I know, there must be something... but isn't there already an "automatic update" feature in place? Granted, as far as Windows2000 you had to download it from WindowsUpdate (I think), but then you had a little icon on the bottom that popped up and said "Would you like Automatic Update to periodically check for updates to your Windows system?" Then you had a choice whether you wanted to download them automatically or be asked everytime, and then whether you wanted them installed automatically or be asked everytime.
This worked fine for me, as on my machine (the one I run Windows on for the wife in Grad School) I have it download automatically but ask before installing, whereas on my parent's computer I have it do it all automatically.
So is there something wrong with the *process*? Are they just advocating to have this Auto Updater installed by default, but still ask you the questions the first time through? If so, I see no problem and think it's a great idea. It'd be just like "up2date" or RedCarpet.
With redhat, you're really paying for support - that's the whole point of paying.
Actually, no. That *used* to be the case, but if that was the only thing, it wouldn't be that expensive.
What you're paying for is certification. Wanna run Oracle? Well, if you want to get Oracle's "unbreakable" support, you have to run it on a certified OS. Getting that certification costs $$$, and lots of 'em.
It's the same with a number of other production applications - if you want support from the vendor, you have to run an OS that they support. If you've got your own home-grown kernel and you start having problems, how are they to know that some crap you put in there isn't hosing things up? And it's certainly not feasible for them to support ever kernel-(user) release out there - so they pick the biggest fish (RedHat).
For your servers that don't run production systems, just use the regular Red Hat and buy support (if not from Red Hat, then somewhere else - the beauty of open source). Or run Debian/SuSe/Mandrake/whatever. Doesn't really matter, so long as your *production* machines are certified.
but more often than not, they recommend the best computer for the IT department's job
I had this case just today. I was talking to my Administrative Assistant friend, and he was just getting off the phone with IS with regard to the Blaster worm. Seems the auto-update thing didn't work for his computer. That turned out to be because he was running NT with service pack 4, and you need SP6 to be able to install the patch.
No biggie, right? But get this - IS's first recommendation was to upgrade to Windows2000. Why? Because "Windows 2000 already comes with SP6". Which is crap, they just meant that the Windows2000 that they would have installed would have already had the correct service pack needed to install the patch - but they still would have had to install the patch!
So, rather than upgrade a perfectly functional NT box (my friend only needs Outlook and Netscape, really) to SP6, they wanted to spend $250 to upgrade to 2000.
Which wouldn't be a big deal if we had money to burn, but we don't. And the best part is, we're a friggin' *nix company!
Not everyone uses MSN, in fact probably less than 1/4
Not for long. Seriously, have you ever tried to make a new dialup connection on a Windoze computer and NOT go through MSN? It's a friggin' maze! You have to choose the correct option three or four times in a row to not get "Ok, I will connect to Microsoft's toll-free number to find an MSN dialup in your area."
Thank goodness I got my brother-in-law off MSN. Now they're much happier. (Next stop, Linux!)
The consumer has already come to think of "mp3" as short for compressed digital music.
Exactly. If the industry supports it, it stands a good chance to get used because people don't really care for the most part. All they care about is that when they click on the link, it plays in their player of choice. Or that if they look up download a Dave Matthews Band song from Kazaa, it plays in their portable player.
Now that many of the major PC-players and portable players are supporting Ogg, it won't matter if a site/person/whoever is offering something in MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg - to the end user, if it works, it's great.
And hey, if this song over here with the.ogg (as if they ever see 3-letter extensions in Windoze) sounds better than the one with.mp3, I'll go with that one. And if I can fit 35 songs from this place that has "Oggs" compared to 30 from this other place onto my 128MB player...
I picked up a Neuros and am loving it. Still needs some work, but they seem to be pretty connected to their user community, which is nice.
Ok, so technically it's the Chippewa Falls Museum of Industry & Technology, but the coolest part I remember about it was the original Cray Supercomputers (and even some Control Data systems) like the Cray 1 or the X-MP.
I haven't been there in a while, but if you find yourself in the Midwest (which has some beautiful places, so long as you avoid winter!), the $3 admission is definitely worth the stop. It's located in
Chippewa Falls, WI.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought neuros only works with windows
You're wrong. And so are some of the others, actually. The synchronization software (ie, the program on the computer that you would use to manage your music on your Neuros) is called Positron, and is officially released at 1.0 for Linux. It hasn't (as far as I know) been ported to OSX, but that shouldn't be too hard.
