For some reason, my brain keeps wanting to make this name into some variant of "Accel-".... as in Accelerex. At least then the name is a sort of verb... but "AclereX" sounds like some sort of weird drug. I mean, ACK-luhr-ex? With a capital X? I don't get it. Why must open-source products be plagued by such terrible marketing?
Oh, and on their front page, they've titled it "Enterprise Migrationware." Please, for the love of God, hire a marketing staff. This sounds like a bunch of geeks getting together and saying "What would PHBs like? Oh, I know, let's make a new buzzword! How about 'enterprise migrationware'? Because, see, it has 'enterprise' in it... and we've added 'ware' to the end..."
No. Please do not name your product with the dot-com bullsh*t generator; it's not supposed to be used in the place of a marketing team. Take this one back to the drawing board.
I don't redistribute MySQL with my application. It uses the built-in PHP client libraries which are installed when you install PHP.
If I would have had to pay in the first place, I would have evaluated that as part of my decision when I wrote the software.
For instance, I know that I have to pay for Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle on every server that I install it on. I'm fine with paying for software. I take exception to the fact that MySQL released their software for free for so long and, when it finally became popular, decided to start charging for it. They locked people in for free and then forced them to pay once MySQL became a popular development tool. That's what I am so upset about.
Frankly, I would have preferred to base my application around SQL Server or Oracle had I known this was going to happen. I know I have to pay for SQL Server or Oracle. In fact, I know pretty much how much I have to pay, and it's been that way from the beginning. MySQL yanked the rug out from under their developers' feet, and they know it. They fragmented the community intentionally to try to get money from their developers. I don't approve, and that is why I'm not paying.
First of all, I completely agree that some of the EULA clauses in proprietary software are absurd. (If I remember correctly, Microsoft did remove the benchmark testing clause at some point, however.)
But open source software has some equally bad doozies.
For instance, I write a software application similar to phpMyAdmin. It's open-source by nature since it's written in PHP, but I don't use the GPL or a free software license -- I sell the code and the users are then free to make any modifications they wish, but they have no redistribution rights (much like the vBulletin license.)
This software lets clients update a database easily. It uses MySQL as the backend.
Recently, MySQL changed their client license to the GPL. This means that ANY application that uses the MySQL client software (e.g. mysql_connect() and mysql_query() in PHP) must now be GPL, or you must pay a license fee to MySQL. This has upset many developers, and it will cause PHP itself to drop the MySQL client libraries since PHP isn't a GPL application. (The MySQL client libraries will be a separate download.)
Basically, the MySQL license change has polarized the development community into those who say "F*ck 'em; everything should be under the GPL anyway" and those who say that MySQL led everyone along until it became popular, and then decided to cut off their developers.
I have four choices now: 1) Release my application under the GPL, which grants redistribution rights to anyone I sell it to (i.e. anyone could buy it once and put up the application on Joe Blow's Download Site for free). I don't consider this a viable option because I don't want to allow redistribution rights for free. 2) Pay $220 per server to MySQL for my application. That is to say, pay $220 for our database server, and force my clients to pay $220 if they don't want to use our database server and hosting service. I don't consider this a viable option either, because I feel that it's blackmail. 3) Only use old versions of MySQL with my application. 4) Switch to PostgreSQL.
Obviously, #3 and #4 are what I've decided on. This means porting over 2500 lines of code to ADOdb (a database-independent PHP layer which I have used before with great success) and then testing everything with PostgreSQL instead. It means learning an entirely new database, and it means pulling ALL of my existing customers to a new database.
So while you may say that "Microsoft suxx0rs" because of their EULAs, I say that open-source often does the same thing. Look at Red Hat's absurd EOL policy. Why? Because they've finally figured out what step 2 in the following equation is:
1) Release open-source software 2) Charge people money for your product after you've locked then in, since they've already decided to base a business/software product around it 3) Profit!!
Only this won't work for MySQL, and it won't work for Red Hat either. I'm switching away from both. They've both been great for me, but I don't consider blackmail a viable business plan.
"Make sure you charge your customers throught the nose, even if you know the job isn't very hard."
Well, that's true... but then again, it isn't. Obviously, if you're charging $15/hour for computer work, you should be charging more. But here's a story that goes the other way.
A client I worked for had a "computer guy" (MCSE, even) who charged $125/hour to fix their network. The thing was that the network was always broken. I really felt like the guy was incompetent, but as their web developer/web hosting company, I wasn't really in the right position to step in and fix their computers as well... I was simply too busy just maintaining and developing their (quite large) website.
Then a friend moved out here from Indiana. He is an accomplished system administrator. As soon as he moved here, I had him interview with 2 of my clients who used the MCSE. My friend looked at the "going rate" for computer work here and found that it was $50/hour, so he agreed to charge that.
Now you might be asking "Why would you tell him to charge $50/hour when he was obviously more competent than the guy who charged $125/hour? Why not charge $125/hour?"
