...but you can also make Google pop up when you click the "Search" button in IE. This makes Google searching even easier since you can have the search window open on the left and hit your search results on the right. (Yay for "tabbed browsing", IE style.)
Also, the coolest feature of the Google toolbar IMHO is not even the instant search, but the "Highlight" button. Gone forever is hitting Ctrl-F and typing in a search term. Just search for something in Google, go to a result, and hit "Highlight" -- the search terms are instantly highlighted. This saves me an incredible amount of time when I'm searching through, say, mailing list archives.
The Google toolbar is one of the biggest reasons I use IE. (Well, that and the fact that page developers, including myself, follow the rule of thumb "Design so that it looks good in IE and works in Netscape.") But anyway, I digress. If you're using IE, check out toolbar.google.com and download it.
First of all, ACPI was created to a) make computers that "boot" instantly by always being in sleep mode and b) end the IRQ conflicts so common with earlier versions of Windows and hardware. So yes, ACPI, when working right, simply rocks.
However, ACPI on certain motherboards, especially AMD motherboards, can cause severe system instability with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. (Please note that these OSes don't freeze/BSOD under normal circumstances, so if you're seeing this, you probably have a hardware issue which could be related to ACPI.)
The most common scenario I have seen is this:
-- Someone decently technically savvy builds his/her own PC with an AMD chip; -- Said person installs Windows XP; -- Said person wonders why IRQs are all set to 9; -- Said person goes and manually messes with IRQ settings, thus wreaking havoc on the poor commputer that functioned perfectly before.
It can also go the other way: -- Said person installs Windows XP with AMD chip; -- Said person experiences weird freezes; -- Said person's computer works fine with Windows 98 because Win98 doesn't have full ACPI support, so person is left wondering why everyone says that Windows 2000 and Windows XP are so stable since that person's computer crashes constantly.
To turn off ACPI, reinstall Windows and set your computer type to "Standard PC." Here is an excellent guide on how to set your PC to a Standard PC. As mentioned in the guide, this gives you the added benefit of increased framerates in Quake 3. However, you have to manually turn your computer off, and it might not go into powersave mode properly. Here is another comment regarding ACPI.
So, to summarize:
-- If you're having problems with Windows 2000/XP freezing, try this fix. Freezes are indicative of a hardware issue. Your computer should be stable with these OSes (except for application crashes, which happen with every OS.) My current uptime with Windows 2000 is 27 days; I have seen over 100 days uptime. If you're not seeing this type of stability with 2000/XP, it's time to do some hardware diagnostics. -- If you're not having problems, leave well enough alone and leave ACPI turned on. -- Do NOT mess with your IRQs on an ACPI computer! By messing with IRQs manually, you're asking for weird system problems. Leave them all on 9 -- it won't hurt the computer. -- Due to the problems mentioned above, I personally will not buy AMD chips and motherboards. I have yet to see ACPI problems crop up on an Intel motherboard. It's unfortunate, because I like AMD and like to encourage competition, but their chips and motherboards have strange issues that have yet to be resolved.
I hope this helps all of you who are having problems with Windows XP or 2000.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services."
Please raise your hand if you develop software for a living; that is, you support yourself and/or your family by developing software.
Now, keep your hand raised if you believe that your company could offer the same software that you helped to create as a free, open-source download and still keep you employed.
Folks, there is room for both free software and commercial software in this world, made obvious by the point that a lot of us (including myself) work on commercial software during the day and work on our own interesting free products on our off-hours.
Those who create free software often do so to fulfill a personal need. Those who create commercial software do so to fulfill not only that person's needs, but other people's. Not all software needs to be commercialized (Eric S. Raymond's point of view), and not all software needs to be free (Craig Mundie's point of view.)
They are both right to some degree. What you have to figure out is where you lie in this continuum. Do you want all software to be free (thereby putting yourself in the awkward position of having to find some other way to support yourself), or do you want more software to be commercial? Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, and I don't think we need to hear anything more from Mundie or Raymond on this -- we just need to make up our own minds. We gain nothing from flaming the extremists.
I had the same problem. I actually tried to sign up for DSL from SBC (Ha! Ha!) when this occurred. The installer said that my line was right at the edge of DSL range, but that it should be okay. (The people on the other end of the radio told him not to, but he thought the line was clean, so he installed it anyway.)
I got DSL. Everything worked fine but for a period between 10PM-1AM every night where the DSL would go out completely. Fast forward through two weeks of tech support calls... I finally hit upon someone who could figure out the situation. (Hint: Call SBC and say you got cut off while talking to a second-level tech.) Apparently the lines here are switched to a second CO for "maintenance purposes" every night for a period of 3 hours while they reboot their routers and do God-knows-what-else. The DSL went out because I was within range of the first CO (and within the normal recommended range for DSL), but not for the secondary CO. That's why the installer had been told not to install the line even though I was within range.
That sort of information probably "conveniently" wasn't handed to your relative's DSL provider. In fact, the idiots at SBC ("Is your modem plugged in?") couldn't even figure it out for over 2 weeks, but their installers knew.
I'm now happy with my AT&T cable modem, which is cheaper and faster. I've also switched long distance and local toll over to Sprint's 7-cent anytime plan, which was better than what SBC offered me anyway. And once I got the NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS of charges on my account (this was for a residential DSL line that never worked!) straightened out, all was right in the world again.
Moral of the story: SBC sucks harder than AOL and Disney combined, and AT&T has gained a good many customers from people I consult with who need broadband.;)
"You might want to check out a recent version of Linux... you do realize that they can mount windows partitions with ease. Why both (sic) copying them over?"
They can mount FAT32 partitions, but not NTFS partitions, automatically. Support for writing to NTFS partitions is incomplete and unstable, so copying the data over is necessitated.
NTFS is the standard partition type with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This is the direction that Microsoft is heading. If Linux can't even write to those partitions, it's going to be a hard sell for a dual-boot situation.
From eBay's escrow information page (the last link):
What is Escrow? Escrow is when a buyer places money in the custody of a trusted third party. The money is then paid to the seller once a specified set of conditions, that both parties have agreed to, are met.
How does it work? Very simply. The Buyer pays into escrow. The Seller ships the item to the Buyer. The Buyer approves the item. Funds are paid to the Seller. It's that easy.
Is the service only available for items that close over $500? Based upon historical data, eBay recommends that buyers and sellers use escrow services for transactions greater than $500.
So, if you buy something over $500, and pay for it using escrow, the seller does not receive payment until you have determined that the item was shipped and works properly.
Use escrow for any serious purchases. Don't rely on eBay's fraud program -- it takes months to get them to do anything and they often want ridiculous amounts of documents "proving" that the item was faulty.