The firmware for making the Neurosetta firmware capable of playing Oggs is still in beta (prone to skipping at >200k encoding and takes up a bunch of battery life, but supposedly otherwise fine).
Yup, I just bought my
Neuros 20GB Audio Computer from Buy.com (I also had a $15 off coupon). They've currently got a promotion going for either a $100 rebate (making the player $300) or a free USB 2.0 upgrade.
The thing I like (and hoping works) is the built-in FM transmitter - no need to lug cable around, just fire up the stereo!
I always said I'd buy the first large capacity portable that did Vorbis. And here it is.
I did this with my dad. He was reluctant to switch from IE, because it was what he was familiar with. So I loaded up Mozilla/Pheonix with the IE skin, so that it looked almost the same, and just made it the default browser.
Now the whole family are Mozilla converts and loving it.
Dell looks at MSN...Dell looks at AOL...Dell looks at their lucrative Windows OEM license agreement...
Exactly. Anyone who thinks that Microsoft isn't thinking about how to totally obliterate AOL and get everybody in the world on MSN is in need of some serious drugs. As the saying goes (at our workplace, anyway) - whoever gets in bed with Microsoft is sure to get f***ed.
I predict this will end badly for AOL. I don't think it will affect Mozilla much, except maybe help it (Now instead of IE/Netscape it will be IE/Mozilla, for those brave enough to acknowledge both).
I wondered about this as well. Especially with AOL's user base dwindling, and heavy competition from others (MSN in particular), why on earth would they strike a deal to use IE? What to they *gain* from that?
As far as I can tell, the whole deal is a MS win all the way. AOL will be tied to Windows, and people it's already pretty difficult for a non-techie user to get connected to the internet using a new Windows box *without* getting hooked up to MSN.
I just don't understand why they settled the way they did. It seems to me they'd have much more to gain in battling MSN by undermining IE's dominance and allowing themselves to have control over their browsing engine.
While not a true micropayment, this concept is already working for some online web-comic providers. I've subscribed to my favorite, Sluggy Freelance for $10 a year. I also forked over $10/yr for a subscription to My Comics Page solely for the ability to read back articles of Bloom County.
Other sites have also been experimenting with this sort of thing, like User Friendly's membership program.
So I don't think it's a huge step to get to micropayments - the only real advantage micropayments have over the current methods is that you can try content earlier for lower risk (ie, $.25 vs. $10).
And of course people have mentioned Apple's success with single song downloading. I think people are ready/willing to pay for what they get online, the price just needs to be right.
Do application menus appear [in the top menu bar] as on the Macintosh? Doing it that way boosts efficiency quite a bit.
Whaaaaaa? Are you being sarcastic? Maybe I'm just missing something in the whole "Mac" thing, but having application menus appear in the top menu bar (as opposed to in the menu bar of the application itself) has, in my experience, long been one of the single most annoying things about using the Mac interface (along with insisting on only one mouse button).
This is especially evident for anyone using a dual monitor setup, as you have to always go back to the main monitor screen to use any of your menu options!
Anyway, I just don't get the advantages. But maybe it's just me.
For those of us who a) don't want to really buy an Xbox 'cuz we already have a PS2 or b) don't want to mess with modding an Xbox even if we have one, wouldn't Qcast do the same thing?
You can't turn to IBM. They don't write the thing.
Whew! I bet that will make IBM feel a lot more confident about the whole SCO lawsuit, eh?
They don't write the code for it. All they can say is, 'You can call us and ask us a question, but if you actually want something done we can't do it.'
Hmmm... seems someone has a really poor understanding of the whole "open source" concept - you can do something about it. You've got the source. You can change it, alter it, add it, do whatever you need to do to fix your problem (as long as you keep it open source).
In sharp contrast, if you want Microsoft to "do something about it", you'd better have more in your wallet than phone numbers and Subway cards.
what are you supposed to when it's not in theatres
Not in theaters? It still is in my neck of the woods (MSP/St.Paul,MN). Not a lot of 'em, but within a half hour drive. Heck, it hasn't even hit the cheap theaters yet, which is what I've been waiting for to see it again.
It is kind of annoying that I have to wait an extra five months to get the Special Edition, tho.
why not just pick another name if it's becoming such a big deal?