But I knew that a) my clients were uncomfortable getting their computers fixed at home for $125/hour, and b) they were uncomfortable recommending this guy because he was so expensive. So I told my friend to charge $50/hour.
In the first 3 months, my friend billed more hours with these clients than the other guy had ever had the opportunity to. He also made the same amount of money the other guy did. Plus, my clients recommended my friend to all their friends who just needed occasional help with computers at home.
My friend has now built an entire part-time consulting business around these two clients and their friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Meanwhile, the other guy is suffering because he's lost several major clients.
What's the lesson? Charge the going rate. If your work is harder than the going rate, or you're getting too busy, don't be afraid to raise your prices. (I had too much web development work at $50/hour, so I upped my rates. Now I have an $800 minimum contract rule and I charge slgihtly more per hour [$60-$75]. It's much more manageable and I still make more money than I was making before.) But don't price yourself out of the market, or you'll miss out on referrals and your clients won't be happy.
AOL didn't allow Trillian on their network for a long time, citing bandwidth and resource use from people who weren't looking at the integrated AIM ads or using the AOL service. AOL insisted that third-party clients use the vastly inferior TOC protocol to connect to the AIM network instead of letting third-party clients use their proprietary OSCAR protocol.
So what did the engineers at Trillian and GAIM do? They reverse-engineered the OSCAR protocol and Trillian and GAIM can now use the AIM network again.
If Microsoft locks down their network, I give it all of 3 days before Trillian and others can access it again. AOL tried and was unsuccessful. I doubt Microsoft will be able to stop this for long considering the negative publicity (and Trillian patch) that would result.
...that just because you're not using Outlook or Outlook Express, you still may be vulnerable to worms or email viruses?
All it takes is one user to click the attachment who has an LDAP-enabled address book of the entire company, and poof! you're screwed.
The only sensible way to kill these worms is to block them at the mail server. If you block them at the mail server, you don't have to try to train people or keep hundreds of anti-virus clients up-to-date. Do yourself a favor and set up XWall if you have Exchange (this is about the coolest spam-blocker/email filter program I have ever used, BTW) or SpamAssassin/MailScanner if you have Linux/UNIX. This will save you a ton of headaches in the future, and won't require you to worry about hundreds of clients being up-to-date as much as focusing on whether a few email servers are up-to-date. (Block the standard Microsoft "bad executable" list and you should be fine.)
Seriously, in the year 2003, there's no excuse for "But my 400 clients weren't up-to-date!" Block these things at the server, which is something you as the network administrator should have complete control over, and which is where the worms should have been blocked to begin with.
The next contest should be a "Redesign Slashdot's Website" contest... or even a "Redo Slashdot's HTML" contest. We obviously have some really creative designers in the audience (including me)... I'd love to see some web design ideas!
Install an SSH server on Windows and you'll have much of the same functionality as UNIX through the command line.
" With UNIX I'm in Ireland (I'm usually based in the US) and I get a call 'We just got a new user, could you add them'. I whip out my Ericcson 68i and Sharp Zaurus - and ssh into the server and run a script to add the user."
Did you even bother to check out whether this was possible in Windows? I guess not: this site shows you how to add a user from the command line in Windows. In fact, you could even write a script to do that (batch files... remember those?) In fact, here are lots of handy other things you can do from the command line in Windows, including changing user passwords, forcing users to log off, and more.
Once again, ignorance of what Windows can do is no excuse. I administer 16 Linux boxes... I'm not anti-Linux by any stretch of the imagination, and I know that there are lots of situations where Linux is the better choice. But that still doesn't mean I'm ignorant about what Windows can and can't do.
"If one of the servers has a problem - I can remotly fix it over my cell phone connection, and I don't have to charge them travel time. If it was Windows - I'd have to drive there."
What?! You've never heard of any of the following:
-- Terminal Services -- VNC for Windows -- Remote Desktop commercial programs
I am sorry, but that is just on crack (and so is whoever modded you "Insightful".) In fact, with Terminal Services and the rdesktop client program, you can even administer a Windows desktop or server from a Linux or Mac box. Yes, you can do remote reboots, remote software patches, remote software upgrades, and pretty much everything else.
There are lots of valid reasons for using Linux/BSD/UNIX, but being ignorant about Windows certainly doesn't help your case.
Craig does seem to be about as fair as he can be regarding the G5 benchmarks he posted. If you read the whole thread, you will see that he used several different methodologies (compiler options and various compilers, mostly) to optimize both the P4 and G5 code.
Here are Craig's final numbers, as posted on Ars's website:
dual G4-1GHz Xserve (single CPU only): 105 dual G4-1GHz Xserve (both CPUs): 207 dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 129 dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 256 dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 254 dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 498 single P4 2GHz: 192 single P4 2.66GHz: 255 single P4 3.2GHz (extrapolated): 307
These numbers seem entirely reasonable to me. A single G5/2GHz G5 is approximately equivalent to a single P4/2.66GHz. This rings true to me -- Intel has never been known to squeeze every last bit of performance out of every chip, instead opting to continually push for higher and higher raw MHz. Thus, on a purely MHz/performance basis, Apple wins (as has been the case for years.)
