"As long as you don't agree to their EULA when you first boot it up, you can apply to MS for a refund. I saw a guide on what to do somewhere, I can't remember off the top of my head where though - try google."
Wrong. Microsoft's EULAs for Windows on OEM computers almost always direct you to go to the OEM for the refund. So, really, this is an issue to settle with OQO themselves.
Ask before you buy. And if you don't like their answer, don't buy.
I thought it was obvious that they were aiming for corporate executives, not/. geeks.
If you're making a a few hundred thousand bucks a year, an OQO is cheap. Hell, people spend six hundred bucks on a graphics card - is it really THAT crazy to see them spend a couple grand on a new super-small computer?
Some intitial thoughts: 1. 256mb isn't terribly good. 512mb would be better. That said, it's _probably_ acceptable for the kind of usage they're talking about. 2. Who are they aiming this at? Photos seem to indicate business execs, which seems reasonable - they're the sort that actually use PDAs, and probably don't require huge amounts of multimedia power. 3. Docking _cable_? For nineteen hundred bucks, I expect to see an integrated docking bay, one with a slot that I can slide the OQO into. Specs mention some kind of desktop stand, but that sounds kinda cheesy, to be honest. 4. They need to make it a little more obvious that you're supposed to being using a Bluetooth cell phone with this thing for Internet access on the go. 5. Battery life seems like it's on the low side - 3 hours just isn't all that long anymore. 6. Security? If the corporate executive is using this thing, chances are he has some confidential info on it. An OQO seems easy to steal - is there any built-in encryption support?
So, cool idea, but a little too expensive. I could see this becoming something of a status symbol in the corporate world, though. "Think that's a PDA? Well, take a look at THIS!" Surprisingly, I think they've addressed their target market pretty well - replaces the Blackberry, PDA, and laptop.
"Open source software that is not sold, is freely available, and freely modifiable is very much non-commercial and therefore not subject to this regulation."
Your logic has a fatal flaw: you can sell GPL'd software, and Linux distributors do it all the time. Therefore, it is indeed commercial.
"I don't know about you, but even one dead pixel is unacceptable."
I used to think this, too, until I got a tablet with _one_ dead pixel. It's only 10 inches and 800x600, too, so "one dead pixel" is 1/800(600) of the display, rather than 1/(1600)(1200) of the screen you'd have with a large LCD. Yes, the screen is smaller, but you get the point.
I would NEVER have noticed it unless my parents had pointed it out. Frankly, one dead pixel isn't really that big a deal - maybe you've had experiences otherwise with "one dead pixel", though. If you haven't, though, I'd caution you from going a little too crazy on the score.
I recently read an excellent book on SpamAssassin by Alan Schwartz, published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. My views might be biased since he's my first cousin, but if you're a mail server admin, it's probably a must-have. I don't think it covers desktop usage as well, but then again, Evolution's getting that integrated anyways.
The sections on rules are extremely nice, and I found them pretty informative as to how the software works underneath. It covers version 3, too, so it's damned timely.
I don't take offense to your comments. I question your qualification in making them. Your CV doesn't seem to imply any technical background whatsoever, and neither does the rest of your website. Do you _really_ have the background in cryptography to tell us what's important or not?
The point was, submitters ought not to be making such sweeping predictions unless they're actually experts in the field. Just send the link to the damn article, and spare us your commentary.
"I firmly believe this is as significant as the very first internet transmission some years back."
I love it when/. submitters include their "expert opinion" on such matters. Who the hell are you? Maybe if Bruce was giving out such praise, it'd be worth mentioning.
I'm not sure if that's really true. Why not use two USB keyboards, and manually specify the/dev entry on the commandline with -keyboard for each terminal. You'd think that would work...
I am _assuming_ you're starting two different instances of the X server (with different conf files, I should think) for the terminals, but I don't think that's cheating.
I am personally unconvinced that this was a nuclear explosion. It might have been, but evidence is handy for making such declarations. Any number of things can create a large mushroom cloud and crater.
