Man... too bad I read adult material now when I read anything (okay okay, not *that* kind of adult material), but when I was younger, I *loved* his series that had Drizzt Do'Urden as the main character. (They should be / have based the new D&D movie off his works).
He is a great author though. Never knew he branched into writing S.W. books. Maybe, just maybe for nostaligic reasons I'll ummm.. pick up one for my little cousin. His name's Timmy. He's in the hospital. He's sick, but he loves reading these teenager-fantasy books. For me? Of course not, you have to be an idiot to assume *I'd* read something like that! [rushes over and grabs an issue of Maxim and a Sports Illustrated to go with it] See?
Lol... excuses. Maybe I should just order it online.
I dunno about anyone else, but I'd love to see a port of Cakewalk for Linux.
How about BeOS for sound editing? It's supposed to be the mutlimedia development platform, but are there any apps that rival Cakewalk / SoundForge in their usability? Any of them free / GPL'ed?:)
Okay. So you don't have to like his business practices, or the products he releases. But he's still a philanthropist. I seriously get pissed off when people feel the need to make fun of someone who tries to help people -- by making fun of the fact that he IS trying to help people.
Please don't get me wrong. I don't like MS. I don't like Windows. I don't like Office. I don't like a 400 (default install) meg OS that could be compressed into a very secure, *very* stable 100 meg OS if it were open source. But I like the fact that the man behind it is giving away a portion of his income to those less fortunate.
You may speak that this is a guise, something to dress up a monster. But at least he's helping people. When was the last time you wrote a check for charity, and not because you were asked, but just because you did it to truly help?
And it was founded in 1994, before even Win95 came out. Win 3.1 wasn't that great of a product, neither was DOS, but they were easy to use. Back then MS didn't have a stranglehold in applications or operating systems (I think back then WordPerfect had like, what, a 75% share of all word processing applications? I could be wrong though, but I remember old IBM XT's in my high school computer lab running some very old version of Word Perfect on Dos 3.x)
I'll paraphrase the only other thing Gates said that I liked, and fully agreed with: At least we don't have someone like Rupert Murdoch selling us an operating system. *Shudder*
Agreed. MTV used to be about the music and only the music, but now it's degraded into a cheap imitation of itself. The only few times it has shows of decent quality is around 3:00 in the morning, when they decide they want to play AMP or Beavis and Butthead. Everything else is total horsepoopy.
It's not just MTV going downhill -- it's because music in general is going downhill. How many of the bands on the top 10 are manufactured? Probably 9 of them (last time I checked, Santana was on the top 10). It's the record companies that are telling us what WE should listen to. They're not going for the groups with the most talent. They're going for the groups that they think they can market the best. That's why we don't see too many original artists anymore, all we see in mainstream radio and music television are groups that look like they've been rehashed from earlier groups.
(going way offtopic: am I the only one that's entirely pissed off about that song "Abercrombie and Fitch", or whatever the true name of the song is? It's a 5 minute radio advertisement, and it got played all over the damn place! Yet another example of people with too much money telling us what WE should be listening to).
Going back ontopic, I agree totally, and Dire Straights said it best: "I want my MTV". That used to be a slogan, that used to be a lifestyle.
That looks better than what it does in X. I tried M5 in Win92, and it was much more stable than any linux version. Weird.. I'm still seriously hoping that Netscape can pull off a great browser. Like other people have said, the rendering engine is VERY slick, but redraws are crummy, at best, and while it hasn't segfaulted yet (since I got it to run), I'm still waiting...
Even on a p3-450 w/ 128 megs of ram (running slackware 6.1 beta). I'm having a hell of a time just typing this text in here, the text cursor wants to be around 50 chracters behind the current text, even if it movez at all. (It isn't right now, and I've lost where the text is being typed, it's offscreen somewhere, so there's bound to be some typos in this). Is this thing built on GTK ? I still can't believe it, it seriously needs some work. (Oh yea, it segfaulted until I realized that I had the M9 registry in my ~/.nmozilla directory.) Oh well, maybe one day. At least the lavender look impresses any girls that happen to stop in my dorm room.
Thanks, I just got a tt font server up and running. Only thing I don't like is the location bar in Netscape, it's a weird fon't that I don't know and not sure how to fix. Oh well, I think the TT fonts are a nice tradeoff.
Now I'm starting to worry -- is the tt server on port 7100 vunerable to exploits? I hope not... (I pride myself in having as a secure system as possible, even though technically I *am* a linux newbie)
I'm gonna ignore the performance section... And ignore the NT memory leaks.
