"In all fairness, the parent was asked if he trusted microsoft so answering No was an option."
I have trouble buying that was the verbatim quote and answer. I'd be willing to bet that what happened was they asked him a question like that, and he revealed his biases by saying he didn't trust Microsoft.
"Also it really up to the respondant to be objective?"
What good is it to interview somebody with an agenda? A TCO study of Linux vs. Windows where all the respondents were from Slashdot would be worthless. (As would a study funded by MS.)
"The potential abuse of this service could be immense."
I'm quite sure Google has the smarts to be able to quickly pull the plug. Even so, it would take a HUGE attack to actually make Google regret they put the service up. A friend of mine pays $150 a month for a server with 1 terrabyte of bandwidth. I can only imagine what Google gets. Thousands of gigabytes of data would have to be downloaded before Google started to scratch.
"Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers"... we shall call it... USENET!!
"What about Microsoft? Well, MS has certainly paid for other "studies" to be done in the past."
Yeah, I'm sure MS paid for it. That's why they intelligently decided not to comment on the article so we'd be fooled.
"As soon as I answered that I "did not trust MS as a cSo it seems as soon as one of these companies get a negative response about the company that are footing the bill, the interview dies.
Yeah because saying that you don't trust MS is an obvious sign that you're being objective.
Like I said, the machine was moved before I could find out how long it would have lasted.
Frankly, even if I had to reboot it a month, whoop-de-fuck. The only time I had to go to Google to find out what to do with the machine was when it was discovered that by default, Exchange is a fricken spam relay. Once that was locked down, EVERYTHING else I wanted to do to either the ISS or the Exchange machine was revealed through the UI. Setting up PHP on it was a breeze. Funny thing was, I had NO experience setting these machines up as servers. Despite that, I had no issues with that one exception I mentioned.
Pfft, I probably had lower up-times but I also had virtually no down-time figuring out how to configure things like error 404 pages.
"Your problem wasn't with Linux per se but with the folk installing it being unfamiliar with it."
Actually no, it wasn't. We had a sysadmin with extensive Linux experience plus the project manager who, also, could make Linux sing.
Incidently, before engineering made the switch to Linux, we were a Windows only shop. We didn't need a dedicated sysadmin to run it. I know because I was the sysadmin. It was not, by far, a full-time job. We had occasional problems (occasional meaning: at most, once per month on average) with worms. I spent most of my time working on other projects unrelated to maintaining machines. I'm not certified or anything, I just know my way around Windows. We had about 15 people. If we had considerably more, I doubt it would have run as smoothly. However, because we did switch to Linux, we had to hire a dedicated Linux sysadmin. The dude is quite talented, but theres a few 10's of K a year just for running Linux. TCO in that case was significantly higher with Linux.
"I'd say they are equal if you discount price, which this survey did."
Seconded. After the switch to NT, Windows was actually quite usable for both servers and workstations at my previous job. Our IIS webserver had an uptime of over 180 days. (Pity we had to move it, I'm curious how long it would have lasted.)
When the engineers switched to Linux, though, there were all kinds of stupid problems getting it working. Some of them were networking, some of them had to do with flawed implementations of stuff we needed to work. (i.e. on dual-proc machines, the clock would sometimes jitter back and forth a second or two.)
I'd like to mention a couple of things, though, since dues with mod-points are often vindictive when legitimate complaints about Linux surface:
1.) This was a couple of years ago. Those problems may or may not still exist. I think it'd even be fair to say that most of the problems were likely unusual. The workstations were both development stations AND custom software was being written on them.
2.) Some of the networking problems we had may not necessarily have been the fault of Linux on the workstations. It was, however, very difficult to tell. I remember watching the engineers googling for various networking tools just to narrow down the list of suspects.
"Editors: GIVE HIM HIS OWN DAMN SECTION SO CAN HIDE HIS POSTS"
That'll never happen. Every time a Roland story pops on, a bunch of twerps come in and bitch about it. For every bitch-post, there's an ad served. For every ad served, bling bling in Slashdot's pocket.
