Saying anything works "flawlessly" once installed in absolute BS. I've had plenty of "flaws" on my "Linux" sytems. I've had kernels crap out while compiling a module, daemons mysteriously shut off without leaving a log trail, one of my monitors in a dual monitor (Xinerama) setup come up with goofy vertical lines after a reboot which worked "flawlessly" before I shut down the system and with no xorg.conf changes whatsoever, only to reappear perfectly fine after another reboot... The list goes on.
There will ALWAYS be flaws in a complex system. It's just part of the game. However, the goal is to minimize the downtime due to those flaws. Windows "flaws" tend to be easy to fix because so many people use Windows and you can do a quick search to find 8 million other people who've had the same problem. Linux has a lot of that, too, but you have to know where to go to get the right answers sometimes. What makes Linux nice is that it comes free with a plethora of debugging aids and the source code as well.
I'm tired of seeing the "Linux works flawlessly" argument. NONE of the major OS's run without a problem. OpenBSD has only had 1 remote vulnerability, but then again, it comes out of the box with basically NO services running. The more services you introduce into the system, the more flaws you expose.
I had the same experience a few months ago when I stopped at my local library before a road trip. I was amazed that they carried MP3 Audiobooks, so I grabbed a couple of them. No DRM, worked great on the car MP3 CD player, and displayed normally on the computer as well. When I went to check out, the librarian was apparently just as shocked. She asked, "This is an entire book?!" Apparently, the stock the shelves, but never open the covers.
Interesting project. We use Access extensively at my office, and I am the main "programmer", but that's really only about 1/3rd of my job. There are 3 of us in the IT staff, and we handle everything from remote access to printer issues to networking to phone system wiring to appliation development, so there is never a shortage of issues to be dealt with. We will be tied to the Windows platform for a very long time due to government reporting requirements, and software doesn't exist for other platforms that meet these requirements. They change far too often for us to develop in-house replacements, but I would like to move onto a license-free platform for more applications. A tool like yours accessed through a Linux Terminal Server might be the ticket for some of our smaller apps. Web-based is nice, but the tools just aren't there yet for small developers to create rich environments for the end-user. I really like the rails concept and the one in this article, but I'm just not familiar enough with web development to move forward with it.
Anyway, enough about that. Your site has some nice screenshots and looks fairly easy to use. I'll keep tabs on it and good luck with your development! Do you have a listserv or CVS-commit mailing list to subscribe to by chance?
Keep an eye out for OpenOffice.org's 2.0 Base application. It has native ODBC and MySQL connectors that will allow you to Create, Edit, and populate tables in a similar fashion to Microsoft Access. The current Beta has a few bugs left in it, and I wouldn't say it's full-featured yet, but it's definitely matured quickly. I'll be monitoring their progress for the next few months and possibly start using their apps for generating some basic reports and automating the PDF creation. OO.o is definitely going to be a contender soon (and already is in some respects).
Re:Other places to put solar cells...
on
Solar-powered Handbag
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I wonder if the bag can be used as a makeshift flashlight (much like cell phones) if you open its "mouth" on something in the dark.
Yep, here it comes... The ever-present "feature creep". Eventually, people will be shouting for GPS locators in the handbag that can be tracked via your cell phone. Then, they'll ask for a portable generator in case of a power outage. Then, they'll ask for the bag to have the ability to "self-inflate" in case of flooding. They, we'll have someone clamoring for a small keyboard in the handbag to send text messages... The list goes on... Eventually, you'll have to put a "Start" button in the outside of the bag (or a pretty foot or a K) with an LCD display that lets you choose your options of what you want your bag to do... When it simply use to carry things... tsk...
Note: I said non-crucial files. Hence, no major reason to back them up. However, it's sometimes faster to recover files from a damaged hard drive than it is to go out and re-download all of them. ext-based filesystems have been around long enough that the recovery tools are pretty efficient at getting data back from damaged drives. But, I have found that Reiser isn't quite so friendly in this regard.
The parent has a point. Your best bet is to buy a few 500GB drives (or twice as many 250 GB drives) and set them up in a RAID array. Not quite as simple, but much more fault-tolerant.
I've given up on Resier for a while... I was using it as a home file server (for non-crucial files) on a Gentoo box last year and the drive failed. Now, hardware failures happen all of the time, but I was still able to access the drive with utilities and read raw data from it. But, none of the Reiser recovery tools worked worth a flip. I spent weeks trying to recover data from that drive on multiple machines with no luck. Sorry, but until the recovery/diagnostics tools work as well as the ones for ext-based file systems, I'm staying with the old school stuff.