However, in the dual-processor arena, things get muddier. Intel should have dual 3.4GHz Xeons by the time Apple's G5s are shipping. In raw performance, based on these numbers, the Xeon will have an edge over the G5. Plus, it will be priced lower... I priced a dual Xeon 2.4GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive for a company that is buying a game server from us, and even with a 1U form factor (which is more expensive than a standard desktop case), the price came to $1705... a bit more than half the cost of the dual G5/2.0GHz. There is no question that the dual Xeon will outperform the G5 both in terms of raw performance and cost. The P4, however, doesn't have much edge over the G5 except for the cost.
For most of us, who are probably sitting on machines around 1-2GHz, almost all of the machines above, including the P4/2.66 and a single G5, will be a healthy upgrade. Despite Apple's high price point, I for one am happy to see them get back into the game... and I'm happy to see Intel have some real competition. A big thanks to Craig for doing the benchmarks... I'm sure this is just the first of many arguments about which machine is better!
>
"Sick of your web host crashing? 100% guaranteed network uptime."
"...until/unless a Cisco DDoS vulnerability is found..."
It's true... it could happen. But since our 100% uptime guarantee comes directly from MFN/Abovenet, we can be reimbursed for any downtime.
Plus, if we go down, so do many other, larger companies, such as Google (which is in the same datacenter we are) will go down as well. We certainly won't be the only ones hung out to dry.:)
I'm in the Bay Area, and my Comcast (formerly ATTBI) cable modem connection has been having issues all day. This router kept crashing earlier today:
tbr1-p013601.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.11.77] (hop #6 after my cable modem)
I have no idea what the problem is or whether it's related to this exploit, but it really stinks to have the connection continually crash. I actually haven't had problems in the last few months... until today. I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come...
The parent post was copied directly from this link (originally linked in the article summary as Bruce Eckel's viewpoint.) Please do not mod the parent post up, as it is not an original post and does not identify the original source.
"How can I raise funds to help continue the project?"
One word: sponsorships.
No, I'm not talking about T-shirts with your project's name on them... although if you think that will help, go for it. I'm talking about finding companies that will actively sponsor your development.
For instance, my company has been in talks with both the PHP project and the PostgreSQL project about sponsorship. (We haven't officially contacted the Postgres team, but we will for our August advertising budget.) We're happy to sponsor open-source projects for two reasons: one, we use these projects to make money, and two, because people who are interested in a particular project are often looking for a company that offers support for that particular project.
There are lots of open-source projects out there that have referral links or sponsorships from companies that use that project to make money. For us, sponsorship is huge, since we want to become well-known in "niche" markets like PostgreSQL web hosting, as opposed to the generic and overblown "virtual web hosting" category.
So approach companies that make products that depend on your project and ask them to sponsor it. You may find a company that uses your project to make money is more than a little happy to kick back $50/month for a banner ad or text link on your project's website. Don't be afraid to ask!
"1.6 Billion dollars, and they need the ad revenue from putting ads at the bottom of my yahoo e-mail account?"
Yahoo gives you an email account for free, in exchange for showing you ads while you view mail and putting a two-line advertisement at the bottom of each email you send ("Do you Yahoo?!" and then one line advertising a particular service.)
They also give you an option (priced at $19.95/year) that allows you to check your Yahoo email using POP3 and send your Yahoo email using SMTP, thus circumventing all of the ads mentioned above.
Honestly, this seems really fair to me... either put up with the ads or pay $1.66 a month to get rid of them. Of course, it shows you how little ad revenue Yahoo really has, since at $1.66/month/user they allow you to get rid of all of them while checking or sending email...
Do you really think that you could even get 5 people, let alone 5 million people, to turn themselves in?
If you have a felony on your record, you'll find it very hard to get a job, get credit for a mortgage or car loan, or anything else. That risk alone (and the risk of going to jail) will scare many people away from even thinking about turning themselves in, even if they have done something against the law.
On the other hand, if you can prove via statistics that 90% of the population has copied at least one CD or downloaded an illegal MP3, you might have a great case on your hands... without the risk of so many people being carted off to jail.
I just thought I would throw in my two cents and also vote for the Thinkpad. I've administered well over 25 of them and continue to recommend them over just about any other laptop on the market. They are simply more well-built than pretty much every other laptop out there.
For the people who are saying Thinkpads are too expensive, I just got word of a deal today on the Thinkpad T40. This is from PC Connection, which is an IBM reseller. (I don't work there, but my friend has a business account with them.) This deal just came in today: Thinkpad T40 for $1149
If you do order from PC Connection, call and ask for Terri and she may be able to get you a little better of a deal than what is on the website. I tell you, if I had the money, I'd be buying a Thinkpad from them right now... but I don't, so I leave this gem of a deal for the rest of you to fight over.;)
Actually, if you would read the link I posted, and the sentence I mentioned below that where I added a CD-RW and a 120GB hard drive, I did configure a similar system for $919.
