Something doesn't add up to me. You can already go up to 72mi/115.8km with 802.11b in the 2.4 range. I know you don't get that high of data transfer that way but you can get really good transfers easily up to 24mi/38.6km and higher.
The only good I see coming from this will be more non-overlapping channels. But I noticed that some of the frequencies they are talking about are in the licensed bands. I really don't see how they are going to make that affordable unless the FCC opens up some frequencies.
It seems to me that cost effective deployment of such technology might be a good ways away unless I am missing something. If I am, please someone clear things up for me.
I plan on upgrading simply to see the differences and provide feedback in hopes of making the next version even better.
You are right that if someone has a stable working system that it isn't necessarily the best idea to upgrade just for the smell of it.
On the surface there are nice subtle improvements like:
-A new and better working hourglass (I don't remember it looking that way)
-MUCH improved menu arrangement (it was kind of confusing
-One stop Reboot/Shutdown options on GUI login
-Slightly better look (first impression)
-Of course there are many updated packages
In theory this is a major version revision because of binary compatibility (as I understand it). I practice it feels like incremental improvement so far. I will have to hold off my final judgement until I use 9 on my 8.0 system for a perfect comparison.
Is it ethical for us to push the envelope of genetics and create our own made to order creatures? It might seem like and easy "no" or even "yes" but it isn't.
-Imagine if scientists discovered they could splice a few certain genes to create some special breed of monkey that would live its life in pain but would offer guaranteed universal matches for organs in humans. Is that ethical?
Bionics
The abicore heart has shown that we are well on our way of having artificial organs. Is this ethical? The first inclination might be yes. I am envisioning extending life of people by an extra 50 years or so.
This might sound great but if all thing were equal and everyone could reap the benefits then that could cause serious population problems as people would live MUCH longer.
Besides, this kind of technology will probably only really be available to those that can afford it which brings up a whole other ethical issue.
I too wish the films could be better. But then I stop to ask myself "better than what?" The books? No way a film could do that. Ok, I might settle for as good as the books.
Ok, so what would it take to do that? An extra two hours of footage per film bare minimum to develop the characters and plots properly. Watching films that long would be a pure chore and they wouldn't possibly be bareable to watch in theaters.
No, the problem is that each book is really two books squeezed into one. That means that each movie is two squeezed into one. In the books, it is easier to do because you can add more pages without really changing the fact that it is just one book. Adding another two hours to a movie that is already a long film won't work.
Thus, we are left with what we have. And I am afraid that is as good as it will ever get unless someone goes back and does it again with everyone involved working for free. The only ones that will watch three 5 to 6 hour movies are the most faithful of fans. It probably wouldn't be a huge money-making endeavor.
Yes, future code could be closed but already GPL'ed versions would remain GPL'ed. So would any derivative works of a GPL licensee.
Since the orignating licensor doesn't have to have a license with themselves, it is their right to change the licensing scheme as they see fit. Licensing changes in this fashion cannot be retroactive since that would violate the original GPL license.
No, I am not a lawyer. That is just simple contract law that I have picked up here and there from the 4 people in my family that ARE lawyers.
I am not a Linux guru. I am not a complete newbie either. I have been running RH 8.0 for a number of months and so far my complaints center on no AA fonts and a firewire CD-RW that doesn't work.
Please tell me what is so bad about RPM's versus other package management systems. Why do people hate it so bad? What am I missing by using mostly RPMs? (I have done standard makefile builds before)
It seems to me that if someone could create a package management system that could read packages in all their forms and resolve any underlying dependencies then you would have one heck of a product.
How strange. For US$200.00 I once had a Red Hat tech on the phone for over an hour guiding me through setting up my first ever linux mail server. They were great.
The premise of a company is to offer a product or service for the benefit of customers in a manner that affords a profit. This is not to be confused with profiting from customers with a product or service.
The distinction is whether your focus is profit or service. I and many others feel that Microsoft's agenda is profit over service. The reason I reached that conclusion was when I saw Microsoft employ a licensing scheme that is seemingly for one purpose and one purpose only--profit.
When the time comes that profit seems to be the sole motive for a company over service, customers tend to shy away. It is happening now with Microsoft. Companies that never before considered alternatives are now looking hard at them.