Easy - my guess would be money. Given that their first name landed them in legal hot water, they had to plead with the Mothership to have the lawyers do a lot of footwork to make sure the next name was legal. Legal, mind you, not "nice."
Odds are not good that they'll change it, 'cuz that will take more money (something AOL isn't really rolling with these days). It's unfortunate that all this happened - fwiw, I don't think the Mozilla team was intentionally obtuse about it, but what's done is done and they can't really do anything now. Hopefully they'll be more considerate of smaller fish next time.
That said, I agree that Firebird is kind of a dumb name for a broswer. There didn't seem to be as much trouble picking "Camino" or even "Safari" for other browsers...
Hold on here... I already have Linux... and a PS2... and ~15GB of Ogg Vorbis files...
So far I've not had a decent way to play the Ogg files, which are on a computer in another room, through my suh-weet stereo system - other than a 36-foot RCA audio cable, which we all know preserves the sound quality so well...
So you're telling me that with this thing I can just share my Ogg files, play 'em through my PS2... which I can hook up to my stereo with an optical cable if I want... and get as good of a sound as if it were coming straight out of the computer?
Bad publicity? I'm not so sure... I mean, the university got a couple of mentions on Slashdot (and presumably other news sites), and it is (or at least was before some people started trying to turn it into a humanities school) a mainly engineering/computer technology centered school...
Of course, the bad part is that they now have the reputation that they can't protect their students from stupid lawsuits by the RIAA, but at least they get their name out there (which, given their remote location, is always a good thing!)
Well, this must be some definition of SSI that is different than ours (SGI). You must be talking about a common filesystem, not a single kernel for the whole thing then, right?
The reason I can't/won't use Mozilla for mail yet is bugs
Bugs aside, even if Mozilla Mail was the perfect Mail application, many people couldn't use it, simply because they're locked into Outlook.
I've had two instances here at work where someone had finally decided to upgrade to Netscape 7.02, and had to come find me to get the browser to bring up Outlook (instead of Netscape Mail) when they clicked on a mailto link.
This is always been a major annoyance of Mozilla, that there isn't an easy way to set the Mail preference to simply be the Windows default. It's a heckuvalot easier to get someone to switch from IE to Mozilla than it is to switch off Outlook. Even with the FAQ page and the instructions, it took me forever to figure out how to get the user.js file to work (I neglected to restart the system tray quickstarter, which I needed to do before it would pick up the user.js preferences).
Not to mention the annoying fact that if one or the other of Mozilla or Mail happens to crash, you lose the other one as well. That alone in the early days drove me to IE on my Windows box (don't worry, I'm better now).
This new direction makes a lot of sense to me, personally, and will make my life easier. Here's hoping everything goes well.
Slashdot Mirror
This worked fine for me, as on my machine (the one I run Windows on for the wife in Grad School) I have it download automatically but ask before installing, whereas on my parent's computer I have it do it all automatically.
So is there something wrong with the *process*? Are they just advocating to have this Auto Updater installed by default, but still ask you the questions the first time through? If so, I see no problem and think it's a great idea. It'd be just like "up2date" or RedCarpet.
Actually, no. That *used* to be the case, but if that was the only thing, it wouldn't be that expensive.
What you're paying for is certification. Wanna run Oracle? Well, if you want to get Oracle's "unbreakable" support, you have to run it on a certified OS. Getting that certification costs $$$, and lots of 'em.
It's the same with a number of other production applications - if you want support from the vendor, you have to run an OS that they support. If you've got your own home-grown kernel and you start having problems, how are they to know that some crap you put in there isn't hosing things up? And it's certainly not feasible for them to support ever kernel-(user) release out there - so they pick the biggest fish (RedHat).
For your servers that don't run production systems, just use the regular Red Hat and buy support (if not from Red Hat, then somewhere else - the beauty of open source). Or run Debian/SuSe/Mandrake/whatever. Doesn't really matter, so long as your *production* machines are certified.
I had this case just today. I was talking to my Administrative Assistant friend, and he was just getting off the phone with IS with regard to the Blaster worm. Seems the auto-update thing didn't work for his computer. That turned out to be because he was running NT with service pack 4, and you need SP6 to be able to install the patch.
