I'm having trouble understanding what was illegal here. If they tampered with company property to uncap their modem, that would be illegal. Show me the LAW that says modifying your own equipment and violating a Service Agreement is a public outrage. DCMA? Right, what a piece of shit.
So when is the FBI going to bust in my door for violating my service agreement by running ssh and an FTP site with pictures of my baby girl? I'm going to renegotiate my contract with COX or cut my line before the fucking FBI comes and takes all of my computers for "evidence" of "excessive" and "illegal" bandwith use.
I've got most of the photos I ever took sitting on ftp servers and I'm moving to http servers. Archiving them to delete the ones that are less important helps reduce storage requirements as well as makes them easier to share. As the if you have more than one machine, the chances are you won't lose it all. I have one internal to my network and one external that I share with the world. If the 486 external ftp server dies, I will replace it and mirror up the nicer newer machine from the internal server. Hard drive space is cheap and, thanks to Linux, you can put big drives on any old computer.
Yeah, yeah, ya, I've got CDs burt of EVERYTHING, but I've hardly ever looked back at them.
There are many many ways to archive. Try webmagic. If that is too much to learn (for me it is) then just make the html yourself as you archive. Try setting the thubnail size to 100x100 in GMC and using blue fish to make a few example tables of the thumbnails pointing to the real picture. Blue fish does have a way to automate this, but I don't know it yet. Right now vi does everything I need. There you have it.
And now to add insult to injury, the 3.3 I installed yesterday has a new different buffer overflow, so I have to jump to 3.4 now (does it have any new bugs too?)...
Can someone please explain why this vulnerability was handled this way? Why wasn't there a maintainance release that just fixed the @#$@#% problem?
On the other hand, I charge by the hour when I upgrade my client's machines. So thanks Theo! $-)
Why don't YOU make a fix and give it away? How about a whole OS? Oh, I see, so shut up.
VB is right because i386 is wrong. Or is it because VB displayed the number incorrectly to begin with? When you slip into the confused and closed world of M$ BS, 2+2 might be 3, 4 or 5.
Steven Levy also wrote, "The Day the World Crashes" about the y2k bug. There are many who will never forgive him for that.
Can you show me anything that demonstrates the first technical understanding?
Newsweek is prolefeed. You are an offtopic troll.
Paladium includes DRM chip on board. We can be sure that such a thing will make any machine with it into an appliance. That's fine, but it's not a computer. Hopefully someone will continue to make computers that work.
I do not believe in a Linux model that requires ongoing charity to survive.
While I can't speak for them, I don't think Linux Torvalds or Richard Stallman believe in such a model either. Both Torvalds and Stallman are earning decent livings with their skills. A "limited binary" distribution is not a viable business model, service is. It's not the shiny disk it's the ability to use it that people value. Obfuscating the works by binary distro will make United worthless. How does the fsf say it, something about having the choice of who to give up your rights to.
OK, I lied, I did not stop there, I read most of his answers. He wants people to pay him a fee to develop his code? This is better than the current free code how? He's not going to say he will be using patents but defends their use? He's leaving he QC for "value added components" to his fee paying member companies?
He says many of the right things but his approach is exactly opposite of succesful coding:
For Linux to move from the peripheral of the business network into mainstream application server market, businesses must be assured that their platform is certified and will work with other applications and hardware solution in their environment. What the UnitedLinux customer is paying for is 1) the assurance that his applications will work together, and 2) the ongoing maintenance and support of that certified platform. The restriction on binaries is to ensure product quality and consistency of the brand for hardware and software vendors and for the quality of support within the business organization. I believe that Red Hat is moving to a similar model with business customers. The majority of the value will be in product assurance and maintenance. Both of these are of tremendous value to the business customer.
The only way to insure this is to use free code and nothing but free code. Certifying configurations of that free code will make plenty of money. Trying to rebuild everything yourself and trying to tack on propriatory junk that no one else can sync with will never work.
As for you, what's this all about?
When there are applications you need that run on linux, you get linux. I see it every day as the purchase orders come in. No distribution provider out there looking to make a buck understands yet.
What do I need that runs on any other platform that does not have a substitute on Linux? I'm not aware of it, that's why I own one of those white boxes like 45% of all other computer buyers last year. These white boxes are going to come with Linux, Lindows, even BSD and restrictive software companies are goint to fade away into some foggy nightmare.
It would be rather complicated to manufacture TVs, radios, etc. if the RF bandwidth weren't standardized... 50 different tv tuners in one would be complicated today, and probably impractical around the time they added the UHF system...