Profit over service. That is why the $ is used to replace the S. At least that is why I do it. I can't really speak for others.
There were many companies that lost 100% of their office but 0% of their staff. Those are the ones I am talking about.
Here is the thing . . . the R part of RAID stands for Redundant. Business continuity is only as secure as the weakest link. All the RAID technology in the world isn't worth squat if a 3AM office fire burns up all your servers. Of course, backups are no good if you don't have offsite storage for disaster situations.
In reality, a combination of all the technologies is the best practice:
-Server colocation for uptime redundancy -RAID+1 systems for maximum hard drive tolerance -Clustered servers for maximum server redundancy -Offsite and onsite backups -Backup generators -multiple ISP's
This is all expensive but if your business lives or dies by your data, there is no question that ALL of these should be employed.
RAID does nothing when you have complete disaster. I wonder (but don't know) if any of the WTC companies relied only on RAID and failed to do offsite backups.
I bet dollars to doughnuts that if they did, they are somewhere in Chapter 11 or worse right now.
This is a huge win for consumers. This levels the playing field for true competition. It gives us more power to leverage against our carriers.
Feel like you are getting terrible service? Call customer support and say "I am very unhappy with my service. Can you fix it? No? Ok, I will switch carriers tomorrow. So will my entire family and anyone I know that I can pursuade." That is the benefit.
I fully expect to see more competitive pricing plans because the entry/exit barrier for carriers have gone down. Of course I also expect to see stiffer penalties in ending contracts early to offset this.
From the Red Hat 9 review: "Wine seems to have taken a nose dive"
If you check on www.winehq.com in their news section you will find the answer under issues 155 and 156. The new pthread implementation in the 2.5 kernel branch is to blame. Red Hat backported the changes.
Apparently WINE will be broken on many of the coming distributions. There are a few workarounds that work for some and not others but until the WINE development team resolves the problem, the WINE project is stuck not working out of the box so to speak.
"We don't use wireless because what isn't broken or cracked today, could easily be cracked tomorrow, and the fact that broadcasting recordeable traffic out in public space can be potentially broken, VPN or not, is too risky."
As opposed to VPN traffic going over the internet that could just as easily be sniffed and recorded and potentially cracked (with the help of a supercomputer)?
WEP = worthless equivalent privacy
on
BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
#1: Exactly what I was getting at. The first stop data should travel through to be secure is a VPN/Firewall before it gets anywhere else.
#2: Not a bad idea. I assume you mean authenticate via RADIUS to get access to the WAP and then VPN to access the other side.
#3: Absolutely. This is the ONLY way currently to guarantee security of data.
#4 I disagree with completely.
WEP is clearly and easily breakable. It can be a pain to keep up with WEP keys.
At best it keeps complete beginners from viewing data packets.
At worst it adds overhead to WAP's that doesn't need to be there with a VPN solution filling the void.
The issue of additonal overhead is especially important if you are trying to serve greater than 50 clients per WAP. Actually many manufacturers currently recommend no more than 30 to 50 clients per WAP. If you throttle bandwidth and don't use WEP, you can get more without too much of an issue though.
The quick, easy and practical solution to securing wireless is:
1) Securely authenticate with an encrypted password (not WEP).
2) Encrypt data via VPN once authenticated.
Anything else is added overhead. The above two step process is EXACTLY what happens when using VPN over the wires. No WEP present there.
Re:Why is this so hard to understand?
on
BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Someone has to pay the costs for keeping up the equipment and the high speed connection everyone is using.
How do you figure that my T1/T3/etc is free? What about the $500-800 bucks for a quality WAP/Router that dies and has to be replaced?
Look, I am all for free services. But the bottom line is that somewhere in the chain someone has to pay. Are you suggesting mass mooching?
The only way this would be a truly free endeavor is if the idea of a structured network went out the door and everything was truly meshed down to the web pages you want to visit. No more copper or fiber lines because all data is flowing over the air to and from each device like one gigantic peer to peer network.
I don't want to think about how ineffecient that would be or how security would cease to exist.
