The home page for Sequoia Voting Systems, who make these machines is here
You can have a go with an interactive demo here and view an automatic demo (with a picture of the machine) here . These may not be the actual machines used in Florida, but are likely similar.
As you can see it is a simple text-based touch-screen menu system (although elsewhere on the site they talk about showing pictures of candidates). A patent is (or at least should be) only applicable when there is something novel. They might have novel auditing stuff on the back-end, but there doesn't seem to be anything new here.
They have boughten SCO, which is a horrible OS with a mainframe like following, and is slowly destroying that too.
It's horrible and they're destroying it? So what's your problem?
All the highly moderated comments so far have been very critical of Ransom Love. The parent post here makes a lot very critical statements, but with no facts to back them up. I know Caldera as a distribution has never been particularly popular amongst geeks, and that Mr Love's views don't exactly coincide with the majority of the Slashdot readership, but whatever happened to "a rising tide lifts all boats"?
When Sun introduced payment for Star Office, reaction on Slashdot was fairly muted. People could see it still represents good value compared with MS Office, Open Office is still available for free (and Free), and businesses are happier because they can understand the revenue model and have faith that with Sun making money on it, it will have a future.
Many of us have to use Windows at work and would love to use Linux instead. Many corporations will be happier to use Linux if they think it has a viable (read profitable) future. If Caldera and OpenLinux want to charge per-seat licensing then great! With the money, they can pay people to do some of the more tedious jobs that need doing. They could update all the HOWTOs, some of which are years out of date. They could pay driver manufactures to release drivers. They could sponsor people on gcc to work specifically on pre-compiled headers, faster load times for C++ programs etc.
And guess what? If you don't want to pay for Linux, you still don't have to! So cut Caldera some slack, they just have a different business model from IBM, and go do something useful.
Are any of those things true? What does that say about the rest of the article?
I've noticed that whenever Meta group report on Linux they always denigrate it. There have been articles on ZDNET and similar places where positive things have been said by Gartner, IDC etc., but then at the end there are some words of doom from Meta Group: "it may not be ready", "there might be problems", "you can't yet run Linux on 1000 processor machines...".
But Meta Group programme director Ashim Pal says the cost of the platform is not the only consideration. 'The operating system is a relatively small part of the total cost of ownership. Purely focusing on the cost of the platform is deluded,' he said.
If you go their web-site and look for recent documents featuring Linux in the title you will find:
- Linux on the Mainframe: Nice Place to Visit, But...
- No Advantage From Linux PDAs
- Choose Palm or Pocket PC - Linux Only for Custom Apps
- Linux PDAs Offer Alternative for Low-End and Specialized Markets
- Companies Should Consider Limited Server-Based Linux Implementations
- Microsoft Criticizes Linux as Operating System Issues Move to Web Services Level
-... Linux Management: More Hype than Substance
- Linux Dreams of Management Promotion.,
- Linux: Application Server Tiers or Tears?
The thing is, some professions are regulated. You aren't allowed to practise without being recognised by your governing body. In IT that's not the case. Does a CEng from the IEE mean you're an IT professional? Do you need a CEng to bid on government IT contracts?
Also IT has a great many specialist areas. You could go to practically any solicitor and expect him/her to *be able to* draw up a will for example. In IT you couldn't go to any CEng and necessarily expect them to write a short PERL script or VB program.
Anyway, it seems clear that RegistryPro are initially just concentrating on the professions where they expect to make most money.
The Washington Post article is bit misleading in a couple of places, for example it says:
RegistryPro will sell.pro addresses only to Internet users who can prove that they are certified physicians, lawyers or accountants.
However RegistryPro actually say:
... exclusively for certified professionals around the world including, lawyers, doctors and accountants - with more professionals to come.
So the question for engineers is, what certificate? Degree? MCSE?? RHCE? And how do you classify engineers? This may be why there is currently no option for engineers. Added to the fact that engineers don't sell themselves to the public in the way the other professions listed do.
As regards the price, there have been a lot of complaints about the cost relative to a.com domain. If you can't see a difference between a.com and.pro then stick with.com. It's early days yet - wait for the marketing - if the public see a benefit in using people registered under.pro then the annual $300 registration will be insignficant, bearing in mind how much these professionals charge per hour.
... the potential for discovery will be lost if the mission is not launched in 2006. Because of the changing alignment of the planets, after 2006 the spacecraft will no longer be able to accelerate toward Pluto by swinging past Jupiter. If this window is missed, NASA would have to wait until 2018...
By that time... much of the planet's southern hemisphere--will by then be covered in a dark polar shadow, thereby preventing it from being observed. Also, it is likely that virtually all the planet's atmosphere will have condensed by then, closing off any opportunity to study it until the 23rd century...
