A self signed certificate is potentially more secure, since you haven't disclosed your private key to a third party... A lot of certificate authorities will quite happily email your cert in the clear.
The import fallacy often does not apply to software... Much is delivered online, which unless you have a very slow connection is faster to download them to obtain from a store. Many is also distributed in demo form, and you only need receive a code, receiving that in the mail is ridiculous when you could receive it online immediately.
Those who want the product now will often simply pirate it, they can get it immediately via download without having to pay anything.
Perhaps, but when writing a benchmark you really need more control of your compiler than this... You don't want it outputting code which has conditional jumps in it depending on the type of processor, every processor should run the same code and alternate code paths should be user controlled not decided by the compiler.
Then what you need is rdiff-backup, works like rsync except it keeps older copies stored as diffs.
As for FTP, why the hell does anyone still use ftp? It's insecure, works badly with nat (which is all too common) and really offers nothing you don't get from other protocols.
Yes, i'l be sure to read the terms and conditions on the website using my psychic powers next time i'm trying to sign up for a service providing internet connectivity...
What's amusing is that windows systems have several "servers" running by default (135, 139, 445 etc), some of which are difficult to turn off... They could use this as an excuse to disconnect most users. Then there's routers which open something like telnet or http so you can manage them.
If your benchmark tool is going to use multiple code paths, then they should be configurable, so that you can benchmark different systems both using the same code and more optimal code. That way you'd get an idea of how much speedup various features provide.
As an example, john the ripper's SSE2 support for cracking DES - on a core2 the SSE2 version is considerably faster and compiling the C version never comes anywhere close regardless of compiler and flags, but on an AMD compiling the generic C code with appropriate flags and a modern version of gcc produces slightly faster code.
Running the SSE2 ver on a 2.3ghz core2 quad achieves about 2mil c/s per core, while a 2.3ghz amd phenom yields about 1.6, but compiling the C source with various flags and gcc versions makes amd slightly faster, while the core2 is nowhere close.
Well, it might not be SSE2 based at all... It could be that it recognises the nano chip as an older variant VIA chip, and thus follows a codebase optimized for *that* chip... Seeing an Intel it follows a codebase optimized for whatever chip Intel had out at the time, and thus performs better.
As an example, cyrix processors used to have very weak floating point support, to the extent that it was sometimes quicker to run software floating point emulation. The older VIA chips may have had a similar issue perhaps with SSE, an issue which has been rectified in the current models but which the benchmark is unaware of.
That said, benchmarks should have a single code path, or if they have more than one they should be entirely under user control to ensure accurate benchmarks.
Personally i think all benchmarks should comes with source, as should the compiler, so you can be sure what code is going in and what's coming out, and thus what's being executed. Same for any libs that are linked in.
"Software is cheaper in canada, where it has to support english and french, compared to england where it only needs to support english."
Software in the US may well be cheaper than it is in Canada.
To explain again in simpler terms.
Most software is produced in the US.
One of the reasons cited for higher prices in Europe is localization costs.
England is in Europe, and is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, yet it is an English speaking country so no localization is necessary when importing software created in the US.
Canada typically has cheaper software than England, however software sold in canada is far more likely to support French in addition to english and therefore has higher localization costs than software sold in england.
My post was comparing prices in Canada to prices in England. No mention was made of prices in the US.
And why would companies subsidize their products (read: sell them below cost)? That's right, they wouldn't... They might reduce their profit margins because the market forces them to, but they won't subsidize. In the case of software the ongoing costs are virtually nil, once the initial investment is covered they could give it away for $1 and still make a profit.
There are also plenty of poor people in otherwise affluent countries, yet they are expected to pay high prices. Why should the poor in one country benefit from lower prices, while the poor in other countries are expected to subsidize them?
Most people don't realise they are being ripped off, they can't be bothered to get prices from foreign sellers, work out the currency conversion rates and then add or subtract the appropriate local taxes at each end to work out the true price difference.
Virtually anyone would buy the cheaper identical product if it was offered to them. Instead, companies go to great lengths to make sure this doesn't happen, often refusing to accept registrations or withholding support services.
Charging one place more than another for reasons other than those outside of your control is called discriminatory pricing.
Well, one pcie videocard for rendering the video, and we can shut down the videocard when the system isnt playing video. One tv tuner card for receiving video feeds. You would need these devices in any case for running mythtv... The videocard is likely to be the most power hungry, so shutting it down completely when not in use would be good. It should shut down when you aren't using the frontend, like when you put a purpose built dvr into standby mode.