Nah, they just need 50 decss keys.
p.Opps! you were not supposed to hear what the new HDTV plan is. Now I have to kill you.
These tiny channels, with signals reaching only maybe 20 square miles, could NEVER afford the upgrade to digital - they get by on a shoestring budget. Some are run out of people's homes.
The delay is a good thing. Instead of autioning off the airwaves to a bunch of cell phone pigs, it would be better to work out a scheme where this spectrum could be usef for free wireless networks. The techonlogy is here. All that needs to be done is for the FCC to agree on a set of decent standards (IEEE, WWWC what not) and enforce decent behavior on it (oh my God a new mandate for the FCC, anti-spam enforcer!) This way any houshold could become a broadcaster and have an infinite range.
Erris sees what good can be done by people who don't give in to the urge to make a quick buck like Billy C did with those stupid acutions. He is obviously deluded and insane. Insanity is statistical.
However, it is uknown as to whether or not microsoft will be able to invade your privacy, since they make the system.
How quickly we forget that they gave themselves that ability by EULA The XP EULA states 'You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation Computer.' To do this they must be able to read your files at will. What kind of privacy is that? That's M$'s stated policy and that's what you can expect.
Encrypting data between the keyboard and the monitor is good only for tin foil hat types and making sure that Other OS are deprived of hardware. Hollings might like this crap but the rest of us just won't buy it. How much more bloated and useless can M$ get? All of this junk to replace user accounts, file permissions and there means of actually insuring security and privacy.
It's reassuring to read that 45% of computers are built by small shops that have no incentive to follow M$ down. To paraphrase Bones, "It's dead, Jim."
This will be over when the judgement is made. I look forward to M$ being punished for their misdeeds almost as much as I look forward to the supreme court hearing of arbitrary copyright extentions such as the Bono fiasco.
M$ is more doomed by Wal Mart's promotion of Linux. It will eat M$'s revenue stream and leave them breaking their apps to dominate an OS that no one wants any more. The end is indeed near. Go Mandrake!
How long before "most Microsoft programs" have little bits of code added to shot them working on anything but offical microsoft windows.. that really would be the end of lindows
Try, "Most Linux programs won't run on Windows, Microsoft must be dying." Actually they are, but that's beside the point. Lindows might just be enough for most people. When they get tired of it or it has problems, we can be sure that someone will be good enough to put Debian on it. Oh yeah, that will kill Micrsoft. Oh well.
Let's see some examples?
Look for yourself.
As Joel himself admits, life is never as simple as economic theory.
This might be a good starting point for TCO study. It does not take much brains to figure out that cheaper alternatives are available when PC's that cost as much a mainfraims used to, then doubled in cost while hardware became much cheaper.
OK. Now that is frankly ridiculous. Even if you disagree with some of his comments about OSS, that does not make the rest of the article meaningless.
Not meaningless, unimportant. There is plenty of meaning to all of the details there, but the lie that is told is that USER ECONOMICS are behind the shift at many companies. Unethical people and companies have a hard time grasping that some people try to make their livings honestly by doing what is best for their friends and neighbors. The unethical just can't see beyond extortion. The proof is left as an unpleasant exercise for the reader.
e surrounded this radioactive ball with a "blanket" composed of tiny foil-wrapped cubes of thorium ash and uranium powder, which were stacked in an alternating pattern with carbon cubes and tenuously held together with duct tape.
Woops! He screwed up like the Germans did and did not realize that Carbon contains Boron, a powerful neutron absorber. Or did he?
Miller, a nuclear-savvy high-school friend in whom David had confided, warned him that real reactors use control rods to regulate nuclear reactions. Miller recommended cobalt, which absorbs neutrons but does not itself become fissionable.
Ieeee! Cobalt may suck down neutrons, but it does so by making Cobalt-60, a powerful gamma emitter with a five year half life. Not good, kids better to use borax.
The article over all is sinister and alarmist. While the author bettered himself by reading snippits of the Golder Book of Chemistry, the overall tone is that knowledge and should be controled like materials that can POTENTIALY be abused. The parents were at fault for alowing this to go on and not seeking help at the university, but the contamination produced was not great. Our here might not have realized that he had stepped into illegal or unhealthy concentrations. Overall, as the "garbage go the good stuff", there was very little stuff to he had. Most municpal dumps have radiation detectors for the protection of the public and workers. It's kind of a last step in the control of medical isotopes and what not; if the isotope is not controled by the state/federal regulator; if the isotope is lost by the hospital; if the isotope goes to Mexico and comes back; if the isotope is sold or disposed of and can't be found, the isotpe will make it's way to a dump and be found there. That the local dump did not alarm is reassuring. He could have really hurt himself by ingesting some of his work, and his set up was childish and silly, but it's doubtful he ever possed a real threat to his neighbors.