Frequency limitations are to blame
on
BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The limitations causing hills to be a problem are built into the 2.4 ghz frequency. Physics is to blame and cannot be changed. Signals such as FM radio have a much better ability to penetrate uneven terrain.
The way to get around the problem of obstruction of signal, multiple repeater sites are necessary. There is a cost associated that makes it hard to justify if there isn't significant population density to cover an area.
As far as upping speed to 54 mbps in the 2.4 ghz range, 802.11g will make that a reality. It is already here with 802.11a. 802.11a technology is a little more expensive currently though.
Still, it doesn't matter because the further away from a WAP you are, the lower your data throughput will be. If your WAP is getting interference from another WAP, your maximum data throughput will be much lower than 54mbps anyway.
Do not look for current wireless technologies to replace wired ones with equivalent functionality anytime soon. The best they can do is fill in broadband gaps by serving up a 128/256/512/1024K connections to those willing to pay for it.
The only real stop gap solution at this point is to have a VPN server on the other side of the wireless connection. That way, your packets can be sniffed all day and would be crackers have to deal with breaking VPN crypto.
I suspect that in the end, that will be the way to go regardless of new advancements in WEP that may or may not come about.
The bottom line is that somewhere, the day will have to be encrypted in some way because it is open in the air for anyone to grab. If you put the burden of the horsepower required to encrypt/decrypt on your WAP, then your ability to serve large numbers of clients diminishes.
In other words, leave the WAP duties up to the WAP and leave the encryption duties up to a VPN server. No changes to current technologies required.
Slashdot Mirror
As opposed to amplified 802.11a/b/g capable of 12 miles range without breaking a sweat?
Something doesn't add up to me. You can already go up to 72mi/115.8km with 802.11b in the 2.4 range. I know you don't get that high of data transfer that way but you can get really good transfers easily up to 24mi/38.6km and higher.
The only good I see coming from this will be more non-overlapping channels. But I noticed that some of the frequencies they are talking about are in the licensed bands. I really don't see how they are going to make that affordable unless the FCC opens up some frequencies.
It seems to me that cost effective deployment of such technology might be a good ways away unless I am missing something. If I am, please someone clear things up for me.
I plan on upgrading simply to see the differences and provide feedback in hopes of making the next version even better.
You are right that if someone has a stable working system that it isn't necessarily the best idea to upgrade just for the smell of it.
On the surface there are nice subtle improvements like:
-A new and better working hourglass (I don't remember it looking that way)
-MUCH improved menu arrangement (it was kind of confusing
-One stop Reboot/Shutdown options on GUI login
-Slightly better look (first impression)
-Of course there are many updated packages
In theory this is a major version revision because of binary compatibility (as I understand it). I practice it feels like incremental improvement so far. I will have to hold off my final judgement until I use 9 on my 8.0 system for a perfect comparison.
I might be wrong but I believe that incorporation papers and such must have a physical business address and not a PO Box.
I thought business addresses are a matter of public record? If he is incorporated I KNOW it is a matter of public record.
Unless he plans on having laws rewritten, his business address will afford no such special protection. I have no clue about private addresses.
Gentically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Is it ethical for us to push the envelope of genetics and create our own made to order creatures? It might seem like and easy "no" or even "yes" but it isn't.
-Imagine if scientists discovered they could splice a few certain genes to create some special breed of monkey that would live its life in pain but would offer guaranteed universal matches for organs in humans. Is that ethical?
Bionics
The abicore heart has shown that we are well on our way of having artificial organs. Is this ethical? The first inclination might be yes. I am envisioning extending life of people by an extra 50 years or so.
This might sound great but if all thing were equal and everyone could reap the benefits then that could cause serious population problems as people would live MUCH longer.
Besides, this kind of technology will probably only really be available to those that can afford it which brings up a whole other ethical issue.
I too wish the films could be better. But then I stop to ask myself "better than what?" The books? No way a film could do that. Ok, I might settle for as good as the books.
Ok, so what would it take to do that? An extra two hours of footage per film bare minimum to develop the characters and plots properly. Watching films that long would be a pure chore and they wouldn't possibly be bareable to watch in theaters.
No, the problem is that each book is really two books squeezed into one. That means that each movie is two squeezed into one. In the books, it is easier to do because you can add more pages without really changing the fact that it is just one book. Adding another two hours to a movie that is already a long film won't work.