So you what the whole enchilada, eh?
Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 2.66GHz 512MB RAM 200GB hard drive 4x DVD+RW/CD-RW 16x DVD-ROM 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 (which is higher-end than the video card in the $3000 Mac, and MUCH nicer than the one in this Mac) XP Home
$1448 (And that's still including the free 15" flat-panel monitor. To those who said this monitor is worth "$50", please tell me where I can buy a 15" flat-panel that is even half as nice as this one for $50.)
Now, if you want to say that Macs are worth twice the price, that's fine. I don't necessarily agree, but that's a value judgement (opinion). But to argue that the systems aren't comparable -- not only are they comparable, but the PC is 2-3x cheaper with a monitor. This particular one also has a larger hard drive and a better video card, and it's still averaging half the cost of a Mac.
On a purely cost basis, the PC wins, hands down. Is the Mac worth twice as much? That's up to individual buyers to decide. I'm just pointing out the facts.
Except those prices (on Microsoft's site) are similar to the MSRP for a car -- some people pay it, but most people know where to look to find it more cheaply.
Here is one place that I use for all software purchases for my clients. I've bought probably $3000 worth of ttuff from them over the years, so I know they're not just a fly-by-night vendor.
Now, you mention that this is for a family, so they will probably be running XP Home.
5 licenses of XP Home from the store linked above is $409. I got this total by ordering one full version of XP Home (not an upgrade) for $161, and then adding four additional COA's for $62 each (paper licenses and stickers only; you don't really need 5 CDs if they are all going to be installed at the same place.)
I'll also bend a little and say that the upgrade price for Longhorn will be this same price, even though upgrade prices are usually a bit cheaper. So doubling $409, we get $818.
So the cost for Windows XP Home for 5 family users for 4 years is $818, compared to your $796 for various versions of Mac OS X. That's not far apart.
If you want to run the numbers on XP Pro instead, it's $141 for the first copy and then $119 each for 4 more copies without the CD. That's $617 total. Double that and it's $1234... a bit more, but to be fair, you said this was for a family, so there is probably no need for XP Pro.
In the end, it comes out about the same. Considering that most people only upgrade Windows when they get new computers, it's not any more expensive to buy Windows than it is to buy MacOS.
Just thought I'd point out that there's a bit more difference here than meets the eye.
Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 2.66GHz 512MB RAM 40GB hard drive 48x CD-ROM XP Home
$749. Ships today. Oh, and that comes with a free 15" flat-panel monitor. (Link)
Configured with a CD-RW and a 120GB hard drive, the above system is $919.
Apple Power Macintosh G5 1.8GHz (I'll be fair and not pick the dual 2GHz model) 512MB RAM 160GB hard drive Superdrive
$2399. Not shipping until September. (By then, the above Dell will be $500 or less.) No monitor included.
Even if the G5 has better performance (and honestly, I still haven't seen reliable benchmarks with the dual 2.0GHz facing a P4/3.2GHz with Hyperthreading on), it still can't compete on price.
No matter how cool Mac OS X is... no matter how awesome these new G5s will be... if they are three times the cost of a PC, buyers will have a hard time justifiying it. In this economy, Apple will be hard-pressed to sell those $2300-$3000 desktops when people can get an equivalent-or-just-slightly-slower Dell for $800... including a flat-panel monitor.
I worked at Sun until May 2002. I have many friends who still work there whom I speak to daily. I often ask them about Netscape 4.7. I've long since dropped support for it on my own websites, but I'm hoping that the last few remaining holdouts will finally leave it.
If you still don't think I'm for real, ask any Sun employee what "dtmail" is. They will know exactly what you are talking about. Most of them will then go on a rant about it, just like I used to when I worked there.
"What 'standards' are you refering [sp] to?"
How about CSS1? Or nested tables? Or really, any standards-compliant markup? Don't even get me started on CSS2 or any moderately-complex CSS1 markup. My websites all validate to XHTML 1.0, but they don't work in Netscape 4. If you seriously believe that Netscape 4 works with web standards, I invite you to Google Netscape 4 sucks and read the many, MANY articles posted by infuriated web developers.
Personally, I use Mozilla, and it's great as far as standards-compliance goes. Netscape 6 is decent and Netscape 7 and 7.1 are fine. NS4, on the other hand, is a complete joke and a waste of time to develop for. It needs to disappear once and for all.
Slashdot Mirror
For some reason, my brain keeps wanting to make this name into some variant of "Accel-".... as in Accelerex. At least then the name is a sort of verb... but "AclereX" sounds like some sort of weird drug. I mean, ACK-luhr-ex? With a capital X? I don't get it. Why must open-source products be plagued by such terrible marketing?
