you go out to rent an apartment and speak little or no Japanese, and the real estate agent and landlord(s) you're dealing with speak little or none of your language. You find they don't want to deal with you, but that's not racism, it's practicality, and I have no problem with people refusing to rent to those who cannot communicate effectively in Japanese. If you can't speak Japanese, rent an apartment in a gaijin house, that's what they're there for. Or get an English-speaking real estate agent in one of the expensive gaijin ghetto areas and let him/her handle it all for you.
The last place I lived there, when I rented a house, was in a nice, quiet little neighborhood of Kawasaki. I was changing employers and moving out of my company housing but wanted to remain in the area, so I went to a couple of real estate offices. One was clearly racist and didn't want to deal with me, my level of Japanese notwithstanding. The second one was fine. I told them what I was looking for, and they said that there weren't many places like that available in the area, but they'd check their books (no computerized MLS system there ) and they came up with a place that sounded perfect and called the landlord.
I could have filled the landlord's side of the conversation in on paper. "A foreigner? Does he speak Japanese? He does? OK, send him over."
In conclusion, yes, Japan has racist elements in some places, but it's not nearly as bad as many people make out. I would characterize the problem as being that most Japanese aren't racists, but there is a strong streak of institutionalized racism, and that is a problem.
When I got my real estate license this year and joined my local board of Realtors, I was thrilled in a way no one around me understands (agents are generally not the most computer-clued people around, and with years of sysadmin experience, they love having me around the office ) to find that logging in to our MLS system requires a one-time pad. I smile every time I use it, and wish my bank had as much clue as the my local MLS does.
/.? Or any agents at all, for that matter? I won't be surprised if the answer is "no" :)
Granted, their motivation was to stop agents' letting non-members use their MLS account, but the end result is the same: knowing my userid and PIN isn't enough, you'd also have to steal my one-time PAD generator to get into my account. OTOH WRT security clue, they don't have an https login, so if you did compromise my userid and PIN by packet sniffing, then the only barrier that remains *is* just finding a way to steal it. This is non-trivial, but I see no reason to lower the bar at all.
BTW, are there any other Linux-using real estate agents here on
What he should do depends in large part on how much he is willing to suffer for people to whom he owes nothing, and who are unlikely to defend him or even thank him. Disclosure could negatively impact (read "seriously screw up") his life for years to come.
He has already fulfilled his basic moral and ethical obligation, which was to disclose the problem to the company's management, tell them everything he knew, and make his best recommendations on how to handle it.
Beyond that, the moral, ethical, and possible legal IANAL) onus to disclose is on the company.
If your friend believes that he has an obligation to go beyond this, things to consider are (IANAL):
1) It may be either civilly or criminally illegal for him to disclose. This can vary widely depending on country and locality, so he needs to consider if he is willing to go be fined, imprisoned, or successfully sued as the price of disclosure;
2) Even if there is no statute explicitly making that disclosure illegal, the company may attempt to sue him for disclosure of trade secrets, etc., anyway and see what sticks. His contract may also contain language directly pertaining to that; if it does, he needs to watch out;
3) They are certain to turn on him for disclosure, even if they don't or can't sue him. Managers know other managers and he will get a ready-made reputation as a consultant who can't keep his mouth shut. Consultants who breach confidentiality have a much harder time finding work;
4) Does he have anyone who depends on him? I have a family to support, and my moral obligation to provide them with food, shelter, and clothing trumps any obligation I may or may not have to companies or individuals whose data may or may not have been compromised. I would do what he has already done: provide a full report to management, along with my recommendations. Then I would shut my pie hole. I owe that to my wife and children.
Finally, whatever path he intends to take - saying nothing further, contacting the customers directly, or spreading it across as much of the Web as possible - it would be a *very* good idea for him to consult with a lawyer, and get answers to these questions:
- In my country/locality, what are my legal obligations?
- In my country/locality, what are my legal risks if I make any kind of disclosure that is not legally required?
- In my country/locality, what are my legal risks from making a disclosure, even if that disclosure is legally required?
Oh, one more thing - if he decides against disclosure, draw up a plan for how that legacy software might be usable on Linux machines running WINE. It may be a lot harder for a Win32 worm to affect one of those than a Windows 98 machine, and even if it's not, the security wrappers you can put around the machine using iptables will likely render the worm unable to function even if it successfully infects the machine. If the WINE approach won't work, then propose running Windows 98 in VM Ware under Linux - the security layer made possible by the host OS still applies, even if the guest OS is totally porous.
The three funniest things I've seen on the Internet this year, in order of appearance:
1) The Border Patrol game
2) The Hadji Girl video
3) "But hang on to vi, you'll still need a decent text editor."
