worship the FSM in your preferred manner and request the touch of his noodlely appendage. Every pirate converted automatically is granted the appropriate accutrements at the will of his noodleliness.
it's not "farming out to a website". Companies with lots of small offices, have been using this model for a long time. The parent company has all the big servers properly maintained and the branch offices are "expendable". They ship a box with 2 PCs, cash register, and a Cisco VPN router to the branch and call Geek Squad to plug it in. All the PC updates and business apps live on the server farm. The shift to web based apps made this even easier as the computer literally has no apps installed at all. Authentication is done completely thru the VPN router and something like Citrix. The PC never even stores the actual transaction or customer data.
When I worked for McDonald's in the 1990's they were using SCO Unix exactly like this. The computer would dial home for updates, orders, and system messages every night. It would tell the managers when they needed to swap the backup tapes and everything to take care of the local system. They could load all the cash register prices, and buy more food automatically. This was all "amber screen" stuff, it's funny how we've come full-circle with the internet putting everything back under centralized control.
This is something that really belongs in some clever Linux Distribution. The vast majority of companies are small businesses, meaning under 75 employees. At that scale nearly everything should be "canned" solutions by now.
What you really need is a system that builds in best practices right from the start. Something that MAKES you answer every question up front: Backups, disaster recovery, security, growth, directory services... all is more important that the desktops. In a proper IT structure "desktops" and mobile devices are "expendable" Local data goes back to the "mothership" as quickly as possible and the choice of desktop OS is whatever you need. Networking, apps, file layouts, are all at the bottom of the list as far as being important.
If I was setting up something truly from scratch, I would set up something that mimicked the "online" models people are getting used to. Don't even let users "choose" file systems, force them to do housekeeping and put data where it belongs. Sharepoint is on the right track, but it's hobbled more by the legacy of people and apps doing whatever they want than technical issues.
You do point out a key thing. What's really needed in the industry is a platform that meets HIPAA, SOX, ITIL, PEMBOK, etc standards right out-of-the-box. So much of this stuff is just knowing that it needs to be done. once you have to FIX 20 people to have backup, strong passwords, etc you lose control of your IT structure quickly. I'm most of the way through a CIS degree an have only had one class in management that even touched this stuff... in spite of the fact that the "IT" department at my company spends 60%+ of it's time managing the "big picture" things now. If you knew what was expected up front, you could save thousands of labor hours later.
IN terms of hardware pieces, buy the best you can afford. Always over estimate the number of employees and devices you'll need. Make sure everything has an upgrade path, from 100mb to 1000mb network switches, ect, etc. Go for virtualization wherever you can, backing up, disaster recovery, and upgrading become infinitely easier once you're working with images that can be backed up and restored at will.
The last thing would be to stick to a lease schedule rather than buying stuff. It forces you to buy better stuff and justify it. Second, it forces you to plan "the next" upgrade on a timetable. IT equipment still has a 3 year depreciation rate, so your company should use it if they have the cash flow. This also means you can fit neatly in the business "5-year" plan because you get a mid plan correction if you go over or under what your estimations for growth were. Most importantly, once you put something in place... you're not going to touch it for 3 years at all costs! And use that time to do interesting stuff for the business.
Google didn't get it "wrong"... they're data mining all YOUR email. Even if they're not showing it to the public they're still scanning it all for search engine, advertising, new product development data. THAT is why it is so very hard to DELETE anything from Gmail.
Pakistan is an excellent example. If they didn't have nukes, we'd be violating their borders at will, and probably killing their citizens chasing Taliban. Because we know they have nukes, we don't want them to softball one over the boarder to our huge military bases... so we ask "nicely" and expect their President to clean house as best he can. That's good for their country as they get their people used to their actions having international consequences rather than being stomped down by "superpower" every time.
In reality, Iran is one of the most stable governments in the region. They're mostly democratic too, unlike the rest of our allies that are absolute monarchies or dictatorships. They do have odd religious laws, but that's really no different than Israel and their relations with the Palestinians, or countless dictators we've hired that murder citizens for sport.
The bigger issue I see is that these are industrial PLCs so this would be industrial sabotage. We're talking power, water, hospitals, manufacturing plants that all use this equipment. These are supposed to be "reliable" systems, meaning critical services could go down or machinery could malfunction and kill people. If you were caught in the West doing something like this, you'd be facing terrorism and felony murder charges if even one person was hurt (or even endangered) because of this.
of course the majority of items purchased are cheap junk that really wouldn't matter what it was made of. The real losers would be things like the Toy market... why not zip off a full set of Star Wars figures... could probably even work surface color in so you didn't have to paint. Warhammer 40K would be a HUGE loser as well.