Oh, and on their front page, they've titled it "Enterprise Migrationware." Please, for the love of God, hire a marketing staff. This sounds like a bunch of geeks getting together and saying "What would PHBs like? Oh, I know, let's make a new buzzword! How about 'enterprise migrationware'? Because, see, it has 'enterprise' in it... and we've added 'ware' to the end..."
No. Please do not name your product with the dot-com bullsh*t generator; it's not supposed to be used in the place of a marketing team. Take this one back to the drawing board.
It's pretty amazing that you didn't even read my whole post before replying, especially the part where I outlined option #3... ;)
I don't redistribute MySQL with my application. It uses the built-in PHP client libraries which are installed when you install PHP.
If I would have had to pay in the first place, I would have evaluated that as part of my decision when I wrote the software.
For instance, I know that I have to pay for Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle on every server that I install it on. I'm fine with paying for software. I take exception to the fact that MySQL released their software for free for so long and, when it finally became popular, decided to start charging for it. They locked people in for free and then forced them to pay once MySQL became a popular development tool. That's what I am so upset about.
Frankly, I would have preferred to base my application around SQL Server or Oracle had I known this was going to happen. I know I have to pay for SQL Server or Oracle. In fact, I know pretty much how much I have to pay, and it's been that way from the beginning. MySQL yanked the rug out from under their developers' feet, and they know it. They fragmented the community intentionally to try to get money from their developers. I don't approve, and that is why I'm not paying.
First of all, I completely agree that some of the EULA clauses in proprietary software are absurd. (If I remember correctly, Microsoft did remove the benchmark testing clause at some point, however.)
But open source software has some equally bad doozies.
For instance, I write a software application similar to phpMyAdmin. It's open-source by nature since it's written in PHP, but I don't use the GPL or a free software license -- I sell the code and the users are then free to make any modifications they wish, but they have no redistribution rights (much like the vBulletin license.)
This software lets clients update a database easily. It uses MySQL as the backend.
Recently, MySQL changed their client license to the GPL. This means that ANY application that uses the MySQL client software (e.g. mysql_connect() and mysql_query() in PHP) must now be GPL, or you must pay a license fee to MySQL. This has upset many developers, and it will cause PHP itself to drop the MySQL client libraries since PHP isn't a GPL application. (The MySQL client libraries will be a separate download.)
Basically, the MySQL license change has polarized the development community into those who say "F*ck 'em; everything should be under the GPL anyway" and those who say that MySQL led everyone along until it became popular, and then decided to cut off their developers.
I have four choices now:
1) Release my application under the GPL, which grants redistribution rights to anyone I sell it to (i.e. anyone could buy it once and put up the application on Joe Blow's Download Site for free). I don't consider this a viable option because I don't want to allow redistribution rights for free.
2) Pay $220 per server to MySQL for my application. That is to say, pay $220 for our database server, and force my clients to pay $220 if they don't want to use our database server and hosting service. I don't consider this a viable option either, because I feel that it's blackmail.
3) Only use old versions of MySQL with my application.
4) Switch to PostgreSQL.
Obviously, #3 and #4 are what I've decided on. This means porting over 2500 lines of code to ADOdb (a database-independent PHP layer which I have used before with great success) and then testing everything with PostgreSQL instead. It means learning an entirely new database, and it means pulling ALL of my existing customers to a new database.
So while you may say that "Microsoft suxx0rs" because of their EULAs, I say that open-source often does the same thing. Look at Red Hat's absurd EOL policy. Why? Because they've finally figured out what step 2 in the following equation is:
1) Release open-source software
2) Charge people money for your product after you've locked then in, since they've already decided to base a business/software product around it
3) Profit!!
Only this won't work for MySQL, and it won't work for Red Hat either. I'm switching away from both. They've both been great for me, but I don't consider blackmail a viable business plan.
"Make sure you charge your customers throught the nose, even if you know the job isn't very hard."
Well, that's true... but then again, it isn't. Obviously, if you're charging $15/hour for computer work, you should be charging more. But here's a story that goes the other way.
A client I worked for had a "computer guy" (MCSE, even) who charged $125/hour to fix their network. The thing was that the network was always broken. I really felt like the guy was incompetent, but as their web developer/web hosting company, I wasn't really in the right position to step in and fix their computers as well... I was simply too busy just maintaining and developing their (quite large) website.
Then a friend moved out here from Indiana. He is an accomplished system administrator. As soon as he moved here, I had him interview with 2 of my clients who used the MCSE. My friend looked at the "going rate" for computer work here and found that it was $50/hour, so he agreed to charge that.
Now you might be asking "Why would you tell him to charge $50/hour when he was obviously more competent than the guy who charged $125/hour? Why not charge $125/hour?"
But I knew that a) my clients were uncomfortable getting their computers fixed at home for $125/hour, and b) they were uncomfortable recommending this guy because he was so expensive. So I told my friend to charge $50/hour.