Note to people who want to mod me down for having a politically incorrect sense of humor: I believe the correct moderation here would be -1 Troll rather than -1 Flamebait. Not that I'm trolling; I really do think you'll need to hang onto vi to have a decent text editor.
I agree. It's their code and they can do what they want, but the only countries/militaries that will abide by this license are those that are already clearly the "good guys." That is, they subscribe to the Geneva Conventions, follow them (mostly; I doubt anyone does so completely) and are not in the habit of starting wars of aggression to expand their territory, do not use their military to terrorize their own popular, have firm civilian control over a non-corrupt (OK, reasonably; see the part about the Geneva Conventions) military, etc. Basically, this means NATO and the nations closely aligned with NATO, either formally or at least by ideals.
Basically, this means that if Syria, North Korea, Iran, China, or thinks it could use their code to its advantage and its enemies' disadvantage, they won't give a rat's arse about the license. If they even bother to read it.
This isn't meant to be a commentary on whether the NATO countries and those aligned with them are necessarily doing the right thing in all circumstances. I know there are those who will say the US shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, and others who will say they waited too long and should have done it ages ago, maybe even right after the first Persian Gulf War. There are those who will say NATO waited to long to take on Milosevic. There are those will say NATO should not have gotten involved at all. Afghanistan. So, let's have none of that.
However, overall I think we could agree that the NATO nations and others who subscribe to the same rules of conduct are generally "the good guys" and are not out to harm their own populations or anyone else, use force only when they believe it necessary and without other recourse, and make great efforts in good faith to minimize civilian casualties. As opposed to ones who tend to land on the other side; they generally believe there's no such thing as a civilian, are often not GC signatories, and have a general "anything goes" attitude towards armed conflict.
It is those sorts, who hold no generally accepted rules of war or international conduct in any regard, who will also hold the license in no regard whatsoever.
You sound like a person who read a funny quote (and it's not even all that funny) but never configured a Cisco. I love IOS. You don't often hear some describe a CLI only OS as being intuitive, but IOS is extremely intuitive. It sets a standard that no *nix shell comes close to in that regard.
:)
I don't really have much interest in putting Linux on my Linksys, but I'd love to be able to install IOS on it
If that's the case, where did his bogoscience global warming movies come from?
Listening to what he has to say, I find it far more plausible that he was always like this; he just hid it better before. Now that he's no longer an office holder and probably never will be again, he's letting it all hang out.
redbath had a good argument for why the 486sx wasn't really slimy, and I stand corrected on that point. However, "Everybody does it" is hardly an argument for something being not slimy. If everybody does a slimy thing, that does not make the thing any less slimy.
/. would say that Microsoft does, or at least has done in the past, some slimy things. They are hardly the only company, in our out of the software business, to use monopoly power and underhanded tactics to crush competition instead of competing in the market place solely on price and merit, but that does not make abuse of monopoly power and the use of underhanded tactics less slimy. It just means the slim is widespread.
Many here are on
If we assume, for example, that my initial statement was correct and all 486SX chips were just a standard 486 with the math coprocessor disabled (and some of them really were; you can bet that not *all* 486SX ships failed the FPU tests) that would be slimy. How so: it would be ripping off the people who paid for a 486DX, since it would mean that the 486DX could be sold profitably at the price point of the SX, since it was completely the *same* chip.
We see a similar case with XP Home versus XP Pro. What is XP Home, exactly? XP Pro with some compile flags turned off. SMP support, for instance.
I'm transitioning from IT to sales, so I'm not in disagreement with the idea that a thing is worth whatever the market will pay for it, but that doesn't mean there isn't some slimy-feeling stuff that goes on. If I can sell the crippled product at a profit - esp. if it costs me slightly more to cripple it than to just send it out the door as-is - I'd rather be able to sell the full product to everyone at the price of the crippled product. But, my job is to get the highest price for a thing that I can when I have my sales hat on, and the lowest price when I have my purchasing hat on, so I don't do that. I understand the reasons, but can't say that I really enjoy them.
I'll throw in a couple more bits of chip trivia here to round out mr_mischief's excellent summary. The 32/32 386 was not originally called 386DX, it was just the 80386. The first 386 chips, debuting at 16 MHz (my first one was a 20, with a whopping 4 meg of 80 ns RAM, $840 for the chip, RAM, and motherboard) were 32-bit on a 32-bit bus. The 386SX was released later, as a way of cutting the cost, and the 386DX name appeared at that point to differentiate it from its 32/16 cousin.
The 486SX actually did have a math coprocessor, it was just disabled on-chip and the 486SX was then sold for less money. An impressive (if kind of slimy) piece of marketing sleight of hand by Intel.