So, yes there are closer objects to study, but not ones where now is the last chance for two centuries.
From the article, Tsuyoshi Hondou came to his conclusions by getting a plan of a train carriage, calculating ratio of window to metal area and using this to work out the proportion of microwave radiation reflected inside the carriage. He then calculated how radiation from several phones would add together. He concluded that the resulting EM field could exceed ICNIRP guidelines.
The problem is, there is no mention of any real-world measurements being taken. Maybe the model is fundamentally flawed. Maybe having people in the carriage causes the signals to be attenuated more quickly than the model allows for. Maybe the metal of the carriage is not a perfect reflector. Maybe there is destructive interference between phones like the fading on AM radio stations in the evening etc. After all, if too much of the radiation were bouncing around internally, not enough would get out to allow the phones to work at all.
I think we have to build this middle layer, this XML layer, and everybody exports to that and imports from that. In the short term it always feels good to keep making your current filters just a little bit better, but I think if you take like a three-year view, then I think StarOffice and us and KOffice and GNOME Office, if we all worked on the same thing, then we'd all be much better off in a couple years.
.
The point is, you've got 4 main groups (Star/OpenOffice, Hancom, KDE, GNOME) all developing filters for e.g. MS Office, RTF, Lotus 123, WordPerfect etc. And then each group has its own native format as well, so for full interoperability, you've got a lot of filters. It would make more sense in the longer term to have a common intermediate format. Maybe we should just use OpenOffice as the standard format(s), and turn the OpenOffice filters into a library. Then if Kword wants to read MS Word it just uses the OpenOffice filters. Of course there are some plans along these lines already - just look at the DTD - 200K! There are also a lot of good links on this page (scroll down)
Have a look at your competitors sites. A lot of people here are saying keep it simple, but if all your competitors' sites have animated GIFs, mouseover effects, gratuitous photos etc., and you don't, you may find potential clients don't even bother reading your content at all because they don't take your site seriously. For example, compare these two home pages - the content is identical, but which one looks like it might be a real company? over-complicated? or simple?.
Other things to consider:
Don't constrain your content to a two inch-wide column no matter how wide the user's browser window is.
Don't have a picture on your front page saying "click here to enter this site".
Don't use Flash, unless you're selling Flash consultancy services.
... and lastly, don't ever say "I've detected your browser and it's not IE or Nescape, so I've decided to direct you to this page instead where you won't actually be able to view this site at all, even though that's what you wanted to do, but instead there are some really useful links to download IE and Netscape".
Slashdot Mirror
You can have a go with an interactive demo here and view an automatic demo (with a picture of the machine) here . These may not be the actual machines used in Florida, but are likely similar.
As you can see it is a simple text-based touch-screen menu system (although elsewhere on the site they talk about showing pictures of candidates). A patent is (or at least should be) only applicable when there is something novel. They might have novel auditing stuff on the back-end, but there doesn't seem to be anything new here.
Ironically, they illustrate a C++ program.
It's horrible and they're destroying it? So what's your problem?
All the highly moderated comments so far have been very critical of Ransom Love. The parent post here makes a lot very critical statements, but with no facts to back them up. I know Caldera as a distribution has never been particularly popular amongst geeks, and that Mr Love's views don't exactly coincide with the majority of the Slashdot readership, but whatever happened to "a rising tide lifts all boats"?
When Sun introduced payment for Star Office, reaction on Slashdot was fairly muted. People could see it still represents good value compared with MS Office, Open Office is still available for free (and Free), and businesses are happier because they can understand the revenue model and have faith that with Sun making money on it, it will have a future.
Many of us have to use Windows at work and would love to use Linux instead. Many corporations will be happier to use Linux if they think it has a viable (read profitable) future. If Caldera and OpenLinux want to charge per-seat licensing then great! With the money, they can pay people to do some of the more tedious jobs that need doing. They could update all the HOWTOs, some of which are years out of date. They could pay driver manufactures to release drivers. They could sponsor people on gcc to work specifically on pre-compiled headers, faster load times for C++ programs etc.
And guess what? If you don't want to pay for Linux, you still don't have to! So cut Caldera some slack, they just have a different business model from IBM, and go do something useful.
I've noticed that whenever Meta group report on Linux they always denigrate it. There have been articles on ZDNET and similar places where positive things have been said by Gartner, IDC etc., but then at the end there are some words of doom from Meta Group: "it may not be ready", "there might be problems", "you can't yet run Linux on 1000 processor machines...".
For example, look at this article about Linux in investment banks. Positive news all the way through until:
But Meta Group programme director Ashim Pal says the cost of the platform is not the only consideration. 'The operating system is a relatively small part of the total cost of ownership. Purely focusing on the cost of the platform is deluded,' he said.