As far as industrial patents, most are highly specific. Anybody needing that level of parts has a CNC work center they could pay somebody $15 per hour to knock off whatever they want. Fact of the matter is making your own parts, even for industry is usually a waste of time because it takes things being $1000+ or simply not obtainable before the resources and labor even start to make up, not to mention the quality of a handmade part versus something built on a dedicated machine.
because they are already working on integrating different types of materials. Its very close to where you could buy a touch screen LCD and some chips for a cell phone and build the body of the phone around the parts. All that's really missing to doing that is getting a critical mass of hobbiests and third parties involved to make that stuff affordable.
Selling 40k devices at launch isn't really that bad. Microsoft's habit of announce, announce, ship is a big part of the low turnout. Only readers of tech press would even have a clue watching rumors... regular folks don't obsess unless you HIT YOUR MARK. (big lesson from Steve Jobs here) How many false starts have their been for WP7... it was supposed to be the "coolest thing ever"... when Apple was just shipping the LAST iPhone.
Second reason for the slow updake is that most Windows Phone users would be tied to a company account. Companies don't replace phones for new hotness on Release Day, give it 6 months (unlike Kin) and see where it's at. This is just like Vista in a lot of ways. It's a new foundation of their platform, and the others will go away. Even if Microsoft doesn't "win" this round it's a solid software update. Saying WP7 will fail is like complaining that Apple Macs aren't successful because they don't sell more than Windows. There's plenty of room for multiple players.
"To that end they do have right to safeguard their code and software design to keep anyone from knowing exactly what they are doing, and how they are doing. "
that is where everybody has it wrong! The entire point of patents and copyright is to DOCUMENT and PUBLISH these methods so other people can build on them. If you are not PUBLISHING the source code, then it should not be subject to copyright protection. This is why the GPL is written the way it is... to be true to the spirit of copyright.
Microsoft is claiming they have some kind of liberal, new property right even after they sell something to you. Just like when the government tells companies what they have to do.
Kinect has a processor and ram... which means it has firmware which you might want to copy, or at least used as a lock to prevent "unauthorized" use, like in the printer cartridges.
don't forget Microsoft doesn't support Blu-ray either, even though Xbox 360 has the software to play HDVideo and they even offered an HD-DVD drive... that's politics too. Microsoft didn't INCLUDE a DVD player in Windows XP for 8 years(they didn't want to pay the $5 for a license), and they don't include a Blu-ray player either, the OEM has to add their own software.
the problem is that Microsoft's tool only checks what MICROSOFT think is important. And if they left a big, gaping hole in their OS (which never happens) their security analysis isn't going to be looking at it... and probably USING that same broken code internally. That's the whole point is to have a third party watching what's going on and not relying on just one vendor's word for it.
But eventually Microsoft will get with the program like most of the OSS apps out there and build updating into the OS.... even Ubuntu does that.
Lots of people here on the Slashdot have been asking for a centralized update mechanic for years but Microsoft is always mum. Yet somehow they find a way to do it for THEIR non-software they could offer it, they just don't want to do it in a manner that's fair to their ISVs.
search the boards, there are a few very common mis-configurations of Windows that cause iTunes to have horrible performance. Often it's a registry key that needs fixed or other program conflicting. On my Acer netbook it happens every 6 months or so.
There is no "full" standard. HTML is a series of specific document types... according to the spec you are one version or another, you can't mix versions on your page.
HTML comes in specific DTDs with specific version numbers. For all purposes those should be EXACT now. That was the whole point of xhtml... to force web page makers to follow the spec rather than expecting browsers to "guess" what they wanted. There is only "Strict", there is no "compatible" or "depreciated", if you're going to use the new DTD it should be 100% correct. In an ideal world, you would run your old HTML4.01 page thru the new HTML5 version of Tidy, fix the incompatible items to bring it to the new specs and get to use the new shiny HTML5 tag. Browsers would then know to use HTML5 and report ERRORS if the page is not to spec!!!!
In reality "graceful degradation" is a HUGE part of our problem now. Everybody gets away with crappy, differently horrible code and browser vendors get blamed.