If it was a nuke, you better believe that the whole of the Far East and Pacific Rim is going to be dusting off those plans for assembling nuclear weapons. China was bad enough, but North Korea? The Japanese and Taiwanese would have to be stupid not to start building a nuclear deterrent. Hell, even the Aussies and Indonesians would probably start thinking about doing so.
I hate to break it to you, but there are only two major distributions that don't rely on RPM (or DEB, which is more or less the same damn thing), and neither of them are really appropriate for a corporate environment.
Also, if they do a good job of teaching RPM, they'll tell you how to _build_ them from spec files, which does involve knowing how to install tgz's and such. You take knowledge, and you apply it to other things - that's what a good education lets you do.
"In any case, that still means that that 3 out of 4 Americans do not have a college education, which means the criticisms about our K-12 system are valid."
Really? What are the rates for European countries?
You're wrong, actually. About 50% of Americans 15 years and older have some college. Go to the census website and take a look at the 2003 stats for education.
110.327 million of people 15 years and older have _some_ college, at the very least. That's out of 225.25 million, which means the total percentage is 49%.
The problem I have is more that "censored" implies that the government went through with a pair of scissors and yanked out the offending stories. Not being widely covered is not really the same thing as being censored.
Also, the site seems to be heavily Democratic in orientation. This could be a result of the more left-leaning college students who compile it, I suppose. But I wouldn't take the whole thing as a simple, unbiased academic exercise. Their commentary on the draft, for instance, reeks of a rather lop-sided view of the issue.
The way I see it, they've actually done a fantastic job so far.
They've managed to keep a very dubious claim afloat, confuse the judge to the extent that the case wasn't summarily tossed, AND keep the public guessing as to whether the case has any merit or not. Honestly, they've been performing pretty well, given the tools at hand.
-Erwos
Re:PG-13 is a root cause of bad films.
on
PG-13 Rating Turns 20
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"But there can be limbs cut off and people blasting each other away and that is accepted."
This is actually not true, although it is an oft-repeated myth on Slashdot. What immediately comes to mind is "The Matrix" and "Die Hard" - both of which garnered R ratings, and neither of which had any sex or nudity whatsoever. Violence will grab you an R in this country quite easily.
Violence _won't_ get an NC-17, or at least I've never heard of it doing so, but considering that such things as wars, death camps, and mass graves are covered daily in the news in all their graphic detail, I think this is relatively understandable. Simply put, violence tends to be a public issue, whereas sex is perceived as a private one - hence societal prudishness on sex/nudity vs. violence. I don't think that's really wrong or bad, just different than other places.
I agree, though: things would be a lot better if the same standards for nudity/sex were applied to violence. G-d knows I'm never going to let my kids watch TV without VERY close supervision.
"There have been faster file systems than EXT3 for a while now, i dont know why distros havent switched over to them."
Easy answer: speed isn't everything. Ext3 has the advantage that it's readable almost everywhere (since ext2 support is common) if you get into trouble. It's also extremely reliable and well-tested, and it's not all that slow, either. Most benchmarks I've seen put it in the upper end of the pack.
Slashdot Mirror
"As long as you don't agree to their EULA when you first boot it up, you can apply to MS for a refund. I saw a guide on what to do somewhere, I can't remember off the top of my head where though - try google."
Wrong. Microsoft's EULAs for Windows on OEM computers almost always direct you to go to the OEM for the refund. So, really, this is an issue to settle with OQO themselves.
Ask before you buy. And if you don't like their answer, don't buy.
-Erwos
I thought it was obvious that they were aiming for corporate executives, not /. geeks.
If you're making a a few hundred thousand bucks a year, an OQO is cheap. Hell, people spend six hundred bucks on a graphics card - is it really THAT crazy to see them spend a couple grand on a new super-small computer?
Dynamism hasn't gone out of business, you know?
-Erwos
"Is this little outfit getting a special build of XP (seems unlikely)?"
