Re:Not only useful for dating...
on
Googling For Dates?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Having an unusual name actually works too. I mean, if you search on my real name the first thing that pops up is my homepage. And guess who controls what is published there?
It's not had to find the more nasty stuff, but it usually involves not just Googling... After all you usually use a Nom De Plume while flaming on the internet.
It's an extra layer of abstraction, and every layer of abstraction introduces bugs. It's that simple. You never have been affected by CPU instruction set bugs, for the simple reason that most compilers work around them. (Well, as far as I know) For example, most compilers have a workaround for the famous FDIV bug. Yes, it's slower, but that's not the point
As for the Win32 API: I had and found my share of bugs in the Win32 API. Already just the differences between the 9x series and the NT series is enough to pull your hair out. You say: "just say win2k and higher", well that is often unacceptable to a client.
Above that there are DLL issues. Yes, it partially is solved now, but I had the personal case where Access DLLs were overwritten by some application at a client and my application didn't work because of that. (No, I don't enjoy working with Access) No Windows platform is the same, at least not exactly. You could -for example- make the mistake that some DLL is part of the system, but in reality it is part of MS Office. You use it, and it will work on 75% of all machines because Office is there, on the other machines it will fail.
I see that you complain about the sheer multitude of VM's. Yes, indeed, all of them have bugs and often behave differently. (Oh, and don't even start about the VM of IE and the VM of Netscape 4.xx) So you are, essentially complaining that people shouldn't be able to choose a VM? See, I think the programmers of every VM are concerned to fix all the bugs as soon as possible: so if *you* as a developper find one, you should file a bug report and get over with it. It's not as if your program is not going to work, it usually just is a small glitch everyone can live with.
Finally, you introduce the idea that a hypothetical bug in the Linux VM would stop a person of running your Java program under Linux. Good, let's assume that happens, how different would that be from saying "Sorry, Windows 95" is not supported. Make your life easy by saying "Supported platforms are the Sun VM 1.3.1 on XP/W2K/NT", you're okay. Anyone with another platform will not be able to call you for support, but you can *bet* that some silly guy will try it on his Mac/Linux/Sun machine. If your code is OpenSource he might even try to patch it, test on both platforms and send the result to you.
I personally did this recently with my Mac. The ebanking application is only supported on IE5.5 on Windows. Well, I just tried to get it running on my Mac. Guess what? It works! Same thing for Mozilla and even Netscape 4.7 on Windows. I know this is not Java (well JSP, but I don't have access to them), but it means that there always will be people that will try to use your software "as it wasn't intended".
Yes, that and RealPlayer, Network monitoring tools, Graphic card addons, MediaPlayer 666, and whatnot. If there are more than 5 trayicons you are doing something wrong. I know I think differently, but most people would be better off if it didn't came installed by default. Choosing themselves what is good for them, not what some Dolt at Dell thinks that is good for them. I think I'm more a candidate for Linux and other more customizable systems. Why do you think I read slashdot;-)
About the Macs. I won't go into the price issue: I have been flamed to death for defending Mac pricing on this website, often marked as a Troll or Flamebait. Personally I don't think Macs are much more expensive than PC's. At least not in the last few years. The one button mouse I actually enjoy! I thought I would hate it and bought a 2 button wheel mouse along with the Mac. It still is in the box. One mouse button is enough. And, yes, I'm not a gamer... So I grant you games, though I've seen quite some games for Macs in the stores. It most of the time is prejudice. Myths like that you cannot do video editing or run Office on a Mac and that you cannot use them in networked environments along with Windows machines seem to persist.
Well, probably different experiences: I took a Debian ISO and installed it from there, but dselect was pain and apt-get kept giving me errors (on depedencies, isn't it supposed to solve that?)
I can get Slackware running however (without a problem), so it's not as if I have to live without Linux. And my *BSD systems work fine too, so I wouldn't really say I'm incompetent. Just probably not used to how Debian works.