Informed consumers make these issues moot. Don't buy from a seller who won't use escrow, and add in the extra fees as a cost to doing business via eBay. If you don't use escrow, you assume the risk if the product isn't what you wanted (or doesn't arrive at all!)
This article actually brought a smile to my face...
"Quite a few distributions of the Linux desktop are close to becoming products that can successfully compete against Microsoft Windows."
Translation: It's still not there yet.
"Each system can be installed without harming Windows."
Indeed, that's the first step. The second step is to automatically transfer / map "My Documents", "Favorites", "Fonts", etc. I haven't yet seen a distribution that will willingly copy over files from Windows, but Windows XP will willingly copy files and settings from any other Windows computer via Ethernet. Linux needs this to have a successful dual-boot audience, and it would be nice for system upgrades as well.
"With closed-source systems, users are stuck with programs and upgrades they cannot change."
Who says? I regularly contribute my feedback and bugs to everyone from Microsoft to MySQL to Trillian. I pay for the products, and I send in every bug report / feature request I find. In most cases, I don't want to program it myself anyway. If many people request a feature, it will be there. And often the programmers come up with a more intuitive way to impement it than I would have. I'm okay with this, and so are the majority of users.
"The Microsoft approach limits a user to available software. With Linux, a user can grow."
This makes no sense. There are development tools aplenty for both Windows and Linux. If your company uses Windows, chances are high that someone, somewhere, has an MSDN subscription and has the suite of Microsoft's visual development tools that they would be willing to let you borrow. Of course, you can also use third-party development tools (some of which are free) for both OSes.
This article should never have made it to ZDNet. Sometimes I wonder whether ZDNet scans article submissions for "Linux" and just posts those, knowing it will generate heated debate. Ths article is really flamebait -- it says nothing new, and it makes both sides come up in arms. Too bad. *sigh*
I work with (and for!) a lot of people who use and like Windows. I was also part of a test group at our company that switched from Outlook / MS Office to Netscape 6.2 email / StarOffice, and I have several juicy tidbits regarding this that fit in well with this article.
I just got finished setting up three computers with Windows XP Home from Dell. Computers really are a commodity now -- the Dells were gorgeous, easy to open, and functioned perfectly for a cost of $588 each (shipped!) Google "Dell refurbished" for other good deals. But I digress.
I set my mother and my dad's secretary up with the new computers (two at the office and one at my parents' house.) Keep in mind that Windows XP is about as far from Windows 98 (which is what they had) as you can get while still being Windows, and Office XP is somewhat different from Office 2000.
With two clicks I had set up a system whereby they could connect the secretary's 56k modem (my parents live/work in the middle of nowhere) to the Internet and have everyone else's computer connect through hers. I then set up remote disconnect -- where it shows the icon in your system tray and you can connect and disconnect the modem from any computer in the office. Windows XP comes with a nifty disk that you can put into any Windows computer (besides Windows 2000) and set up the connection sharing.
With another few clicks I had set up the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, which uses Ethernet or a serial cable to connect to the other computer and download settings (fonts, favorites, etc.) I even backed up other programs and had them transferred automatically.
When my mom plugs in a digital camera, a wizard pops up and shows her all the pictures on the camera. She can then copy them to a disk or to the hard drive. She can print 4x6s, 3x5s, or wallet prints from the OS. Burning files to a CD is as easy as selecting the files, dragging them to the CD drive, and clicking Write To CD. Yes, folks, Windows XP may have a whole host of Big Brother issues (most of which I turned off upon installation), but it sure is easier to use. The whole experience reminded me of the Macintosh.
Compare this with installing Linux. Even setting up Linux to see NTFS drives is a pain, let alone transferrring files and settings (since that is most likely what you are going to want to do upon installation.) I've used Mandrake pretty extensively, and even it has some weird problems (like asking which version of XFree86 you want to use, and not automatically detecting the monitor and setting a reasonable resolution.) It took me hours to figure out how to get Mandrake to change to a lower resolution (Ctrl + -). There is little documentation. And this is on Mandrake 8.1.
There is just a lot of stuff on Linux that is poorly documented and/or buggy, and that carries over to the Windows versions of open-source software in a lot of cases. Netscape 6.2 (which I am using on a daily basis) is easily one of the worst email clients I have ever used. It won't let you switch on-the-fly between text and HTML mode. Attachments randomly refuse to open. At least it's stable, which is more than I can say for any version of Staroffice (5.2 or 6.0 beta.) Save a file as Excel format? Crash. Open a large file? Crash. Apply special formatting? Crash. I'm running Windows 2000, so no, this has nothing to do with Microsoft. A favorite quote of a co-worker also on this project is "Yeah, I use StarOffice to open documents, but if I want to get any real work done, I just use Excel."
It's not there, and after seeing Windows XP (which, BTW, has no activation bull if you buy it preinstalled), I'm not convinced that it ever will be. I will happily use Linux on the server, but I consider Windows an excellent client OS.
See my post history / journal if you want more info.
...if you look at the pictures, it is the new one. He replaced his old Palm III with the new one, which subsequently got cooked.
Anyway, with the budget restrictions curently in effect at most companies, that rule doesn't apply any more. All of the employees where I work have been told, "If your laptop dies, you get a desktop machine." Since most of us already have a desktop machine, that means we get nada if our laptops break. Scary...
"Just because they won't allow webcams and the IOC takes bribes, somehow "the Olympics suck"?! Give me a break. Forget about sticking it to "the man" for a moment, and enjoy what is a wonderful event that millions of people worldwide cherish for *the event itself*. Nobody cares about the IOC, or the Nike commercials. I watch the Olympics because of the competition and spirt of the games--that's all."
I am in agreement with the majority of the Slashdot readership (for once, heh;) on this one, but it's not because I hate commercialism. It's because this event is being ruined by the death grip of commercial sponsors.
There was one Touched By An Angel episode that sticks out in my mind (yes, I watch that show.) It was about a grumpy old man who worked as a broadcaster. As they went through the show, they showed different parts of his past. Back in the 50's, this guy had worked at a TV network and realized that it was going to change people's lives. He started making a list of all the things he wanted to direct for TV. He finally got his chance to direct a few years later, and found a beautiful black lady singer to sing a patriotic song on his show. The sponsor, however, nixed the black lady for a white girl -- even though the white girl couldn't sing. The sponsor insisted that since "his mother was from Georgia", she wouldn't appreciate a black woman singing, and he threatened to drop his sponsorship. The director caved, and he then became just a "hack" instead of being a cutting-edge, popular TV director.