The sad part is that his tallents were not channeled properly, that he never was convinced of the need to study other foundation material like math, that today he is a simple sailor. It's good for the Navy to have such a bright fellow, but bad for the rest of us. At age 21, it's not too late for this man to be educated and made useful. He has more curiosity and energy than most people. Go back to school, David.
Your customers don't understand browser compliance, they merely know that they could visit sites with AOL 7, but not AOL 8. Is the deluge of customer support phone calls and email really worth the hassle?
Ha! They could just get the browser to pop up a little message, "This site uses non standard methods and may not display properly," for every site that does so much as ask what browser you are using. This would let the user know who is at fault and prevent many irritated phone calls. Most of the pages would display OK, those few that don't would just get shafted as they deserve to be.
Thanks for the basic economic lecture, Joel. While I hardly consider your big two intro economics classes impressive, your thinking is clear. It should be, the concepts you dwell on are simple enough.
It's presumptious of you, however, to tell us why IBM, RMS, and everyone and their dog is doing what they do. The spin is a little nausiating. Let's examine some of the nasty ones:
At this point, it's pretty common for people to try to confuse things by saying, "aha! But Linux is FREE!" OK. First of all, when an economist considers price, they consider the total price, including some intangible things like the time it takes to set up, reeducate everyone, and convert existing processes. All the things that we like to call "total cost of ownership."
What confusion? You forget that studies consistently prove the lower cost of ownership of free software? Not that it's what I tell people. I generally point out freedom, control, security and then cost. Now I see the confusion, it's a straw man. What else does this silly Sallmanist say?
Secondly, by using the free-as-in-beer argument, these advocates try to believe that they are not subject to the rules of economics...
Wrong again! If you keep economic priciples in mind while reading free software organization pages, you will note and remember many economic reasons offered support software freedom. It's the makers of propriatory software that would like to make themselves beyond the reach of economic laws. They attempt to do this by abusing copyright and patent law, and engaging in other anti-competitive behavior. RMS rightly noted that the results of such behavior is economic waste in the form of double work and the inability to use software as you would.
The rest of the article is inconsequential after the false frame work has been applied. Free software advocates are not ignorant of economic laws and one of the main advatages to free software is lower total cost of ownership. Only propriatory software concerns have a financial intrest to deliberatly waste the efforts of users.
So what happens next? I watch my credit card bill, thank you. If everytime someone's tripwire blew off I had to get a new card, I'd have lots of new card numbers by now. Chances are I'd do nothing. Nor would my credit card company. Notify them, don't jam my mailbox.
The pros are good at being bad. You can try to fight them by not using software with great big holes in it, but they are going to get through anyway.
I think the usual fix for the problem is part of the credit card service - insurance to the merchant and card holder. If thieves make it impossible for the merchant, I expect merchants to stop taking credit cards. So sad, to bad, the credit card companies are the folks that need to fix the problem. They have plenty of money to throw at the problem.
All of that said, the banks in question should be notified so that they can be alert for suspicious activity. If your boss says no, find a new boss. The issue of not disclosing the "break in" is a non issue - it's part of your job. The worst thing that can happen is you get fired - generally a blessing from an unethical company. You will only look worse when the thefts are reported by others without your warning.
MSNBC - I'm glad the article was so well researched that they touched on all of the above issues. Such typical M$ FUD - blame the user for security problems and failing systems. Fear, people, fear.
Virus companies must PROMOTE
thier product for the good of everyone.
I've never heard of a virus company, much less had one do anything nice for me. Come to think of it, I've never had any comercial software company do anything for me.
You do understand the nature of AV makers and the futility of bothering them. Telling Norton, McGaffe, and who ever to behave is about as good as telling M$ to stop making buggy code.
Your appreciation of makers of obsolete garbage, however, is mystifying. No one needs windows, so no one needs anti virus software. I don't need Windows, nor does my wife. If we can get along without it, anyone can. Advertising dollars spent promoting Windoze and the AV it requires are pure waste, the last thrashing of a dinosaur that's evolved in all the wrong ways.
do not open an attachment if you don't know what it is. It's very simple....Of course, in the case of stupid users, there are some steps you can take on the server side to filter some viruses..."
It's simpler than that, don't use Outlook. Try Balsa, Pine, Mutt, Mozilla or exim. They all do the job.