Jerry Springer just got a radio spot that replaced Unfiltered. It's pretty good so far. And, yes, I like to switch back and forth between America Left and America Right on XM.
I had a computer my freshman year of college (Pentium 1 - 200, I believe) which obviously had some time of short in it. It would occassionally turn itself off for no reason, and it wouldn't come back on for anything. I would unplug it for a while, let it sit around, press buttons frantically, and nothing ever worked. All of the cables were secure, all the cards were in tight, but it wouldn't boot.
Finally, I reached in a jiggled the motherboard for a minute and then barely put the case back on and punched it as hard as I could. I tried the power button once more (after my hand stopped hurting), and it worked just fine. After that, it became a biweekly ritual to jiggle the motherboard and hit the computer to get it to work again.
Imagine if they started using this for real estate searches, too. Just link all the local back-end MLS listings to whichever region you're searching in and end up with an MLS service that's better than what most realtors pay for. By partnering with some of the larger realty companies (Century 21, Remax, etc.), they could probably take over a good chunk of the industry in a matter of a few years and make it much easier for individuals to shop for houses without the assistance of a realtor...
I recently bought an LG VX6000 from Verizon, and after digging around for a while, learned how to get my GPS coordinates by messing around with settings, then dialing a special 922 number (careful, sometimes in some areas, it forwards to 911). Not exactly a practical way to gather it, but it works.
Anyway, those sites have just about everything you'd ever want to know about any cell phone from any company. The free WAP service that you can get on most Verizon phones is pretty sweet.
By alerts, I'm pretty sure they mean updates to their virus signature patterns. We use Trend at the server, desktop, and firewall levels, and have only had one virus sneak through since the LoveLetter virus in 2000 (when we didn't have AV installed everywhere). We also have our updates scheduled to download every 3 hours. So, if there has been an updated virus signature in that 3 hour gap, our server grabs the file and pushes it out to all of the clients.
We have definitely noticed increased numbers of updates recently, and we've also noticed that more of our remote clients (which don't get patched as often) have been getting infected.
It's a game of cat and mouse, and sadly, it's looking more and more like the virus writers are the cats.
We honestly use it extensively. However, we only use the front-end piece. All of our data is stored in a mySQL database, but most of our front-ends are very complex Access forms. It's actually great to work with, and once you get the hang of it, makes application development a breeze. And, we're not a Ma and Pa shop, either. We have between 20 and 50 users in the databases all day, all using Access.
Granted, I inherited a few really bad Access DB's and had to basically rewrite them, but after you get a little experience, great things can be done with it quickly.
There are a few bugs here and there, but the majority that I've come across are due to poor ODBC drivers (we occasionally link to other DB's, too - Pervasive, Btrieve, SQL).
Slashdot Mirror
Saying anything works "flawlessly" once installed in absolute BS. I've had plenty of "flaws" on my "Linux" sytems. I've had kernels crap out while compiling a module, daemons mysteriously shut off without leaving a log trail, one of my monitors in a dual monitor (Xinerama) setup come up with goofy vertical lines after a reboot which worked "flawlessly" before I shut down the system and with no xorg.conf changes whatsoever, only to reappear perfectly fine after another reboot... The list goes on.
There will ALWAYS be flaws in a complex system. It's just part of the game. However, the goal is to minimize the downtime due to those flaws. Windows "flaws" tend to be easy to fix because so many people use Windows and you can do a quick search to find 8 million other people who've had the same problem. Linux has a lot of that, too, but you have to know where to go to get the right answers sometimes. What makes Linux nice is that it comes free with a plethora of debugging aids and the source code as well.
I'm tired of seeing the "Linux works flawlessly" argument. NONE of the major OS's run without a problem. OpenBSD has only had 1 remote vulnerability, but then again, it comes out of the box with basically NO services running. The more services you introduce into the system, the more flaws you expose.
Pingus.
(semi-working Windows [unofficial] version)
I personally think it's fun enough to dedicate my time to its development.
Interesting project. We use Access extensively at my office, and I am the main "programmer", but that's really only about 1/3rd of my job. There are 3 of us in the IT staff, and we handle everything from remote access to printer issues to networking to phone system wiring to appliation development, so there is never a shortage of issues to be dealt with. We will be tied to the Windows platform for a very long time due to government reporting requirements, and software doesn't exist for other platforms that meet these requirements. They change far too often for us to develop in-house replacements, but I would like to move onto a license-free platform for more applications. A tool like yours accessed through a Linux Terminal Server might be the ticket for some of our smaller apps. Web-based is nice, but the tools just aren't there yet for small developers to create rich environments for the end-user. I really like the rails concept and the one in this article, but I'm just not familiar enough with web development to move forward with it.
