Thanks for the answers, yeah, Dust - it looks nice on the HP 2133 which has a black glossy bezel and aluminium elsewhere - and also has a matching Firefox theme.
As regards the VIA graphics drivers (which aren't too bad actually) IIRC is wasn't the driver itself that was the problem, but the kernel interface for the drivers that failed, so I had to copy the older working kext/so/thing to the newer kernel. I don't think I could cope without Compiz.
Throws out the concept of eating and having a drink *before* going to the cinema. Just an idea... I mean a pint of beer is £3 in a pub beforehand, and immensely more satisfying than a watered down coke.
I think they need to look at Growl on Mac OS X to see how to implement a notifications system. At least Growl has an adjustable look and feel and configuration settings.
Does it preload the "Gnome" menu yet, or do you still get that annoying pause when you first click on it?
Does the lovely dark Dusk theme work with Gnome 2.26?
Will it kill off hardware VIA graphics (HP 2133 netbook) like the last kernel upgrade, or does it now handle these properly as a third party binary blob?
I do agree, however it appears that Microsoft is making $15 per copy of XP installed on netbooks in order to compete with the Linux offering. Is it really going to want to offer Windows 7 Starter Crippled Edition for that fee? $50 however is going to be a significant difference to a purchaser who may look at that XP CD sitting on the shelf, if they get to that stage - once netbook Linux is good enough.
With people buying netbooks instead of their next laptop, that's less income for Microsoft. But still enough for them to thrive. Of course 10, 15 years out is a long time. 10 years ago KDE1 ruled Linux desktops. KDE4.3 will arguably be an awesome desktop. XP in a VM could be enough for backwards compatibility going forward.
The problem with the weekend is actually having to do those things you couldn't do during the week - mowing the lawns, doing some gardening, cleaning, drinking beer, watching sport, seeing your friends.
If you live in a basement, none of the above might apply!
As for people who are saying that they have the TV on in the background for background noise reasons... I would just find myself watching it and getting nothing done. Music is good, coffee is good, having a comfortable coding setup (chair, desk, computer, environment) even better.
Try applying that tax again when you are older, earning $40+ an hour, have very little free time (late at work again, long commute, etc) and thus your personal time is actually really valuable to you (easily $100+ an hour) and your Linux install/update has a problem with a bit of hardware in your computer that takes 5 hours to sort out.
The good thing is that these problems with Linux are getting fewer and further between. Most wireless hardware is supported out of the box now (although I had to connect via ethernet with my recent netbook to allow the system to download a binary broadcom driver), the same with graphics adaptors.
I've had an iBook for night on 4 years now. In that time I've had no downtime of any significant time (i.e., aside from software updates that might require a reboot). Everything has run well, the system has responded well, and that's on an old 1.33GHz single core CPU. Even the graphical toys in the OS are useful and helpful.
My work 2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop has had a lot of downtime in the past 2 years. Not to the point of breaking, but just OS level issues, or software 'hanging' for periods of time for no apparent reason. Also the display is poor, the case is ugly, it's heavier than it needs to be... it seems to get slower with use even!
My Linux computers at home have had a lot of time dealing with issues, getting things right (because Ubuntu isn't nice out of the box, because the drivers don't work right sometimes, because an OS update can kill off installed binary drivers (VIA graphics on my HP2133 netbook)... not so much downtime as configuration time, like a classic sports car that needs constant tinkering. I used to have time to spare, but not so much these days, so much so that the non-hassle of an Apple solution, even at +50% in price, isn't so bad.
$300,000,000 power plant. 20,000 houses. => $15,000 per house cost to provide power, up front.
So we're now looking at the power plant longevity to see if electric bills will be $1000 a year, or $3000 a year, to make up for the up-front investment. How long is the lifetime of a plant like this (ask your cousin!), I'm sure it's better than rooftop PVs (20-30 years).
For 400 pages in a one-off design I'd look into skipping the database and using whatever file-based templating and includes system the web server stack provides for.
For example this seems like a good place for Tiles, or even basic JSP Includes. Template JSPs, check. Content JSPs, check, Tiles definitions to put them together, check. Bam, done. Very maintainable as well for someone down the line, even if it isn't whambam buzzword compliant. Also very quick as the JSPs compile into Java bytecode that is pretty much generating a String to send to the client.