I resent your presumption and the way you blame the user. At work I've had several Outlook viruses autoexecute with NO ACTION ON MY PART. Would you call me a stupid user? In fact, you should never call any user stupid because their software screwed them. It's the program's fault that it can be broken not the users. The programer should consider all possible user actions and have well defined error code responses to them, especially when they are going to sell the silly code as a non modifiable binary.
You must have missed the story, a few weeks ago, where the FCC invited an MIT proffesor to tell them that spred specturm would eliminate the spectrum scarcity and the FCC's mission, to regulate that scarce public comodity, would be over. The FCC may wish to crush the technology before it crushes them. They did the same thing to amature TV broadcasts as well. You know, 69 empty channles on the TV? Ever wonder why no one was broadcasting on them or over ham radio? So sad, too bad.
So what do you want? Unlimited cheap personal freedom of press and perfect universal news retreival or an alternate light bulb? I see fine at night right now, thank you, but I have to pay $65/month for cable. It would be just fine for the FCC to let these folks blot out the 2.4 GHz band, so long as they give the rest of the specturm back to the people.
Believe it or not, in 5 years, you could see Mac/Linux people buying, and running natively, stuff like Office and Visual Basic.NET, thanks to Microsoft embracing the concept of the virtual machine.
Sure thing Rilpley. Can you give me one reason people tie their work up in bloated, secret, propriatory formats that change once a year so that your previous work must be redone? Oh, that's right, people used Word because that's what the friendly M$ agent gave them in business school, then later it was the only comercial package that you could buy from a large retailer like Dell. So now with so many free alternatives available, you think people are going to continue to flog themsleves with M$ crap?
M$ is going to have to legislate themselves out of their current predicament. Their usual anti-competitive marketing policies will simply destroy their old friends. FUD is failing them as more people free themselves, and dumping is NOT something they can continue forever. Without some kind of horrid digital rights denial laws, the coomiditization of OS is the death of M$ and friends. If the feds want money from M$ they had better fine them or regulate them like tobaco. Otherwise M$ will slip away like glass bottle makers.
The scare here is that M$ or others can violate your rights by contract. This is no more the case than you can sell yourself into slavery. Anyone dumb enough to offer you that kind of a deal deserves to be burnt, and will be. You might have your property abused by agreement, but there are limits to that.
Some of the dumber EULA are sure to be thrown out. Is anyone really going to enforce the "you can't say bad things about M$ with front page" term? Good freaking luck. They might be able to take away that horrible program from you but they can't keep you from telling the world how much they suck.
Privacy is a real concern. The XP EULA grant's M$ the ability to search your computer. You had better believe they already do and will continue to do it. They even changed up their hotmail junk so they could spam you all the way to China. Kazza's gonna sell your cycles to Iraq for wepons development, well I don't think so.
These are all violations of your property and patience, but God help them if they actually break things in a way that lawers can understand. The waste M$ inflicts is huge, some starving lawyer is just waiting to pounce on it. Then poof, the proven illegal monopoly is going to actually pay.
My contracts with M$hit expired a long time ago and I'm much happier for it. You see freedom from all these abuses is closer than you think. Do something good for yourself and dump that privacy invading, insecure,unstable, advert laden junk. The power ends when you don't need it.
The big selling point for the slashdot crowd seems to be that it runs linux, but with a proprietary front end running on that 4-lines-of-text screen, and fat32 for the filesystem, I hardly think thats very cool. The instructions don't even mention how you'd connect it to anything besides windows... ie actually getting a shell on it?
Ummm, it's got an ftp server. Plug it into your local network and go to town. Does iPod do that for you? WinCE, ha ha ha! You might also try a shell escape on the ftp prompt like:
! ls -lh
to see what comes up. Sounds more portable than a key fob, and yeah hacking it would be cool.
Sadly, I'm not buying any $500 devices anytime soon. My poor man's answer to this has been to take plastic Quick (the drink) boxes and cram hard disks in them with some packing foam. Yeah, it's ugly and I have to open the target computer's case, but the hard disks are spare. It works great with older laptop hard disks which fit into the smaller boxes. My wife laughted at me for not knowing my quick drive was acutally in a Quick box. Eh, so what. Mounted media custom Debian installs, here I come. Perhaps I should call it the Quick Liberator?
I have been unwilling to recommend anything other than Windows or MacOS to my friends and family.
Why not help them chose for themselves? You know, use an old 4 gig hard drive to set them up dual boot and let them figure things out for themsleves? The only thing really difficult with any Linux distro these days is talking to cameras and what not. Let them keep their M$ partition for that, but for email, browsing, word processing, desktop management and other general stuff, Linux kicks ass. It only takes about 1 visit to an advert heavy site without the adverts to make someone love Mozilla. You only have to look at Window Maker to love it. Some people even know how to make their Linux boxes sing and dance. Not me, sigh, but I'm never ever going to use MSIE to surf again.