We are those same pioneers on the Internet. We are the ones who see the true power of what is being born through a network of computers. We also see how greedy profiteers ruined what could have been some great ideas. It's not saying that commercialism is completely bad; it's saying that when you let commercialism take over what you love, it's a bad thing.
The Olympics don't suck; they've just been taken over by a bunch of leeches who don't care about the love of sports. This is perhaps why I watch Touched By An Angel -- sometimes I need to be reminded that there are good people in this world trying to make the world a better place. That's something the IOC forgot about a long time ago.
"The change is that the IOC is willing to stick its toe into the water and take a look at streaming video online," said Steve Klein, co-founder of SportsEditor.com. "It's a breakthrough but it's a breakthrough that won't see any changes until 2008, when the IOC negotiates new contracts."
Wow. That's six years from now. Six years ago, we were in early 1996 (yes, the year of "push" technology and Ellison's NC's.) It's incredible to realize how much the Internet has changed in six years, and in another six years, who knows what will happen? I don't think TV will be dead, but the way we watch TV will dramatically change.
These long Olympic contracts are out of touch with reality. The reality is that the computing world is rapidly changing. In six years I imagine that wireless Net access everywhere will be common and that a lot of people will be using Tablet PCs and PDA's. If these people can't stream the Olympics from their local PPV server, they won't watch it, and the Olympics will not be a huge deal.
Perhaps we're seeing that the peak of excitement for the Olympics has already passed (a few decades before this, even.) The long, unbreakable contracts are going to make the Olympics even less of an event than it already is. Either the IOC is going to have to re-negotiate before 2008, or else they will alienate their remaining viewers.
The Cobalt Qube and Celestix servers are both excellent. The Qube 3 is actually exactly what you are looking for. Play with the demo here; get product information here.
I would recommend against going with a barebones, non-appliance box. The reason I recommend Cobalt/Celestix is that they are a cinch to set up. They both have web-based UIs that let you set up email lists, file shares, etc. easily. I've used the Qube3 extensively and it simply rocks. I haven't used the Celestix stuff personally, but I've heard that it is just as good as Cobalt.
Both are supported by a company that is used to supporting non-technical users, and neither require you to have a full-time Linux guru on staff.
Your other choice is to run a Windows 2000 server, which is also pretty easy to set up and maintain. The Windows server will be more flexible for the future. Still, for as small a company as you have, an appliance would be a better solution for now.
"One of the great things about DSL is that you have your own connection to the ISP, as opposed to cable modems, which share bandwidth within each neighborhood."
Uh-huh, and does this make your DSL line any faster than a comparable cable modem? Take a look at the results of the DSLReports speed tests -- nearly all of the top speeds belong to cable modem networks.
I had DSL from Speakeasy -- 1.5MBps down/384K up. Great service, but it was $100/month. My $35/month cable modem has the same download speed. I get 1.5MBps down, period. It's not dependent on how far I am from the cable company, either.
You have a point, but the fact that your bandwidth isn't shared doesn't make a difference in your overall speed. This is just something the DSL companies came up with to try to differentiate their more expensive service from the cable modem crowd.
This is residential wireless of the same type that Sprint/Earthlink rolled out to several major cities. Check out their services page.
Residential wireless is neat, but only if you can't get DSL or a cable modem. The latency makes it problematic for fast-paced online games, but the download speed makes it ideal for web surfing. Also, wireless usually has a transfer limit -- in this company's case, it's 3GB-6GB a month (3GB for the lower-priced connections.) You have to watch your downloads.
It's a great idea if your only choice is dialup, and I'm glad to finally see a company recognize that this is a great service to those in flat areas that DSL/cable are not covering.
I'm a geek girl, and interestingly enough my day job is working on a content management system for a large company. I actually do some of the development on the CMS.
I love content management, but I don't particularly like programming. I'm not sure why. I know why I like content management -- scripting allows me to be creative. I love HTML, graphics, and PHP, and I particularly love putting all of those together to form a website. I came from a background of desktop publishing and journalism, and layout has always been my strength.
I like programming in scripting languages like PHP or sh, but I don't like Perl and I don't like hardcore languages like Java and C++. It seems to me that these languages get in my way more than anything else. When I want to write out a SQL result set, I want to just put in a table and drop in some special tags that let me echo out what I found. I don't like JSP's "heavy" syntax. It seems ugly to me. PHP is very elegant and simple, and that is what really appeals to me.
I think that women would have more success in the industry if this industry were more elegant. In general, I believe that women tend to design simple things that perform their function while looking fantastic, while men tend to not care how nice something looks and want function purely over form. This often comes down to men not understanding why, for instance, a lot of women (and a lot of non-geek men!) cringe when faced with a command line. Having come from a writer/artist background, it is important for me to be able to feel comfortable around my computers. I'm not a big fan of "pure power"; I want things that perform well and look nice while doing it.
I hate to say that most geek guys tend to criticize me for these types of feelings. I've been around critical men for long enough that the criticism tends to roll off. However, a lot of guys still don't understand that though I know what a motherboard is, I don't want 47 of them on my living room floor! I don't want my house to look like Star Wars, and I don't want it to look like a museum -- I just want to be comfortable living in it.
I think the programmer contingent will continue to be mostly men because it is not yet elegant. The Linux community will continue to be mostly men because Linux is not yet elegant. But women will thrive in usability groups and design houses where they can make things better and easier to use.
(The above is my opinion, and I don't speak for all the women out there.)
No, Bob is absolutely right. I will say this again and again and again, but no one seems to be listening:
The desktop wars are over. Move on to the next thing.
So Microsoft has won the "desktop" wars. So what? Do you really think that in 5-10 years, people are still going to be using bulky beige boxes to connect to the Internet? No, they are going to be using everything from home entertainment consoles to cell phones to PDAs.
Some of you may remember the days when a "personal" computer was a joke. "Computers" were those giant hulking things that took up an entire room and required their own cooling system. As Bob says, "Microsoft did not convince people to unplug VMS from their Digital VAX systems in 1979. They took advantage of a major shift in technology toward the PC, and they became the de facto standard on the new technology model, being the PC."
The shift in technology now is smaller, faster, wireless, and pervasive. The idea of 'turning on' a computer to 'use the Internet' will become old-fashioned more quickly than you can imagine. By the time a majority of people think that Linux will be ready to rule the PC world, PCs will be the passe way to connect to the Internet. Microsoft is already expanding in this field with the XBox and the tablet PC (which, IMHO, is a natural evolution of the computer.) Anything that is wireless is huge right now.
This whole desktop war is silly. Linux is its best when people don't even know or care what OS their products are running. Look at TiVo. Do I care that it runs Linux? Nope, because it works flawlessly and doesn't require me to know arcane command line tools. TiVo rocks not because it's Linux, but because it does its job and does it well. That's the problem I have with Linux zealots -- they want Linux regardless of whether Linux fits the job or not.