No biggie, right? But get this - IS's first recommendation was to upgrade to Windows2000. Why? Because "Windows 2000 already comes with SP6". Which is crap, they just meant that the Windows2000 that they would have installed would have already had the correct service pack needed to install the patch - but they still would have had to install the patch!
So, rather than upgrade a perfectly functional NT box (my friend only needs Outlook and Netscape, really) to SP6, they wanted to spend $250 to upgrade to 2000.
Which wouldn't be a big deal if we had money to burn, but we don't. And the best part is, we're a friggin' *nix company!
Not for long. Seriously, have you ever tried to make a new dialup connection on a Windoze computer and NOT go through MSN? It's a friggin' maze! You have to choose the correct option three or four times in a row to not get "Ok, I will connect to Microsoft's toll-free number to find an MSN dialup in your area."
Thank goodness I got my brother-in-law off MSN. Now they're much happier. (Next stop, Linux!)
Exactly. If the industry supports it, it stands a good chance to get used because people don't really care for the most part. All they care about is that when they click on the link, it plays in their player of choice. Or that if they look up download a Dave Matthews Band song from Kazaa, it plays in their portable player.
Now that many of the major PC-players and portable players are supporting Ogg, it won't matter if a site/person/whoever is offering something in MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg - to the end user, if it works, it's great.
And hey, if this song over here with the .ogg (as if they ever see 3-letter extensions in Windoze) sounds better than the one with .mp3, I'll go with that one. And if I can fit 35 songs from this place that has "Oggs" compared to 30 from this other place onto my 128MB player...
I picked up a Neuros and am loving it. Still needs some work, but they seem to be pretty connected to their user community, which is nice.
I haven't been there in a while, but if you find yourself in the Midwest (which has some beautiful places, so long as you avoid winter!), the $3 admission is definitely worth the stop. It's located in Chippewa Falls, WI.
You're wrong. And so are some of the others, actually. The synchronization software (ie, the program on the computer that you would use to manage your music on your Neuros) is called Positron, and is officially released at 1.0 for Linux. It hasn't (as far as I know) been ported to OSX, but that shouldn't be too hard.
The firmware for making the Neurosetta firmware capable of playing Oggs is still in beta (prone to skipping at >200k encoding and takes up a bunch of battery life, but supposedly otherwise fine).
The thing I like (and hoping works) is the built-in FM transmitter - no need to lug cable around, just fire up the stereo!
I always said I'd buy the first large capacity portable that did Vorbis. And here it is.
I did this with my dad. He was reluctant to switch from IE, because it was what he was familiar with. So I loaded up Mozilla/Pheonix with the IE skin, so that it looked almost the same, and just made it the default browser.
Now the whole family are Mozilla converts and loving it.
Dell looks at MSN...Dell looks at AOL...Dell looks at their lucrative Windows OEM license agreement...
Exactly. Anyone who thinks that Microsoft isn't thinking about how to totally obliterate AOL and get everybody in the world on MSN is in need of some serious drugs. As the saying goes (at our workplace, anyway) - whoever gets in bed with Microsoft is sure to get f***ed.
I predict this will end badly for AOL. I don't think it will affect Mozilla much, except maybe help it (Now instead of IE/Netscape it will be IE/Mozilla, for those brave enough to acknowledge both).
I wondered about this as well. Especially with AOL's user base dwindling, and heavy competition from others (MSN in particular), why on earth would they strike a deal to use IE? What to they *gain* from that?
As far as I can tell, the whole deal is a MS win all the way. AOL will be tied to Windows, and people it's already pretty difficult for a non-techie user to get connected to the internet using a new Windows box *without* getting hooked up to MSN.
I just don't understand why they settled the way they did. It seems to me they'd have much more to gain in battling MSN by undermining IE's dominance and allowing themselves to have control over their browsing engine.
Too true. I mean, the VCR has long been a normal part of most people's lives, but how many people can stop the blinking 12:00?
Other sites have also been experimenting with this sort of thing, like User Friendly's membership program.
So I don't think it's a huge step to get to micropayments - the only real advantage micropayments have over the current methods is that you can try content earlier for lower risk (ie, $.25 vs. $10).
And of course people have mentioned Apple's success with single song downloading. I think people are ready/willing to pay for what they get online, the price just needs to be right.
Probably because they haven't bothered to release 7.x browsers for Solaris, SGI, etc. And rightly so, as they've really nothing to gain from that.