... indeed OpenOffice is less annoying than MSOffice 2000.
If the above poster can be trusted to give an accurate picture of the review, the reviewer claimed problems with sound quality, image dislplay and USB control. All three of these are likely M$ land mines. As a portable storage device, this thing has an edge over things like USB disks and key fobs, but M$ makes it look bad for other things. Hopefully the lead post is a troll, and the reviewer's experience was better than this.
Just as I had gotten comfort
able watching the images, a blue screen of death appeared indicating that the image to be displayed was corrupt. After several minutes of troubleshooting and several attempts at downloading the images onto the Mine, I eventually gave up without resolving the situation. The images seemed fine on my PC but simply would not display correctly when viewed via the Mine.
I've run into image problems from MicroShit lately. Specifically, their imaging softwar produces broken bit-map and tif format images. I would not have used said software had the TWAIN interface to my parallel scanner worked with any other software as it once did... antother story. The images produced would not open in Paint Shop Pro under Doze, nor would their tif files. The GIMP was equally puzzled with the images under Debian, but Electric Eyes pulled through by ignoring the errors. From there the images could be ported over to reasonable formats like jpeg and portable net graphics. Needless to say, the format errors must be intentional as there has been NO IMPROVEMENT or real change in these ancient image formats.
Simarlly, I expect M$ to play Digital Rights Denial tricks on portable devices. Look forward to this happening to CD burners as the fools think they own the world.
As for the camera control problem, no new here. All those damn USB devices are different and painful to configure. How could it be any different with M$ threatening to silently retaliate against anyone friendly to Linux?
There you have it folks. It will be difficult indeed for any company to overcome these problems universally, even with 10 gigs of disk space for drivers. M$ will continue to change formats, and this will continue to make others, including themselves look bad.
Show me a WinCE device that does half of what this one can. Microsoft's backers will fight to the death to keep people from being able to create, move and share their movies and music. Microsoft will go along with it, as long as they keep getting to resell paintbrush on a yearly basis.
Slashdot Mirror
another poster displayed this.
So I will just have to renegotiate of cut. I'm not going to pay $65/month for services I can't use.
So when is the FBI going to bust in my door for violating my service agreement by running ssh and an FTP site with pictures of my baby girl? I'm going to renegotiate my contract with COX or cut my line before the fucking FBI comes and takes all of my computers for "evidence" of "excessive" and "illegal" bandwith use.
There are many many ways to archive. Try webmagic. If that is too much to learn (for me it is) then just make the html yourself as you archive. Try setting the thubnail size to 100x100 in GMC and using blue fish to make a few example tables of the thumbnails pointing to the real picture. Blue fish does have a way to automate this, but I don't know it yet. Right now vi does everything I need. There you have it.
Can someone please explain why this vulnerability was handled this way? Why wasn't there a maintainance release that just fixed the @#$@#% problem?
On the other hand, I charge by the hour when I upgrade my client's machines. So thanks Theo! $-)
Why don't YOU make a fix and give it away? How about a whole OS? Oh, I see, so shut up.
It's a bug, but the platform is irrelavent.
Can you show me anything that demonstrates the first technical understanding?
Newsweek is prolefeed. You are an offtopic troll.
Paladium includes DRM chip on board. We can be sure that such a thing will make any machine with it into an appliance. That's fine, but it's not a computer. Hopefully someone will continue to make computers that work.
I do not believe in a Linux model that requires ongoing charity to survive.
While I can't speak for them, I don't think Linux Torvalds or Richard Stallman believe in such a model either. Both Torvalds and Stallman are earning decent livings with their skills. A "limited binary" distribution is not a viable business model, service is. It's not the shiny disk it's the ability to use it that people value. Obfuscating the works by binary distro will make United worthless. How does the fsf say it, something about having the choice of who to give up your rights to.
OK, I lied, I did not stop there, I read most of his answers. He wants people to pay him a fee to develop his code? This is better than the current free code how? He's not going to say he will be using patents but defends their use? He's leaving he QC for "value added components" to his fee paying member companies?
He says many of the right things but his approach is exactly opposite of succesful coding:
For Linux to move from the peripheral of the business network into mainstream application server market, businesses must be assured that their platform is certified and will work with other applications and hardware solution in their environment. What the UnitedLinux customer is paying for is 1) the assurance that his applications will work together, and 2) the ongoing maintenance and support of that certified platform. The restriction on binaries is to ensure product quality and consistency of the brand for hardware and software vendors and for the quality of support within the business organization. I believe that Red Hat is moving to a similar model with business customers. The majority of the value will be in product assurance and maintenance. Both of these are of tremendous value to the business customer.
