According to the Independent, this whole thing is basically about people having no jobs and no food. Social media and wikileaks maybe were an extra drop, but people are usually not willing to die for more freedom. They are for feeding their kids.
If everybody would load Linux, the crapware becomes less profitable, and hardware prices go up. Basically, Linux' world domination would cause the end of cheap consumer electronics.
I am sure I would be able to figure it out. And I have made some additions and tips on open source projects. But, in general, fixing bugs that you encounter, while you are at work is not an option. It takes way too much time to figure things out and fix things.
The quote that the previous poster said, to wait for Microsoft to fix bugs, is just as true for open source projects. I am waiting for a bug to be fixed in Firefox, that is there since 2001 (!). I did try a shot on fixing it myself, but it would need a significant amount of my time, which I do not have available for this.
The only advantage on open source projects, is that you can hire a programmer to fix your bugs. But that would make the free software a lot more expensive.
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
First off, I am a professional software developer/entrepreneur and a big supporter of open source software and freedom. But the argument you bring here is the worst argument *for* open source. I work with Evolution in my professional life and it crashes on me quite often. (Not often enough to replace it, so I will continue using it.) Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it. Getting to know a moderately complex piece of software takes a lot of time and effort (and thus money), that I rather spend on working for my customers. They actually pay me for my work.
Otoh, I also purchased Novell Groupwise, combined with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (I thought it was a viable commercial Linux solution), and it is a lot worse than any do-it-yourself packages, so I guess closed source sucks too. Just in a different way.
and sales started to plummet. Apparently, it is not just Jobs' thing, but also his customers. Apple fills a market gap of devices that just work. Most people don't really care about openness and hackability. They just want to use their stuff, and are willing to pay for it.
I am a Linux geek, love the openness of the Linux platform, the Maemo OS and the hackability of the PC platform. But, guess what, i just bought an iPad, and I think it adds 'usability' in the mix. This thing just works, and faster even than my 4-core laptop. I even think we are on the verge of a third paradigm shift in human computer interfacing.
The point primarily was -- the distribution of simple information, which was what IMO the web was intended to do, does *not* require HTML5, nor Javascript.
But, guess what, the web evolved. It isn't used any more for what it was primarily designed for. It evolved into a platform, where we (except you apparently) do shopping, communication, games, etc. The beauty of the whole thing, is the web is both things now. HTML5 lends itself perfectly for the semantic non-javascript web, with the new tags. It lends itself better for forms with the new input-types (why did we have to wait so long for that?). And it also lends itself for being a complete programming platform.
HTML5 doesn't replace the web as it was intended, it amends it.
I agree though, many web designers abuse Javascript to do things that are perfectly done in clean HTML.
I am an auditor and you are so wrong! Process Control is not about checking boxes as much as having control of you processes. Checklists are a tool to do the auditing of a process, not a goal to reach in themslves. If you really care so little about your processes, come tomorrow they will byte you in the ass. You know, it's like the unfastened seatbelt that you always wear in your car "because it's less bothersome" but still fools the cops. At accident time you will be the sore ass with broken ribs. Sorry, this downplay of yours of process control systems is simply unprofessional. I had enough of the "software developers are artists that have no rules" mantra.
Get real
I completely agree. Processes (or better process definition and control; every work place has processes, even the most crap quality messy business) are important in keeping your quality on the right level. They should never though be an end to itself. If there are processes defined that are useless and only add to extra paper being generated, cut them away. It is a continuous process. In my business (which I own), we have a monthly meeting about quality. Processes are a part of that. We realise that the ISO9001 audit is not making sure we have better quality. The implementation of the processes and other tools is. And keeping us to it. We change the tools, processes and implementations slightly almost continuously.
Note though that "quality control" says NOTHING about product quality. Only about that you warrant that you will always create THE SAME LEVEL of quality always, including stuff like your core values, service, etc. ISO9001 certified businesses can still create crap products. They will just always create the same kind of crap.
Would it mean that it could go the same way as Firefox? Where they took a pile of crap that was proprietarily developed and turned it into one of the majors players in its field?
The fundamental problem is that most people are credulous morons.
And that most people don't care. They are on a party, hear a statistic, think "wow, that's a lot!', and go on with their lives. Most statistics I read or hear, are forgotten 5 minutes afterwards. I cannot remember any statistic that I heard that actually made me change my life or the way I see things.