Myth: Linux is more reliable than Windows NTReality: Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than Ancedotal Stories
Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System. This means that in the event of a system failure, such as a power outage, data loss or corruption is possible. In any event, the system must check the integrity of the file system during system restart, a process that will likely consume an extended amount of time, especially on large volumes and may require manual intervention to reconstruct the file system.
Okay, maybe that's true. Running e2fsck every time I reboot IS annoying, but as long as my system FS doesn't corrupt, I'm happy.
Besides, any mission critical computer is gonna have a UPS.
However, the only time Linux really needs to go down on mission critical computers is when a new piece of hardware is installed, or when the UPS loses it's power supply. Noone, at Microsoft, at any place that uses both OS's can say the same for NT and be completly honest about it. Linux DOES crash, but so infrequently, it's not even worth mentioning.
There are no commercially proven clustering technologies to provide High Availability for Linux. The Linux community may point to numerous projects and small companies that are aiming to deliver HA functionality. D. H. Brown recently noted that these offerings remain immature and largely unproven in the demanding business world.
Beowulf.
There are no OEMs that provide uptime guarantees for Linux, unlike Windows NT where Compaq, Data General, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Unisys provide 99.9 percent system-level uptime guarantees for Windows NT-based servers.
Why do we need OEM guarantees? With a properly maintained linux system, 100% uptime can be achieved.
Myth: Linux is Free
Reality: Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership
The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model.
And how much do I have to pay an hour for support for business related technical problems with NT? I thought it was in the range of $25 an hour, but I could be mistaken... The only good thing about MS tech support is that when my Sidewinder broke, they sent out a replacement free of charge. Home users may have free technical support, but they're comparing business consulting fees. Microsoft makes quite a bit of money on their technical support lines...
Linux is a higher risk option than Windows NT. For example how many certified engineers are there for Linux? How easy is it to find skilled development and support people for Linux? Who performs end-to-end testing for Linux-based solutions? These factors and more need to be taken into account when choosing a platform for your business.
RedHat comes to mind. There's hundreds of linux support / consulting services that have sprung up on the net over the past year and a half. Just because they don't have an official titles for their consultants (MSCE makes me laugh) doesn't make them any less qualified in their areas of expertise.
Myth: Linux is more secure than Windows NT
Reality: Linux Security Model Is Weak
Linux security is all-or-nothing. Administrators cannot delegate administrative privileges: a user who needs any administrative capability must be made a full administrator, which compromises best security practices. In contrast, Windows NT allows an administrator to delegate privileges at an exceptionally fine-grained level.
Sudo. This is a flat-out lie on MS's part.
Want more lies? This is from "Linux can replace Windows on the desktop".
Linux does not provide support for the broad range of hardware in use today; Windows NT 4.0 currently supports over 39,000 systems and devices on the Hardware Compatibility List. Linux does not support important ease-of-use technologies such as Plug and Play, USB, and Power Management
Lie lie lie, lie lie lie. Pnptools, USB as a kernel module, power management as a kernel modules (yes, I do believe that when a system goes to init 0, it CAN automagically power off). If developers would release drivers for their products in linux and stop cutting corners in production cost (winmodems, winprinters, etc...), any differences in the range of supported hardware would dwindle to a big fat 0.
You know, I do have respect for Windows as an operating system. However, any respect for Microsoft as anything more than a hardware device manufacturer has just went down to nothing.
As I can find a Verdana font for X. For now, I've got Netscape overriding document fonts, using my speficied, but I actually like looking at some of the pretty fonts web pages has to offer. Yes, Verdana is quite a nice font when you're using Windows, and quite ugly in linux. I'm sure that's why the page is set up as such =)
Last year, a friend of mine across the hall tried to install BeOS. The installation was very smooth, or so he says (I never saw it get put on), but he showed me the end result. His computer was running in monochrome, and his network card couldn't be detected. He tried everything, but gave up after about 2 days.
BeOS may be able to install very quickly and painlessly, but Be needs to work on getting their drivers updated, or releasing more drivers.
Then you have to pay someone else to check your oil and coolant levels, change them or top them up when necessary, check the air pressure in your tires, and so on. Maybe it's worth it for you to pay someone else to do that once a week, but if your Mom doesn't want $400 of Microsoft OS, what makes you think she wants a computer that *NEEDS* a professional sysadmin to be usable?