Such a system should be paid for with a tax on companies which employ drm schemes... They have a choice wether or not they implement drm schemes which hurt the consumer. They are perfectly free to give the customer a better non encumbered deal and thus not be taxed on it.
This is a problem created by those that choose to use drm schemes, therefore they are the ones that should pay to fix it.
Those who make money from selling DRM encumbered products should be taxed on them, and the money used to set up such a database. If you think such a tax is unfair, then you can always sell non encumbered files.
These companies already expect various governments to bend over backwards to enforce their copyrights, and they expect the customers to simply accept situations like "you cant play those files you bought anymore because the activation server has been turned off" and "you have to pay twice as much for that because you live in europe" not to mention "you cant have that because we don't sell it anymore"...
If companies want to shaft their customers like this, they should get no help from the government. Government help enforcing copyrights and such should be supplied on the basis that they give their customers a fair deal.
Copyright sellers should have a responsibility to their customers...
If you sell a copyrighted work, you should be required to continue selling that work under the same terms, if that work is drm encumbered you should be required to continue support for that drm scheme until the copyright expires. Having something you bought and paid for stop working because the drm servers is turned off is even worse than not being able to buy something because the original vendor doesn't sell it anymore.
You should also be required to make it available to anyone under the same terms, none of this releasing in one country and another 6 months later at twice the price.
This is different to someone who isn't selling their work, either by not making it available at all, or giving it away for free.
Absolutely, i said something very similar before...
In order to get copyright on a work encumbered with any kind of copy prevention scheme, you must register a copy that is not encumbered with these restrictions with a government department (which is paid for by a tax on profits made from selling encumbered media).
You are then required to:
Make sure the product remains available at the lowest price you sold it for or less and under the same or better terms, not counting a government approved inflation rate (otherwise companies will just increase the price of things they don't want to sell to stupid levels to discourage sales)... Ensure that any protection or activation scheme remains usable under the same or better terms, ie you can't change the online activation to one where you need to fill out 500 paper forms and hand deliver them to the company drm office at the top of mount everest.
And all this must be done for the duration of the copyright. Or alternatively you can give up your copyright, and release the unencumbered work into the public domain. The government will also make the corresponding copy available too.
Perhaps those people foolish enough to buy the new drm'd music need educating about how microsoft turned off their last drm service, thus cutting off all their customers, and there's nothing to stop them doing it to the current zune users. It would make a good advertising campaign for one of the non drm music stores, but perhaps zune users are not a big enough market segment to make it worthwhile?
Windows realplayer was always garbage and laden with ads.. The linux clients didn't come with ads and worked a lot better... Real even went to the trouble of supporting exotic flavors of linux like linux/alpha and such, which very few other closed source apps do. Yes i would massively prefer an open source player, but real's linux support was about the best of any closed source, whatever their reasons were for not releasing the source.
They do it this way because the vast majority of people will just accept it... Most people have quite a high threshold before they are willing to kick up a fuss and complain, so companies will target their first offer just below that threshold for the majority of users.
A few people will go to the trouble and complain, and usually end up with a better deal.
That said, this case is a lot better than the recent MSN case, where they are simply turning off the activation servers and completely screwing the customers. If anything, customers here will be *BETTER OFF* than they were before, since they will have the same music but in a more sensible format that they can keep indefinitely.
The nano motherboard was also a higher end component than intel's one, it has pcie instead of pci and more sata channels... If you were to clock the nano down to be performance comparable, and reduce the other features of the motherboard the power use would be closer.
The atom being an in-order design also means it would run faster with code more optimized for it, in-order designs just shift the work of optimization to the compiler.
What i'd like however, is a low power system with pcie to run mythtv, a system that has the capability to shut off the videocard when not in use... I don't really care about small, i want a couple of pci and a pcie slot
The total power expended at idle wasn't a huge gap between the two systems... At load the Nano was considerably higher, but also considerably quicker... Via do have some headroom to down clock the Nano and still achieve comparable performance. There's also the issue of the particular motherboard that was tested being a higher end model than the one Intel sells.
The tomtom devices are linux based, you can make them play music and even video, take a look at http://www.opentom.org/ The music would sound bad coming out of the internal speaker, not sure if you can make them drive a usb speaker system or send the audio over bluetooth.
How long does it take to boot? How much did it cost? A tomtom will play music, and i believe there's ways to connect them to your sound system instead of the build in speaker, it will also navigate for you. For the functions an in car computer needs to do, windows is just ridiculously over complicated, expensive and bloated. That's why tomtom devices run a stripped down linux.
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A self signed certificate is potentially more secure, since you haven't disclosed your private key to a third party...
A lot of certificate authorities will quite happily email your cert in the clear.