As soon as you need 4000 pages or some means for a non-skilled person to edit/add things, you can consider a database driven templating system, and indeed it might only add a couple of days onto the implementation time (or tweaking of existing system time), but if it isn't a need for the client, then you can bid lower than someone else who will use that.
What really matters, and nobody has mentioned it yet, is getting the damn job done to specification.
There are precious few web designers that actually can assess a user journey rather than just some static look and feel designs / templates. These people could be called a "web user interface specialist", but really it's just one specialisation under "web developer".
A decent web designer needs to be able to design as per a classical graphics designer, and turn that into HTML+CSS for use by web developers or themselves. If you can't do the graphical design, you can't call yourself a "web designer". Never mind, because "web developer" is better anyway.
The thing is, the role is different in different companies. Some will outsource the graphics design and thus want to offload the implementation to someone who can't design for toffee but who can turn a design given to them into HTML+CSS very quickly and neatly, and integrate it into a website and processes without trouble. This is another aspect of "web developer".
Other "web developers" actually do far more development work (on the server side) that touches on the web side of things. Others write loads of Java script and write the client-side Ajax functionality, etc.
Fact is, any decent "web developer" IT role is multi-job-category-spanning and will allow you to experience many different aspects of that work, from backend systems and servers, databases, SOAP/REST, third party interaction, web user interfaces, maybe even the actual graphical/structural design and user journey.
Also the games drop in price massively, and the hardware required to run them is cheaper. Brilliant for casual gamers like me, who might not be able to invest the time required to even get to needing DLC.
Not that the PS3 ever gets DLC, Microsoft pays off the companies using its monopoly-gained monies to limit it to the 360. I just hope there is a time limit to the DLC platform tie-in.
The people that send off money (gifts, paying for "Get Rich Easily" books, whatever) are idiots, they were idiots 10, 20, 30 years ago for similar scams, and they'll be idiots in 10, 20, 30 years time in whatever variation comes to light then. I won't cry for them. Maybe they'll learn the really hard way, because for some people there is sadly no way of getting them to learn any other way.
However it isn't right that YouTube is giving these people a free advertising platform. There are some people out there that are actually vulnerable (for whatever reason, this shouldn't matter) and society does need to protect them.
In the UK I have Virgin Media cable, and have had it for nearly 8 years.
Right now I pay £10 a month (and phone service is another £10, in their 2 for £20 deal) for 10mbit service (recently increased from 2mbit) that can get slower in the evening in order to serve peak hours more fairly. There are no bandwidth caps, just traffic management during peak hours (4pm - midnight I believe). This is fine by me, and I rarely notice it (although I understand in other parts of the country this is a problem, sometimes). Remember these fees include VAT, that's probably less that $30/month for home phone with unlimited internet. In the UK - a laggard by European terms.
Then again in the UK the entire market is open to anyone - your phone line can be unbundled at the physical level, or you can buy from many ISPs who buy wholesale service from BT's network. This is where market regulation up front has worked (with teething trouble at times) instead of waiting for capitalism to "do its thing". Cable is actually more restrictive, but as every house gets a phone line (universal service obligation) you will always have a very large set of alternative options for internet and phone service.
Firstly, why would anyone decide to go to a "juice bar" in the evening? It isn't a viable business plan.
Secondly, switching hand pumps for beer for other devices isn't like switching a nozzle at the end of the drink delivery system.
Also the company that won the contract is a pub company, their skills lie with pub management, not "juice bar" management.
I would hope that the contract for the lease was worded so that any premature cessation of the contract would incur large fees for the company that shortened the contract. I would imagine that the contract was a 10 year lease, given the costs of fitting a place out initially that you need to remake. I just hope that these fees cover the company's costs. Shame it won't cover the 22 employees' life situation now. All in all it is a very scummy move from Microsoft, and probably a result of some small-minded person higher up who dislikes alcohol for whatever reason.
Also surely there is a requirement for a notification period, say a month? Why wouldn't there be? I can't help but think that the contract is very one-sided and that the Spitfire company screwed up.
