Only one possible fly in your ointment...How much money is Apple making from iPODs, iTunes, and such? How much are they making from the computer hardware? And what are the projections for the next 5 years?
I don't think so...It is just the first shot in the battle between Apple OS-X and MS Windows Apple is not going to release OS-X or it's successor until it has debugged it totally on the x86 platform, that is what the Intel/OS-X platfor is really about...Once it has been around and is well debugged in a couple of years, Apple will release OS-X (maybe OS-XI?) for all x86 platforms. And it will eat Microsoft's Lunch.
But first, Microsoft has some cards to play...withdraw the most widely used browser for Mac OS-X, then MS-Office, and all other Mac products. Next the rhetoric will start, and they will FUD OS-X on Intel...And it will fail.
Perhaps you remember Microsoft BASIC? It was a very good implementation of it. As well, the original Micorsoft Word, under DOS, was a good word-processor. What is Word (for Windows) today wasn't even written my Microsoft, but a company in Toronto.
Great, a Music Video station that doesn't show music videos anymore, teaming up with a software company that no longer produces good software. Did Dante dream this up? What rung of hell am I in now?!?!?
Did anyone else notice how soon this came out after the newer Linux kernels added that functionality? Could there be GPLed code in the new Vista kernel?
I used to be a Christian, but for a number of reasons left that faith. But if there had been more Christians like yourself, I might still be one. Groups like the one in the article are part of the "Religous Reich", who aim to force everyone to believe as they do, and would make the United States a Theocracy, not a Democracy. And they are part of the reason I am no longer a Christian.
ttyl
Farrell
"I've got no problem with Jesus, it's his fan club I can't stand!"
Probably piracy makes up 90% of their numbers, and we know that the RIAA, MPAA, and their proxies world-wide probably over-estimate their figures by claiming that everyone who downloads something will not buy it. The article doesn't show the numbers breakdown...
I spent 2 and a half years in North Carolina, having been recruited from Canada. I had accepted because finding a tech job is very, very hard there...and still is.
Although I found housing to be cheaper, and many consumer goods...food was the same price, which meant everything was 20-30% more expensive. The tax rate was chaper, but there were more types of taxes. for example, I had to paid a tax to the city for the car, which I had never done in Canada, and the cost of health care insurance was huge. Drugs were very expensive, even with the co-pay. The antihistamine I use, Zirtec in the US, cost me a $30 (USD) co-pay. In Canada, Reactin, (same medication, different name) is half that in CDN dollars...which means I am paying about $13 USD for it.
Another example...Coca-Cola, which in Canada you can buy in slabs of 24 cans, usually for $7.99 CDN were absent in NC, and the 12 packs were $4.99 USD. As well, after I moved back, I am finding that computer equipment, with the exception of complete systems, are cheaper.
But things are not all rosy in Canada, either. We have one big problem here...the Human Resources people.
Since the meltdown of Nortel, there has been a glut of highly qualified techies. Between Notrel's layoffs, and the trickle-down effect, some estimate over 20,000 techies were released into the Canadian tech job market. Because of of this, the HR people have been able to get very specific in what they are looking for, and used to be able to find it. But now, most people have either left the tech field, or Canada, and still the HR people are very specific in what they are looking for, and are not willing to look at equivelent qualifications. For example, if you know AIX, Linux of many flavours, SCO, Solaris and Tru-64, chances are you could pick up HP-UX in a couple of weeks of on the job experience.
I spent an hour chatting with a former Federal Government HR person, and she said that the burnout rate in the HR field is very high, on the order of 2 to 3 years, so even if an HR person learns that someone who knows MS Word 2000 could probably do OK with Word 2003, they don't forward the resume to the manager who needs the talent to run his business.
That is why there is a tech shortage, not a lack of techies!
As the creator of MfxLinux , which I built for Crowell Systems... with an installed base of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5,000 users...based upon Slackware.
Sure, it doesn't have millions of users, but was not aimed at the general desktop market. If you want to learn more, click on the link above, and read the short article I wrote about it.
As the creator of a Slackware based distro, MfxLinux, I can tell you that Slackware is one of *the* best distros for building upon. In many ways, it holds true to the concept of Unix, which gives you the full control to either do something wonderful, or totally fsck up. And that is so nice after the hand-holding that Red Hat, for examples smothers you with. It might be great for newbies, but for those of us who really want to have full control of their system, it is probably one of the best Distros for that. I don't want to say the best, because there are still many distros I haven't tried, and something better might be out there. Part of the FUN of using Linux is the almost infinite combinations of software that can be had to build a Distro. IDIC.
If I thought that kicking out the current government was going to change things, I would be all for it..but there is a good change that the PQ, or the so-called Conservatives (aka the reheated Reform Party) would end up in charge, and neither of them are any better than the Liberals, and are probably much worse. Must be time to join the NDP!
IBM eServers model 200 had a run of bad caps in the CPU area...they would explode, sometimes leaving a dent and residue on the case...nastynastynasty...They will replace the MB free of charge. We had a few of these when I was working at Crowell Systems...as well as a few of our customers.