Anyway, enough about that. Your site has some nice screenshots and looks fairly easy to use. I'll keep tabs on it and good luck with your development! Do you have a listserv or CVS-commit mailing list to subscribe to by chance?
9 times out of 10, Notepad.exe will run on Wine. :-)
Yeah, I know, it was just a joke. :-)
Yep, here it comes... The ever-present "feature creep". Eventually, people will be shouting for GPS locators in the handbag that can be tracked via your cell phone. Then, they'll ask for a portable generator in case of a power outage. Then, they'll ask for the bag to have the ability to "self-inflate" in case of flooding. They, we'll have someone clamoring for a small keyboard in the handbag to send text messages... The list goes on... Eventually, you'll have to put a "Start" button in the outside of the bag (or a pretty foot or a K) with an LCD display that lets you choose your options of what you want your bag to do... When it simply use to carry things... tsk...
Note: I said non-crucial files. Hence, no major reason to back them up. However, it's sometimes faster to recover files from a damaged hard drive than it is to go out and re-download all of them. ext-based filesystems have been around long enough that the recovery tools are pretty efficient at getting data back from damaged drives. But, I have found that Reiser isn't quite so friendly in this regard.
The parent has a point. Your best bet is to buy a few 500GB drives (or twice as many 250 GB drives) and set them up in a RAID array. Not quite as simple, but much more fault-tolerant.
I've given up on Resier for a while... I was using it as a home file server (for non-crucial files) on a Gentoo box last year and the drive failed. Now, hardware failures happen all of the time, but I was still able to access the drive with utilities and read raw data from it. But, none of the Reiser recovery tools worked worth a flip. I spent weeks trying to recover data from that drive on multiple machines with no luck. Sorry, but until the recovery/diagnostics tools work as well as the ones for ext-based file systems, I'm staying with the old school stuff.
Tell that to the millions of Howard Stern listeners... :-)
Amazing how a single photo can be so... misleading...
Similar story:
I had a computer my freshman year of college (Pentium 1 - 200, I believe) which obviously had some time of short in it. It would occassionally turn itself off for no reason, and it wouldn't come back on for anything. I would unplug it for a while, let it sit around, press buttons frantically, and nothing ever worked. All of the cables were secure, all the cards were in tight, but it wouldn't boot.
Finally, I reached in a jiggled the motherboard for a minute and then barely put the case back on and punched it as hard as I could. I tried the power button once more (after my hand stopped hurting), and it worked just fine. After that, it became a biweekly ritual to jiggle the motherboard and hit the computer to get it to work again.
light just isn't that fast!
299,792,458 meters per second never really seemed that fast to me, either. 670,616,629 miles per hour? Bah! My Mitsubishi Eclipse can hit 120!
or here
I recently bought an LG VX6000 from Verizon, and after digging around for a while, learned how to get my GPS coordinates by messing around with settings, then dialing a special 922 number (careful, sometimes in some areas, it forwards to 911). Not exactly a practical way to gather it, but it works.
Anyway, those sites have just about everything you'd ever want to know about any cell phone from any company. The free WAP service that you can get on most Verizon phones is pretty sweet.
Yep, see my earlier comment.
XBox Media Center's page (googe cache)
There's my karma whoring for the month.
By alerts, I'm pretty sure they mean updates to their virus signature patterns. We use Trend at the server, desktop, and firewall levels, and have only had one virus sneak through since the LoveLetter virus in 2000 (when we didn't have AV installed everywhere). We also have our updates scheduled to download every 3 hours. So, if there has been an updated virus signature in that 3 hour gap, our server grabs the file and pushes it out to all of the clients.
We have definitely noticed increased numbers of updates recently, and we've also noticed that more of our remote clients (which don't get patched as often) have been getting infected.
It's a game of cat and mouse, and sadly, it's looking more and more like the virus writers are the cats.
We honestly use it extensively. However, we only use the front-end piece. All of our data is stored in a mySQL database, but most of our front-ends are very complex Access forms. It's actually great to work with, and once you get the hang of it, makes application development a breeze. And, we're not a Ma and Pa shop, either. We have between 20 and 50 users in the databases all day, all using Access.
Granted, I inherited a few really bad Access DB's and had to basically rewrite them, but after you get a little experience, great things can be done with it quickly.
There are a few bugs here and there, but the majority that I've come across are due to poor ODBC drivers (we occasionally link to other DB's, too - Pervasive, Btrieve, SQL).
See, reading Slashdot does make us smarter sometimes... :-)