In the image in the 2nd column, 10th row (image 56, file dscn2466.jpg), what is that "third rail" that's on the right and curves near the end used for? Our local light-rail here in the Santa Clara valley also has those at various points.
Then you're in violation of section xiv of their Acceptable Use Policy that explicitly forbids servers:
(xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;
So if you are running servers, it's only because they haven't caught you yet. The could also shut off common inbound server ports (25, 80, etc) any time they feel like it.
I have the same IP until Comcast decides to switch out some networking equipment out (2-3 times a year) and it has been the same for everyone else I know with Comcast.
Then you do not have a static IP address. You have a dynamic IP address that just so happens to remain the same for a few months at a time. There's no guarantee that this will continue. Sorry, but I want a real static IP address that is guaranteed not to change.
It may be faster, but it's virtually impossible to get a static IP from a cable company. Their TOS almost always forbid servers too. SBC (my DSL provider) specifically allows one to run servers. I'll keep my DSL and static IP so I can run my own server, thanks.
After you sign that contract, you become their bitch. I learned the hard way with Verizon.
This is an instance of YMMV. In my case, I've been very happy with Verizon (and, no, I don't work for them). My $399 Kyocera 7135 (out of warranty) recently was acting very flaky. They replaced it with another 7135 after me explaining what it was doing in a reasonable manner (as opposed to me having to really bitch) at no charge.
FWIW: whenever possible, I try to go to a (in this case) Verizon store and deal with a person face-to-face. I get much better results than calling the main CS number because you're talking to an entry-level CS person and you have to convince them you're not an idiot to get them to transfer you to a level-2 CS person.
... if you do managed to unlock your phone, (by hook or by crook) many carriers will refuse to allow it's use with their service! They'd much rather you buy a new phone from them.
Part of the reason is that the carrier doesn't want to have to deal with technical support issues for phones they don't otherwise sell or carry. When somebody calls technical support, they have "scripts" for all their phones that the support person can simply follow.
Is there some compelling reason why you just didn't walk into a local wireless store and buy a phone and service plan directly? You can also try out the phone and UI to see if you like it. Many phone UIs are poor.
Their move is really more of a "Compile our unix software to the version of BSD that's called OSX" as opposed to "Make this a Mac program."
You're forgetting about the UI that would have to be rewritten to use Cocoa (or Carbon), Quartz, etc., i.e., the native Mac OS X UI as opposed to X Windows on other Unix flavors. This is more involved that just a simple port. (Yes, you can run X Windows on top of OS X, but that abilily hasn't been around that long.)
Personally, I think all the machinery Sourceforge offers is overkill for most projects. (I also don't like the idea of my main CVS repository being on a machine I don't own.)
For the open-source projects I have, I simple made them available via freshmeat. My CVS repository is on my own machine. I have the projects' home pages on a seperate web server machine. That's it.
As for remaining involved, I'm still involved almost exclusively. I know the romanticized "bazarr" model of development envisions lots of contributors. The reality is that most open-source projects just get downloaded. Rarely do they accumulate talented people who make contributions. For all my projects combined, I've maybe gotten a handful of patches over the years (and most of those were pretty crappy quality, so I ended up rewriting them).
Hence, unless you expect your project to be wildly successful, don't expect much of anything, problems or otherwise.
Not having clones means they refuse to license their OS, their BIOS (or whatever the Mac equivelent is) and what not.
Apple is a hardware company. Of course they don't want clones.
As for their BIOS, it's Open Firmware and isn't proprietary. Sun also uses it.
And if these adds I see for Windows powered NAS boxen are true, it would seem that MS does license their OSs to non-end users.
Of course they do: MS doesn't sell hardware so they have nothing to lose by selling or licensing their OS to as many entities as possible. Again, Apple is a hardware company (just like Sun).
By modifying and distributing GPLed code, they don't have a choice. It's a legal requirement.
No it isn't. They're under no obligation to use GPL'd code. They're free to puschase commercial compilers or write their own. But they didn't.