Actually it is transistor density on the chip. But that's just nitpicking. Moore's hypothesis has nothing to do with Mhz and/or power (which both are unrelated too), but with transistors
Nope, I only have seen XP on display computers in shops. My windows of choice is NT4 for older machines (or a *BSD variant) or Windows 2000 on newer machines. I have been eying FreeBSD lately because I have a lot of OpenBSD experience. While many people tell me that XP is faster, I cannot believe it and I stick to 2000 until I can migrate completely (at home, work is a different story) to something else. Well, most of the time I use my iBook now.
I have used XP while *helping* people, because they screwed it up majorly. But I don't want to base my XP experience on screwed up home computers. However I found it very hard to find things in XP because Microsoft seems to have put everything in different places...again...
e OS ended up formatting my hard drive and doing a fresh install -- WITHOUT MY CONSENT!
You must have had a different version than mine, because it always neatly asked if I wanted to partition. It had an excellent partitioning program: far better than fdisk under DOS. Heck, even the famous OS/2 Boot Manager (which ships also with Partition Magic) was completely integrated within the OS/2 fdisk. Even after I stopped using OS/2 (about after 2 years and getting too much Office 95 docs that were unreadble), I still used the installdisks to get my hands on the Boot Manager and be able to dual boot DOS and Win95.
As far as I recall, the OS/2 owners manual actually explains how to make a dual boot system, complete with images and all.
For your comparision with Debian: I still haven't managed to install Debian *today*, but OS/2 worked out of the box *back then*
a manufacturer that pre-installs windows on their machines is not the devil for it
No, they are not. Of course they are not because in 95% of the time the customer wouldn't be aware of the alternative and thus will want Windows. However: have you ever *seen* the default installs of a Compaq or a Dell? No? I did: they are completely plastered with useless and idiot software, 3000 different services and stuff no normal user would ever need. Just to give you an idea: back in the Pentium days, I saw a Dell fresh out of the shop with 32Meg RAM (a lot in the time) and after bootup and doing nothing the memory usage was at 64Meg. Urks! That hurts, and that was a default install. Recent installs are better peformancewise, mainly due to cheap memory and fast CPU's, but the clutter is still there.
That is my problems with OEM's.... Not my problem with Microsoft. That is why any OEM machine that gest into my house just get booted up with a bootdisk/cd and reformatted on the spot.
And why don't people like Macs? (Linux I can understand) I don't get that: I used to dislike Macs, but that was a prejudice! I now have one and hell I've never had such a good system, and it's only an iBook.
Classic Joke:
Q: What is the difference between the United States of America and a pot of yoghurt?
A: A pot of yoghurt will eventually produce a culture.
Someone who corrects spelling/grammar mistakes on a public forum is often referred to as a grammar nazi.
It has nothing to do with Nazi's in itself. Just the association Nazi == "stiff unflexible person".
Wow, you mean that if I use Windows 95 as a server and schedule 1 hours of rebooting a day, my uptime will be near 100%?
Urks... Give me a good *BSD anyday. When I type the command "uptime" there, I know what my uptime actually is. (Yes, I know it exists under Linux.)
you can do schedueled reboots regularly like MS recommends and get very high uptime figures
Ehm, isn't the definition of "uptime" actually staying up without rebooting . In other words, scheduling reboots will keep your uptime low. If you mean by "uptime" the time that the machine is "up", then even a reboot every month makes the machine unavailable every month for at least the time of the reboot, killing of course the "uptime" I know this is not important in an office setting because you can do it at night.
Oh, any you think that is nessecary? Go look around on many companies websites, you can easily find email adresses. Some even list their complete databases.
For example someone showed me this , while it is no company, it must be the spammers delight to find out valid email adresses. Just try for example the name "black" (made up name) and you already get three valid email adresses. How hard would it be to point a robot at it and fire up different requests? Worst is actually that there is much more information than just the email address. I even doubt about the legality of such a system.