If you guys would take off your tard hats for a moment, you'd discover that the best way to get rid of the guy is to simply stay out of his threads.
"Is Mozilla actually more secure? Or is it just as bad as any other piece of software?"
It's a commonly held belief that Microsoft programmers come from Elbonia. Once it is accepted that Mozilla programmers are just as Elbonian as MS Programmers, the security zealousy will die down.
(Disclaimer 1: This post does not say that Mozilla is less secure (or more secure, for that matter) than IE. This post does not say that Mozilla programmers are incompetent. This post does address zealotry and nothing else.)
(Disclaimer 2: It really fucking pisses me off that I have to write this stupid disclaimer because lots of people with mod-points will not accept anything that's even remotely negative about Mozilla. Learn how to take criticism before dispensing it.)
"We simply DO NOT NEED VOICE ACTIVATED CRAP. If I ever see one, the first thing I am going to do is turn it on and set it in front of the TV speaker, just to see if it will ever become self-aware and take control of the house."
I take it then that you won't accept my voice-command to STFU?
"Excuse my cynicism, but if I have to push a button in the first place, why shouldn't I just press the appropriate button to perform the desired command?"
I haven't RTFA but if you could record Macros, it'd be kinda cool. "Switch to Fox"
I know it's useful on my phone. My phonebook has quite a few numbers in it, so tying the more important ones to a voice command has made that significantly easier.
My Replay does that. Sort of. I go to Replay's site, log-in, and pick what I want recorded. The Replay picks it up on the next cycle. (Sadly, that's a downside if you want to record something urgently. But it's better than not having it at all.)
"Its like in star trek. Think about how many battles would have been won if they had a big red "fire phaser" and a green "modulate shield frequency" button an the captains chair (instead of wasting time speaking it out everytime):)"
Erm. You do realize that Patrick Stewart barks those orders to the AUDIENCE knows what's going on, right?
"I've noticed that voice commands seem to take more energy than pushing buttons. Why present it like it's an advancement?"
It depends on how it's configured, really. I have like 120 channels. I'd love to just be able to say "Switch to Cartoon Network" instead of surfing the guide to find what channel it's on. Heck, tie it into my replay, let me just say the name of the show I want to watch.
Voice control would save me time then, but I doubt this product does that.
"ll these developments for the PSP within the first month of it being released will definetley increase the market share for the PSP in the battle in sales against the DS"
No it won't.
A.) It won't take long for people to realize that these little hacks aren't so interesting. (D-Pad for typing? Right.)
B.) The DS could just as easily do all this, it's cheaper, and it has a stylus interface which would make these things far more interesting.
C.) Do you really think that enough people with 802.11 floating around will decide that wireless net is the deciding factor on buying a $250 game machine?
"If I'm right, does that mean someone could actually have some sort of legal case against FACT, seeing as they are wrongly informing consumers of their legal rights?"
I'm not claiming to be super informed on this topic, but I'm fairly certain the DMCA says "Nah, you can't copy this because you'd be undoing encryption."
I don't know if the UK has that law also or not. Clarification appreciated.
"Now if MGM said that ripping video DVDs is legal, then we would have something to talk about."
What pissses me off is that I want to rip DVDs to build my own personal (i.e. only I use it) media center. They think I'm going to rip gigabytes of data and give it away to anybody who wants it. Right.
Slashdot Mirror
"In all fairness, the parent was asked if he trusted microsoft so answering No was an option."
I have trouble buying that was the verbatim quote and answer. I'd be willing to bet that what happened was they asked him a question like that, and he revealed his biases by saying he didn't trust Microsoft.
"Also it really up to the respondant to be objective?"
What good is it to interview somebody with an agenda? A TCO study of Linux vs. Windows where all the respondents were from Slashdot would be worthless. (As would a study funded by MS.)
"Why doesn't it surprise me that the first posts are about pr0n?"
Uh, because we're beings built with procreation as our highest priority?
"The potential abuse of this service could be immense."