The W3C's original idea that all web pages should be VALID XML (or xhtml) was a great idea. That would remove many of the games companies like Microsoft play. Writing tests like ACID to the "fringes" of the spec is useless because it doesn't mean that a simple page, with moderate formatting will look GOOD on all the passing browsers, let alone with complex formatting like CSS. I would rather see a suite set up like CSS Zen Garden, where many pages are submitted by professional webpage developers and compiled into the testing suite. Then you have a reference to test browsers, and you have a reference for coders to write "proper" pages.
I also think CSS3 should be a MANDATORY part of HTML5 compliance. This will be the game Microsoft plays.. IE9 will require everybody to update their pages (like IE8 did) and everybody will migrate to Microsoft's version of what works... That means most developers will tweak their IE-only pages just enough to count as "HTML5". Note that nobody is bragging about Microsoft supporting HTML 4.1 with proper CSS1 and CSS2.... Microsoft is going to be sly and jump everybody to their brand of "HTML5". This defeats the ENTIRE PURPOSE of HTML5... which was pushed by browser vendors and professional web designers to make the design process easier and more consistent... Microsoft and Adobe being part fof W3C killed the spec by committee. Also note that supporting HTML5 does NOT mean that all the HTML+CSS+SVG stuff for Webkit, firefox,opera is going to work, just new HTML5 stuff.
but it was for things like document collaboration, the next step in using all the "social" for actual work better than current business software does. at least that was the idea I got from the pretty pictures.
Makes sense, you "left" a USB drive under a rock and another person comes by and copies it. You could still probably get in trouble under the DMCA for "providing" the coordinates, but who are they going to know goes there?
exactly, folks are asking for practical, not posh. A proper chair and a proper work area are different. The big problem is that classrooms were designed for half the students they have now and furniture shrunk to accommodate. Larger work surfaces wouldn't really cost more than what we got now... nice large tables and chairs that promote proper posture would work great.
I bet the school administrators, or even the lunch lady has better work areas than the students. That's the point really, if the equipment is so great, why isn't the school's front office staff using the same thing? I thought not.
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worship the FSM in your preferred manner and request the touch of his noodlely appendage. Every pirate converted automatically is granted the appropriate accutrements at the will of his noodleliness.
is there really a difference?
it's not "farming out to a website". Companies with lots of small offices, have been using this model for a long time. The parent company has all the big servers properly maintained and the branch offices are "expendable". They ship a box with 2 PCs, cash register, and a Cisco VPN router to the branch and call Geek Squad to plug it in. All the PC updates and business apps live on the server farm. The shift to web based apps made this even easier as the computer literally has no apps installed at all. Authentication is done completely thru the VPN router and something like Citrix. The PC never even stores the actual transaction or customer data.
When I worked for McDonald's in the 1990's they were using SCO Unix exactly like this. The computer would dial home for updates, orders, and system messages every night. It would tell the managers when they needed to swap the backup tapes and everything to take care of the local system. They could load all the cash register prices, and buy more food automatically. This was all "amber screen" stuff, it's funny how we've come full-circle with the internet putting everything back under centralized control.
This is something that really belongs in some clever Linux Distribution. The vast majority of companies are small businesses, meaning under 75 employees. At that scale nearly everything should be "canned" solutions by now.
What you really need is a system that builds in best practices right from the start. Something that MAKES you answer every question up front: Backups, disaster recovery, security, growth, directory services... all is more important that the desktops. In a proper IT structure "desktops" and mobile devices are "expendable" Local data goes back to the "mothership" as quickly as possible and the choice of desktop OS is whatever you need. Networking, apps, file layouts, are all at the bottom of the list as far as being important.
If I was setting up something truly from scratch, I would set up something that mimicked the "online" models people are getting used to. Don't even let users "choose" file systems, force them to do housekeeping and put data where it belongs. Sharepoint is on the right track, but it's hobbled more by the legacy of people and apps doing whatever they want than technical issues.
You do point out a key thing. What's really needed in the industry is a platform that meets HIPAA, SOX, ITIL, PEMBOK, etc standards right out-of-the-box. So much of this stuff is just knowing that it needs to be done. once you have to FIX 20 people to have backup, strong passwords, etc you lose control of your IT structure quickly. I'm most of the way through a CIS degree an have only had one class in management that even touched this stuff... in spite of the fact that the "IT" department at my company spends 60%+ of it's time managing the "big picture" things now. If you knew what was expected up front, you could save thousands of labor hours later.