Aha, there -- you just brought up a great point. Computers are nowhere as reliable as most cars are (okay, as most new cars are). And those cars that aren't reliable, hell, there's a different "lemon law" for each state that protects drivers who purchased unreliable cars.
Completly normal cars need a minimal amount of maintenace every 3000 miles or so for an oil change. So what do we do? If we want to get our hands dirty, we get underneath our cars and do it ourself. Incidentally, how long does it take you to drive 3000 miles? I drove an average of 20 miles back and forth from work over the summer, and now that I'm back in college, I don't really need a car, so 3000 miles is good enough for about 3/4 of a year's worth of driving for me. Is your computer that reliable that it doesn't need maintenace for 3 quarters of a year? If it is, I'd really like to see it, because even my linux box isn't that reliable. Sure, to me, inserting a recovery disk and running e2fsck every time my computer crashes is an easy task, but what about the novice user? Like not changing / replacing the oil, if a HD in any Unix isn't unmounted before powerdown (or even worse, is shut down while files are in transit), Bad Thingies(tm) occur. I'm not qualified to explain what they are, because I don't quite know for sure, but it's still analogous to changing a car's oil. What happens if you don't change / replace a car's oil? Well, I'm sure a few/. readers have had that happen to them... The effects aren't pleasant, and and some cases are catastrophic to the car's engine.
Does my mom know how to change a car's oil? Nope. Does she know how to run e2fsck? I don't expect her to, even if I install linux on her computer. We're still a long way away from where computers are maintenance free for three-quarters of a year, and even then only running e2fsck in linux or scandisk / defrag in windows is necessary.
Comparing computers and cars is a great idea -- it reminds us how far we still have to come...
CTP, at least from what I played, isn't a good game at all, regardless of it's speed or bugs. How about if instead we petition Loki to petition Firaxis to get them to release Alpha Centauri's code, and bring a REAL Sid Meyer game to Linux.
Reading this article reminded me of something even more interesting. Around here in our evening newspaper, there's been a message floating in the Announcements section in the classified ads for the past few months. The message reads as follows
The Oil is Shot ConserVation R Ancientis Best No Ala-R-min But Oil is all Orbit
Anyone experience anything similar in their newspapers? Can anyone figure out what this means? I'm starting to wonder now just how many encrypted messages we see in a typical day. I'm guessing this isn't the only one.
By all means, we should have a right to encode messages to send them back and forth, but when the encrypted messages appear in public such as this, or as in Number Stations, does it do something to decrease overall public morale? I see it as a challenge to decipher, but because I'm not the intended destination of the message, there's something about doing so that sends a shiver through my body...
In any case, it does little but add fuel to conspiracy theories. What we don't know may not hurt us, but what we see and aren't intended to know are the things that haunt, and even frighten us.
Reading this article reminded me of something even more interesting. Around here in our evening newspaper, there's been a message floating in the Announcements section in the classified ads for the past few months. The message reads as follows
The Oil is Shot ConserVation R Ancientis Best No Ala-R-min But Oil is all Orbit
Anyone experience anything similar in their newspapers? Can anyone figure out what this means? I'm starting to wonder now just how many encrypted messages we see in a typical day. I'm guessing this isn't the only one.
By all means, we should have a right to encode messages to send them back and forth, but when the encrypted messages appear in public such as this, or as in Number Stations, does it do something to decrease overall public morale? I see it as a challenge to decipher, but because I'm not the intended destination of the message, there's something about doing so that sends a shiver through my body...
In any case, it does little but add fuel to conspiracy theories. What we don't know may not hurt us, but what we see and aren't intended to know are the things that haunt, and even frighten us.
Yes, but then again, a bowl or a joint is a package for holding marijuana, as well a needle a package for holding herion. Possession of any will land you an arrest, containing the respective drugs or not (although a needle by itself isn't illegal, needle + spoon + empty bag would be).
Naming a file "Illegal Warez and Child Porn.tar.gz" isn't going to guarantee that is going to be it's contents, however if any fed sees that on a computer, well, you can imagine what's gonna happen.
If they have drug paraphernalia as an arrestable offense, I wonder if they'll come up with file paraphernalia. I'm sure they won't ban any particular file formats, they just may make it illegal for it to be in one's possession unless permission is granted from a specific source (the format's author, the government, etc.)
Yep, and just because I can, I've decided to list all the programs I can think of I've used which lock up with my grapics card.
Here we go.