I'm quite sure Google has the smarts to be able to quickly pull the plug. Even so, it would take a HUGE attack to actually make Google regret they put the service up. A friend of mine pays $150 a month for a server with 1 terrabyte of bandwidth. I can only imagine what Google gets. Thousands of gigabytes of data would have to be downloaded before Google started to scratch.
"ugly am I!"
When 900 years old YOU are, look as good you will not.
"Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers" ... we shall call it... USENET!!
"What about Microsoft? Well, MS has certainly paid for other "studies" to be done in the past."
Yeah, I'm sure MS paid for it. That's why they intelligently decided not to comment on the article so we'd be fooled.
"As soon as I answered that I "did not trust MS as a cSo it seems as soon as one of these companies get a negative response about the company that are footing the bill, the interview dies.
Yeah because saying that you don't trust MS is an obvious sign that you're being objective.
"Pfft, 180 days."
Like I said, the machine was moved before I could find out how long it would have lasted.
Frankly, even if I had to reboot it a month, whoop-de-fuck. The only time I had to go to Google to find out what to do with the machine was when it was discovered that by default, Exchange is a fricken spam relay. Once that was locked down, EVERYTHING else I wanted to do to either the ISS or the Exchange machine was revealed through the UI. Setting up PHP on it was a breeze. Funny thing was, I had NO experience setting these machines up as servers. Despite that, I had no issues with that one exception I mentioned.
Pfft, I probably had lower up-times but I also had virtually no down-time figuring out how to configure things like error 404 pages.
"Your problem wasn't with Linux per se but with the folk installing it being unfamiliar with it."
Actually no, it wasn't. We had a sysadmin with extensive Linux experience plus the project manager who, also, could make Linux sing.
Incidently, before engineering made the switch to Linux, we were a Windows only shop. We didn't need a dedicated sysadmin to run it. I know because I was the sysadmin. It was not, by far, a full-time job. We had occasional problems (occasional meaning: at most, once per month on average) with worms. I spent most of my time working on other projects unrelated to maintaining machines. I'm not certified or anything, I just know my way around Windows. We had about 15 people. If we had considerably more, I doubt it would have run as smoothly. However, because we did switch to Linux, we had to hire a dedicated Linux sysadmin. The dude is quite talented, but theres a few 10's of K a year just for running Linux. TCO in that case was significantly higher with Linux.
"I'd say they are equal if you discount price, which this survey did."
Seconded. After the switch to NT, Windows was actually quite usable for both servers and workstations at my previous job. Our IIS webserver had an uptime of over 180 days. (Pity we had to move it, I'm curious how long it would have lasted.)
When the engineers switched to Linux, though, there were all kinds of stupid problems getting it working. Some of them were networking, some of them had to do with flawed implementations of stuff we needed to work. (i.e. on dual-proc machines, the clock would sometimes jitter back and forth a second or two.)
I'd like to mention a couple of things, though, since dues with mod-points are often vindictive when legitimate complaints about Linux surface:
1.) This was a couple of years ago. Those problems may or may not still exist. I think it'd even be fair to say that most of the problems were likely unusual. The workstations were both development stations AND custom software was being written on them.
2.) Some of the networking problems we had may not necessarily have been the fault of Linux on the workstations. It was, however, very difficult to tell. I remember watching the engineers googling for various networking tools just to narrow down the list of suspects.
"Editors: GIVE HIM HIS OWN DAMN SECTION SO CAN HIDE HIS POSTS"
That'll never happen. Every time a Roland story pops on, a bunch of twerps come in and bitch about it. For every bitch-post, there's an ad served. For every ad served, bling bling in Slashdot's pocket.
If you guys would take off your tard hats for a moment, you'd discover that the best way to get rid of the guy is to simply stay out of his threads.
"Is Mozilla actually more secure? Or is it just as bad as any other piece of software?"
It's a commonly held belief that Microsoft programmers come from Elbonia. Once it is accepted that Mozilla programmers are just as Elbonian as MS Programmers, the security zealousy will die down.