Anyway, over 5 years, you will replace a CFL once, maybe twice if you have bad electrics (but that will similarly reduce the lifetime of an incandescent). So (pessimistically) every three years you will replace your $2.50 CFL. That's better than every year for a good incandescent, although the latter costs 25c. If you have good electrics there's no reason a good CFL can't last for many years. You will get a saving.
And why not try out some lights as decent CFLs to see how your wife reacts, you don't need to replace all at once. However I suspect you'll buy the worst CFLs you can find in order to engineer the result that you desire.
65 bulbs, lets assume 60W equivalent on average because of the chandeliers. That's 15W you pay for.
65 bulbs * 4 hours a day * 365 days a year * 60W * 15c/kw = $620 65 bulbs * 4 hours a day * 365 days a year * 15W * 15c/kw = $155
Savings per year: $465 (not excluding bulb replacement, at 5x the rate for incandescents at 1/10th the price). With chandeliers, bulb replacement must be a real pain in the arse, so doing them at 1/5th of the rate must be a real time and effort saving.
They'd rather sell a lot fewer songs at $1.29 a pop than loads at $0.69?
Oh wait, with the latter their artists might get out of indebtedness sooner and thus leave them.
Music is overpriced, there's so much music out there that it's not special to the purchaser, it's everyday and the price should reflect that. Also there is a recession on and people aren't buying, the cost of living has gone up a lot, people have less spare money.
Fact is the record labels hate Apple, and don't want them to be so powerful, so they're putting loads of restrictions on to screw them up. In the meantime Amazon has put 0.0002% of its catalogue on at 29p a track, WOWOWOOOOO really, not.
No, he goes to the pickle farm, takes a cutting off of one of their plants, goes home, roots it and grows his own pickles. Having learned how to grow his own pickles he continues to do so, thus never buying pickles from the pickle company again.
Well assuming that this is a 20 year investment, if the wholesale price is around 200 Kangarollas a year, they're more than make the cost back over that time.
A private company would want to see a 10x ROI, so whilst they could build it for the same 2 Koala-Kangarollas, they would have to charge a wholesale fee of 2000 a year, which simply isn't tenable (i.e., nobody would buy service), hence I presume why their quotes were much higher (I presume they quoted higher...?).
"expected to employ 47,000 people at peak. It will be wholesale only and completely open access"
Well this is exactly how network infrastructure should be done. Provides jobs (economic stimulus) to provide a long-term benefit to the country as a whole, and it won't compete for customer sales because it's wholesale only, hence no unfair competition from the network owner.
I'm just surprised it's the Australians that are doing it. Maybe there will be deep packet inspection systems throughout in case you happen to see a picture of a woman's ankle, or exceed more than 1GB of traffic within a single year...
I just don't understand how something as important as a vote on new laws can be done on the spur of the moment.
I couldn't see a system any less than timetabling the discussion and vote for specific times in the future, with a certain number of voters required, and with adequate notice given to all members who can vote.
The sad fact there is no democracy, however much we're told there is and however much we go through the charade every few years of voting. The government exists as a buffer between the plebs (us) who want democracy and a say, and those (rich people and corporations) who want their own way. Their main aim is to distract us from the things that matter that aren't in our favour.
Exactly. You have the ability to configure the Windows laptops (as he had to do) to match the MacBook Pro machine he was comparing against.
Isn't that unfair to the Windows machines? Using the MacBook Pro hardware as a baseline?
Why not also pick some PC laptop configurations and try to get a similar MacBook? Even ignoring the screensize as Apple grade by screen size rather than technical specification (CPU, GPU, RAM, HD)?
I like Macs, but they're not good value for money. If you have to think about the cost in depth, you can't afford it.
My opinion on 17" laptops is different. I think you're better off buying a cheap laptop with DVI out and a monitor. You get the portability (not an 8lb monster like the one in the advert) and the screen estate when you settle to do real work. If your work demands a 17" laptop, then your work pays you enough to not care about the cost of a MacBook!
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the answers, yeah, Dust - it looks nice on the HP 2133 which has a black glossy bezel and aluminium elsewhere - and also has a matching Firefox theme.