AIM Cakewalk CuteFTP DirectCD Explorer ICQ Litestep Maple V Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel Microsoft Outlook (and Outlook Express) Microsoft Access Microsoft Powerpoint MS Dev Studio MSIE 5 (but not 4, and only when the toolbar's visible) Netscape Paint Shop Pro Photoshop 5 Quake 2 Soundforge Winamp War-FTPD Winzip (about 90% of the time I use it) Yahoo Messenger
A recursive listing of c:\windows\*.exe A recursive listing of c:\progra~1\*.exe
Countless install programs, including microsoft proprietary, installshield, and several others.
I can think of only 3 programs in Linux (X) that can do it too, but anyway...
Konsole Eterm Netscape (running java applets)
Needless to say, most of the programs it locks up with are the programs I use on a daily basis. So, it's not been very fun.
Why haven't I replaced it? All the other graphics cards around here are 16 bit ISA's, and I haven't had the drive to go out and purchase another PCI graphics card, when I am planning on using an AGP graphics card in my next computer.
So, I'd just like to say that when Hercules closes its doors, I won't be one mourning their loss.
I'll just say one thing. Hercules has sold me the only graphics card (Stingray 128/3D) that is not only capable of locking up an X Windows session, forcing me to hard-reboot, but locking up and hosing several installed libraries (including QT) in the process.
In MS Windows I get about 3-4 lockups a day, especially when I'm ftp'ing, very annoying.
I'm gonna be happy when I finally get my new system put together. I'll finally be able to, ahem, disassemble my graphics card. Now where'd I leave my blow torch and chain saw?
Okay, then they won't shut it down, but they'll take about 4 months in releasing a new article, while inviting lots of people to read the new article, but disqualifying them one by one until only a select group of people read the article, most of whom have no idea what the article stands for / means.
If you're supporting Microsoft, then there's something that you should be aware of. If linux has 6 minutes remaining, then Microsoft's current flavors of Windows (9x, 2000, NT 4 & 5) have about 3 left. The Next Best Thing(tm) will probably be out in about 3-4 years, and most geeks will flock to it. Those who use Linux then may be called the lamers, those who cannot think for themself, who refuse to change with the times, those who refuse to embrace the Next Best Thing(tm). Those who still use Windows will be living in a technological stone-age, no longer influenced by the current technologies (much like all incarnations of DOS, and even the older Apple II and Commodore are now). Those who then continue to use that software will no longer be ridiculed by those on the bleeding-edge of technology, their attention will be left with the users who still use Linux.
Unfortunately, such is the computer's lifecycle. It is inevitable that Linux will no longer be the "geek's OS" in the near future.
Also IMO, this could all be triggered by Red Hat's IPO. Money = Power ==> Greed ==> Corruption ==> Indifference to anything but the making of more $$. If you need proof, look at Microsoft. While Linux as a whole is far from being controlled by any one distribution, if one company gets enough power, then they're the one calling all the shots.
I would not be suprised if within the next year, there become real, tangable rivalries between distributions, fueled by greed and power.
Of course, this is all my opinion, I may be wrong.
My entire point is that it won't be the same, and that a 3d fully scalable engine isn't going to make a great game. We have much better looking games now, but are they more fun to play then the classics? NWN was one of the first massively multiplayer games (I think 500 people at the same time, same server, same world). There's very little Bioware can do to bring back the magic the original had.
I played Baldur's gate, and not being a big pen-and-pencil RPG fan (mostly console RPGs now), nor a big AD&D fan anymore, it didn't impress me nearly as much as NWN did when I first jumped in there. I'll never forget long nights on the server hunting for dracoliches at level 3, just hoping that the more experienced people would kill it so I could get my share of items / experience, knowing that in a few months I'll be doing what they are for the younger generation.
I'm about willing to go back to Pools of Darkness (the first Forgotten Realms AD&D game to have SVGA graphics), if I can find the CD I kept it on.
I know it won't be based on the original NWN. I'm also saying that the original NWN was one of the -best- online games. Period. Given that, the new NWN has alot to live up to.
I remember this game while using AOL *hack* *cough*. Back in those day, it used EGA grapics (no fancy 256 color VGA, this was beautiful 16 EGA), the PC speaker for beautiful sound (and noone can forget the classic title music), and took up only 1.3 megs disk space.
So now what? It's coming for linux, which is good, but because it's 1999, they're gonna find a way to bloat a game from 1.3 megs to 400+.