The only way to insure this is to use free code and nothing but free code. Certifying configurations of that free code will make plenty of money. Trying to rebuild everything yourself and trying to tack on propriatory junk that no one else can sync with will never work.
As for you, what's this all about? When there are applications you need that run on linux, you get linux. I see it every day as the purchase orders come in. No distribution provider out there looking to make a buck understands yet.
What do I need that runs on any other platform that does not have a substitute on Linux? I'm not aware of it, that's why I own one of those white boxes like 45% of all other computer buyers last year. These white boxes are going to come with Linux, Lindows, even BSD and restrictive software companies are goint to fade away into some foggy nightmare.
OK, I can stop now.
Nah, they just need 50 decss keys. p.Opps! you were not supposed to hear what the new HDTV plan is. Now I have to kill you.
The delay is a good thing. Instead of autioning off the airwaves to a bunch of cell phone pigs, it would be better to work out a scheme where this spectrum could be usef for free wireless networks. The techonlogy is here. All that needs to be done is for the FCC to agree on a set of decent standards (IEEE, WWWC what not) and enforce decent behavior on it (oh my God a new mandate for the FCC, anti-spam enforcer!) This way any houshold could become a broadcaster and have an infinite range.
Erris sees what good can be done by people who don't give in to the urge to make a quick buck like Billy C did with those stupid acutions. He is obviously deluded and insane. Insanity is statistical.
How quickly we forget that they gave themselves that ability by EULA The XP EULA states 'You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation Computer.' To do this they must be able to read your files at will. What kind of privacy is that? That's M$'s stated policy and that's what you can expect.
Encrypting data between the keyboard and the monitor is good only for tin foil hat types and making sure that Other OS are deprived of hardware. Hollings might like this crap but the rest of us just won't buy it. How much more bloated and useless can M$ get? All of this junk to replace user accounts, file permissions and there means of actually insuring security and privacy.
It's reassuring to read that 45% of computers are built by small shops that have no incentive to follow M$ down. To paraphrase Bones, "It's dead, Jim."
M$ is more doomed by Wal Mart's promotion of Linux. It will eat M$'s revenue stream and leave them breaking their apps to dominate an OS that no one wants any more. The end is indeed near. Go Mandrake!
Try, "Most Linux programs won't run on Windows, Microsoft must be dying." Actually they are, but that's beside the point. Lindows might just be enough for most people. When they get tired of it or it has problems, we can be sure that someone will be good enough to put Debian on it. Oh yeah, that will kill Micrsoft. Oh well.
Look for yourself. As Joel himself admits, life is never as simple as economic theory. This might be a good starting point for TCO study. It does not take much brains to figure out that cheaper alternatives are available when PC's that cost as much a mainfraims used to, then doubled in cost while hardware became much cheaper.
OK. Now that is frankly ridiculous. Even if you disagree with some of his comments about OSS, that does not make the rest of the article meaningless.
Not meaningless, unimportant. There is plenty of meaning to all of the details there, but the lie that is told is that USER ECONOMICS are behind the shift at many companies. Unethical people and companies have a hard time grasping that some people try to make their livings honestly by doing what is best for their friends and neighbors. The unethical just can't see beyond extortion. The proof is left as an unpleasant exercise for the reader.
Woops! He screwed up like the Germans did and did not realize that Carbon contains Boron, a powerful neutron absorber. Or did he?
Miller, a nuclear-savvy high-school friend in whom David had confided, warned him that real reactors use control rods to regulate nuclear reactions. Miller recommended cobalt, which absorbs neutrons but does not itself become fissionable.
Ieeee! Cobalt may suck down neutrons, but it does so by making Cobalt-60, a powerful gamma emitter with a five year half life. Not good, kids better to use borax.
The article over all is sinister and alarmist. While the author bettered himself by reading snippits of the Golder Book of Chemistry, the overall tone is that knowledge and should be controled like materials that can POTENTIALY be abused. The parents were at fault for alowing this to go on and not seeking help at the university, but the contamination produced was not great. Our here might not have realized that he had stepped into illegal or unhealthy concentrations. Overall, as the "garbage go the good stuff", there was very little stuff to he had. Most municpal dumps have radiation detectors for the protection of the public and workers. It's kind of a last step in the control of medical isotopes and what not; if the isotope is not controled by the state/federal regulator; if the isotope is lost by the hospital; if the isotope goes to Mexico and comes back; if the isotope is sold or disposed of and can't be found, the isotpe will make it's way to a dump and be found there. That the local dump did not alarm is reassuring. He could have really hurt himself by ingesting some of his work, and his set up was childish and silly, but it's doubtful he ever possed a real threat to his neighbors.