Thus, we are left with what we have. And I am afraid that is as good as it will ever get unless someone goes back and does it again with everyone involved working for free. The only ones that will watch three 5 to 6 hour movies are the most faithful of fans. It probably wouldn't be a huge money-making endeavor.
Just my $0.02 worth.
For a peered download scheme my download times are pretty crappy. It fluctuates anywhere between 0 and 15K per second but usually closer to the 0.
Yes, future code could be closed but already GPL'ed versions would remain GPL'ed. So would any derivative works of a GPL licensee.
Since the orignating licensor doesn't have to have a license with themselves, it is their right to change the licensing scheme as they see fit. Licensing changes in this fashion cannot be retroactive since that would violate the original GPL license.
No, I am not a lawyer. That is just simple contract law that I have picked up here and there from the 4 people in my family that ARE lawyers.
I wonder if Taco got a little chapped about my 10 point joke about dupes in the previous dupe?
Taco, did I frost your mouse?
1) A first exclusive interview gets posted twice.
2) New scientific discoveries sound familiar.
3) 10 questions turn into 20.
4) Last interviews turn into next to last.
5) Congress is considering the first ever digital cloning ban.
6) Duplicate replies to duplicate posts get duplicate moderation.
7) The only thing not duplicated is polls (not even sure about that).
8) 1000/1 = The ratio of time it takes for moderators to discover a dupe vs. the readers.
9) 0 = The number of dupes deleted.
10) The post (God forbid) announcing its closing will probably be posted twice.
I am not a Linux guru. I am not a complete newbie either. I have been running RH 8.0 for a number of months and so far my complaints center on no AA fonts and a firewire CD-RW that doesn't work.
Please tell me what is so bad about RPM's versus other package management systems. Why do people hate it so bad? What am I missing by using mostly RPMs? (I have done standard makefile builds before)
It seems to me that if someone could create a package management system that could read packages in all their forms and resolve any underlying dependencies then you would have one heck of a product.
How strange. For US$200.00 I once had a Red Hat tech on the phone for over an hour guiding me through setting up my first ever linux mail server. They were great.
Can't relate. At all.
The premise of a company is to offer a product or service for the benefit of customers in a manner that affords a profit. This is not to be confused with profiting from customers with a product or service.
The distinction is whether your focus is profit or service. I and many others feel that Microsoft's agenda is profit over service. The reason I reached that conclusion was when I saw Microsoft employ a licensing scheme that is seemingly for one purpose and one purpose only--profit.
When the time comes that profit seems to be the sole motive for a company over service, customers tend to shy away. It is happening now with Microsoft. Companies that never before considered alternatives are now looking hard at them.
Profit over service. That is why the $ is used to replace the S. At least that is why I do it. I can't really speak for others.
There were many companies that lost 100% of their office but 0% of their staff. Those are the ones I am talking about.
Here is the thing . . . the R part of RAID stands for Redundant. Business continuity is only as secure as the weakest link. All the RAID technology in the world isn't worth squat if a 3AM office fire burns up all your servers. Of course, backups are no good if you don't have offsite storage for disaster situations.
In reality, a combination of all the technologies is the best practice:
-Server colocation for uptime redundancy
-RAID+1 systems for maximum hard drive tolerance
-Clustered servers for maximum server redundancy
-Offsite and onsite backups
-Backup generators
-multiple ISP's
This is all expensive but if your business lives or dies by your data, there is no question that ALL of these should be employed.
RAID does nothing when you have complete disaster. I wonder (but don't know) if any of the WTC companies relied only on RAID and failed to do offsite backups.
I bet dollars to doughnuts that if they did, they are somewhere in Chapter 11 or worse right now.
This is a huge win for consumers. This levels the playing field for true competition. It gives us more power to leverage against our carriers.
Feel like you are getting terrible service? Call customer support and say "I am very unhappy with my service. Can you fix it? No? Ok, I will switch carriers tomorrow. So will my entire family and anyone I know that I can pursuade." That is the benefit.
I fully expect to see more competitive pricing plans because the entry/exit barrier for carriers have gone down. Of course I also expect to see stiffer penalties in ending contracts early to offset this.