As regards the VIA graphics drivers (which aren't too bad actually) IIRC is wasn't the driver itself that was the problem, but the kernel interface for the drivers that failed, so I had to copy the older working kext/so/thing to the newer kernel. I don't think I could cope without Compiz.
Throws out the concept of eating and having a drink *before* going to the cinema. Just an idea ... I mean a pint of beer is £3 in a pub beforehand, and immensely more satisfying than a watered down coke.
I think they need to look at Growl on Mac OS X to see how to implement a notifications system. At least Growl has an adjustable look and feel and configuration settings.
Does it preload the "Gnome" menu yet, or do you still get that annoying pause when you first click on it?
Does the lovely dark Dusk theme work with Gnome 2.26?
Will it kill off hardware VIA graphics (HP 2133 netbook) like the last kernel upgrade, or does it now handle these properly as a third party binary blob?
Will it give me free beer and hookers?
I do agree, however it appears that Microsoft is making $15 per copy of XP installed on netbooks in order to compete with the Linux offering. Is it really going to want to offer Windows 7 Starter Crippled Edition for that fee? $50 however is going to be a significant difference to a purchaser who may look at that XP CD sitting on the shelf, if they get to that stage - once netbook Linux is good enough.
With people buying netbooks instead of their next laptop, that's less income for Microsoft. But still enough for them to thrive. Of course 10, 15 years out is a long time. 10 years ago KDE1 ruled Linux desktops. KDE4.3 will arguably be an awesome desktop. XP in a VM could be enough for backwards compatibility going forward.
Then where do I put the beer?
The problem with the weekend is actually having to do those things you couldn't do during the week - mowing the lawns, doing some gardening, cleaning, drinking beer, watching sport, seeing your friends.
If you live in a basement, none of the above might apply!
As for people who are saying that they have the TV on in the background for background noise reasons ... I would just find myself watching it and getting nothing done. Music is good, coffee is good, having a comfortable coding setup (chair, desk, computer, environment) even better.
Try applying that tax again when you are older, earning $40+ an hour, have very little free time (late at work again, long commute, etc) and thus your personal time is actually really valuable to you (easily $100+ an hour) and your Linux install/update has a problem with a bit of hardware in your computer that takes 5 hours to sort out.
The good thing is that these problems with Linux are getting fewer and further between. Most wireless hardware is supported out of the box now (although I had to connect via ethernet with my recent netbook to allow the system to download a binary broadcom driver), the same with graphics adaptors.
I've had an iBook for night on 4 years now. In that time I've had no downtime of any significant time (i.e., aside from software updates that might require a reboot). Everything has run well, the system has responded well, and that's on an old 1.33GHz single core CPU. Even the graphical toys in the OS are useful and helpful.
My work 2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop has had a lot of downtime in the past 2 years. Not to the point of breaking, but just OS level issues, or software 'hanging' for periods of time for no apparent reason. Also the display is poor, the case is ugly, it's heavier than it needs to be ... it seems to get slower with use even!
My Linux computers at home have had a lot of time dealing with issues, getting things right (because Ubuntu isn't nice out of the box, because the drivers don't work right sometimes, because an OS update can kill off installed binary drivers (VIA graphics on my HP2133 netbook) ... not so much downtime as configuration time, like a classic sports car that needs constant tinkering. I used to have time to spare, but not so much these days, so much so that the non-hassle of an Apple solution, even at +50% in price, isn't so bad.
$300,000,000 power plant.
20,000 houses.
=> $15,000 per house cost to provide power, up front.
So we're now looking at the power plant longevity to see if electric bills will be $1000 a year, or $3000 a year, to make up for the up-front investment. How long is the lifetime of a plant like this (ask your cousin!), I'm sure it's better than rooftop PVs (20-30 years).
For 400 pages in a one-off design I'd look into skipping the database and using whatever file-based templating and includes system the web server stack provides for.
For example this seems like a good place for Tiles, or even basic JSP Includes. Template JSPs, check. Content JSPs, check, Tiles definitions to put them together, check. Bam, done. Very maintainable as well for someone down the line, even if it isn't whambam buzzword compliant. Also very quick as the JSPs compile into Java bytecode that is pretty much generating a String to send to the client.