Most of those companies do release their own version, tho. I know SGI has Mozilla available from their freeware site.
Work.
Wife.
Whaaaaaa? Are you being sarcastic? Maybe I'm just missing something in the whole "Mac" thing, but having application menus appear in the top menu bar (as opposed to in the menu bar of the application itself) has, in my experience, long been one of the single most annoying things about using the Mac interface (along with insisting on only one mouse button).
This is especially evident for anyone using a dual monitor setup, as you have to always go back to the main monitor screen to use any of your menu options!
Anyway, I just don't get the advantages. But maybe it's just me.
For those of us who a) don't want to really buy an Xbox 'cuz we already have a PS2 or b) don't want to mess with modding an Xbox even if we have one, wouldn't Qcast do the same thing?
Whew! I bet that will make IBM feel a lot more confident about the whole SCO lawsuit, eh?
They don't write the code for it. All they can say is, 'You can call us and ask us a question, but if you actually want something done we can't do it.'
Hmmm... seems someone has a really poor understanding of the whole "open source" concept - you can do something about it. You've got the source. You can change it, alter it, add it, do whatever you need to do to fix your problem (as long as you keep it open source).
In sharp contrast, if you want Microsoft to "do something about it", you'd better have more in your wallet than phone numbers and Subway cards.
Not in theaters? It still is in my neck of the woods (MSP/St.Paul,MN). Not a lot of 'em, but within a half hour drive. Heck, it hasn't even hit the cheap theaters yet, which is what I've been waiting for to see it again.
It is kind of annoying that I have to wait an extra five months to get the Special Edition, tho.
Easy - my guess would be money. Given that their first name landed them in legal hot water, they had to plead with the Mothership to have the lawyers do a lot of footwork to make sure the next name was legal. Legal, mind you, not "nice."
Odds are not good that they'll change it, 'cuz that will take more money (something AOL isn't really rolling with these days). It's unfortunate that all this happened - fwiw, I don't think the Mozilla team was intentionally obtuse about it, but what's done is done and they can't really do anything now. Hopefully they'll be more considerate of smaller fish next time.
That said, I agree that Firebird is kind of a dumb name for a broswer. There didn't seem to be as much trouble picking "Camino" or even "Safari" for other browsers...
So far I've not had a decent way to play the Ogg files, which are on a computer in another room, through my suh-weet stereo system - other than a 36-foot RCA audio cable, which we all know preserves the sound quality so well...
So you're telling me that with this thing I can just share my Ogg files, play 'em through my PS2... which I can hook up to my stereo with an optical cable if I want... and get as good of a sound as if it were coming straight out of the computer?
This would really make my day.
Bad publicity? I'm not so sure... I mean, the university got a couple of mentions on Slashdot (and presumably other news sites), and it is (or at least was before some people started trying to turn it into a humanities school) a mainly engineering/computer technology centered school...
Of course, the bad part is that they now have the reputation that they can't protect their students from stupid lawsuits by the RIAA, but at least they get their name out there (which, given their remote location, is always a good thing!)
Well, this must be some definition of SSI that is different than ours (SGI). You must be talking about a common filesystem, not a single kernel for the whole thing then, right?
Um, an SSI e15k? I don't think so. To my knowledge, only two companies can really do 512p or more on a single system image: SGI and Cray.
Bugs aside, even if Mozilla Mail was the perfect Mail application, many people couldn't use it, simply because they're locked into Outlook.
I've had two instances here at work where someone had finally decided to upgrade to Netscape 7.02, and had to come find me to get the browser to bring up Outlook (instead of Netscape Mail) when they clicked on a mailto link.
This is always been a major annoyance of Mozilla, that there isn't an easy way to set the Mail preference to simply be the Windows default. It's a heckuvalot easier to get someone to switch from IE to Mozilla than it is to switch off Outlook. Even with the FAQ page and the instructions, it took me forever to figure out how to get the user.js file to work (I neglected to restart the system tray quickstarter, which I needed to do before it would pick up the user.js preferences).
Not to mention the annoying fact that if one or the other of Mozilla or Mail happens to crash, you lose the other one as well. That alone in the early days drove me to IE on my Windows box (don't worry, I'm better now).
This new direction makes a lot of sense to me, personally, and will make my life easier. Here's hoping everything goes well.