From the Red Hat 9 review: "Wine seems to have taken a nose dive"
If you check on www.winehq.com in their news section you will find the answer under issues 155 and 156. The new pthread implementation in the 2.5 kernel branch is to blame. Red Hat backported the changes.
Apparently WINE will be broken on many of the coming distributions. There are a few workarounds that work for some and not others but until the WINE development team resolves the problem, the WINE project is stuck not working out of the box so to speak.
"We don't use wireless because what isn't broken or cracked today, could easily be cracked tomorrow, and the fact that broadcasting recordeable traffic out in public space can be potentially broken, VPN or not, is too risky."
As opposed to VPN traffic going over the internet that could just as easily be sniffed and recorded and potentially cracked (with the help of a supercomputer)?
#1: Exactly what I was getting at. The first stop data should travel through to be secure is a VPN/Firewall before it gets anywhere else.
#2: Not a bad idea. I assume you mean authenticate via RADIUS to get access to the WAP and then VPN to access the other side.
#3: Absolutely. This is the ONLY way currently to guarantee security of data.
#4 I disagree with completely.
WEP is clearly and easily breakable. It can be a pain to keep up with WEP keys.
At best it keeps complete beginners from viewing data packets.
At worst it adds overhead to WAP's that doesn't need to be there with a VPN solution filling the void.
The issue of additonal overhead is especially important if you are trying to serve greater than 50 clients per WAP. Actually many manufacturers currently recommend no more than 30 to 50 clients per WAP. If you throttle bandwidth and don't use WEP, you can get more without too much of an issue though.
The quick, easy and practical solution to securing wireless is:
1) Securely authenticate with an encrypted password (not WEP).
2) Encrypt data via VPN once authenticated.
Anything else is added overhead. The above two step process is EXACTLY what happens when using VPN over the wires. No WEP present there.
Someone has to pay the costs for keeping up the equipment and the high speed connection everyone is using.
How do you figure that my T1/T3/etc is free? What about the $500-800 bucks for a quality WAP/Router that dies and has to be replaced?
Look, I am all for free services. But the bottom line is that somewhere in the chain someone has to pay. Are you suggesting mass mooching?
The only way this would be a truly free endeavor is if the idea of a structured network went out the door and everything was truly meshed down to the web pages you want to visit. No more copper or fiber lines because all data is flowing over the air to and from each device like one gigantic peer to peer network.
I don't want to think about how ineffecient that would be or how security would cease to exist.
The limitations causing hills to be a problem are built into the 2.4 ghz frequency. Physics is to blame and cannot be changed. Signals such as FM radio have a much better ability to penetrate uneven terrain.
The way to get around the problem of obstruction of signal, multiple repeater sites are necessary. There is a cost associated that makes it hard to justify if there isn't significant population density to cover an area.
As far as upping speed to 54 mbps in the 2.4 ghz range, 802.11g will make that a reality. It is already here with 802.11a. 802.11a technology is a little more expensive currently though.
Still, it doesn't matter because the further away from a WAP you are, the lower your data throughput will be. If your WAP is getting interference from another WAP, your maximum data throughput will be much lower than 54mbps anyway.
Do not look for current wireless technologies to replace wired ones with equivalent functionality anytime soon. The best they can do is fill in broadband gaps by serving up a 128/256/512/1024K connections to those willing to pay for it.
The only real stop gap solution at this point is to have a VPN server on the other side of the wireless connection. That way, your packets can be sniffed all day and would be crackers have to deal with breaking VPN crypto.
I suspect that in the end, that will be the way to go regardless of new advancements in WEP that may or may not come about.
The bottom line is that somewhere, the day will have to be encrypted in some way because it is open in the air for anyone to grab. If you put the burden of the horsepower required to encrypt/decrypt on your WAP, then your ability to serve large numbers of clients diminishes.
In other words, leave the WAP duties up to the WAP and leave the encryption duties up to a VPN server. No changes to current technologies required.
Microsoft released the much anticipated Windows 95 operating system to replace the venerable Windows 3.11.
Date + Style of the interview point to it being old and/or fake. Take your pick and either way it is a nice piece of history and little more.