The import fallacy often does not apply to software...
Much is delivered online, which unless you have a very slow connection is faster to download them to obtain from a store. Many is also distributed in demo form, and you only need receive a code, receiving that in the mail is ridiculous when you could receive it online immediately.
Those who want the product now will often simply pirate it, they can get it immediately via download without having to pay anything.
Perhaps, but when writing a benchmark you really need more control of your compiler than this...
You don't want it outputting code which has conditional jumps in it depending on the type of processor, every processor should run the same code and alternate code paths should be user controlled not decided by the compiler.
Then what you need is rdiff-backup, works like rsync except it keeps older copies stored as diffs.
As for FTP, why the hell does anyone still use ftp? It's insecure, works badly with nat (which is all too common) and really offers nothing you don't get from other protocols.
Yes, i'l be sure to read the terms and conditions on the website using my psychic powers next time i'm trying to sign up for a service providing internet connectivity...
What's amusing is that windows systems have several "servers" running by default (135, 139, 445 etc), some of which are difficult to turn off... They could use this as an excuse to disconnect most users.
Then there's routers which open something like telnet or http so you can manage them.
If your benchmark tool is going to use multiple code paths, then they should be configurable, so that you can benchmark different systems both using the same code and more optimal code. That way you'd get an idea of how much speedup various features provide.
As an example, john the ripper's SSE2 support for cracking DES - on a core2 the SSE2 version is considerably faster and compiling the C version never comes anywhere close regardless of compiler and flags, but on an AMD compiling the generic C code with appropriate flags and a modern version of gcc produces slightly faster code.
Running the SSE2 ver on a 2.3ghz core2 quad achieves about 2mil c/s per core, while a 2.3ghz amd phenom yields about 1.6, but compiling the C source with various flags and gcc versions makes amd slightly faster, while the core2 is nowhere close.
Well, it might not be SSE2 based at all...
It could be that it recognises the nano chip as an older variant VIA chip, and thus follows a codebase optimized for *that* chip...
Seeing an Intel it follows a codebase optimized for whatever chip Intel had out at the time, and thus performs better.
As an example, cyrix processors used to have very weak floating point support, to the extent that it was sometimes quicker to run software floating point emulation. The older VIA chips may have had a similar issue perhaps with SSE, an issue which has been rectified in the current models but which the benchmark is unaware of.
That said, benchmarks should have a single code path, or if they have more than one they should be entirely under user control to ensure accurate benchmarks.
Personally i think all benchmarks should comes with source, as should the compiler, so you can be sure what code is going in and what's coming out, and thus what's being executed. Same for any libs that are linked in.
To repeat myself:
"Software is cheaper in canada, where it has to support english and french, compared to england where it only needs to support english."
Software in the US may well be cheaper than it is in Canada.
To explain again in simpler terms.
Most software is produced in the US.
One of the reasons cited for higher prices in Europe is localization costs.
England is in Europe, and is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, yet it is an English speaking country so no localization is necessary when importing software created in the US.
Canada typically has cheaper software than England, however software sold in canada is far more likely to support French in addition to english and therefore has higher localization costs than software sold in england.
My post was comparing prices in Canada to prices in England. No mention was made of prices in the US.
And why would companies subsidize their products (read: sell them below cost)?
That's right, they wouldn't... They might reduce their profit margins because the market forces them to, but they won't subsidize. In the case of software the ongoing costs are virtually nil, once the initial investment is covered they could give it away for $1 and still make a profit.
There are also plenty of poor people in otherwise affluent countries, yet they are expected to pay high prices. Why should the poor in one country benefit from lower prices, while the poor in other countries are expected to subsidize them?
Most people don't realise they are being ripped off, they can't be bothered to get prices from foreign sellers, work out the currency conversion rates and then add or subtract the appropriate local taxes at each end to work out the true price difference.
Virtually anyone would buy the cheaper identical product if it was offered to them. Instead, companies go to great lengths to make sure this doesn't happen, often refusing to accept registrations or withholding support services.
Charging one place more than another for reasons other than those outside of your control is called discriminatory pricing.
Well, one pcie videocard for rendering the video, and we can shut down the videocard when the system isnt playing video.
One tv tuner card for receiving video feeds.
You would need these devices in any case for running mythtv... The videocard is likely to be the most power hungry, so shutting it down completely when not in use would be good. It should shut down when you aren't using the frontend, like when you put a purpose built dvr into standby mode.
Such a system should be paid for with a tax on companies which employ drm schemes...
They have a choice wether or not they implement drm schemes which hurt the consumer. They are perfectly free to give the customer a better non encumbered deal and thus not be taxed on it.