Try considering things like customer support
I've never had serious problems. When I've had any problems, they were resolved the same say at my local Apple store. Unless you can cite specific examples of bad customer support, I think you'd just arguing because you like the look of your own writing on a web page.
... product lifetimes, legacy support and the like.
They're average among companies. That doesn't make them "evil" as was originally claimed.
Sprint PCS has reasonable coverage and reasonable service...
Their pricing is terrible:
100 SMS Text Messages: $5/mo. (Verizon's default is pay-per-use with no monthly charge: $0.10/send, $0.02/receive.)
Sprint PCS Free & Clear America: $5/mo. There is a catch: no more than half your monthly call time can be roaming or they'll terminate the service. (With Verizon, you generally don't roam.)
Unlimited Sprint PCS to PCS Calling: $5/mo. (Verizon has this for free on $39+/mo plans).
Sprint PCS Picture Mail: $5/mo. (Verizon's default is pay-per-use with no monthly charge: $0.25/send.)
Sprint PCS Vision Professional Pack: $15/mo (allows pictures, web access, SMS messages).
Sprint charges you for EVERYTHING. If you use SMS, web, etc, only occasionally, it really sucks.
Please cite specific examples. Apple has the core of its OS (Darwin) as open-source. Apple supports and uses many open-source projects (its software is built using gcc, for example). Apple uses standard technologies (e.g., Zeroconf, aka Rendezvous) instead of making their own "standards" or "embracing and extending" standards to the point where you need Microsoft software to use them. Apple's iSync works with many manufacturers phones and doesn't require ones running PocketPC software. Mac OS X supports X Windows out of the box. The list goes on.
I don't recall exactly which characters it was, I think it was the 't' and the 'i' that just killed me. The not-quite-one-stroke system feels terribly broken
Uh... but if you write a 't' or lower-case 'i' with a pen and paper, you have to use two strokes. So why is doing it on a Palm device "broken?"
a 't' shows up as an 'l' until you do a crossbar, then it disappears and reappears as a 't'...
Who cares? If I'm going along writing, I'm looking at the Graffiti writing area mostly and writing as I would with a pen and paper. Why should I care what the Palm is doing as long as it gets the letters right?
I generally find that there are almost no examples of inventions where the patent incentive appears to have brought the invention about substantially faster or better than I think would have occurred without patents
The big example for patents being incentives are for drugs. Drug companies invest millions to develop a drug and they do it with the full knowledge that they'll be able to recoup their investment due to patent protection.
It seems that a lot of really nifty things... were developed at Xerox, and never produced.
I've heard similar things about IBM Research. While they've not patented everything they've invented, they've invented lots of stuff. But a lot of that stuff never made it to market as products.
My theory is that this sort of thing tends to happen with large companies that have research divisions. (A notable exception is AT&T which I'll get back to in a bit.) My theory as to why this happens is that management either doesn't "get it" for a lot of the things developed, or is too afraid to take action.
For the "failure to 'get it'" part, they fail to see how many inventions, as novel as they may be, will be a success in the marketplace. Management in large companies tends to be very short-sighted and often bad predictors of where the market will go.
For the "too afraid" part, a lot of managers like to keep the status quo because it means low-risk both for the company as a whole and the own careers. No manager wants to sign off on a new product only to have it fail miserably in the market.
There needs to be a few managers with both vision and guts. If they either sufficiently high-up in the company or have enough convincing power, new products come to market. Sometimes what happens, however, is that they get disgusted with their company's inaction and quit to form start-ups.
As for AT&T, the reason they've been an exception is because, back in the good old days before divestiture, their research division was focused on doing pure research without any concern for bringing their research to market. They patented lots of things. Indeed, the Bell Labs motto was, "A patent a day," and it was pretty much accurate. However, AT&T never bothered to enforce its patents or sue anybody back then and pretty much gave away their inventions. Why? Because they viewed it as "giving something back" for being allowed to be the benevolent monopoly for the phone company. Of course once divestiture happened, all that changed. It's kind of sad, really.