While playing NWN in it's AOL incarnation probably wouldn't pass as fun these days, I bet anything that this game isn't going to come close to playability that the original had. It's a shame too.. With all the storage space, grapics capabilities, sound capabilites, and multi-platform development, you'd think they'd be able to do something with it.
I guess we can only wait and see how it turns out. I'm hoping for the better, but expecting nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
Man... too bad I read adult material now when I read anything (okay okay, not *that* kind of adult material), but when I was younger, I *loved* his series that had Drizzt Do'Urden as the main character. (They should be / have based the new D&D movie off his works).
He is a great author though. Never knew he branched into writing S.W. books. Maybe, just maybe for nostaligic reasons I'll ummm.. pick up one for my little cousin. His name's Timmy. He's in the hospital. He's sick, but he loves reading these teenager-fantasy books. For me? Of course not, you have to be an idiot to assume *I'd* read something like that! [rushes over and grabs an issue of Maxim and a Sports Illustrated to go with it] See?
Lol... excuses. Maybe I should just order it online.
I dunno about anyone else, but I'd love to see a port of Cakewalk for Linux.
:)
How about BeOS for sound editing? It's supposed to be the mutlimedia development platform, but are there any apps that rival Cakewalk / SoundForge in their usability? Any of them free / GPL'ed?
Okay. So you don't have to like his business practices, or the products he releases. But he's still a philanthropist. I seriously get pissed off when people feel the need to make fun of someone who tries to help people -- by making fun of the fact that he IS trying to help people.
Please don't get me wrong. I don't like MS. I don't like Windows. I don't like Office. I don't like a 400 (default install) meg OS that could be compressed into a very secure, *very* stable 100 meg OS if it were open source. But I like the fact that the man behind it is giving away a portion of his income to those less fortunate.
You may speak that this is a guise, something to dress up a monster. But at least he's helping people. When was the last time you wrote a check for charity, and not because you were asked, but just because you did it to truly help?
And it was founded in 1994, before even Win95 came out. Win 3.1 wasn't that great of a product, neither was DOS, but they were easy to use. Back then MS didn't have a stranglehold in applications or operating systems (I think back then WordPerfect had like, what, a 75% share of all word processing applications? I could be wrong though, but I remember old IBM XT's in my high school computer lab running some very old version of Word Perfect on Dos 3.x)
I'll paraphrase the only other thing Gates said that I liked, and fully agreed with: At least we don't have someone like Rupert Murdoch selling us an operating system. *Shudder*
Agreed. MTV used to be about the music and only the music, but now it's degraded into a cheap imitation of itself. The only few times it has shows of decent quality is around 3:00 in the morning, when they decide they want to play AMP or Beavis and Butthead. Everything else is total horsepoopy.
It's not just MTV going downhill -- it's because music in general is going downhill. How many of the bands on the top 10 are manufactured? Probably 9 of them (last time I checked, Santana was on the top 10). It's the record companies that are telling us what WE should listen to. They're not going for the groups with the most talent. They're going for the groups that they think they can market the best. That's why we don't see too many original artists anymore, all we see in mainstream radio and music television are groups that look like they've been rehashed from earlier groups.
(going way offtopic: am I the only one that's entirely pissed off about that song "Abercrombie and Fitch", or whatever the true name of the song is? It's a 5 minute radio advertisement, and it got played all over the damn place! Yet another example of people with too much money telling us what WE should be listening to).
Going back ontopic, I agree totally, and Dire Straights said it best: "I want my MTV". That used to be a slogan, that used to be a lifestyle.
We need a new slogan. "I want *MY* MTV back."
That looks better than what it does in X. I tried M5 in Win92, and it was much more stable than any linux version. Weird..
I'm still seriously hoping that Netscape can pull off a great browser. Like other people have said, the rendering engine is VERY slick, but redraws are crummy, at best, and while it hasn't segfaulted yet (since I got it to run), I'm still waiting...
Even on a p3-450 w/ 128 megs of ram (running slackware 6.1 beta). I'm having a hell of a time just typing this text in here, the text cursor wants to be around 50 chracters behind the current text, even if it movez at all. (It isn't right now, and I've lost where the text is being typed, it's offscreen somewhere, so there's bound to be some typos in this). Is this thing built on GTK ? I still can't believe it, it seriously needs some work. (Oh yea, it segfaulted until I realized that I had the M9 registry in my ~/.nmozilla directory.) Oh well, maybe one day.
At least the lavender look impresses any girls that happen to stop in my dorm room.