This is a problem created by those that choose to use drm schemes, therefore they are the ones that should pay to fix it.
Those who make money from selling DRM encumbered products should be taxed on them, and the money used to set up such a database.
If you think such a tax is unfair, then you can always sell non encumbered files.
These companies already expect various governments to bend over backwards to enforce their copyrights, and they expect the customers to simply accept situations like "you cant play those files you bought anymore because the activation server has been turned off" and "you have to pay twice as much for that because you live in europe" not to mention "you cant have that because we don't sell it anymore"...
If companies want to shaft their customers like this, they should get no help from the government. Government help enforcing copyrights and such should be supplied on the basis that they give their customers a fair deal.
Copyright sellers should have a responsibility to their customers...
If you sell a copyrighted work, you should be required to continue selling that work under the same terms, if that work is drm encumbered you should be required to continue support for that drm scheme until the copyright expires. Having something you bought and paid for stop working because the drm servers is turned off is even worse than not being able to buy something because the original vendor doesn't sell it anymore.
You should also be required to make it available to anyone under the same terms, none of this releasing in one country and another 6 months later at twice the price.
This is different to someone who isn't selling their work, either by not making it available at all, or giving it away for free.
Absolutely, i said something very similar before...
In order to get copyright on a work encumbered with any kind of copy prevention scheme, you must register a copy that is not encumbered with these restrictions with a government department (which is paid for by a tax on profits made from selling encumbered media).
You are then required to:
Make sure the product remains available at the lowest price you sold it for or less and under the same or better terms, not counting a government approved inflation rate (otherwise companies will just increase the price of things they don't want to sell to stupid levels to discourage sales)...
Ensure that any protection or activation scheme remains usable under the same or better terms, ie you can't change the online activation to one where you need to fill out 500 paper forms and hand deliver them to the company drm office at the top of mount everest.
And all this must be done for the duration of the copyright. Or alternatively you can give up your copyright, and release the unencumbered work into the public domain. The government will also make the corresponding copy available too.
What about the MSN drm servers being shut down? They didn't do much to help their customers...
Perhaps those people foolish enough to buy the new drm'd music need educating about how microsoft turned off their last drm service, thus cutting off all their customers, and there's nothing to stop them doing it to the current zune users.
It would make a good advertising campaign for one of the non drm music stores, but perhaps zune users are not a big enough market segment to make it worthwhile?
Yes, once you get big enough ISPs and other carriers will pay you for bandwidth to your content.
If your small, they will sell it to you.
Windows realplayer was always garbage and laden with ads..
The linux clients didn't come with ads and worked a lot better... Real even went to the trouble of supporting exotic flavors of linux like linux/alpha and such, which very few other closed source apps do. Yes i would massively prefer an open source player, but real's linux support was about the best of any closed source, whatever their reasons were for not releasing the source.
They do it this way because the vast majority of people will just accept it...
Most people have quite a high threshold before they are willing to kick up a fuss and complain, so companies will target their first offer just below that threshold for the majority of users.
A few people will go to the trouble and complain, and usually end up with a better deal.
That said, this case is a lot better than the recent MSN case, where they are simply turning off the activation servers and completely screwing the customers. If anything, customers here will be *BETTER OFF* than they were before, since they will have the same music but in a more sensible format that they can keep indefinitely.
The nano motherboard was also a higher end component than intel's one, it has pcie instead of pci and more sata channels...
If you were to clock the nano down to be performance comparable, and reduce the other features of the motherboard the power use would be closer.
The atom being an in-order design also means it would run faster with code more optimized for it, in-order designs just shift the work of optimization to the compiler.
What i'd like however, is a low power system with pcie to run mythtv, a system that has the capability to shut off the videocard when not in use... I don't really care about small, i want a couple of pci and a pcie slot
The total power expended at idle wasn't a huge gap between the two systems...
At load the Nano was considerably higher, but also considerably quicker...
Via do have some headroom to down clock the Nano and still achieve comparable performance. There's also the issue of the particular motherboard that was tested being a higher end model than the one Intel sells.
The tomtom devices are linux based, you can make them play music and even video, take a look at http://www.opentom.org/
The music would sound bad coming out of the internal speaker, not sure if you can make them drive a usb speaker system or send the audio over bluetooth.
How long does it take to boot? How much did it cost?
A tomtom will play music, and i believe there's ways to connect them to your sound system instead of the build in speaker, it will also navigate for you.
For the functions an in car computer needs to do, windows is just ridiculously over complicated, expensive and bloated. That's why tomtom devices run a stripped down linux.