Why is it necessary to force people to relearn something? Instead of parroting Microsoft, let's be innovative. Let's put Linux into the greatest, coolest new devices (TiVo, PDAs, cellphones.) Let's look at where the market will be in 5 years instead of being hyper-focused on beating Microsoft today. Otherwise, Microsoft and the rest of the world will move on, and Linux will be left behind.
The way I see it, music simply doesn't have a value-add. Show of hands... how many of you watch movies on your computer instead of going to the theater?
The answer is that most people don't. Why? Because computer screens are small, and somehow your Altec Lansing 4.1 speakers just can't quite replicate that booming bass of the THX clips and helicopters. That is called a "value-add" in marketing-speak; it's a differentiator that people are willing to pay $8.75 a seat for.
Music, on the other hand, doesn't have that differentiator. Concerts are a differentiator, but they don't happen as often as new movie releases do. High-quality music that sounds basically as good as the stuff you get on the CD is available for free. Why would people buy the CD? What additional value is there in buying the CD?
The movie industry has done something right with DVDs (ignoring the region coding fiasco.) For $20, you get:
-- A movie
-- Interviews with the director
-- Deleted scenes
-- Interactive games/trivia that are unique to the movie (in the Shrek DVD, for instance, you can put your voice into scenes with the characters.)
The music industry is going to have to figure out a way to offer additional value on CDs, or else distribute the music more cheaply. The people have spoken, and they think CDs are overpriced. This issue is something that the RIAA has been unwilling to fix in the past, and now their livelihood is threatened. The solution is to either institute an easy-download service that has the features that consumers want, or else add something of value to CDs. If they do neither, they will be out of business, period.
"It's also hugely important that you get to keep any mp3s/sound files that you download. For instance, if you find a new service that's better, you shouldn't have to lose all of the music you already paid for with your old service."
You're absolutely right. The fifth and sixth points should be something like
Internet users are probably going to keep pirating until you can show us:
-- That the music we receive through your service will be in either MP3 format or a non-proprietary format that plays in the player of our choice;
and
-- That the music you provide us will be ours to use for as long as we want, without the requirement of a continuing subscription service (as CDs let us do today.)
The whole point of this is that the new distribution format should be easier and otherwise better not just for the record companies, but for music lovers (who are, after all, their customers.) Locking down MP3s and CDs is pointless and will only serve to alienate those consumers who do buy CDs.
MusicNet? Pressplay? I've never heard of them, and I would bet the majority of Internet surfers haven't either. What do they offer? Which record companies do they support? Are 's tracks available for a small fee or as part of a subscription model?
Internet users are probably going to keep pirating until you can show us:
-- That this directly benefits the artists as much or more as it beneifts the RIAA;
-- That we can get most or all of the music we want while still paying a reasonable fee;
-- That the music is high-quality (128K MP3's are not high-quality);
and
-- That we will be allowed to entertain reasonable fair-use of the music; e.g. copying it to a portable MP3 player and/or burning a mix CD with that music.
Until then, and without marketing of the service, it will never take off. Then again, maybe that is what the RIAA wants -- "well, those damn Internet users are a bunch of pirates, and they obviously didn't want to support the 'artists' by using our [inferior] service."
can be found at AllRecipes.com. Search for the 4-star or 5-star recipes to find the best stuff. There are several great ones that work well for one person, including the tuna burgers one (yum!) and Chex Mix (your friends at work will love you when you bring a huge bag of it in.)
My personal favorite 10-minute recipe requires a steamer:
Easy Ballpark Hot Dogs
-- Buy some good plump hot dogs and cheap hot dog buns at the store. Grab some shredded cheddar cheese and any other garnishes (onions, ketchup) while you're there.
-- Turn on steamer. Put in hot dog. Set timer for 10 minutes.
-- At 7 minutes, put hot dog bun in steamer (off to the side so it doesn't get soggy). Place cheese and other garnishes on bun before sticking it in the steamer.
3 minutes later, pull both out and eat. Voila! Real ballpark-style hot dogs in 10 minutes. Oh-so-good, and easy to make. It just goes to show that even total geeky klutzes like us can make great food!;)
Market research would have solved a lot.
on
A Loki Timeline
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It seems to me that Loki had the same business model as a lot of dot-coms, namely "Hey! Look! We can do this!", rather than "Hey! Look! We can do this and make a lot of money doing it."
I notice a lot of entries in the timeline that state, "Loki released xxx for LinuxPPC." Did Loki do any market research determining that LinuxPPC was a large market that could support them? I doubt it. Look, if Linux is 0.24% of the desktop market share (and it was probably less in 1998-1999), how much of that is LinuxPPC? 0.1% of 0.24%? How many of that handful of people are willing to buy games for $50 each?
Did Loki do any cost/benefit analysis? Probably not, because it was 1999 and hey, there were certainly dumber ideas than porting games. But the fact remains that Loki's business model wasn't sound, and that they could have possibly prevented bankruptcy had they done some simple market research (even a poll asking people which games they would most like to see on Linux.) The fact that they didn't do that says to me that they were more interested in proving they could do something than they were interested in making money by doing something. That's not a strategy with which to start a company, and Loki just found that out the hard way.
Alright, here you go. It's an article called "Anti-Terrorism vs. Free Speech". It cites the following:
"Clearly, some speech is not protected under the First Amendment. Two Federal appeals courts have upheld a law that prohibits 'demonstrating how to make an explosive device if one intends or knows that it will be used in a civil disorder involving acts of violence affecting interstate commerce.' While this law clearly doesn't cover all publication of material relating to bomb-making instructions, it cuts a pretty wide swath."
I would assume that this is what they are prosecuting him for. Sorry, but I have no sympathy for this guy. In this country, you're free to criticize the government all you want, but when you publish instructions on how to make a bomb with the intent to commit violence, then you're asking for trouble. This was illegal; the guy admitted it was illegal; close the book...
If pop-ups were a Windows feature, the Linux group would have much more to rejoice about...!
People write this sort of crap for Windows because 1) it's ubiquitous and 2) a lot of Windows users have gotten used to "next, next, next, okay" to install a program. It doesn't matter if the installer installs "Privacy Killer 1.0" as long as that person gets what he/she downloaded (in this case, a file sharing program.) I don't think you can blame Microsoft for the fact that people write crapware for their OS.
Slashdot Mirror
...but you can also make Google pop up when you click the "Search" button in IE. This makes Google searching even easier since you can have the search window open on the left and hit your search results on the right. (Yay for "tabbed browsing", IE style.)