Thanks, I just got a tt font server up and running. Only thing I don't like is the location bar in Netscape, it's a weird fon't that I don't know and not sure how to fix. Oh well, I think the TT fonts are a nice tradeoff.
Now I'm starting to worry -- is the tt server on port 7100 vunerable to exploits? I hope not... (I pride myself in having as a secure system as possible, even though technically I *am* a linux newbie)
Myth: Linux is more reliable than Windows NT Reality: Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than Ancedotal Stories
Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System. This means that in the event of a system failure, such as a power outage, data loss or corruption is possible. In any event, the system must check the integrity of the file system during system restart, a process that will likely consume an extended amount of time, especially on large volumes and may require manual intervention to reconstruct the file system.
Okay, maybe that's true. Running e2fsck every time I reboot IS annoying, but as long as my system FS doesn't corrupt, I'm happy.
Besides, any mission critical computer is gonna have a UPS.
However, the only time Linux really needs to go down on mission critical computers is when a new piece of hardware is installed, or when the UPS loses it's power supply. Noone, at Microsoft, at any place that uses both OS's can say the same for NT and be completly honest about it. Linux DOES crash, but so infrequently, it's not even worth mentioning.
There are no commercially proven clustering technologies to provide High Availability for Linux. The Linux community may point to numerous projects and small companies that are aiming to deliver HA functionality. D. H. Brown recently noted that these offerings remain immature and largely unproven in the demanding business world.
Beowulf.
There are no OEMs that provide uptime guarantees for Linux, unlike Windows NT where Compaq, Data General, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Unisys provide 99.9 percent system-level uptime guarantees for Windows NT-based servers.
Why do we need OEM guarantees? With a properly maintained linux system, 100% uptime can be achieved.
Myth: Linux is Free
Reality: Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership
The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model.
And how much do I have to pay an hour for support for business related technical problems with NT? I thought it was in the range of $25 an hour, but I could be mistaken... The only good thing about MS tech support is that when my Sidewinder broke, they sent out a replacement free of charge. Home users may have free technical support, but they're comparing business consulting fees. Microsoft makes quite a bit of money on their technical support lines...
Linux is a higher risk option than Windows NT. For example how many certified engineers are there for Linux? How easy is it to find skilled development and support people for Linux? Who performs end-to-end testing for Linux-based solutions? These factors and more need to be taken into account when choosing a platform for your business.
RedHat comes to mind. There's hundreds of linux support / consulting services that have sprung up on the net over the past year and a half. Just because they don't have an official titles for their consultants (MSCE makes me laugh) doesn't make them any less qualified in their areas of expertise.
Myth: Linux is more secure than Windows NT
Reality: Linux Security Model Is Weak
Linux security is all-or-nothing. Administrators cannot delegate administrative privileges: a user who needs any administrative capability must be made a full administrator, which compromises best security practices. In contrast, Windows NT allows an administrator to delegate privileges at an exceptionally fine-grained level.
Sudo. This is a flat-out lie on MS's part.
Want more lies? This is from "Linux can replace Windows on the desktop".
Linux does not provide support for the broad range of hardware in use today; Windows NT 4.0 currently supports over 39,000 systems and devices on the Hardware Compatibility List. Linux does not support important ease-of-use technologies such as Plug and Play, USB, and Power Management
Lie lie lie, lie lie lie. Pnptools, USB as a kernel module, power management as a kernel modules (yes, I do believe that when a system goes to init 0, it CAN automagically power off). If developers would release drivers for their products in linux and stop cutting corners in production cost (winmodems, winprinters, etc...), any differences in the range of supported hardware would dwindle to a big fat 0.
You know, I do have respect for Windows as an operating system. However, any respect for Microsoft as anything more than a hardware device manufacturer has just went down to nothing.
As I can find a Verdana font for X. For now, I've got Netscape overriding document fonts, using my speficied, but I actually like looking at some of the pretty fonts web pages has to offer. Yes, Verdana is quite a nice font when you're using Windows, and quite ugly in linux. I'm sure that's why the page is set up as such =)
Last year, a friend of mine across the hall tried to install BeOS. The installation was very smooth, or so he says (I never saw it get put on), but he showed me the end result. His computer was running in monochrome, and his network card couldn't be detected. He tried everything, but gave up after about 2 days.
BeOS may be able to install very quickly and painlessly, but Be needs to work on getting their drivers updated, or releasing more drivers.