In the first 3 months, my friend billed more hours with these clients than the other guy had ever had the opportunity to. He also made the same amount of money the other guy did. Plus, my clients recommended my friend to all their friends who just needed occasional help with computers at home.
My friend has now built an entire part-time consulting business around these two clients and their friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Meanwhile, the other guy is suffering because he's lost several major clients.
What's the lesson? Charge the going rate. If your work is harder than the going rate, or you're getting too busy, don't be afraid to raise your prices. (I had too much web development work at $50/hour, so I upped my rates. Now I have an $800 minimum contract rule and I charge slgihtly more per hour [$60-$75]. It's much more manageable and I still make more money than I was making before.) But don't price yourself out of the market, or you'll miss out on referrals and your clients won't be happy.
AOL didn't allow Trillian on their network for a long time, citing bandwidth and resource use from people who weren't looking at the integrated AIM ads or using the AOL service. AOL insisted that third-party clients use the vastly inferior TOC protocol to connect to the AIM network instead of letting third-party clients use their proprietary OSCAR protocol.
So what did the engineers at Trillian and GAIM do? They reverse-engineered the OSCAR protocol and Trillian and GAIM can now use the AIM network again.
If Microsoft locks down their network, I give it all of 3 days before Trillian and others can access it again. AOL tried and was unsuccessful. I doubt Microsoft will be able to stop this for long considering the negative publicity (and Trillian patch) that would result.
...that just because you're not using Outlook or Outlook Express, you still may be vulnerable to worms or email viruses?
All it takes is one user to click the attachment who has an LDAP-enabled address book of the entire company, and poof! you're screwed.
The only sensible way to kill these worms is to block them at the mail server. If you block them at the mail server, you don't have to try to train people or keep hundreds of anti-virus clients up-to-date. Do yourself a favor and set up XWall if you have Exchange (this is about the coolest spam-blocker/email filter program I have ever used, BTW) or SpamAssassin/MailScanner if you have Linux/UNIX. This will save you a ton of headaches in the future, and won't require you to worry about hundreds of clients being up-to-date as much as focusing on whether a few email servers are up-to-date. (Block the standard Microsoft "bad executable" list and you should be fine.)
Seriously, in the year 2003, there's no excuse for "But my 400 clients weren't up-to-date!" Block these things at the server, which is something you as the network administrator should have complete control over, and which is where the worms should have been blocked to begin with.
The next contest should be a "Redesign Slashdot's Website" contest... or even a "Redo Slashdot's HTML" contest. We obviously have some really creative designers in the audience (including me)... I'd love to see some web design ideas!
And if you read that and knew what it meant, you DEFINITELY don't have a girlfriend. ;)
"Warning: it takes a while for loading."
:P
:)
What? Did I accidentally go to Srashdot instead?
(Sorry, couldn't resist!
"This new processor will give users 16 hours of battery life..."
Hmm... where have I heard this before? Oh yeah... Transmeta.
It will be great if the handheld lives up to its hype... but I'll be waiting for benchmarks of a released product before I believe it.
Install an SSH server on Windows and you'll have much of the same functionality as UNIX through the command line.
" With UNIX I'm in Ireland (I'm usually based in the US) and I get a call 'We just got a new user, could you add them'. I whip out my Ericcson 68i and Sharp Zaurus - and ssh into the server and run a script to add the user."
Did you even bother to check out whether this was possible in Windows? I guess not: this site shows you how to add a user from the command line in Windows. In fact, you could even write a script to do that (batch files... remember those?) In fact, here are lots of handy other things you can do from the command line in Windows, including changing user passwords, forcing users to log off, and more.
Once again, ignorance of what Windows can do is no excuse. I administer 16 Linux boxes... I'm not anti-Linux by any stretch of the imagination, and I know that there are lots of situations where Linux is the better choice. But that still doesn't mean I'm ignorant about what Windows can and can't do.
"If one of the servers has a problem - I can remotly fix it over my cell phone connection, and I don't have to charge them travel time. If it was Windows - I'd have to drive there."
What?! You've never heard of any of the following:
-- Terminal Services
-- VNC for Windows
-- Remote Desktop commercial programs
I am sorry, but that is just on crack (and so is whoever modded you "Insightful".) In fact, with Terminal Services and the rdesktop client program, you can even administer a Windows desktop or server from a Linux or Mac box. Yes, you can do remote reboots, remote software patches, remote software upgrades, and pretty much everything else.
There are lots of valid reasons for using Linux/BSD/UNIX, but being ignorant about Windows certainly doesn't help your case.
Craig does seem to be about as fair as he can be regarding the G5 benchmarks he posted. If you read the whole thread, you will see that he used several different methodologies (compiler options and various compilers, mostly) to optimize both the P4 and G5 code.