I'm pretty sure it's possible to find a lot of sites that allow this kind of functionality! I means, it's not as spammers shun from harvesting stuff from the whois database.
Well, yes, my technique is a bit less refined... but definately gets more "nerd points". Reliable, cheaper (no domain needed) and more efficient.
Anyway: the weak point in the spamarchive-as-revenge-technique is that point 4 is uncertain. How do you get slashdotted? Don't forget that what is posted on the frontpage is at the whim of the editors. You can sumbit a good story, have it rejected, and then two months later that story pops up on the frontpage submitted by someone else.
So how do you get your website posted on slashdot? I don't think there is a safe way to be absolutely certain.
Well, I have to plaid guilty for being free Microsoft support, yes. I help a lot of families when their computers go down, or when the latest virus hit them. I'd love to give them Linux, but most of them already whine when I lock down Windows 2000 too much because I don't want them to install "that great shareware program that came with this magazine", or that "nice purple monkey". It's for their protection, but they don't see it that way. You see: the problem with normal users is that they do not comprehend enough of their system to be aware that if I install Linux (or BSD) those applications won't work. From my point of view, that is a good thing, from theirs I did a bad job. This means they won't call me again ever, which means the "less competent uncle that has meddled with computers" will "fix" the machine.
I have installed computers for educated people, ranging from Biologists, to Marketing Majors. Unfortunately they always want something I cannot offer: the Biologist wanted a statistical package that runs only under Windows and the Marketing guy wanted to develop Flash stuff with Macromedia. These are just examples, but I'm even having a hard time to explain them about Spyware, about the dangers of Outlook and so on. (Sidenote: when the Marketing Major found out about spyware he was outraged and told me that must be illegal) Others are into video-editing, another is a bus chauffeur that insist on having Autoroute Express. While alteratives may exist for any of those programs, many want to stay with what they know. See, I didn't even start about games, just "casual apps".
For some I do install dual-boot systems, and while my distrib of choice is Slackware, I tend to install the Desktop-friendly ones for them, just like Xandros and Lycoris. Both are much easier to setup than Windows 2000 (I don't do XP). However I fear that this is not enough exposure. Often I feel of it as if the few Gigs on their (way too big harddisks) are wasted.
As I see it, installing Linux for the commoner is a nice political statement and perhaps the best advice a computer scientist can give. However the commoner sees it as if his freedom is robbed, because he cannot install whatever he wants or buys at the local computer store. In the end I want to help people, and I'm just not doing that by installing Linux. Linux gives the geek freedom, but limits the normal user. It's a sad state of affairs. Yes, I'm bitter... Sorry, I hope I din't rant too much.
But what about people you know who are not into computers enough to do it themselves
Simple: they will not use Linux. Heck they probably haven't even heard of it and think my Pengiun on top of my monitor is a nice decoration. Face it: Linux is for those that want to learn and Windows is for those that stopped caring.
I remember the day you needed to know what a filesystem is in order to use a computer. Now you just have to know what it is when installing the machine (NTFS or FAT16/FAT32... it is asked during the W2k install), and that is not done by the people you describe. It is done by specialists like you and me.
Well, and I just thought of a car.
I suspected it wouldn't be that, but it was my way of asking. *sigh*
I've never heard of the English C5, either. Anybody got a link?
Ever installed Windows NT4 or Windows 2000 (don't know for XP) from scratch while booting form the CD?
The first part is text-based my dear AC. I don't know how you made it to +2, Insightfull but an installation should be a one-time activity and whatever you say: GUI doesn't cut it, because frankly, if you give a Windows 2000 CD to your little sister she won't figure it out either.
Because for installing a computer correctly you need at least some basic computer knowledge. The other 99% you talk about get their computers installed by "us" (meaning, people who know what they do). It's normal... I don't start drilling in my teeth when I've got toothache, I go to a dentist: a specialist. There is no difference with computers.