Aha, there -- you just brought up a great point. Computers are nowhere as reliable as most cars are (okay, as most new cars are). And those cars that aren't reliable, hell, there's a different "lemon law" for each state that protects drivers who purchased unreliable cars.
Completly normal cars need a minimal amount of maintenace every 3000 miles or so for an oil change. So what do we do? If we want to get our hands dirty, we get underneath our cars and do it ourself. Incidentally, how long does it take you to drive 3000 miles? I drove an average of 20 miles back and forth from work over the summer, and now that I'm back in college, I don't really need a car, so 3000 miles is good enough for about 3/4 of a year's worth of driving for me. Is your computer that reliable that it doesn't need maintenace for 3 quarters of a year? If it is, I'd really like to see it, because even my linux box isn't that reliable. Sure, to me, inserting a recovery disk and running e2fsck every time my computer crashes is an easy task, but what about the novice user? Like not changing / replacing the oil, if a HD in any Unix isn't unmounted before powerdown (or even worse, is shut down while files are in transit), Bad Thingies(tm) occur. I'm not qualified to explain what they are, because I don't quite know for sure, but it's still analogous to changing a car's oil. What happens if you don't change / replace a car's oil? Well, I'm sure a few /. readers have had that happen to them... The effects aren't pleasant, and and some cases are catastrophic to the car's engine.
Does my mom know how to change a car's oil? Nope. Does she know how to run e2fsck? I don't expect her to, even if I install linux on her computer. We're still a long way away from where computers are maintenance free for three-quarters of a year, and even then only running e2fsck in linux or scandisk / defrag in windows is necessary.
Comparing computers and cars is a great idea -- it reminds us how far we still have to come...
CTP, at least from what I played, isn't a good game at all, regardless of it's speed or bugs. How about if instead we petition Loki to petition Firaxis to get them to release Alpha Centauri's code, and bring a REAL Sid Meyer game to Linux.
The Oil is Shot
ConserVation R Ancientis Best
No Ala-R-min But Oil is all Orbit
Anyone experience anything similar in their newspapers? Can anyone figure out what this means? I'm starting to wonder now just how many encrypted messages we see in a typical day. I'm guessing this isn't the only one.
By all means, we should have a right to encode messages to send them back and forth, but when the encrypted messages appear in public such as this, or as in Number Stations, does it do something to decrease overall public morale? I see it as a challenge to decipher, but because I'm not the intended destination of the message, there's something about doing so that sends a shiver through my body...
In any case, it does little but add fuel to conspiracy theories. What we don't know may not hurt us, but what we see and aren't intended to know are the things that haunt, and even frighten us.
The Oil is Shot
ConserVation R Ancientis Best
No Ala-R-min But Oil is all Orbit
Anyone experience anything similar in their newspapers? Can anyone figure out what this means? I'm starting to wonder now just how many encrypted messages we see in a typical day. I'm guessing this isn't the only one.
By all means, we should have a right to encode messages to send them back and forth, but when the encrypted messages appear in public such as this, or as in Number Stations, does it do something to decrease overall public morale? I see it as a challenge to decipher, but because I'm not the intended destination of the message, there's something about doing so that sends a shiver through my body...
In any case, it does little but add fuel to conspiracy theories. What we don't know may not hurt us, but what we see and aren't intended to know are the things that haunt, and even frighten us.
Yes, but then again, a bowl or a joint is a package for holding marijuana, as well a needle a package for holding herion. Possession of any will land you an arrest, containing the respective drugs or not (although a needle by itself isn't illegal, needle + spoon + empty bag would be).
Naming a file "Illegal Warez and Child Porn.tar.gz" isn't going to guarantee that is going to be it's contents, however if any fed sees that on a computer, well, you can imagine what's gonna happen.
If they have drug paraphernalia as an arrestable offense, I wonder if they'll come up with file paraphernalia. I'm sure they won't ban any particular file formats, they just may make it illegal for it to be in one's possession unless permission is granted from a specific source (the format's author, the government, etc.)
Yep, and just because I can, I've decided to list all the programs I can think of I've used which lock up with my grapics card.
;-)
Here we go.
AIM
Cakewalk
CuteFTP
DirectCD
Explorer
ICQ
Litestep
Maple V
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Outlook (and Outlook Express)
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Powerpoint
MS Dev Studio
MSIE 5 (but not 4, and only when the toolbar's visible)
Netscape
Paint Shop Pro
Photoshop 5
Quake 2
Soundforge
Winamp
War-FTPD
Winzip (about 90% of the time I use it)
Yahoo Messenger
A recursive listing of c:\windows\*.exe
A recursive listing of c:\progra~1\*.exe
Countless install programs, including microsoft proprietary, installshield, and several others.