(Disclaimer 1: This post does not say that Mozilla is less secure (or more secure, for that matter) than IE. This post does not say that Mozilla programmers are incompetent. This post does address zealotry and nothing else.)
(Disclaimer 2: It really fucking pisses me off that I have to write this stupid disclaimer because lots of people with mod-points will not accept anything that's even remotely negative about Mozilla. Learn how to take criticism before dispensing it.)
"Who will be the first to write malware that actually kills people?"
I hear ya. I'm so sick of malware that burns up motherboards.
"How many law suits would this cause based on unknown heart conditions?"
Out of curiosity, have stun gun manufacturers been sued for this?
I don't think it matters much anyway, they'd likely use some form of vibration instead of shock.
"We simply DO NOT NEED VOICE ACTIVATED CRAP. If I ever see one, the first thing I am going to do is turn it on and set it in front of the TV speaker, just to see if it will ever become self-aware and take control of the house."
I take it then that you won't accept my voice-command to STFU?
"My voice-activated remote control is broken. I keep asking for cooking shows about "prawns" and I get something wayyyy different."
I hear ya. I have no idea why somebody thought a chess channel would attract viewers. The commercials are interesting, though.
"Excuse my cynicism, but if I have to push a button in the first place, why shouldn't I just press the appropriate button to perform the desired command?"
I haven't RTFA but if you could record Macros, it'd be kinda cool. "Switch to Fox"
I know it's useful on my phone. My phonebook has quite a few numbers in it, so tying the more important ones to a voice command has made that significantly easier.
My Replay does that. Sort of. I go to Replay's site, log-in, and pick what I want recorded. The Replay picks it up on the next cycle. (Sadly, that's a downside if you want to record something urgently. But it's better than not having it at all.)
"Its like in star trek. Think about how many battles would have been won if they had a big red "fire phaser" and a green "modulate shield frequency" button an the captains chair (instead of wasting time speaking it out everytime) :)"
Erm. You do realize that Patrick Stewart barks those orders to the AUDIENCE knows what's going on, right?
"I've noticed that voice commands seem to take more energy than pushing buttons. Why present it like it's an advancement?"
It depends on how it's configured, really.
I have like 120 channels. I'd love to just be able to say "Switch to Cartoon Network" instead of surfing the guide to find what channel it's on. Heck, tie it into my replay, let me just say the name of the show I want to watch.
Voice control would save me time then, but I doubt this product does that.
" heard somewhere that the PSP had one USB port. Couldn't you use a keyboard on it?"
Couldn't you just use the keyboard attached to your internet capable PC?
"ll these developments for the PSP within the first month of it being released will definetley increase the market share for the PSP in the battle in sales against the DS"
No it won't.
A.) It won't take long for people to realize that these little hacks aren't so interesting. (D-Pad for typing? Right.)
B.) The DS could just as easily do all this, it's cheaper, and it has a stylus interface which would make these things far more interesting.
C.) Do you really think that enough people with 802.11 floating around will decide that wireless net is the deciding factor on buying a $250 game machine?
"If I'm right, does that mean someone could actually have some sort of legal case against FACT, seeing as they are wrongly informing consumers of their legal rights?"
I'm not claiming to be super informed on this topic, but I'm fairly certain the DMCA says "Nah, you can't copy this because you'd be undoing encryption."
I don't know if the UK has that law also or not. Clarification appreciated.
"Have the record companies have ever even threatened to prosecute people who rip music from CDs and put it on their portable MP3 players? "
They have attempted to 'protect' the discs so that ripping wasn't possible.
"Now if MGM said that ripping video DVDs is legal, then we would have something to talk about."
What pissses me off is that I want to rip DVDs to build my own personal (i.e. only I use it) media center. They think I'm going to rip gigabytes of data and give it away to anybody who wants it. Right.
"This is how the story lead would appear on a cell phone. Is it good for anything but Haiku?"
I don't exactly have a top-of-the-line phone here, but I read the news on it all the time. I'd prefer a PocketPC, but this'd do in a pinch.