Also, the coolest feature of the Google toolbar IMHO is not even the instant search, but the "Highlight" button. Gone forever is hitting Ctrl-F and typing in a search term. Just search for something in Google, go to a result, and hit "Highlight" -- the search terms are instantly highlighted. This saves me an incredible amount of time when I'm searching through, say, mailing list archives.
The Google toolbar is one of the biggest reasons I use IE. (Well, that and the fact that page developers, including myself, follow the rule of thumb "Design so that it looks good in IE and works in Netscape.") But anyway, I digress. If you're using IE, check out toolbar.google.com and download it.
First of all, ACPI was created to a) make computers that "boot" instantly by always being in sleep mode and b) end the IRQ conflicts so common with earlier versions of Windows and hardware. So yes, ACPI, when working right, simply rocks.
However, ACPI on certain motherboards, especially AMD motherboards, can cause severe system instability with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. (Please note that these OSes don't freeze/BSOD under normal circumstances, so if you're seeing this, you probably have a hardware issue which could be related to ACPI.)
The most common scenario I have seen is this:
-- Someone decently technically savvy builds his/her own PC with an AMD chip;
-- Said person installs Windows XP;
-- Said person wonders why IRQs are all set to 9;
-- Said person goes and manually messes with IRQ settings, thus wreaking havoc on the poor commputer that functioned perfectly before.
It can also go the other way:
-- Said person installs Windows XP with AMD chip;
-- Said person experiences weird freezes;
-- Said person's computer works fine with Windows 98 because Win98 doesn't have full ACPI support, so person is left wondering why everyone says that Windows 2000 and Windows XP are so stable since that person's computer crashes constantly.
To turn off ACPI, reinstall Windows and set your computer type to "Standard PC." Here is an excellent guide on how to set your PC to a Standard PC. As mentioned in the guide, this gives you the added benefit of increased framerates in Quake 3. However, you have to manually turn your computer off, and it might not go into powersave mode properly. Here is another comment regarding ACPI.
So, to summarize:
-- If you're having problems with Windows 2000/XP freezing, try this fix. Freezes are indicative of a hardware issue. Your computer should be stable with these OSes (except for application crashes, which happen with every OS.) My current uptime with Windows 2000 is 27 days; I have seen over 100 days uptime. If you're not seeing this type of stability with 2000/XP, it's time to do some hardware diagnostics.
-- If you're not having problems, leave well enough alone and leave ACPI turned on.
-- Do NOT mess with your IRQs on an ACPI computer! By messing with IRQs manually, you're asking for weird system problems. Leave them all on 9 -- it won't hurt the computer.
-- Due to the problems mentioned above, I personally will not buy AMD chips and motherboards. I have yet to see ACPI problems crop up on an Intel motherboard. It's unfortunate, because I like AMD and like to encourage competition, but their chips and motherboards have strange issues that have yet to be resolved.
I hope this helps all of you who are having problems with Windows XP or 2000.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services."
:P
Please raise your hand if you develop software for a living; that is, you support yourself and/or your family by developing software.
Now, keep your hand raised if you believe that your company could offer the same software that you helped to create as a free, open-source download and still keep you employed.
Folks, there is room for both free software and commercial software in this world, made obvious by the point that a lot of us (including myself) work on commercial software during the day and work on our own interesting free products on our off-hours.
Those who create free software often do so to fulfill a personal need. Those who create commercial software do so to fulfill not only that person's needs, but other people's. Not all software needs to be commercialized (Eric S. Raymond's point of view), and not all software needs to be free (Craig Mundie's point of view.)
They are both right to some degree. What you have to figure out is where you lie in this continuum. Do you want all software to be free (thereby putting yourself in the awkward position of having to find some other way to support yourself), or do you want more software to be commercial? Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, and I don't think we need to hear anything more from Mundie or Raymond on this -- we just need to make up our own minds. We gain nothing from flaming the extremists.
Thank you, drive through.
I had the same problem. I actually tried to sign up for DSL from SBC (Ha! Ha!) when this occurred. The installer said that my line was right at the edge of DSL range, but that it should be okay. (The people on the other end of the radio told him not to, but he thought the line was clean, so he installed it anyway.)
... I finally hit upon someone who could figure out the situation. (Hint: Call SBC and say you got cut off while talking to a second-level tech.) Apparently the lines here are switched to a second CO for "maintenance purposes" every night for a period of 3 hours while they reboot their routers and do God-knows-what-else. The DSL went out because I was within range of the first CO (and within the normal recommended range for DSL), but not for the secondary CO. That's why the installer had been told not to install the line even though I was within range.
;)
I got DSL. Everything worked fine but for a period between 10PM-1AM every night where the DSL would go out completely. Fast forward through two weeks of tech support calls
That sort of information probably "conveniently" wasn't handed to your relative's DSL provider. In fact, the idiots at SBC ("Is your modem plugged in?") couldn't even figure it out for over 2 weeks, but their installers knew.
I'm now happy with my AT&T cable modem, which is cheaper and faster. I've also switched long distance and local toll over to Sprint's 7-cent anytime plan, which was better than what SBC offered me anyway. And once I got the NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS of charges on my account (this was for a residential DSL line that never worked!) straightened out, all was right in the world again.
Moral of the story: SBC sucks harder than AOL and Disney combined, and AT&T has gained a good many customers from people I consult with who need broadband.
"You might want to check out a recent version of Linux... you do realize that they can mount windows partitions with ease. Why both (sic) copying them over?"
They can mount FAT32 partitions, but not NTFS partitions, automatically. Support for writing to NTFS partitions is incomplete and unstable, so copying the data over is necessitated.
NTFS is the standard partition type with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This is the direction that Microsoft is heading. If Linux can't even write to those partitions, it's going to be a hard sell for a dual-boot situation.
Escrow, Escrow, Escrow.
From eBay's escrow information page (the last link):
What is Escrow?
Escrow is when a buyer places money in the custody of a trusted third party. The money is then paid to the seller once a specified set of conditions, that both parties have agreed to, are met.
How does it work?
Very simply. The Buyer pays into escrow. The Seller ships the item to the Buyer. The Buyer approves the item. Funds are paid to the Seller. It's that easy.
Is the service only available for items that close over $500?
Based upon historical data, eBay recommends that buyers and sellers use escrow services for transactions greater than $500.
So, if you buy something over $500, and pay for it using escrow, the seller does not receive payment until you have determined that the item was shipped and works properly.
Use escrow for any serious purchases. Don't rely on eBay's fraud program -- it takes months to get them to do anything and they often want ridiculous amounts of documents "proving" that the item was faulty.