And those heady days of overclocking the crap out of Celerons on an Abit BP-6 motherboard. I had two Celeron 300As running at 455 MHz, reliably.
Me too, and Highway Star. It's hard to keep your foot off the floor when that's on your car stereo. Well, here in the greater LA area it's not, b/c you're in gridlock all the time anyway, but I hear it's hard to do that in some places :-p
And what, you may ask (or not) was Iron Butterfly really trying to say? The answer, my friends, is not blowin' in the wind. The answer is "In the Garden of Eden, baby, don't you know that I love you?" but in a stunning tour de force of out-morrisoning Jim Morrison, it came out as "innagaddadavida" and the name stuck.
That's already been done, this might just make it a little easier.
As the father of a couple of young children, I see this technology as a good thing. So will you, when you have kids. Not to use it for spying them, but as a safety device. In the terrible event of a child obduction, a concealed cell phone could make all the difference. Think of it as a Lo Jack for your kid, and ditch the tinfoil hat.
YMMV, of course, there are probably areas where cable is no good either, but it might be worth a try.
I've been using Time Warner Roadrunner in SoCal for about 3 years now, and I am very pleased with the quality. I've never had an outage or any other problems. I don't recall what my down/up speeds are, but I'm inferring 5 mbps down. At least, I can sustain 4.8 mbps downloads as long as the FTP site on the other end has the bandwidth to spare, and that's about as much as you're likely to get out of a 5 megabit WAN link using TCP. Most common large download: Linux install ISOs. If a connection can sustain around 4.8 mbps on something that big, it's pretty stable.
I'm currently using Roadrunner residential, but for over a year used Roadrunner Business Class where I used to live, and that was also very good. I don't think it had an SLA, but it did have some static IPs, a Time Warner-supplied router instead of just a cable modem, and a static IP for both their router and mine. Everything inside of my router (using two wasn't necessary, but I want my network edge to be under my control) was NATted, but I could have added some extra static IPs for a small fee.
Before getting RR, I first tried Speakeasy. They said I was within acceptable range of the CO (about 12,000 feet) and set me up with an account and sent me the DSL install kit. I hooked everything up and waited for it to be turned up. A few days later, somebody from Speakeasy calls up and asks how I like my DSL (at least I give them credit for being proactive on that point). I said "I dunno, it's not turned on yet." He said it was turned on a couple days before. The modem wasn't syncing at all. This led to a three-week "he said she said" clusterfsck between Speakeasy (who provides the backhaul), Covad (who owns the DSLAM), and PacBell (who owns the copper, and in whose CO the DSLAM is located). Any of you who've ever dealth with a telco in a professional capacity (been there, done that, too, which made it pretty easy to recognize what was going on) know exactly what I'm talking about.
During the three weeks, the only person who actually helped me was a PacBell lineman who came out to do a test at the demarc point. Before he came out, I'd connected the DSL modem at the demarc and it wouldn't sync there either, which eliminated my house wiring as a source of the problem. He put his testing device on the line at the demarc and said he could sync it there, but that the tester could sync under conditions where a DSL modem wouldn't have a chance. He also told me that the 12,000 feet figure I'd been given for distance from the CO was way off. His father in law lived one street over from me and a few blocks closer to the CO, and he said it was 15,000 feet from the CO to there, and that even that connection was suboptimal but he'd set it up himself and made it work as well as possible. He said it was really unlikely that DSL would work at all in my location.
I reported this back to Speakeasy, who said they would set up a conference between me, a tier 3 support person at Speakeasy, and Covad. I called at the appointed time only to find the tier 3 person at Speakeasy had blown off the appointment. Wasn't even in the office. That's the point at which I told them to just cancel the service. Once I said I was canceling, all pretense of politeness vanished. Their support guys really sucked. I don't say that lightly, because of done support and I know how hard it can be, but it's true. The lack of professionalism displayed by everyone at Speakeasy except the sales guy who called up to ask how my DSL was doing in the beginning has guaranteed that I will never, ever, no matter what, do business with Speakeasy again. All my friends know this story, too, and guess what? They all have broadband, but none of them use Speakeasy. That day, I called Roadrunner Business Class. The sales guy knew the answer to every question I asked, without having to look anything up. I asked how soon they could install, and he told me "We're booked for two days, but I can have
I agree completely. To the end user, the different distros, different versions of gcc and glibc that they use, etc., mean nothing.
/home. Along the way, I also switched from WFVM 95 to Afterstep to Windowmaker to Gnome to KDE without much pain.
/usr/local (OK, /opt might be better, but not many of us have a separate /opt so it might not work well).