The sad part is that his tallents were not channeled properly, that he never was convinced of the need to study other foundation material like math, that today he is a simple sailor. It's good for the Navy to have such a bright fellow, but bad for the rest of us. At age 21, it's not too late for this man to be educated and made useful. He has more curiosity and energy than most people. Go back to school, David.
Ha! They could just get the browser to pop up a little message, "This site uses non standard methods and may not display properly," for every site that does so much as ask what browser you are using. This would let the user know who is at fault and prevent many irritated phone calls. Most of the pages would display OK, those few that don't would just get shafted as they deserve to be.
It's presumptious of you, however, to tell us why IBM, RMS, and everyone and their dog is doing what they do. The spin is a little nausiating. Let's examine some of the nasty ones:
At this point, it's pretty common for people to try to confuse things by saying, "aha! But Linux is FREE!" OK. First of all, when an economist considers price, they consider the total price, including some intangible things like the time it takes to set up, reeducate everyone, and convert existing processes. All the things that we like to call "total cost of ownership."
What confusion? You forget that studies consistently prove the lower cost of ownership of free software? Not that it's what I tell people. I generally point out freedom, control, security and then cost. Now I see the confusion, it's a straw man. What else does this silly Sallmanist say?
Secondly, by using the free-as-in-beer argument, these advocates try to believe that they are not subject to the rules of economics...
Wrong again! If you keep economic priciples in mind while reading free software organization pages, you will note and remember many economic reasons offered support software freedom. It's the makers of propriatory software that would like to make themselves beyond the reach of economic laws. They attempt to do this by abusing copyright and patent law, and engaging in other anti-competitive behavior. RMS rightly noted that the results of such behavior is economic waste in the form of double work and the inability to use software as you would.
The rest of the article is inconsequential after the false frame work has been applied. Free software advocates are not ignorant of economic laws and one of the main advatages to free software is lower total cost of ownership. Only propriatory software concerns have a financial intrest to deliberatly waste the efforts of users.
The pros are good at being bad. You can try to fight them by not using software with great big holes in it, but they are going to get through anyway.
I think the usual fix for the problem is part of the credit card service - insurance to the merchant and card holder. If thieves make it impossible for the merchant, I expect merchants to stop taking credit cards. So sad, to bad, the credit card companies are the folks that need to fix the problem. They have plenty of money to throw at the problem.
All of that said, the banks in question should be notified so that they can be alert for suspicious activity. If your boss says no, find a new boss. The issue of not disclosing the "break in" is a non issue - it's part of your job. The worst thing that can happen is you get fired - generally a blessing from an unethical company. You will only look worse when the thefts are reported by others without your warning.
MSNBC - I'm glad the article was so well researched that they touched on all of the above issues. Such typical M$ FUD - blame the user for security problems and failing systems. Fear, people, fear.
Next!
I've never heard of a virus company, much less had one do anything nice for me. Come to think of it, I've never had any comercial software company do anything for me.
You do understand the nature of AV makers and the futility of bothering them. Telling Norton, McGaffe, and who ever to behave is about as good as telling M$ to stop making buggy code.
Your appreciation of makers of obsolete garbage, however, is mystifying. No one needs windows, so no one needs anti virus software. I don't need Windows, nor does my wife. If we can get along without it, anyone can. Advertising dollars spent promoting Windoze and the AV it requires are pure waste, the last thrashing of a dinosaur that's evolved in all the wrong ways.
It's simpler than that, don't use Outlook. Try Balsa, Pine, Mutt, Mozilla or exim. They all do the job.
I resent your presumption and the way you blame the user. At work I've had several Outlook viruses autoexecute with NO ACTION ON MY PART. Would you call me a stupid user? In fact, you should never call any user stupid because their software screwed them. It's the program's fault that it can be broken not the users. The programer should consider all possible user actions and have well defined error code responses to them, especially when they are going to sell the silly code as a non modifiable binary.
So what do you want? Unlimited cheap personal freedom of press and perfect universal news retreival or an alternate light bulb? I see fine at night right now, thank you, but I have to pay $65/month for cable. It would be just fine for the FCC to let these folks blot out the 2.4 GHz band, so long as they give the rest of the specturm back to the people.