Informed consumers make these issues moot. Don't buy from a seller who won't use escrow, and add in the extra fees as a cost to doing business via eBay. If you don't use escrow, you assume the risk if the product isn't what you wanted (or doesn't arrive at all!)
This article actually brought a smile to my face...
"Quite a few distributions of the Linux desktop are close to becoming products that can successfully compete against Microsoft Windows."
Translation: It's still not there yet.
"Each system can be installed without harming Windows."
Indeed, that's the first step. The second step is to automatically transfer / map "My Documents", "Favorites", "Fonts", etc. I haven't yet seen a distribution that will willingly copy over files from Windows, but Windows XP will willingly copy files and settings from any other Windows computer via Ethernet. Linux needs this to have a successful dual-boot audience, and it would be nice for system upgrades as well.
"With closed-source systems, users are stuck with programs and upgrades they cannot change."
Who says? I regularly contribute my feedback and bugs to everyone from Microsoft to MySQL to Trillian. I pay for the products, and I send in every bug report / feature request I find. In most cases, I don't want to program it myself anyway. If many people request a feature, it will be there. And often the programmers come up with a more intuitive way to impement it than I would have. I'm okay with this, and so are the majority of users.
"The Microsoft approach limits a user to available software. With Linux, a user can grow."
This makes no sense. There are development tools aplenty for both Windows and Linux. If your company uses Windows, chances are high that someone, somewhere, has an MSDN subscription and has the suite of Microsoft's visual development tools that they would be willing to let you borrow. Of course, you can also use third-party development tools (some of which are free) for both OSes.
This article should never have made it to ZDNet. Sometimes I wonder whether ZDNet scans article submissions for "Linux" and just posts those, knowing it will generate heated debate. Ths article is really flamebait -- it says nothing new, and it makes both sides come up in arms. Too bad. *sigh*
I work with (and for!) a lot of people who use and like Windows. I was also part of a test group at our company that switched from Outlook / MS Office to Netscape 6.2 email / StarOffice, and I have several juicy tidbits regarding this that fit in well with this article.
I just got finished setting up three computers with Windows XP Home from Dell. Computers really are a commodity now -- the Dells were gorgeous, easy to open, and functioned perfectly for a cost of $588 each (shipped!) Google "Dell refurbished" for other good deals. But I digress.
I set my mother and my dad's secretary up with the new computers (two at the office and one at my parents' house.) Keep in mind that Windows XP is about as far from Windows 98 (which is what they had) as you can get while still being Windows, and Office XP is somewhat different from Office 2000.
With two clicks I had set up a system whereby they could connect the secretary's 56k modem (my parents live/work in the middle of nowhere) to the Internet and have everyone else's computer connect through hers. I then set up remote disconnect -- where it shows the icon in your system tray and you can connect and disconnect the modem from any computer in the office. Windows XP comes with a nifty disk that you can put into any Windows computer (besides Windows 2000) and set up the connection sharing.
With another few clicks I had set up the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, which uses Ethernet or a serial cable to connect to the other computer and download settings (fonts, favorites, etc.) I even backed up other programs and had them transferred automatically.
When my mom plugs in a digital camera, a wizard pops up and shows her all the pictures on the camera. She can then copy them to a disk or to the hard drive. She can print 4x6s, 3x5s, or wallet prints from the OS. Burning files to a CD is as easy as selecting the files, dragging them to the CD drive, and clicking Write To CD. Yes, folks, Windows XP may have a whole host of Big Brother issues (most of which I turned off upon installation), but it sure is easier to use. The whole experience reminded me of the Macintosh.
Compare this with installing Linux. Even setting up Linux to see NTFS drives is a pain, let alone transferrring files and settings (since that is most likely what you are going to want to do upon installation.) I've used Mandrake pretty extensively, and even it has some weird problems (like asking which version of XFree86 you want to use, and not automatically detecting the monitor and setting a reasonable resolution.) It took me hours to figure out how to get Mandrake to change to a lower resolution (Ctrl + -). There is little documentation. And this is on Mandrake 8.1.
There is just a lot of stuff on Linux that is poorly documented and/or buggy, and that carries over to the Windows versions of open-source software in a lot of cases. Netscape 6.2 (which I am using on a daily basis) is easily one of the worst email clients I have ever used. It won't let you switch on-the-fly between text and HTML mode. Attachments randomly refuse to open. At least it's stable, which is more than I can say for any version of Staroffice (5.2 or 6.0 beta.) Save a file as Excel format? Crash. Open a large file? Crash. Apply special formatting? Crash. I'm running Windows 2000, so no, this has nothing to do with Microsoft. A favorite quote of a co-worker also on this project is "Yeah, I use StarOffice to open documents, but if I want to get any real work done, I just use Excel."
It's not there, and after seeing Windows XP (which, BTW, has no activation bull if you buy it preinstalled), I'm not convinced that it ever will be. I will happily use Linux on the server, but I consider Windows an excellent client OS.
See my post history / journal if you want more info.
...if you look at the pictures, it is the new one. He replaced his old Palm III with the new one, which subsequently got cooked.
Anyway, with the budget restrictions curently in effect at most companies, that rule doesn't apply any more. All of the employees where I work have been told, "If your laptop dies, you get a desktop machine." Since most of us already have a desktop machine, that means we get nada if our laptops break. Scary...
"Just because they won't allow webcams and the IOC takes bribes, somehow "the Olympics suck"?! Give me a break. Forget about sticking it to "the man" for a moment, and enjoy what is a wonderful event that millions of people worldwide cherish for *the event itself*. Nobody cares about the IOC, or the Nike commercials. I watch the Olympics because of the competition and spirt of the games--that's all."
;) on this one, but it's not because I hate commercialism. It's because this event is being ruined by the death grip of commercial sponsors.
I am in agreement with the majority of the Slashdot readership (for once, heh
There was one Touched By An Angel episode that sticks out in my mind (yes, I watch that show.) It was about a grumpy old man who worked as a broadcaster. As they went through the show, they showed different parts of his past. Back in the 50's, this guy had worked at a TV network and realized that it was going to change people's lives. He started making a list of all the things he wanted to direct for TV. He finally got his chance to direct a few years later, and found a beautiful black lady singer to sing a patriotic song on his show. The sponsor, however, nixed the black lady for a white girl -- even though the white girl couldn't sing. The sponsor insisted that since "his mother was from Georgia", she wouldn't appreciate a black woman singing, and he threatened to drop his sponsorship. The director caved, and he then became just a "hack" instead of being a cutting-edge, popular TV director.
We are those same pioneers on the Internet. We are the ones who see the true power of what is being born through a network of computers. We also see how greedy profiteers ruined what could have been some great ideas. It's not saying that commercialism is completely bad; it's saying that when you let commercialism take over what you love, it's a bad thing.