If you go their web-site and look for recent documents featuring Linux in the title you will find:
- Linux on the Mainframe: Nice Place to Visit, But... ... Linux Management: More Hype than Substance
- No Advantage From Linux PDAs
- Choose Palm or Pocket PC - Linux Only for Custom Apps
- Linux PDAs Offer Alternative for Low-End and Specialized Markets
- Companies Should Consider Limited Server-Based Linux Implementations
- Microsoft Criticizes Linux as Operating System Issues Move to Web Services Level
-
- Linux Dreams of Management Promotion.,
- Linux: Application Server Tiers or Tears?
I guess you can make your own minds up. BTW, Meta Group have been having a few problems themselves recently.
Recognised by whom? After all there is the PCG (Professional Contractors Group), the IAP (Institute of Analysts and Programmers), the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists...
The thing is, some professions are regulated. You aren't allowed to practise without being recognised by your governing body. In IT that's not the case. Does a CEng from the IEE mean you're an IT professional? Do you need a CEng to bid on government IT contracts?
Also IT has a great many specialist areas. You could go to practically any solicitor and expect him/her to *be able to* draw up a will for example. In IT you couldn't go to any CEng and necessarily expect them to write a short PERL script or VB program.
Anyway, it seems clear that RegistryPro are initially just concentrating on the professions where they expect to make most money.
RegistryPro will sell .pro addresses only to Internet users who can prove that they are certified physicians, lawyers or accountants.
However RegistryPro actually say:
So the question for engineers is, what certificate? Degree? MCSE?? RHCE? And how do you classify engineers? This may be why there is currently no option for engineers. Added to the fact that engineers don't sell themselves to the public in the way the other professions listed do.
As regards the price, there have been a lot of complaints about the cost relative to a .com domain. If you can't see a difference between a .com and .pro then stick with .com. It's early days yet - wait for the marketing - if the public see a benefit in using people registered under .pro then the annual $300 registration will be insignficant, bearing in mind how much these professionals charge per hour.
Now--or Never?
By that time ... much of the planet's southern hemisphere--will by then be covered in a dark polar shadow, thereby preventing it from being observed. Also, it is likely that virtually all the planet's atmosphere will have condensed by then, closing off any opportunity to study it until the 23rd century ...
So, yes there are closer objects to study, but not ones where now is the last chance for two centuries.
The problem is, there is no mention of any real-world measurements being taken. Maybe the model is fundamentally flawed. Maybe having people in the carriage causes the signals to be attenuated more quickly than the model allows for. Maybe the metal of the carriage is not a perfect reflector. Maybe there is destructive interference between phones like the fading on AM radio stations in the evening etc. After all, if too much of the radiation were bouncing around internally, not enough would get out to allow the phones to work at all.
No it couldn't. If you read to the end of Tom's page, you would see:
3. Embed is not a "circumvention device" as defined under 17 U.S.C.
3A. Embed is exempt under 1201(a)(2)(B), because it has substantial commercially significant use other than circumvention....
3B. Embed is not "primarily designed or produced" for the purpose of circumvention....
4. Embed has substantial non-infringing use
4A. Because Embed has substantial non-infringing uses (see above paragraph), it is outside the reach of 1201(a)(2)....
So, something has to be *primarily* designed and used to circumvent, before it comes under DMCA.
I think we have to build this middle layer, this XML layer, and everybody exports to that and imports from that. In the short term it always feels good to keep making your current filters just a little bit better, but I think if you take like a three-year view, then I think StarOffice and us and KOffice and GNOME Office, if we all worked on the same thing, then we'd all be much better off in a couple years.
. The point is, you've got 4 main groups (Star/OpenOffice, Hancom, KDE, GNOME) all developing filters for e.g. MS Office, RTF, Lotus 123, WordPerfect etc. And then each group has its own native format as well, so for full interoperability, you've got a lot of filters. It would make more sense in the longer term to have a common intermediate format. Maybe we should just use OpenOffice as the standard format(s), and turn the OpenOffice filters into a library. Then if Kword wants to read MS Word it just uses the OpenOffice filters. Of course there are some plans along these lines already - just look at the DTD - 200K! There are also a lot of good links on this page (scroll down)
To enable automatic complete for Cmd.exe, use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to view the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Command Processor
Edit the CompletionChar value, and set the value of REG_DWORD to 9. Note that you do not need to restart your computer.
(Emphasis mine :-) )
Other things to consider:
Don't constrain your content to a two inch-wide column no matter how wide the user's browser window is.
Don't have a picture on your front page saying "click here to enter this site".
Don't use Flash, unless you're selling Flash consultancy services.