Sure thing Rilpley. Can you give me one reason people tie their work up in bloated, secret, propriatory formats that change once a year so that your previous work must be redone? Oh, that's right, people used Word because that's what the friendly M$ agent gave them in business school, then later it was the only comercial package that you could buy from a large retailer like Dell. So now with so many free alternatives available, you think people are going to continue to flog themsleves with M$ crap?
M$ is going to have to legislate themselves out of their current predicament. Their usual anti-competitive marketing policies will simply destroy their old friends. FUD is failing them as more people free themselves, and dumping is NOT something they can continue forever. Without some kind of horrid digital rights denial laws, the coomiditization of OS is the death of M$ and friends. If the feds want money from M$ they had better fine them or regulate them like tobaco. Otherwise M$ will slip away like glass bottle makers.
Some of the dumber EULA are sure to be thrown out. Is anyone really going to enforce the "you can't say bad things about M$ with front page" term? Good freaking luck. They might be able to take away that horrible program from you but they can't keep you from telling the world how much they suck.
Privacy is a real concern. The XP EULA grant's M$ the ability to search your computer. You had better believe they already do and will continue to do it. They even changed up their hotmail junk so they could spam you all the way to China. Kazza's gonna sell your cycles to Iraq for wepons development, well I don't think so.
These are all violations of your property and patience, but God help them if they actually break things in a way that lawers can understand. The waste M$ inflicts is huge, some starving lawyer is just waiting to pounce on it. Then poof, the proven illegal monopoly is going to actually pay.
My contracts with M$hit expired a long time ago and I'm much happier for it. You see freedom from all these abuses is closer than you think. Do something good for yourself and dump that privacy invading, insecure,unstable, advert laden junk. The power ends when you don't need it.
Ummm, it's got an ftp server. Plug it into your local network and go to town. Does iPod do that for you? WinCE, ha ha ha! You might also try a shell escape on the ftp prompt like:
! ls -lh
to see what comes up. Sounds more portable than a key fob, and yeah hacking it would be cool.
Sadly, I'm not buying any $500 devices anytime soon. My poor man's answer to this has been to take plastic Quick (the drink) boxes and cram hard disks in them with some packing foam. Yeah, it's ugly and I have to open the target computer's case, but the hard disks are spare. It works great with older laptop hard disks which fit into the smaller boxes. My wife laughted at me for not knowing my quick drive was acutally in a Quick box. Eh, so what. Mounted media custom Debian installs, here I come. Perhaps I should call it the Quick Liberator?
Why not help them chose for themselves? You know, use an old 4 gig hard drive to set them up dual boot and let them figure things out for themsleves? The only thing really difficult with any Linux distro these days is talking to cameras and what not. Let them keep their M$ partition for that, but for email, browsing, word processing, desktop management and other general stuff, Linux kicks ass. It only takes about 1 visit to an advert heavy site without the adverts to make someone love Mozilla. You only have to look at Window Maker to love it. Some people even know how to make their Linux boxes sing and dance. Not me, sigh, but I'm never ever going to use MSIE to surf again.
This observation is far from unique =:>
able watching the images, a blue screen of death appeared indicating that the image to be displayed was corrupt. After several minutes of troubleshooting and several attempts at downloading the images onto the Mine, I eventually gave up without resolving the situation. The images seemed fine on my PC but simply would not display correctly when viewed via the Mine.
I've run into image problems from MicroShit lately. Specifically, their imaging softwar produces broken bit-map and tif format images. I would not have used said software had the TWAIN interface to my parallel scanner worked with any other software as it once did ... antother story. The images produced would not open in Paint Shop Pro under Doze, nor would their tif files. The GIMP was equally puzzled with the images under Debian, but Electric Eyes pulled through by ignoring the errors. From there the images could be ported over to reasonable formats like jpeg and portable net graphics. Needless to say, the format errors must be intentional as there has been NO IMPROVEMENT or real change in these ancient image formats.
Simarlly, I expect M$ to play Digital Rights Denial tricks on portable devices. Look forward to this happening to CD burners as the fools think they own the world.
As for the camera control problem, no new here. All those damn USB devices are different and painful to configure. How could it be any different with M$ threatening to silently retaliate against anyone friendly to Linux?
There you have it folks. It will be difficult indeed for any company to overcome these problems universally, even with 10 gigs of disk space for drivers. M$ will continue to change formats, and this will continue to make others, including themselves look bad.
Show me a WinCE device that does half of what this one can. Microsoft's backers will fight to the death to keep people from being able to create, move and share their movies and music. Microsoft will go along with it, as long as they keep getting to resell paintbrush on a yearly basis.