Since 1998, when I started using Linux, my main distros have been, in order: Red Hat, TurboLinux, Red Hat again, Debian, and Kubuntu. Changing distros was as simple as installing the new distro and telling the installer to mount my old
That said, I think LSB is basically a good thing, but really, the danger of forking in Linux is vastly overblown. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, in all the years in which there was no LSB, no fork (that is, an incompatible kernel or other major component) happened.
Would a single standard in some areas help software developers? Yes, but mostly proprietary ones if they wanted to distribute a universally installable binary. However, proprietary software is not something about which the community cares very much. Not only is this a non-issue for me, but it's not that great of a barrier to proprietary software distribution, either: just distribute a statically linked binary with a shell script to install it in some reasonable place like
At the end of the day, LSB is fine, but if we didn't have it, it wouldn't kill us. Didn't kill us when we didn't have it, or even hurt us much. Let's not over-inflate its importance.
Well, it depends on the agent. Last year when my wife and I bought a house, we were so disappointed - no disgusted - with our agent it goes beyond words. If we didn't have a friend who is a commercial broker watching our backs (and everything our agent did), it could have been very messy.
:-)
Our experience with that left us both thinking "We could do waaaay better than that ourselves." So, I just recently passed the license exam and will start working in real estate next month while continuing my IT career, at least for now. My wife's studying for her license and will do real estate full time. It's amazing how many of the best agents and brokers I've met have a story like this. Their own bad experience with some idiot led them go into the business because they were sure they'd be better. And they were.
The thing is, being a good agent is all about customer service. It's very much like being an independent consultant in IT. You work for a brokerage, but you're an independent contractor and you're generally responsible for finding your own customers. Just like in IT consulting, being technically competent isn't enough. To be successful, esp. in the long term, you have to provide excellent customer service. The kind of service that makes people recommend you to their friends and give you referrals.
If you have good customer service skills (we both do), you can translate those to real estate. Of course, you need a brain too, to be good (last I checked, it was still there), of course.
I am a nice person (honest ) and next month when I receive my license and start working, there'll be at least one nice real estate agent who shows up with a laptop booting Linux
You're spot on. I used to live in Viet Nam, and I never once saw a shop even selling legit software, because nearly all individuals, and even most businesses, couldn't afford that stuff. I wouldn't even know where to buy a legit copy of Windows there. Neither would my (Vietnamese) wife. The only non-pirated software I ever saw in Viet Nam was on new systems from name manufacturers like Compaq, which came with a factory preload of (at least) Windows XP.
:-)
In Viet Nam, computer stores generally sell only hardware. They don't deal in pirated software (that I ever saw; that's sold in shops that sell only software), but they also don't deal in legit software, because they'd never sell any even if they did. A legit copy of MS Office Professional or Photoshop costs more than what most people make in a month in Saigon, and more than what many people make in a year in the countryside. If the disparity between income and software prices were that great in the United States, we'd have a 90% piracy rate, too.
If the BSA thinks that piracy rate somehow translates into massive numbers of lost sales, they're even farther out of touch with reality than we believe. For the reasons mentioned above, as many others here have noted, if people in countries like Viet Nam couldn't buy pirated software they would buy none at all because they simply couldn't afford it.
What does that 90% piracy rate really represent, then? Simply this: the price that the makers of proprietary software pay to prevent FOSS from completely taking over the developing world. If the BSA could and did prevent all pirated software from being sold there, all that would happen is every PC that now runs pirated software in those countries would be running some flavor of Linux or BSD, and OpenOffice.org, Koffice, and Gimp would rule the day. The proprietary vendors would probably never regain their foothold in those places. They know this, and that's why they largely turn a blind eye to the rampant piracy there. If they stop doing so, it'll be the best boost FOSS could ask for in the developing world. So I hope they start working as hard as possible on anti-piracy enforcement right away
What do I consider to be computer literacy?
A good set of the basic skills others have mentioned, and one other key skill:
The ability to solve, or at least attempt to solve, most problems by yourself. That is, if something's wrong, you can describe the problem well enough to put some relevant search terms into Google and find some likely answers. The extent of your problem solving skills should not be asking the sysadmin.
I've met countless people who were very good at using a category of application software - Photoshop wizards, spreadsheet aces, etc., who could only use a computer as long as it was functioning normally. If there was even the slightest abnormality, they were stuck. IMO, they were not computer literate, because they understood only the applications they used; they did not understand computers.
Now *that* is a definition of computer literacy: you have a working understanding of computers and the OS you use and can solve problems when something is wrong.
Interesting, maybe, but worth pursuing? I dunno. I don't think I'd want to fly in a plane that could be shot down by a script kiddie with a Pringles can :p