Flamebait? I think not.. This guy has a point: women inbetween themselves are far from nice. Heck, any woman that is confronted with a better version will try to downplay the "advantages" of the other version.
I've personally seen this numerous times.
Slashdot Mirror
Having an unusual name actually works too. I mean, if you search on my real name the first thing that pops up is my homepage. And guess who controls what is published there?
It's not had to find the more nasty stuff, but it usually involves not just Googling... After all you usually use a Nom De Plume while flaming on the internet.
As for the Win32 API: I had and found my share of bugs in the Win32 API. Already just the differences between the 9x series and the NT series is enough to pull your hair out. You say: "just say win2k and higher", well that is often unacceptable to a client.
Above that there are DLL issues. Yes, it partially is solved now, but I had the personal case where Access DLLs were overwritten by some application at a client and my application didn't work because of that. (No, I don't enjoy working with Access) No Windows platform is the same, at least not exactly. You could -for example- make the mistake that some DLL is part of the system, but in reality it is part of MS Office. You use it, and it will work on 75% of all machines because Office is there, on the other machines it will fail.
I see that you complain about the sheer multitude of VM's. Yes, indeed, all of them have bugs and often behave differently. (Oh, and don't even start about the VM of IE and the VM of Netscape 4.xx) So you are, essentially complaining that people shouldn't be able to choose a VM? See, I think the programmers of every VM are concerned to fix all the bugs as soon as possible: so if *you* as a developper find one, you should file a bug report and get over with it. It's not as if your program is not going to work, it usually just is a small glitch everyone can live with.
Finally, you introduce the idea that a hypothetical bug in the Linux VM would stop a person of running your Java program under Linux. Good, let's assume that happens, how different would that be from saying "Sorry, Windows 95" is not supported. Make your life easy by saying "Supported platforms are the Sun VM 1.3.1 on XP/W2K/NT", you're okay. Anyone with another platform will not be able to call you for support, but you can *bet* that some silly guy will try it on his Mac/Linux/Sun machine. If your code is OpenSource he might even try to patch it, test on both platforms and send the result to you.
I personally did this recently with my Mac. The ebanking application is only supported on IE5.5 on Windows. Well, I just tried to get it running on my Mac. Guess what? It works! Same thing for Mozilla and even Netscape 4.7 on Windows. I know this is not Java (well JSP, but I don't have access to them), but it means that there always will be people that will try to use your software "as it wasn't intended".
And there aren't any bugs in the Win32 API, nor are there bugs in CPU instruction sets? Yeah, right!
Yes, that and RealPlayer, Network monitoring tools, Graphic card addons, MediaPlayer 666, and whatnot. If there are more than 5 trayicons you are doing something wrong. I know I think differently, but most people would be better off if it didn't came installed by default. Choosing themselves what is good for them, not what some Dolt at Dell thinks that is good for them. I think I'm more a candidate for Linux and other more customizable systems. Why do you think I read slashdot ;-)
About the Macs. I won't go into the price issue: I have been flamed to death for defending Mac pricing on this website, often marked as a Troll or Flamebait. Personally I don't think Macs are much more expensive than PC's. At least not in the last few years. The one button mouse I actually enjoy! I thought I would hate it and bought a 2 button wheel mouse along with the Mac. It still is in the box. One mouse button is enough. And, yes, I'm not a gamer... So I grant you games, though I've seen quite some games for Macs in the stores. It most of the time is prejudice. Myths like that you cannot do video editing or run Office on a Mac and that you cannot use them in networked environments along with Windows machines seem to persist.
Well, probably different experiences: I took a Debian ISO and installed it from there, but dselect was pain and apt-get kept giving me errors (on depedencies, isn't it supposed to solve that?)
I can get Slackware running however (without a problem), so it's not as if I have to live without Linux. And my *BSD systems work fine too, so I wouldn't really say I'm incompetent. Just probably not used to how Debian works.