Art and math geeks devising a new free-as-in-beer method...
I don't know what open-source method you're talking about, but the one most people know and love is free as in speech, not beer. (Whether it's free as in beer is largely irrelevant.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's attached there.
In the image in the 2nd column, 10th row (image 56, file dscn2466.jpg), what is that "third rail" that's on the right and curves near the end used for? Our local light-rail here in the Santa Clara valley also has those at various points.
But the SC ruling now gives a green light to those 30 states to pass an equivalent law.
Really, Google is your friend: Structured Wiring How-To.
Again, I'll stick with my DSL.
Out of curiosity, your cable company is ... ? Note that I used the words "virtually" and "almost."
FWIW: whenever possible, I try to go to a (in this case) Verizon store and deal with a person face-to-face. I get much better results than calling the main CS number because you're talking to an entry-level CS person and you have to convince them you're not an idiot to get them to transfer you to a level-2 CS person.
The GPL does nothing to prevent anybody from writing their own version not using any GPL'd code. The GPL wouldn't have stopped anything in this case.
Is there some compelling reason why you just didn't walk into a local wireless store and buy a phone and service plan directly? You can also try out the phone and UI to see if you like it. Many phone UIs are poor.
For the open-source projects I have, I simple made them available via freshmeat. My CVS repository is on my own machine. I have the projects' home pages on a seperate web server machine. That's it.
As for remaining involved, I'm still involved almost exclusively. I know the romanticized "bazarr" model of development envisions lots of contributors. The reality is that most open-source projects just get downloaded. Rarely do they accumulate talented people who make contributions. For all my projects combined, I've maybe gotten a handful of patches over the years (and most of those were pretty crappy quality, so I ended up rewriting them).
Hence, unless you expect your project to be wildly successful, don't expect much of anything, problems or otherwise.
- 100 SMS Text Messages: $5/mo. (Verizon's default is pay-per-use with no monthly charge: $0.10/send, $0.02/receive.)
- Sprint PCS Free & Clear America: $5/mo. There is a catch: no more than half your monthly call time can be roaming or they'll terminate the service. (With Verizon, you generally don't roam.)
- Unlimited Sprint PCS to PCS Calling: $5/mo. (Verizon has this for free on $39+/mo plans).
- Sprint PCS Picture Mail: $5/mo. (Verizon's default is pay-per-use with no monthly charge: $0.25/send.)
- Sprint PCS Vision Professional Pack: $15/mo (allows pictures, web access, SMS messages).
Sprint charges you for EVERYTHING. If you use SMS, web, etc, only occasionally, it really sucks.How is this like Microsoft?
My theory is that this sort of thing tends to happen with large companies that have research divisions. (A notable exception is AT&T which I'll get back to in a bit.) My theory as to why this happens is that management either doesn't "get it" for a lot of the things developed, or is too afraid to take action.
For the "failure to 'get it'" part, they fail to see how many inventions, as novel as they may be, will be a success in the marketplace. Management in large companies tends to be very short-sighted and often bad predictors of where the market will go.
For the "too afraid" part, a lot of managers like to keep the status quo because it means low-risk both for the company as a whole and the own careers. No manager wants to sign off on a new product only to have it fail miserably in the market.
There needs to be a few managers with both vision and guts. If they either sufficiently high-up in the company or have enough convincing power, new products come to market. Sometimes what happens, however, is that they get disgusted with their company's inaction and quit to form start-ups.
As for AT&T, the reason they've been an exception is because, back in the good old days before divestiture, their research division was focused on doing pure research without any concern for bringing their research to market. They patented lots of things. Indeed, the Bell Labs motto was, "A patent a day," and it was pretty much accurate. However, AT&T never bothered to enforce its patents or sue anybody back then and pretty much gave away their inventions. Why? Because they viewed it as "giving something back" for being allowed to be the benevolent monopoly for the phone company. Of course once divestiture happened, all that changed. It's kind of sad, really.