I have a relatively new computer, and the settings was very annoying. I actually tried to wait it out, but it didn't seem to end. Downloading several gigabytes of mail (in one case over a slow line) just takes too much time.
Note to all the application developers out there: stop assuming CPU, storage and bandwidth is free and non time consuming. It is not.
The two proposed changes in the article are to : - disable the global indexer - disable caching of messages to the local computer
I consider it a design flaw that these two settings are on by default, also for IMAP folders. The whole point of IMAP folders is to keep your email on the server. I don't want to download 4+ years worth of e-mail to my computer. I had the same problems and immediately switch these two options off on any new installations.
I found this already on May 5th. Didn't know about the options though. I ditched version 3 for 2 for a short perios of time afterwards.
This is modded 'Funny', but I think it should be 'Insightful'.
A sharp analysis of the fact that it is not the government-style that per se defines the quality. It's the people that run it. (I guess you could come up with 'good' communism or 'good' dictatorships?)
I don't get it. if you run a organisation as big as the UK government IT department, you don't have a budget for maintenance? Part of the maintenance costs go to upgrades, bugfixes, etc. IE6 is an end-of-life product of about 10 years old. The costs of replacing it, should have been calculated and budgetted about 4 years ago (when IE7 came out). This isn't a case of 'we don't have money'. it is a case of 'we are too lazy to think further in the future than 1 month'.
With the speed of today’s computers, though, you shouldn’t (usually) need that amount of optimization.
And that is why we have a shitload of very crappy software nowadays. Why does a printer driver needs 110MB of hard disk space? Why does a browser (yes, that's you Firefox) need 20-30 seconds to start up? Because the developers are raised with the notion that they do not need to optimize for speed or size. I, for one, would more than welcome a generation of developers that know what they are doing and think of computer-time instead of developer-time. Especially in often-run applications. And even more especially in web-apps, which are notoriously badly designed and written.
Last time we used a floppy in this company, was last week. A 5 1/4 inch disk to boot a old CP/M S5 programmer (so old I can't even find a picture of it online) to help a client. Whose software was also on another 5 1/4" disk. Everything still worked, client was happy again.
Yes you can store more info in a bar code, but why would you? With a little knowledge of codes, you could add/change information in the code. Reading the codes requires more complex (and expensive) readers. Just printing a unique code, that links to the company database is simpler and more effective.
Putting more information in a code is only useful if the information has to cross databases, for example from supplier to producer. And even for that, there is something called EDI and SCC, which use a unique identifier and send the actual information using a data link. There is a lot of buzz going on in 'putting more info on articles' using 2D codes or RFID. I don't really see the added value (my company uses barcodes a lot, RFID not so much, only for technical, not data, reasons).
In our company, we have several postscript printers, several OSs, several applications, all with different results. Printing a PDF from evince crashes both evince and printer (postscript colour Dell printer), printing from Foxit, no problems. Printer A accepts letter size postscript and scales it to A4 (because that is what the printer has), printer B doesn't and stalls waiting for paper.
Printing sucks. Always has, always will. Just don't do it.
and base-2 is the natural unit for measuring information
Why? Just because you calculate capacity like that? It is quite nonsense if you ask me. It is the same weird thinking that makes you define database field lengths base 2 (is a address line really 64 characters? Why not 50?). I admit I do it too, but it is based on nothing. Only on the fact that you 'just do it that way'. Which is wrong. You can easily count sizes base-10. You can easily count information base-10. It's arbitrary, and because of that, it is better to use base-10, because it is more used around you (except for USians maybe that still live in the imperial units).
Slashdot Mirror
According to the Independent, this whole thing is basically about people having no jobs and no food. Social media and wikileaks maybe were an extra drop, but people are usually not willing to die for more freedom. They are for feeding their kids.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-price-of-food-is-at-the-heart-of-this-wave-of-revolutions-2226896.html
If everybody would load Linux, the crapware becomes less profitable, and hardware prices go up. Basically, Linux' world domination would cause the end of cheap consumer electronics.
The irony.
Oh, look! Another moron who's never heard of a thing called a "monopoly".
That's why monopolies are (ought to) be tightly controlled by governments, defaulting back to the most dangerous of the two.