Actually it is transistor density on the chip. But that's just nitpicking. Moore's hypothesis has nothing to do with Mhz and/or power (which both are unrelated too), but with transistors
Nope, I only have seen XP on display computers in shops. My windows of choice is NT4 for older machines (or a *BSD variant) or Windows 2000 on newer machines. I have been eying FreeBSD lately because I have a lot of OpenBSD experience. While many people tell me that XP is faster, I cannot believe it and I stick to 2000 until I can migrate completely (at home, work is a different story) to something else. Well, most of the time I use my iBook now.
I have used XP while *helping* people, because they screwed it up majorly. But I don't want to base my XP experience on screwed up home computers. However I found it very hard to find things in XP because Microsoft seems to have put everything in different places...again...
You must have had a different version than mine, because it always neatly asked if I wanted to partition. It had an excellent partitioning program: far better than fdisk under DOS.
Heck, even the famous OS/2 Boot Manager (which ships also with Partition Magic) was completely integrated within the OS/2 fdisk. Even after I stopped using OS/2 (about after 2 years and getting too much Office 95 docs that were unreadble), I still used the installdisks to get my hands on the Boot Manager and be able to dual boot DOS and Win95.
As far as I recall, the OS/2 owners manual actually explains how to make a dual boot system, complete with images and all.
For your comparision with Debian: I still haven't managed to install Debian *today*, but OS/2 worked out of the box *back then*
No, they are not. Of course they are not because in 95% of the time the customer wouldn't be aware of the alternative and thus will want Windows. However: have you ever *seen* the default installs of a Compaq or a Dell? No? I did: they are completely plastered with useless and idiot software, 3000 different services and stuff no normal user would ever need. Just to give you an idea: back in the Pentium days, I saw a Dell fresh out of the shop with 32Meg RAM (a lot in the time) and after bootup and doing nothing the memory usage was at 64Meg. Urks! That hurts, and that was a default install. Recent installs are better peformancewise, mainly due to cheap memory and fast CPU's, but the clutter is still there.
That is my problems with OEM's.... Not my problem with Microsoft. That is why any OEM machine that gest into my house just get booted up with a bootdisk/cd and reformatted on the spot.
And why don't people like Macs? (Linux I can understand) I don't get that: I used to dislike Macs, but that was a prejudice! I now have one and hell I've never had such a good system, and it's only an iBook.
Classic Joke:
Q: What is the difference between the United States of America and a pot of yoghurt?
A: A pot of yoghurt will eventually produce a culture.
Someone who corrects spelling/grammar mistakes on a public forum is often referred to as a grammar nazi.
It has nothing to do with Nazi's in itself. Just the association Nazi == "stiff unflexible person".
Wow, you mean that if I use Windows 95 as a server and schedule 1 hours of rebooting a day, my uptime will be near 100%?
Urks... Give me a good *BSD anyday. When I type the command "uptime" there, I know what my uptime actually is. (Yes, I know it exists under Linux.)
I think there is a screensaver under Linux showing different error/panic screens on different OSes. It does include the BSOD.
Ehm, isn't the definition of "uptime" actually staying up without rebooting . In other words, scheduling reboots will keep your uptime low. If you mean by "uptime" the time that the machine is "up", then even a reboot every month makes the machine unavailable every month for at least the time of the reboot, killing of course the "uptime" I know this is not important in an office setting because you can do it at night.
For example someone showed me this , while it is no company, it must be the spammers delight to find out valid email adresses. Just try for example the name "black" (made up name) and you already get three valid email adresses. How hard would it be to point a robot at it and fire up different requests? Worst is actually that there is much more information than just the email address. I even doubt about the legality of such a system.
I'm pretty sure it's possible to find a lot of sites that allow this kind of functionality! I means, it's not as spammers shun from harvesting stuff from the whois database.