Does "Tablet Edition" count as a special build?
-Erwos
Some intitial thoughts:
1. 256mb isn't terribly good. 512mb would be better. That said, it's _probably_ acceptable for the kind of usage they're talking about.
2. Who are they aiming this at? Photos seem to indicate business execs, which seems reasonable - they're the sort that actually use PDAs, and probably don't require huge amounts of multimedia power.
3. Docking _cable_? For nineteen hundred bucks, I expect to see an integrated docking bay, one with a slot that I can slide the OQO into. Specs mention some kind of desktop stand, but that sounds kinda cheesy, to be honest.
4. They need to make it a little more obvious that you're supposed to being using a Bluetooth cell phone with this thing for Internet access on the go.
5. Battery life seems like it's on the low side - 3 hours just isn't all that long anymore.
6. Security? If the corporate executive is using this thing, chances are he has some confidential info on it. An OQO seems easy to steal - is there any built-in encryption support?
So, cool idea, but a little too expensive. I could see this becoming something of a status symbol in the corporate world, though. "Think that's a PDA? Well, take a look at THIS!" Surprisingly, I think they've addressed their target market pretty well - replaces the Blackberry, PDA, and laptop.
-Erwos
"Open source software that is not sold, is freely available, and freely modifiable is very much non-commercial and therefore not subject to this regulation."
Your logic has a fatal flaw: you can sell GPL'd software, and Linux distributors do it all the time. Therefore, it is indeed commercial.
-Erwos
"I don't know about you, but even one dead pixel is unacceptable."
I used to think this, too, until I got a tablet with _one_ dead pixel. It's only 10 inches and 800x600, too, so "one dead pixel" is 1/800(600) of the display, rather than 1/(1600)(1200) of the screen you'd have with a large LCD. Yes, the screen is smaller, but you get the point.
I would NEVER have noticed it unless my parents had pointed it out. Frankly, one dead pixel isn't really that big a deal - maybe you've had experiences otherwise with "one dead pixel", though. If you haven't, though, I'd caution you from going a little too crazy on the score.
-Erwos
I recently read an excellent book on SpamAssassin by Alan Schwartz, published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. My views might be biased since he's my first cousin, but if you're a mail server admin, it's probably a must-have. I don't think it covers desktop usage as well, but then again, Evolution's getting that integrated anyways.
The sections on rules are extremely nice, and I found them pretty informative as to how the software works underneath. It covers version 3, too, so it's damned timely.
-Erwos
I don't agree with him on all the issues, but he's damned sure a better advocate for the Libertarian party than the average /.'er.
You've given me some things to seriously think about, Mr. Badnarik. Thanks!
-Erwos
ICQ is dead. Didn't you notice this?
AOL is phasing out support for it. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to waste dev time on a feature that's going to become useless.
-Erwos
I don't take offense to your comments. I question your qualification in making them. Your CV doesn't seem to imply any technical background whatsoever, and neither does the rest of your website. Do you _really_ have the background in cryptography to tell us what's important or not?
The point was, submitters ought not to be making such sweeping predictions unless they're actually experts in the field. Just send the link to the damn article, and spare us your commentary.
-Erwos
"I firmly believe this is as significant as the very first internet transmission some years back."
/. submitters include their "expert opinion" on such matters. Who the hell are you? Maybe if Bruce was giving out such praise, it'd be worth mentioning.
I love it when
Sorry, personal gripe.
-Erwos
I'm not sure if that's really true. Why not use two USB keyboards, and manually specify the /dev entry on the commandline with -keyboard for each terminal. You'd think that would work...
I am _assuming_ you're starting two different instances of the X server (with different conf files, I should think) for the terminals, but I don't think that's cheating.
-Erwos
And you know that RPM is a package manager, and Aptitude is not, right? It's like saying "it uses KDE, not Evolution". Makes no sense whatsoever.
s/apt/deb/ would make your statement look intelligent - assuming it's true, since apt _has_ been ported for RPM.