As soon as you need 4000 pages or some means for a non-skilled person to edit/add things, you can consider a database driven templating system, and indeed it might only add a couple of days onto the implementation time (or tweaking of existing system time), but if it isn't a need for the client, then you can bid lower than someone else who will use that.
What really matters, and nobody has mentioned it yet, is getting the damn job done to specification.
There are precious few web designers that actually can assess a user journey rather than just some static look and feel designs / templates. These people could be called a "web user interface specialist", but really it's just one specialisation under "web developer".
A decent web designer needs to be able to design as per a classical graphics designer, and turn that into HTML+CSS for use by web developers or themselves. If you can't do the graphical design, you can't call yourself a "web designer". Never mind, because "web developer" is better anyway.
The thing is, the role is different in different companies. Some will outsource the graphics design and thus want to offload the implementation to someone who can't design for toffee but who can turn a design given to them into HTML+CSS very quickly and neatly, and integrate it into a website and processes without trouble. This is another aspect of "web developer".
Other "web developers" actually do far more development work (on the server side) that touches on the web side of things. Others write loads of Java script and write the client-side Ajax functionality, etc.
Fact is, any decent "web developer" IT role is multi-job-category-spanning and will allow you to experience many different aspects of that work, from backend systems and servers, databases, SOAP/REST, third party interaction, web user interfaces, maybe even the actual graphical/structural design and user journey.
Also the games drop in price massively, and the hardware required to run them is cheaper. Brilliant for casual gamers like me, who might not be able to invest the time required to even get to needing DLC.
Not that the PS3 ever gets DLC, Microsoft pays off the companies using its monopoly-gained monies to limit it to the 360. I just hope there is a time limit to the DLC platform tie-in.
The people that send off money (gifts, paying for "Get Rich Easily" books, whatever) are idiots, they were idiots 10, 20, 30 years ago for similar scams, and they'll be idiots in 10, 20, 30 years time in whatever variation comes to light then. I won't cry for them. Maybe they'll learn the really hard way, because for some people there is sadly no way of getting them to learn any other way.
However it isn't right that YouTube is giving these people a free advertising platform. There are some people out there that are actually vulnerable (for whatever reason, this shouldn't matter) and society does need to protect them.
In the UK I have Virgin Media cable, and have had it for nearly 8 years.
Right now I pay £10 a month (and phone service is another £10, in their 2 for £20 deal) for 10mbit service (recently increased from 2mbit) that can get slower in the evening in order to serve peak hours more fairly. There are no bandwidth caps, just traffic management during peak hours (4pm - midnight I believe). This is fine by me, and I rarely notice it (although I understand in other parts of the country this is a problem, sometimes). Remember these fees include VAT, that's probably less that $30/month for home phone with unlimited internet. In the UK - a laggard by European terms.
Then again in the UK the entire market is open to anyone - your phone line can be unbundled at the physical level, or you can buy from many ISPs who buy wholesale service from BT's network. This is where market regulation up front has worked (with teething trouble at times) instead of waiting for capitalism to "do its thing". Cable is actually more restrictive, but as every house gets a phone line (universal service obligation) you will always have a very large set of alternative options for internet and phone service.
Friday lunchtime beers are the expected norm in the UK for office workers.
The only problems I've had with this are when Americans have been the bosses.
People only have a pint usually, so it doesn't affect their work. I.e., they can be responsible.
Firstly, why would anyone decide to go to a "juice bar" in the evening? It isn't a viable business plan.
Secondly, switching hand pumps for beer for other devices isn't like switching a nozzle at the end of the drink delivery system.
Also the company that won the contract is a pub company, their skills lie with pub management, not "juice bar" management.
I would hope that the contract for the lease was worded so that any premature cessation of the contract would incur large fees for the company that shortened the contract. I would imagine that the contract was a 10 year lease, given the costs of fitting a place out initially that you need to remake. I just hope that these fees cover the company's costs. Shame it won't cover the 22 employees' life situation now. All in all it is a very scummy move from Microsoft, and probably a result of some small-minded person higher up who dislikes alcohol for whatever reason.