Well, yes, my technique is a bit less refined... but definately gets more "nerd points". Reliable, cheaper (no domain needed) and more efficient.
Anyway: the weak point in the spamarchive-as-revenge-technique is that point 4 is uncertain. How do you get slashdotted? Don't forget that what is posted on the frontpage is at the whim of the editors. You can sumbit a good story, have it rejected, and then two months later that story pops up on the frontpage submitted by someone else.
So how do you get your website posted on slashdot? I don't think there is a safe way to be absolutely certain.
Your ex is gonna love you for that. Not that *I* ever do such things... Don't be astonished if your car is keyed the next day, by the way.
You see: the problem with normal users is that they do not comprehend enough of their system to be aware that if I install Linux (or BSD) those applications won't work. From my point of view, that is a good thing, from theirs I did a bad job. This means they won't call me again ever, which means the "less competent uncle that has meddled with computers" will "fix" the machine.
I have installed computers for educated people, ranging from Biologists, to Marketing Majors. Unfortunately they always want something I cannot offer: the Biologist wanted a statistical package that runs only under Windows and the Marketing guy wanted to develop Flash stuff with Macromedia. These are just examples, but I'm even having a hard time to explain them about Spyware, about the dangers of Outlook and so on. (Sidenote: when the Marketing Major found out about spyware he was outraged and told me that must be illegal) Others are into video-editing, another is a bus chauffeur that insist on having Autoroute Express. While alteratives may exist for any of those programs, many want to stay with what they know. See, I didn't even start about games, just "casual apps".
For some I do install dual-boot systems, and while my distrib of choice is Slackware, I tend to install the Desktop-friendly ones for them, just like Xandros and Lycoris. Both are much easier to setup than Windows 2000 (I don't do XP). However I fear that this is not enough exposure. Often I feel of it as if the few Gigs on their (way too big harddisks) are wasted.
As I see it, installing Linux for the commoner is a nice political statement and perhaps the best advice a computer scientist can give. However the commoner sees it as if his freedom is robbed, because he cannot install whatever he wants or buys at the local computer store. In the end I want to help people, and I'm just not doing that by installing Linux. Linux gives the geek freedom, but limits the normal user.
It's a sad state of affairs. Yes, I'm bitter... Sorry, I hope I din't rant too much.
Simple: they will not use Linux. Heck they probably haven't even heard of it and think my Pengiun on top of my monitor is a nice decoration. Face it: Linux is for those that want to learn and Windows is for those that stopped caring.
I remember the day you needed to know what a filesystem is in order to use a computer. Now you just have to know what it is when installing the machine (NTFS or FAT16/FAT32... it is asked during the W2k install), and that is not done by the people you describe. It is done by specialists like you and me.
You've got it the wrong way around .
Well, and I just thought of a car. I suspected it wouldn't be that, but it was my way of asking. *sigh*
I've never heard of the English C5, either. Anybody got a link?
Or is there another C5, I'm not a aware of. (Of course if you meant the Renault Vel-Satis, that's another discussion *grin*)
Actually if your friends start to say that you need a bigger penis, I think you really have a problem. It's even worse if those friends are female...
Ever installed Windows NT4 or Windows 2000 (don't know for XP) from scratch while booting form the CD?
The first part is text-based my dear AC. I don't know how you made it to +2, Insightfull but an installation should be a one-time activity and whatever you say: GUI doesn't cut it, because frankly, if you give a Windows 2000 CD to your little sister she won't figure it out either.
Because for installing a computer correctly you need at least some basic computer knowledge. The other 99% you talk about get their computers installed by "us" (meaning, people who know what they do). It's normal... I don't start drilling in my teeth when I've got toothache, I go to a dentist: a specialist. There is no difference with computers.
Flamebait? I think not.. This guy has a point: women inbetween themselves are far from nice. Heck, any woman that is confronted with a better version will try to downplay the "advantages" of the other version.
I've personally seen this numerous times.