I agree with you on this. But I wonder if this theoretical situation ever occurred.
I am sure I would be able to figure it out. And I have made some additions and tips on open source projects. But, in general, fixing bugs that you encounter, while you are at work is not an option. It takes way too much time to figure things out and fix things.
The quote that the previous poster said, to wait for Microsoft to fix bugs, is just as true for open source projects. I am waiting for a bug to be fixed in Firefox, that is there since 2001 (!). I did try a shot on fixing it myself, but it would need a significant amount of my time, which I do not have available for this.
The only advantage on open source projects, is that you can hire a programmer to fix your bugs. But that would make the free software a lot more expensive.
And knowing open source also means that you know how to fix it when it breaks.
First off, I am a professional software developer/entrepreneur and a big supporter of open source software and freedom. But the argument you bring here is the worst argument *for* open source. I work with Evolution in my professional life and it crashes on me quite often. (Not often enough to replace it, so I will continue using it.) Even that I am a programmer, I do not know how to fix it. Getting to know a moderately complex piece of software takes a lot of time and effort (and thus money), that I rather spend on working for my customers. They actually pay me for my work.
Otoh, I also purchased Novell Groupwise, combined with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (I thought it was a viable commercial Linux solution), and it is a lot worse than any do-it-yourself packages, so I guess closed source sucks too. Just in a different way.
So, basically, what you are saying here, is that HTML5 isn't done yet?
When he left, the Mac II with slots showed up.
and sales started to plummet. Apparently, it is not just Jobs' thing, but also his customers. Apple fills a market gap of devices that just work. Most people don't really care about openness and hackability. They just want to use their stuff, and are willing to pay for it.
I am a Linux geek, love the openness of the Linux platform, the Maemo OS and the hackability of the PC platform. But, guess what, i just bought an iPad, and I think it adds 'usability' in the mix. This thing just works, and faster even than my 4-core laptop. I even think we are on the verge of a third paradigm shift in human computer interfacing.
The point primarily was -- the distribution of simple information, which was what IMO the web was intended to do, does *not* require HTML5, nor Javascript.
But, guess what, the web evolved. It isn't used any more for what it was primarily designed for. It evolved into a platform, where we (except you apparently) do shopping, communication, games, etc. The beauty of the whole thing, is the web is both things now. HTML5 lends itself perfectly for the semantic non-javascript web, with the new tags. It lends itself better for forms with the new input-types (why did we have to wait so long for that?). And it also lends itself for being a complete programming platform.
HTML5 doesn't replace the web as it was intended, it amends it.
I agree though, many web designers abuse Javascript to do things that are perfectly done in clean HTML.
I am an auditor and you are so wrong!
Process Control is not about checking boxes as much as having control of you processes. Checklists are a tool to do the auditing of a process, not a goal to reach in themslves.
If you really care so little about your processes, come tomorrow they will byte you in the ass.
You know, it's like the unfastened seatbelt that you always wear in your car "because it's less bothersome" but still fools the cops.
At accident time you will be the sore ass with broken ribs.
Sorry, this downplay of yours of process control systems is simply unprofessional. I had enough of the "software developers are artists that have no rules" mantra.
Get real
I completely agree. Processes (or better process definition and control; every work place has processes, even the most crap quality messy business) are important in keeping your quality on the right level. They should never though be an end to itself. If there are processes defined that are useless and only add to extra paper being generated, cut them away. It is a continuous process. In my business (which I own), we have a monthly meeting about quality. Processes are a part of that. We realise that the ISO9001 audit is not making sure we have better quality. The implementation of the processes and other tools is. And keeping us to it. We change the tools, processes and implementations slightly almost continuously.
Note though that "quality control" says NOTHING about product quality. Only about that you warrant that you will always create THE SAME LEVEL of quality always, including stuff like your core values, service, etc. ISO9001 certified businesses can still create crap products. They will just always create the same kind of crap.
Android already runs on the N900, a few rough edges, but it's almost good enough to use as a replacement OS.
From the Nitdroid FAQ: "Phone is working too but there is no sound yet."
I do not know what you call 'a few rough edges', but phone support without sound is a big fat NO to me.
Would it mean that it could go the same way as Firefox? Where they took a pile of crap that was proprietarily developed and turned it into one of the majors players in its field?
I sure hope so.