Here are Craig's final numbers, as posted on Ars's website:
dual G4-1GHz Xserve (single CPU only): 105
dual G4-1GHz Xserve (both CPUs): 207
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 129
dual G4-1.25GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 256
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (single CPU only): 254
dual G5-2GHz PowerMac (both CPUs): 498
single P4 2GHz: 192
single P4 2.66GHz: 255
single P4 3.2GHz (extrapolated): 307
These numbers seem entirely reasonable to me. A single G5/2GHz G5 is approximately equivalent to a single P4/2.66GHz. This rings true to me -- Intel has never been known to squeeze every last bit of performance out of every chip, instead opting to continually push for higher and higher raw MHz. Thus, on a purely MHz/performance basis, Apple wins (as has been the case for years.)
However, in the dual-processor arena, things get muddier. Intel should have dual 3.4GHz Xeons by the time Apple's G5s are shipping. In raw performance, based on these numbers, the Xeon will have an edge over the G5. Plus, it will be priced lower... I priced a dual Xeon 2.4GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive for a company that is buying a game server from us, and even with a 1U form factor (which is more expensive than a standard desktop case), the price came to $1705... a bit more than half the cost of the dual G5/2.0GHz. There is no question that the dual Xeon will outperform the G5 both in terms of raw performance and cost. The P4, however, doesn't have much edge over the G5 except for the cost.
For most of us, who are probably sitting on machines around 1-2GHz, almost all of the machines above, including the P4/2.66 and a single G5, will be a healthy upgrade. Despite Apple's high price point, I for one am happy to see them get back into the game... and I'm happy to see Intel have some real competition. A big thanks to Craig for doing the benchmarks... I'm sure this is just the first of many arguments about which machine is better!
"...until/unless a Cisco DDoS vulnerability is found..."
It's true... it could happen. But since our 100% uptime guarantee comes directly from MFN/Abovenet, we can be reimbursed for any downtime.
Plus, if we go down, so do many other, larger companies, such as Google (which is in the same datacenter we are) will go down as well. We certainly won't be the only ones hung out to dry.
I'm in the Bay Area, and my Comcast (formerly ATTBI) cable modem connection has been having issues all day. This router kept crashing earlier today:
tbr1-p013601.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.11.77] (hop #6 after my cable modem)
I have no idea what the problem is or whether it's related to this exploit, but it really stinks to have the connection continually crash. I actually haven't had problems in the last few months... until today. I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come...
The parent post was copied directly from this link (originally linked in the article summary as Bruce Eckel's viewpoint.) Please do not mod the parent post up, as it is not an original post and does not identify the original source.
"How can I raise funds to help continue the project?"
One word: sponsorships.
No, I'm not talking about T-shirts with your project's name on them... although if you think that will help, go for it. I'm talking about finding companies that will actively sponsor your development.
For instance, my company has been in talks with both the PHP project and the PostgreSQL project about sponsorship. (We haven't officially contacted the Postgres team, but we will for our August advertising budget.) We're happy to sponsor open-source projects for two reasons: one, we use these projects to make money, and two, because people who are interested in a particular project are often looking for a company that offers support for that particular project.
There are lots of open-source projects out there that have referral links or sponsorships from companies that use that project to make money. For us, sponsorship is huge, since we want to become well-known in "niche" markets like PostgreSQL web hosting, as opposed to the generic and overblown "virtual web hosting" category.
So approach companies that make products that depend on your project and ask them to sponsor it. You may find a company that uses your project to make money is more than a little happy to kick back $50/month for a banner ad or text link on your project's website. Don't be afraid to ask!
"1.6 Billion dollars, and they need the ad revenue from putting ads at the bottom of my yahoo e-mail account?"
Yahoo gives you an email account for free, in exchange for showing you ads while you view mail and putting a two-line advertisement at the bottom of each email you send ("Do you Yahoo?!" and then one line advertising a particular service.)
They also give you an option (priced at $19.95/year) that allows you to check your Yahoo email using POP3 and send your Yahoo email using SMTP, thus circumventing all of the ads mentioned above.
Honestly, this seems really fair to me... either put up with the ads or pay $1.66 a month to get rid of them. Of course, it shows you how little ad revenue Yahoo really has, since at $1.66/month/user they allow you to get rid of all of them while checking or sending email...
Do you really think that you could even get 5 people, let alone 5 million people, to turn themselves in?
If you have a felony on your record, you'll find it very hard to get a job, get credit for a mortgage or car loan, or anything else. That risk alone (and the risk of going to jail) will scare many people away from even thinking about turning themselves in, even if they have done something against the law.
On the other hand, if you can prove via statistics that 90% of the population has copied at least one CD or downloaded an illegal MP3, you might have a great case on your hands... without the risk of so many people being carted off to jail.
I just thought I would throw in my two cents and also vote for the Thinkpad. I've administered well over 25 of them and continue to recommend them over just about any other laptop on the market. They are simply more well-built than pretty much every other laptop out there.