IN terms of hardware pieces, buy the best you can afford. Always over estimate the number of employees and devices you'll need. Make sure everything has an upgrade path, from 100mb to 1000mb network switches, ect, etc. Go for virtualization wherever you can, backing up, disaster recovery, and upgrading become infinitely easier once you're working with images that can be backed up and restored at will.
The last thing would be to stick to a lease schedule rather than buying stuff. It forces you to buy better stuff and justify it. Second, it forces you to plan "the next" upgrade on a timetable. IT equipment still has a 3 year depreciation rate, so your company should use it if they have the cash flow. This also means you can fit neatly in the business "5-year" plan because you get a mid plan correction if you go over or under what your estimations for growth were. Most importantly, once you put something in place... you're not going to touch it for 3 years at all costs! And use that time to do interesting stuff for the business.
Google didn't get it "wrong"... they're data mining all YOUR email. Even if they're not showing it to the public they're still scanning it all for search engine, advertising, new product development data. THAT is why it is so very hard to DELETE anything from Gmail.
Pakistan is an excellent example. If they didn't have nukes, we'd be violating their borders at will, and probably killing their citizens chasing Taliban. Because we know they have nukes, we don't want them to softball one over the boarder to our huge military bases... so we ask "nicely" and expect their President to clean house as best he can. That's good for their country as they get their people used to their actions having international consequences rather than being stomped down by "superpower" every time.
In reality, Iran is one of the most stable governments in the region. They're mostly democratic too, unlike the rest of our allies that are absolute monarchies or dictatorships. They do have odd religious laws, but that's really no different than Israel and their relations with the Palestinians, or countless dictators we've hired that murder citizens for sport.
The bigger issue I see is that these are industrial PLCs so this would be industrial sabotage. We're talking power, water, hospitals, manufacturing plants that all use this equipment. These are supposed to be "reliable" systems, meaning critical services could go down or machinery could malfunction and kill people. If you were caught in the West doing something like this, you'd be facing terrorism and felony murder charges if even one person was hurt (or even endangered) because of this.
of course the majority of items purchased are cheap junk that really wouldn't matter what it was made of. The real losers would be things like the Toy market... why not zip off a full set of Star Wars figures... could probably even work surface color in so you didn't have to paint. Warhammer 40K would be a HUGE loser as well.
As far as industrial patents, most are highly specific. Anybody needing that level of parts has a CNC work center they could pay somebody $15 per hour to knock off whatever they want. Fact of the matter is making your own parts, even for industry is usually a waste of time because it takes things being $1000+ or simply not obtainable before the resources and labor even start to make up, not to mention the quality of a handmade part versus something built on a dedicated machine.
because they are already working on integrating different types of materials. Its very close to where you could buy a touch screen LCD and some chips for a cell phone and build the body of the phone around the parts. All that's really missing to doing that is getting a critical mass of hobbiests and third parties involved to make that stuff affordable.
I think you have a point, but it's a bit off.
Selling 40k devices at launch isn't really that bad. Microsoft's habit of announce, announce, ship is a big part of the low turnout. Only readers of tech press would even have a clue watching rumors... regular folks don't obsess unless you HIT YOUR MARK. (big lesson from Steve Jobs here) How many false starts have their been for WP7... it was supposed to be the "coolest thing ever"... when Apple was just shipping the LAST iPhone.
Second reason for the slow updake is that most Windows Phone users would be tied to a company account. Companies don't replace phones for new hotness on Release Day, give it 6 months (unlike Kin) and see where it's at. This is just like Vista in a lot of ways. It's a new foundation of their platform, and the others will go away. Even if Microsoft doesn't "win" this round it's a solid software update. Saying WP7 will fail is like complaining that Apple Macs aren't successful because they don't sell more than Windows. There's plenty of room for multiple players.
"To that end they do have right to safeguard their code and software design to keep anyone from knowing exactly what they are doing, and how they are doing. "
that is where everybody has it wrong! The entire point of patents and copyright is to DOCUMENT and PUBLISH these methods so other people can build on them. If you are not PUBLISHING the source code, then it should not be subject to copyright protection. This is why the GPL is written the way it is... to be true to the spirit of copyright.
but anything with "blinky lights" has "software" somewhere.
Microsoft is claiming they have some kind of liberal, new property right even after they sell something to you. Just like when the government tells companies what they have to do.