Baby oil works better.
simple nail polish remover will do the job extremely well.
Wait a second ... am I still on Slashdot? Baby oil, nail polish, are you secretly all hot mothers?
The fundamental problem is that most people are credulous morons.
And that most people don't care. They are on a party, hear a statistic, think "wow, that's a lot!', and go on with their lives. Most statistics I read or hear, are forgotten 5 minutes afterwards. I cannot remember any statistic that I heard that actually made me change my life or the way I see things.
Then again, maybe I am not a credulous moron.
I have a relatively new computer, and the settings was very annoying. I actually tried to wait it out, but it didn't seem to end. Downloading several gigabytes of mail (in one case over a slow line) just takes too much time.
Note to all the application developers out there: stop assuming CPU, storage and bandwidth is free and non time consuming. It is not.
The two proposed changes in the article are to :
- disable the global indexer
- disable caching of messages to the local computer
I consider it a design flaw that these two settings are on by default, also for IMAP folders. The whole point of IMAP folders is to keep your email on the server. I don't want to download 4+ years worth of e-mail to my computer. I had the same problems and immediately switch these two options off on any new installations.
I found this already on May 5th. Didn't know about the options though. I ditched version 3 for 2 for a short perios of time afterwards.
This is modded 'Funny', but I think it should be 'Insightful'.
A sharp analysis of the fact that it is not the government-style that per se defines the quality. It's the people that run it. (I guess you could come up with 'good' communism or 'good' dictatorships?)
I don't get it. if you run a organisation as big as the UK government IT department, you don't have a budget for maintenance? Part of the maintenance costs go to upgrades, bugfixes, etc. IE6 is an end-of-life product of about 10 years old. The costs of replacing it, should have been calculated and budgetted about 4 years ago (when IE7 came out). This isn't a case of 'we don't have money'. it is a case of 'we are too lazy to think further in the future than 1 month'.
Mismanagement.
With the speed of today’s computers, though, you shouldn’t (usually) need that amount of optimization.
And that is why we have a shitload of very crappy software nowadays. Why does a printer driver needs 110MB of hard disk space? Why does a browser (yes, that's you Firefox) need 20-30 seconds to start up? Because the developers are raised with the notion that they do not need to optimize for speed or size. I, for one, would more than welcome a generation of developers that know what they are doing and think of computer-time instead of developer-time. Especially in often-run applications. And even more especially in web-apps, which are notoriously badly designed and written.
What about a battery that does not fit if it's inserted the wrong way?
This better, because it doesn't matter what you do. There is always somebody who will *make* it fit.
Too much info ......
Last time we used a floppy in this company, was last week. A 5 1/4 inch disk to boot a old CP/M S5 programmer (so old I can't even find a picture of it online) to help a client. Whose software was also on another 5 1/4" disk. Everything still worked, client was happy again.
Good thing we keep these things in our museum,
Yes you can store more info in a bar code, but why would you? With a little knowledge of codes, you could add/change information in the code. Reading the codes requires more complex (and expensive) readers. Just printing a unique code, that links to the company database is simpler and more effective.
Putting more information in a code is only useful if the information has to cross databases, for example from supplier to producer. And even for that, there is something called EDI and SCC, which use a unique identifier and send the actual information using a data link. There is a lot of buzz going on in 'putting more info on articles' using 2D codes or RFID. I don't really see the added value (my company uses barcodes a lot, RFID not so much, only for technical, not data, reasons).
If only it would be that simple.
In our company, we have several postscript printers, several OSs, several applications, all with different results. Printing a PDF from evince crashes both evince and printer (postscript colour Dell printer), printing from Foxit, no problems. Printer A accepts letter size postscript and scales it to A4 (because that is what the printer has), printer B doesn't and stalls waiting for paper.
Printing sucks. Always has, always will. Just don't do it.
and base-2 is the natural unit for measuring information
Why? Just because you calculate capacity like that? It is quite nonsense if you ask me. It is the same weird thinking that makes you define database field lengths base 2 (is a address line really 64 characters? Why not 50?). I admit I do it too, but it is based on nothing. Only on the fact that you 'just do it that way'. Which is wrong. You can easily count sizes base-10. You can easily count information base-10. It's arbitrary, and because of that, it is better to use base-10, because it is more used around you (except for USians maybe that still live in the imperial units).