;)
For the people who are saying Thinkpads are too expensive, I just got word of a deal today on the Thinkpad T40. This is from PC Connection, which is an IBM reseller. (I don't work there, but my friend has a business account with them.) This deal just came in today: Thinkpad T40 for $1149
If you do order from PC Connection, call and ask for Terri and she may be able to get you a little better of a deal than what is on the website. I tell you, if I had the money, I'd be buying a Thinkpad from them right now... but I don't, so I leave this gem of a deal for the rest of you to fight over.
Actually, if you would read the link I posted, and the sentence I mentioned below that where I added a CD-RW and a 120GB hard drive, I did configure a similar system for $919.
So you what the whole enchilada, eh?
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 2.66GHz
512MB RAM
200GB hard drive
4x DVD+RW/CD-RW
16x DVD-ROM
128MB ATI Radeon 9800 (which is higher-end than the video card in the $3000 Mac, and MUCH nicer than the one in this Mac)
XP Home
$1448 (And that's still including the free 15" flat-panel monitor. To those who said this monitor is worth "$50", please tell me where I can buy a 15" flat-panel that is even half as nice as this one for $50.)
Now, if you want to say that Macs are worth twice the price, that's fine. I don't necessarily agree, but that's a value judgement (opinion). But to argue that the systems aren't comparable -- not only are they comparable, but the PC is 2-3x cheaper with a monitor. This particular one also has a larger hard drive and a better video card, and it's still averaging half the cost of a Mac.
On a purely cost basis, the PC wins, hands down. Is the Mac worth twice as much? That's up to individual buyers to decide. I'm just pointing out the facts.
Except those prices (on Microsoft's site) are similar to the MSRP for a car -- some people pay it, but most people know where to look to find it more cheaply.
Here is one place that I use for all software purchases for my clients. I've bought probably $3000 worth of ttuff from them over the years, so I know they're not just a fly-by-night vendor.
Now, you mention that this is for a family, so they will probably be running XP Home.
5 licenses of XP Home from the store linked above is $409. I got this total by ordering one full version of XP Home (not an upgrade) for $161, and then adding four additional COA's for $62 each (paper licenses and stickers only; you don't really need 5 CDs if they are all going to be installed at the same place.)
I'll also bend a little and say that the upgrade price for Longhorn will be this same price, even though upgrade prices are usually a bit cheaper. So doubling $409, we get $818.
So the cost for Windows XP Home for 5 family users for 4 years is $818, compared to your $796 for various versions of Mac OS X. That's not far apart.
If you want to run the numbers on XP Pro instead, it's $141 for the first copy and then $119 each for 4 more copies without the CD. That's $617 total. Double that and it's $1234... a bit more, but to be fair, you said this was for a family, so there is probably no need for XP Pro.
In the end, it comes out about the same. Considering that most people only upgrade Windows when they get new computers, it's not any more expensive to buy Windows than it is to buy MacOS.
Just thought I'd point out that there's a bit more difference here than meets the eye.
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 2.66GHz
512MB RAM
40GB hard drive
48x CD-ROM
XP Home
$749. Ships today. Oh, and that comes with a free 15" flat-panel monitor. (Link)
Configured with a CD-RW and a 120GB hard drive, the above system is $919.
Apple Power Macintosh G5
1.8GHz (I'll be fair and not pick the dual 2GHz model)
512MB RAM
160GB hard drive
Superdrive
$2399. Not shipping until September. (By then, the above Dell will be $500 or less.) No monitor included.
Even if the G5 has better performance (and honestly, I still haven't seen reliable benchmarks with the dual 2.0GHz facing a P4/3.2GHz with Hyperthreading on), it still can't compete on price.
No matter how cool Mac OS X is... no matter how awesome these new G5s will be... if they are three times the cost of a PC, buyers will have a hard time justifiying it. In this economy, Apple will be hard-pressed to sell those $2300-$3000 desktops when people can get an equivalent-or-just-slightly-slower Dell for $800... including a flat-panel monitor.
"How do you know?"
I worked at Sun until May 2002. I have many friends who still work there whom I speak to daily. I often ask them about Netscape 4.7. I've long since dropped support for it on my own websites, but I'm hoping that the last few remaining holdouts will finally leave it.
If you still don't think I'm for real, ask any Sun employee what "dtmail" is. They will know exactly what you are talking about. Most of them will then go on a rant about it, just like I used to when I worked there.
"What 'standards' are you refering [sp] to?"
How about CSS1? Or nested tables? Or really, any standards-compliant markup? Don't even get me started on CSS2 or any moderately-complex CSS1 markup. My websites all validate to XHTML 1.0, but they don't work in Netscape 4. If you seriously believe that Netscape 4 works with web standards, I invite you to Google Netscape 4 sucks and read the many, MANY articles posted by infuriated web developers.
Personally, I use Mozilla, and it's great as far as standards-compliance goes. Netscape 6 is decent and Netscape 7 and 7.1 are fine. NS4, on the other hand, is a complete joke and a waste of time to develop for. It needs to disappear once and for all.