I can think of only 3 programs in Linux (X) that can do it too, but anyway...
Konsole
Eterm
Netscape (running java applets)
Needless to say, most of the programs it locks up with are the programs I use on a daily basis. So, it's not been very fun.
Why haven't I replaced it? All the other graphics cards around here are 16 bit ISA's, and I haven't had the drive to go out and purchase another PCI graphics card, when I am planning on using an AGP graphics card in my next computer.
So, I'd just like to say that when Hercules closes its doors, I won't be one mourning their loss.
I'll be out partying with my Matrox G400
I'll just say one thing. Hercules has sold me the only graphics card (Stingray 128/3D) that is not only capable of locking up an X Windows session, forcing me to hard-reboot, but locking up and hosing several installed libraries (including QT) in the process.
In MS Windows I get about 3-4 lockups a day, especially when I'm ftp'ing, very annoying.
I'm gonna be happy when I finally get my new system put together. I'll finally be able to, ahem, disassemble my graphics card. Now where'd I leave my blow torch and chain saw?
Okay, then they won't shut it down, but they'll take about 4 months in releasing a new article, while inviting lots of people to read the new article, but disqualifying them one by one until only a select group of people read the article, most of whom have no idea what the article stands for / means.
If you're supporting Microsoft, then there's something that you should be aware of. If linux has 6 minutes remaining, then Microsoft's current flavors of Windows (9x, 2000, NT 4 & 5) have about 3 left. The Next Best Thing(tm) will probably be out in about 3-4 years, and most geeks will flock to it. Those who use Linux then may be called the lamers, those who cannot think for themself, who refuse to change with the times, those who refuse to embrace the Next Best Thing(tm). Those who still use Windows will be living in a technological stone-age, no longer influenced by the current technologies (much like all incarnations of DOS, and even the older Apple II and Commodore are now). Those who then continue to use that software will no longer be ridiculed by those on the bleeding-edge of technology, their attention will be left with the users who still use Linux.
Unfortunately, such is the computer's lifecycle. It is inevitable that Linux will no longer be the "geek's OS" in the near future.
Also IMO, this could all be triggered by Red Hat's IPO. Money = Power ==> Greed ==> Corruption ==> Indifference to anything but the making of more $$. If you need proof, look at Microsoft. While Linux as a whole is far from being controlled by any one distribution, if one company gets enough power, then they're the one calling all the shots.
I would not be suprised if within the next year, there become real, tangable rivalries between distributions, fueled by greed and power.
Of course, this is all my opinion, I may be wrong.
My entire point is that it won't be the same, and that a 3d fully scalable engine isn't going to make a great game. We have much better looking games now, but are they more fun to play then the classics? NWN was one of the first massively multiplayer games (I think 500 people at the same time, same server, same world). There's very little Bioware can do to bring back the magic the original had.
I played Baldur's gate, and not being a big pen-and-pencil RPG fan (mostly console RPGs now), nor a big AD&D fan anymore, it didn't impress me nearly as much as NWN did when I first jumped in there. I'll never forget long nights on the server hunting for dracoliches at level 3, just hoping that the more experienced people would kill it so I could get my share of items / experience, knowing that in a few months I'll be doing what they are for the younger generation.
I'm about willing to go back to Pools of Darkness (the first Forgotten Realms AD&D game to have SVGA graphics), if I can find the CD I kept it on.
I know it won't be based on the original NWN. I'm also saying that the original NWN was one of the -best- online games. Period. Given that, the new NWN has alot to live up to.
I remember this game while using AOL *hack* *cough*. Back in those day, it used EGA grapics (no fancy 256 color VGA, this was beautiful 16 EGA), the PC speaker for beautiful sound (and noone can forget the classic title music), and took up only 1.3 megs disk space.
So now what? It's coming for linux, which is good, but because it's 1999, they're gonna find a way to bloat a game from 1.3 megs to 400+.
While playing NWN in it's AOL incarnation probably wouldn't pass as fun these days, I bet anything that this game isn't going to come close to playability that the original had. It's a shame too.. With all the storage space, grapics capabilities, sound capabilites, and multi-platform development, you'd think they'd be able to do something with it.
I guess we can only wait and see how it turns out. I'm hoping for the better, but expecting nothing.