The Olympics don't suck; they've just been taken over by a bunch of leeches who don't care about the love of sports. This is perhaps why I watch Touched By An Angel -- sometimes I need to be reminded that there are good people in this world trying to make the world a better place. That's something the IOC forgot about a long time ago.
"The change is that the IOC is willing to stick its toe into the water and take a look at streaming video online," said Steve Klein, co-founder of SportsEditor.com. "It's a breakthrough but it's a breakthrough that won't see any changes until 2008, when the IOC negotiates new contracts."
Wow. That's six years from now. Six years ago, we were in early 1996 (yes, the year of "push" technology and Ellison's NC's.) It's incredible to realize how much the Internet has changed in six years, and in another six years, who knows what will happen? I don't think TV will be dead, but the way we watch TV will dramatically change.
These long Olympic contracts are out of touch with reality. The reality is that the computing world is rapidly changing. In six years I imagine that wireless Net access everywhere will be common and that a lot of people will be using Tablet PCs and PDA's. If these people can't stream the Olympics from their local PPV server, they won't watch it, and the Olympics will not be a huge deal.
Perhaps we're seeing that the peak of excitement for the Olympics has already passed (a few decades before this, even.) The long, unbreakable contracts are going to make the Olympics even less of an event than it already is. Either the IOC is going to have to re-negotiate before 2008, or else they will alienate their remaining viewers.
The Cobalt Qube and Celestix servers are both excellent. The Qube 3 is actually exactly what you are looking for. Play with the demo here; get product information here.
I would recommend against going with a barebones, non-appliance box. The reason I recommend Cobalt/Celestix is that they are a cinch to set up. They both have web-based UIs that let you set up email lists, file shares, etc. easily. I've used the Qube3 extensively and it simply rocks. I haven't used the Celestix stuff personally, but I've heard that it is just as good as Cobalt.
Both are supported by a company that is used to supporting non-technical users, and neither require you to have a full-time Linux guru on staff.
Your other choice is to run a Windows 2000 server, which is also pretty easy to set up and maintain. The Windows server will be more flexible for the future. Still, for as small a company as you have, an appliance would be a better solution for now.
"One of the great things about DSL is that you have your own connection to the ISP, as opposed to cable modems, which share bandwidth within each neighborhood."
Uh-huh, and does this make your DSL line any faster than a comparable cable modem? Take a look at the results of the DSLReports speed tests -- nearly all of the top speeds belong to cable modem networks.
I had DSL from Speakeasy -- 1.5MBps down/384K up. Great service, but it was $100/month. My $35/month cable modem has the same download speed. I get 1.5MBps down, period. It's not dependent on how far I am from the cable company, either.
You have a point, but the fact that your bandwidth isn't shared doesn't make a difference in your overall speed. This is just something the DSL companies came up with to try to differentiate their more expensive service from the cable modem crowd.
This is residential wireless of the same type that Sprint/Earthlink rolled out to several major cities. Check out their services page.
Residential wireless is neat, but only if you can't get DSL or a cable modem. The latency makes it problematic for fast-paced online games, but the download speed makes it ideal for web surfing. Also, wireless usually has a transfer limit -- in this company's case, it's 3GB-6GB a month (3GB for the lower-priced connections.) You have to watch your downloads.
It's a great idea if your only choice is dialup, and I'm glad to finally see a company recognize that this is a great service to those in flat areas that DSL/cable are not covering.
I'm a geek girl, and interestingly enough my day job is working on a content management system for a large company. I actually do some of the development on the CMS.
I love content management, but I don't particularly like programming. I'm not sure why. I know why I like content management -- scripting allows me to be creative. I love HTML, graphics, and PHP, and I particularly love putting all of those together to form a website. I came from a background of desktop publishing and journalism, and layout has always been my strength.
I like programming in scripting languages like PHP or sh, but I don't like Perl and I don't like hardcore languages like Java and C++. It seems to me that these languages get in my way more than anything else. When I want to write out a SQL result set, I want to just put in a table and drop in some special tags that let me echo out what I found. I don't like JSP's "heavy" syntax. It seems ugly to me. PHP is very elegant and simple, and that is what really appeals to me.
I think that women would have more success in the industry if this industry were more elegant. In general, I believe that women tend to design simple things that perform their function while looking fantastic, while men tend to not care how nice something looks and want function purely over form. This often comes down to men not understanding why, for instance, a lot of women (and a lot of non-geek men!) cringe when faced with a command line. Having come from a writer/artist background, it is important for me to be able to feel comfortable around my computers. I'm not a big fan of "pure power"; I want things that perform well and look nice while doing it.
I hate to say that most geek guys tend to criticize me for these types of feelings. I've been around critical men for long enough that the criticism tends to roll off. However, a lot of guys still don't understand that though I know what a motherboard is, I don't want 47 of them on my living room floor! I don't want my house to look like Star Wars, and I don't want it to look like a museum -- I just want to be comfortable living in it.
I think the programmer contingent will continue to be mostly men because it is not yet elegant. The Linux community will continue to be mostly men because Linux is not yet elegant. But women will thrive in usability groups and design houses where they can make things better and easier to use.
(The above is my opinion, and I don't speak for all the women out there.)
--SlashChick
No, Bob is absolutely right. I will say this again and again and again, but no one seems to be listening:
The desktop wars are over. Move on to the next thing.
So Microsoft has won the "desktop" wars. So what? Do you really think that in 5-10 years, people are still going to be using bulky beige boxes to connect to the Internet? No, they are going to be using everything from home entertainment consoles to cell phones to PDAs.
Some of you may remember the days when a "personal" computer was a joke. "Computers" were those giant hulking things that took up an entire room and required their own cooling system. As Bob says, "Microsoft did not convince people to unplug VMS from their Digital VAX systems in 1979. They took advantage of a major shift in technology toward the PC, and they became the de facto standard on the new technology model, being the PC."
The shift in technology now is smaller, faster, wireless, and pervasive. The idea of 'turning on' a computer to 'use the Internet' will become old-fashioned more quickly than you can imagine. By the time a majority of people think that Linux will be ready to rule the PC world, PCs will be the passe way to connect to the Internet. Microsoft is already expanding in this field with the XBox and the tablet PC (which, IMHO, is a natural evolution of the computer.) Anything that is wireless is huge right now.
This whole desktop war is silly. Linux is its best when people don't even know or care what OS their products are running. Look at TiVo. Do I care that it runs Linux? Nope, because it works flawlessly and doesn't require me to know arcane command line tools. TiVo rocks not because it's Linux, but because it does its job and does it well. That's the problem I have with Linux zealots -- they want Linux regardless of whether Linux fits the job or not.