-Erwos
"Now I know that CS professors are smart"
The most fascinating thing that no one's commented on: this guy isn't even a prof, he's a lecturer.
-Erwos
Do a Google search for PearPC. People have most certainly gotten MacOS X running on their x86 boxes.
-Erwos
I am personally unconvinced that this was a nuclear explosion. It might have been, but evidence is handy for making such declarations. Any number of things can create a large mushroom cloud and crater.
If it was a nuke, you better believe that the whole of the Far East and Pacific Rim is going to be dusting off those plans for assembling nuclear weapons. China was bad enough, but North Korea? The Japanese and Taiwanese would have to be stupid not to start building a nuclear deterrent. Hell, even the Aussies and Indonesians would probably start thinking about doing so.
-Erwos
I hate to break it to you, but there are only two major distributions that don't rely on RPM (or DEB, which is more or less the same damn thing), and neither of them are really appropriate for a corporate environment.
Also, if they do a good job of teaching RPM, they'll tell you how to _build_ them from spec files, which does involve knowing how to install tgz's and such. You take knowledge, and you apply it to other things - that's what a good education lets you do.
-Erwos
"In any case, that still means that that 3 out of 4 Americans do not have a college education, which means the criticisms about our K-12 system are valid."
Really? What are the rates for European countries?
IIRC, they're MUCH lower than ours.
-Erwos
You're wrong, actually. About 50% of Americans 15 years and older have some college. Go to the census website and take a look at the 2003 stats for education.
110.327 million of people 15 years and older have _some_ college, at the very least. That's out of 225.25 million, which means the total percentage is 49%.
-Erwos
David Hinds, maintainer and big developer of the PCMCIA packages for Linux.
That man alone has pretty much made Linux on laptops usable.
-Erwos
The problem I have is more that "censored" implies that the government went through with a pair of scissors and yanked out the offending stories. Not being widely covered is not really the same thing as being censored.
Also, the site seems to be heavily Democratic in orientation. This could be a result of the more left-leaning college students who compile it, I suppose. But I wouldn't take the whole thing as a simple, unbiased academic exercise. Their commentary on the draft, for instance, reeks of a rather lop-sided view of the issue.
-Erwos
"But look at what's happened to the cost of video cards over the last 5 years!"
They've gone up, actually. Top of the line used to be a $150 TNT card. It's progressed to $600 GeForceFX 6800U.
-Erwos
The way I see it, they've actually done a fantastic job so far.
They've managed to keep a very dubious claim afloat, confuse the judge to the extent that the case wasn't summarily tossed, AND keep the public guessing as to whether the case has any merit or not. Honestly, they've been performing pretty well, given the tools at hand.
-Erwos
"But there can be limbs cut off and people blasting each other away and that is accepted."
This is actually not true, although it is an oft-repeated myth on Slashdot. What immediately comes to mind is "The Matrix" and "Die Hard" - both of which garnered R ratings, and neither of which had any sex or nudity whatsoever. Violence will grab you an R in this country quite easily.
Violence _won't_ get an NC-17, or at least I've never heard of it doing so, but considering that such things as wars, death camps, and mass graves are covered daily in the news in all their graphic detail, I think this is relatively understandable. Simply put, violence tends to be a public issue, whereas sex is perceived as a private one - hence societal prudishness on sex/nudity vs. violence. I don't think that's really wrong or bad, just different than other places.
I agree, though: things would be a lot better if the same standards for nudity/sex were applied to violence. G-d knows I'm never going to let my kids watch TV without VERY close supervision.
-Erwos
"There have been faster file systems than EXT3 for a while now, i dont know why distros havent switched over to them."
Easy answer: speed isn't everything. Ext3 has the advantage that it's readable almost everywhere (since ext2 support is common) if you get into trouble. It's also extremely reliable and well-tested, and it's not all that slow, either. Most benchmarks I've seen put it in the upper end of the pack.
-Erwos