Also surely there is a requirement for a notification period, say a month? Why wouldn't there be? I can't help but think that the contract is very one-sided and that the Spitfire company screwed up.
You pay to go to the doctor?
Anyway, over 5 years, you will replace a CFL once, maybe twice if you have bad electrics (but that will similarly reduce the lifetime of an incandescent). So (pessimistically) every three years you will replace your $2.50 CFL. That's better than every year for a good incandescent, although the latter costs 25c. If you have good electrics there's no reason a good CFL can't last for many years. You will get a saving.
And why not try out some lights as decent CFLs to see how your wife reacts, you don't need to replace all at once. However I suspect you'll buy the worst CFLs you can find in order to engineer the result that you desire.
65 bulbs, lets assume 60W equivalent on average because of the chandeliers. That's 15W you pay for.
65 bulbs * 4 hours a day * 365 days a year * 60W * 15c/kw = $620
65 bulbs * 4 hours a day * 365 days a year * 15W * 15c/kw = $155
Savings per year: $465 (not excluding bulb replacement, at 5x the rate for incandescents at 1/10th the price). With chandeliers, bulb replacement must be a real pain in the arse, so doing them at 1/5th of the rate must be a real time and effort saving.
The record labels just don't get it.
They'd rather sell a lot fewer songs at $1.29 a pop than loads at $0.69?
Oh wait, with the latter their artists might get out of indebtedness sooner and thus leave them.
Music is overpriced, there's so much music out there that it's not special to the purchaser, it's everyday and the price should reflect that. Also there is a recession on and people aren't buying, the cost of living has gone up a lot, people have less spare money.
Fact is the record labels hate Apple, and don't want them to be so powerful, so they're putting loads of restrictions on to screw them up. In the meantime Amazon has put 0.0002% of its catalogue on at 29p a track, WOWOWOOOOO really, not.
No, he goes to the pickle farm, takes a cutting off of one of their plants, goes home, roots it and grows his own pickles. Having learned how to grow his own pickles he continues to do so, thus never buying pickles from the pickle company again.
Well assuming that this is a 20 year investment, if the wholesale price is around 200 Kangarollas a year, they're more than make the cost back over that time.
A private company would want to see a 10x ROI, so whilst they could build it for the same 2 Koala-Kangarollas, they would have to charge a wholesale fee of 2000 a year, which simply isn't tenable (i.e., nobody would buy service), hence I presume why their quotes were much higher (I presume they quoted higher...?).
"expected to employ 47,000 people at peak. It will be wholesale only and completely open access"
Well this is exactly how network infrastructure should be done. Provides jobs (economic stimulus) to provide a long-term benefit to the country as a whole, and it won't compete for customer sales because it's wholesale only, hence no unfair competition from the network owner.
I'm just surprised it's the Australians that are doing it. Maybe there will be deep packet inspection systems throughout in case you happen to see a picture of a woman's ankle, or exceed more than 1GB of traffic within a single year...
I just don't understand how something as important as a vote on new laws can be done on the spur of the moment.
I couldn't see a system any less than timetabling the discussion and vote for specific times in the future, with a certain number of voters required, and with adequate notice given to all members who can vote.
The sad fact there is no democracy, however much we're told there is and however much we go through the charade every few years of voting. The government exists as a buffer between the plebs (us) who want democracy and a say, and those (rich people and corporations) who want their own way. Their main aim is to distract us from the things that matter that aren't in our favour.
Exactly. You have the ability to configure the Windows laptops (as he had to do) to match the MacBook Pro machine he was comparing against.
Isn't that unfair to the Windows machines? Using the MacBook Pro hardware as a baseline?
Why not also pick some PC laptop configurations and try to get a similar MacBook? Even ignoring the screensize as Apple grade by screen size rather than technical specification (CPU, GPU, RAM, HD)?
I like Macs, but they're not good value for money. If you have to think about the cost in depth, you can't afford it.
My opinion on 17" laptops is different. I think you're better off buying a cheap laptop with DVI out and a monitor. You get the portability (not an 8lb monster like the one in the advert) and the screen estate when you settle to do real work. If your work demands a 17" laptop, then your work pays you enough to not care about the cost of a MacBook!