Why is it necessary to force people to relearn something? Instead of parroting Microsoft, let's be innovative. Let's put Linux into the greatest, coolest new devices (TiVo, PDAs, cellphones.) Let's look at where the market will be in 5 years instead of being hyper-focused on beating Microsoft today. Otherwise, Microsoft and the rest of the world will move on, and Linux will be left behind.
(More about this in my journal.)
The way I see it, music simply doesn't have a value-add. Show of hands... how many of you watch movies on your computer instead of going to the theater?
The answer is that most people don't. Why? Because computer screens are small, and somehow your Altec Lansing 4.1 speakers just can't quite replicate that booming bass of the THX clips and helicopters. That is called a "value-add" in marketing-speak; it's a differentiator that people are willing to pay $8.75 a seat for.
Music, on the other hand, doesn't have that differentiator. Concerts are a differentiator, but they don't happen as often as new movie releases do. High-quality music that sounds basically as good as the stuff you get on the CD is available for free. Why would people buy the CD? What additional value is there in buying the CD?
The movie industry has done something right with DVDs (ignoring the region coding fiasco.) For $20, you get:
-- A movie
-- Interviews with the director
-- Deleted scenes
-- Interactive games/trivia that are unique to the movie (in the Shrek DVD, for instance, you can put your voice into scenes with the characters.)
The music industry is going to have to figure out a way to offer additional value on CDs, or else distribute the music more cheaply. The people have spoken, and they think CDs are overpriced. This issue is something that the RIAA has been unwilling to fix in the past, and now their livelihood is threatened. The solution is to either institute an easy-download service that has the features that consumers want, or else add something of value to CDs. If they do neither, they will be out of business, period.
"It's also hugely important that you get to keep any mp3s/sound files that you download. For instance, if you find a new service that's better, you shouldn't have to lose all of the music you already paid for with your old service."
You're absolutely right. The fifth and sixth points should be something like
Internet users are probably going to keep pirating until you can show us:
-- That the music we receive through your service will be in either MP3 format or a non-proprietary format that plays in the player of our choice;
and
-- That the music you provide us will be ours to use for as long as we want, without the requirement of a continuing subscription service (as CDs let us do today.)
The whole point of this is that the new distribution format should be easier and otherwise better not just for the record companies, but for music lovers (who are, after all, their customers.) Locking down MP3s and CDs is pointless and will only serve to alienate those consumers who do buy CDs.
MusicNet? Pressplay? I've never heard of them, and I would bet the majority of Internet surfers haven't either. What do they offer? Which record companies do they support? Are 's tracks available for a small fee or as part of a subscription model?
Internet users are probably going to keep pirating until you can show us:
-- That this directly benefits the artists as much or more as it beneifts the RIAA;
-- That we can get most or all of the music we want while still paying a reasonable fee;
-- That the music is high-quality (128K MP3's are not high-quality);
and
-- That we will be allowed to entertain reasonable fair-use of the music; e.g. copying it to a portable MP3 player and/or burning a mix CD with that music.
Until then, and without marketing of the service, it will never take off. Then again, maybe that is what the RIAA wants -- "well, those damn Internet users are a bunch of pirates, and they obviously didn't want to support the 'artists' by using our [inferior] service."
can be found at AllRecipes.com. Search for the 4-star or 5-star recipes to find the best stuff. There are several great ones that work well for one person, including the tuna burgers one (yum!) and Chex Mix (your friends at work will love you when you bring a huge bag of it in.)
;)
My personal favorite 10-minute recipe requires a steamer:
Easy Ballpark Hot Dogs
-- Buy some good plump hot dogs and cheap hot dog buns at the store. Grab some shredded cheddar cheese and any other garnishes (onions, ketchup) while you're there.
-- Turn on steamer. Put in hot dog. Set timer for 10 minutes.
-- At 7 minutes, put hot dog bun in steamer (off to the side so it doesn't get soggy). Place cheese and other garnishes on bun before sticking it in the steamer.
3 minutes later, pull both out and eat. Voila! Real ballpark-style hot dogs in 10 minutes. Oh-so-good, and easy to make. It just goes to show that even total geeky klutzes like us can make great food!
It seems to me that Loki had the same business model as a lot of dot-coms, namely "Hey! Look! We can do this!", rather than "Hey! Look! We can do this and make a lot of money doing it."
I notice a lot of entries in the timeline that state, "Loki released xxx for LinuxPPC." Did Loki do any market research determining that LinuxPPC was a large market that could support them? I doubt it. Look, if Linux is 0.24% of the desktop market share (and it was probably less in 1998-1999), how much of that is LinuxPPC? 0.1% of 0.24%? How many of that handful of people are willing to buy games for $50 each?
Did Loki do any cost/benefit analysis? Probably not, because it was 1999 and hey, there were certainly dumber ideas than porting games. But the fact remains that Loki's business model wasn't sound, and that they could have possibly prevented bankruptcy had they done some simple market research (even a poll asking people which games they would most like to see on Linux.) The fact that they didn't do that says to me that they were more interested in proving they could do something than they were interested in making money by doing something. That's not a strategy with which to start a company, and Loki just found that out the hard way.
"What law? Show me a law."
Alright, here you go. It's an article called "Anti-Terrorism vs. Free Speech". It cites the following:
"Clearly, some speech is not protected under the First Amendment. Two Federal appeals courts have upheld a law that prohibits 'demonstrating how to make an explosive device if one intends or knows that it will be used in a civil disorder involving acts of violence affecting interstate commerce.' While this law clearly doesn't cover all publication of material relating to bomb-making instructions, it cuts a pretty wide swath."
I would assume that this is what they are prosecuting him for. Sorry, but I have no sympathy for this guy. In this country, you're free to criticize the government all you want, but when you publish instructions on how to make a bomb with the intent to commit violence, then you're asking for trouble. This was illegal; the guy admitted it was illegal; close the book...
"...compiling Java apps to run as native appplications on the target machine without the need for a JVM."
In other news, they have also decided on a name for this wonderful new technology: C.
If pop-ups were a Windows feature, the Linux group would have much more to rejoice about...!
People write this sort of crap for Windows because 1) it's ubiquitous and 2) a lot of Windows users have gotten used to "next, next, next, okay" to install a program. It doesn't matter if the installer installs "Privacy Killer 1.0" as long as that person gets what he/she downloaded (in this case, a file sharing program.) I don't think you can blame Microsoft for the fact that people write crapware for their OS.
...while Lindows, Wine, and Mozilla are all struggling to get to the vaunted 1.0 mark, two copies of Windows XP are being sold every second.
If that doesn't motivate you to contribute to these projects and help get them out the door, I don't know what will.