Kinect has a processor and ram... which means it has firmware which you might want to copy, or at least used as a lock to prevent "unauthorized" use, like in the printer cartridges.
don't forget Microsoft doesn't support Blu-ray either, even though Xbox 360 has the software to play HDVideo and they even offered an HD-DVD drive... that's politics too. Microsoft didn't INCLUDE a DVD player in Windows XP for 8 years(they didn't want to pay the $5 for a license), and they don't include a Blu-ray player either, the OEM has to add their own software.
the problem is that Microsoft's tool only checks what MICROSOFT think is important. And if they left a big, gaping hole in their OS (which never happens) their security analysis isn't going to be looking at it... and probably USING that same broken code internally. That's the whole point is to have a third party watching what's going on and not relying on just one vendor's word for it.
But eventually Microsoft will get with the program like most of the OSS apps out there and build updating into the OS.... even Ubuntu does that.
Lots of people here on the Slashdot have been asking for a centralized update mechanic for years but Microsoft is always mum. Yet somehow they find a way to do it for THEIR non-software they could offer it, they just don't want to do it in a manner that's fair to their ISVs.
Ives adds the Magical, that's what makes it glow.
Viewing Apple keynotes also helps recharge the magical RDF powers... it makes the apple glow brighter!
search the boards, there are a few very common mis-configurations of Windows that cause iTunes to have horrible performance. Often it's a registry key that needs fixed or other program conflicting. On my Acer netbook it happens every 6 months or so.
There is no "full" standard. HTML is a series of specific document types... according to the spec you are one version or another, you can't mix versions on your page.
HTML comes in specific DTDs with specific version numbers. For all purposes those should be EXACT now. That was the whole point of xhtml... to force web page makers to follow the spec rather than expecting browsers to "guess" what they wanted. There is only "Strict", there is no "compatible" or "depreciated", if you're going to use the new DTD it should be 100% correct. In an ideal world, you would run your old HTML4.01 page thru the new HTML5 version of Tidy, fix the incompatible items to bring it to the new specs and get to use the new shiny HTML5 tag. Browsers would then know to use HTML5 and report ERRORS if the page is not to spec!!!!
In reality "graceful degradation" is a HUGE part of our problem now. Everybody gets away with crappy, differently horrible code and browser vendors get blamed.
The W3C's original idea that all web pages should be VALID XML (or xhtml) was a great idea. That would remove many of the games companies like Microsoft play. Writing tests like ACID to the "fringes" of the spec is useless because it doesn't mean that a simple page, with moderate formatting will look GOOD on all the passing browsers, let alone with complex formatting like CSS. I would rather see a suite set up like CSS Zen Garden, where many pages are submitted by professional webpage developers and compiled into the testing suite. Then you have a reference to test browsers, and you have a reference for coders to write "proper" pages.
I also think CSS3 should be a MANDATORY part of HTML5 compliance. This will be the game Microsoft plays.. IE9 will require everybody to update their pages (like IE8 did) and everybody will migrate to Microsoft's version of what works... That means most developers will tweak their IE-only pages just enough to count as "HTML5". Note that nobody is bragging about Microsoft supporting HTML 4.1 with proper CSS1 and CSS2.... Microsoft is going to be sly and jump everybody to their brand of "HTML5". This defeats the ENTIRE PURPOSE of HTML5... which was pushed by browser vendors and professional web designers to make the design process easier and more consistent... Microsoft and Adobe being part fof W3C killed the spec by committee. Also note that supporting HTML5 does NOT mean that all the HTML+CSS+SVG stuff for Webkit, firefox,opera is going to work, just new HTML5 stuff.
but it was for things like document collaboration, the next step in using all the "social" for actual work better than current business software does. at least that was the idea I got from the pretty pictures.
I though early versions of basic used only the blinky lights and switches... what wimps use character input?
At least they allow non-married teachers to ride in cars with boys... They even let them have babies now too.
P2P goes Geocaching!!!!
Makes sense, you "left" a USB drive under a rock and another person comes by and copies it. You could still probably get in trouble under the DMCA for "providing" the coordinates, but who are they going to know goes there?
I see a new calling for Chirs Hansen.
exactly, folks are asking for practical, not posh. A proper chair and a proper work area are different. The big problem is that classrooms were designed for half the students they have now and furniture shrunk to accommodate. Larger work surfaces wouldn't really cost more than what we got now... nice large tables and chairs that promote proper posture would work great.
I bet the school administrators, or even the lunch lady has better work areas than the students. That's the point really, if the equipment is so great, why isn't the school's front office staff using the same thing? I thought not.