What's really funny is that according to Netcraft, the Citizens Against Government Waste are using Open Source, Open Standard software:
Site report for www.cagw.org Site http://www.cagw.org/ Last reboot 158 days ago Uptime graph Domain cagw.org Netblock owner convio.com IP address 66.45.103.69 Site rank 120043 Country US Nameserver named.cagw.org Date first seen August 1997 DNS admin netadmin@convio.com Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS unknown Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States Nameserver Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States
Hosting HistoryNetblock Owner IP address OS Web Server LastChanged convio.com 8025 I.H. 35 North AUSTIN TX US 78753 66.45.103.69 FreeBSD Apache 1-Jun-2005
And wait, could it be that "Americans for Technology Leadership" also run Open Source, Open Standards software? You betcha!
Site report for www.techleadership.org Site http://www.techleadership.org/ Last reboot 58 days ago Uptime graph Domain techleadership.org Netblock owner Global Net Access, LLC IP address 65.254.39.124 Site rank 889858 Country US Nameserver ns.ez-web-hosting.com Date first seen November 1999 DNS admin billingsys@ez-web-hosting.com Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS ez13.ez-web-hosting.com Organisation Association for Competitive Te, 1413 K Street, N.W., Washington, 20005, United States Nameserver Organisation Ez-Web-Hosting, 4633 Welborn Dr., Sherrills Ford, 28673, United States
Netblock Owner IP address OS Web Server Last changed Global Net Access, LLC 55 Marietta St, NW Suite 1720 Atlanta GA US 30303 65.254.39.124 Linux Apache/1.3.33 Unix mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP-CGI/0.1b 29-Sep-2005
If MS's pro-predatory "standards" are so much better than Open Standards, then why are these organizations using software founded and created upon and with Open Source, Open Standards software?
There is a name for this type organization: Hypocrite
Of course the leaked it! How else will the non-megacorp developers had software ready for it when it comes out?
Besides, that is their marketing strategy...You give it away so that it becomes a defacto standard, then make money by calling the Lawman on their users, and then charging big money to be legit...funny how the recording industry has finally clued into this marketing strategy.
Just for the record, I submitted the story shortly after I read it on the NY Times site, then went to the International Herald Tribune's site which NYT pointed to for the original. I submitted only after checking that the story had not already been posted on Slashdot. I do think that the story is important enough to have ongoing conversations aobut. It could fragment the Internet, just like what happened to Fidonet when people thoght they could do it better than the International Fido Net Association (IFNA). I don't want that to happen to the Internet, but I don't like politicians deciding how my technology works...or doesn't work. I mentioned in my submission that it might be time to establish a datahaven, and convince all the techies that the datahaven should run the DNS and IP assignments based purely on technical considerations. But that's just me.
It's not just cheap workers, but they are also looking for people with very, very detailed qualifications. And what is worse, the HR departments/agencies will not forward your resumes unless you state you have *all* of those qualifications. They also don't know about equivelent qualifications...like if you have worked with BSD unix flavours, Solaris, Linux, SCO, Tru64, but don't have HP-UX, they will not forward your resume...and thus you have no chance at the job. But chances are, if the manager looking for a HP-UX person would probably consider someone with all that Unix experience. Sadly, unless you lie on your resume, you sometimes won't get a chance at a many jobs today. I guess that is why I am unemployed.
About 8 years ago, when I was writing software for OS/2, I ran across an interesting extension that IBM had for its DB2 software, called (I think) the Ultimedia extensions. These would allow you to search photos for a type of object that it understood. So you could tell it to search for all pictures that had a red ball and a tree...and it would return a list of all photos with those two objects. It was really interesting, but I have not heard anything about it since then...
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone else think that Prince of Persia is just an update of Lode Runner?
ttyl
Farrell
Only one possible fly in your ointment...How much money is Apple making from iPODs, iTunes, and such? How much are they making from the computer hardware? And what are the projections for the next 5 years?
Inquiring minds want to know!
One hint, why did IBM get out of the PC business?
ttyl
Farrell
I don't think so...It is just the first shot in the battle between Apple OS-X and MS Windows Apple is not going to release OS-X or it's successor until it has debugged it totally on the x86 platform, that is what the Intel/OS-X platfor is really about...Once it has been around and is well debugged in a couple of years, Apple will release OS-X (maybe OS-XI?) for all x86 platforms. And it will eat Microsoft's Lunch.
But first, Microsoft has some cards to play...withdraw the most widely used browser for Mac OS-X, then MS-Office, and all other Mac products. Next the rhetoric will start, and they will FUD OS-X on Intel...And it will fail.
ttyl
Farrlel
Perhaps you remember Microsoft BASIC? It was a very good implementation of it. As well, the original Micorsoft Word, under DOS, was a good word-processor. What is Word (for Windows) today wasn't even written my Microsoft, but a company in Toronto.
ttyl
Farrell
Great, a Music Video station that doesn't show music videos anymore, teaming up with a software company that no longer produces good software. Did Dante dream this up? What rung of hell am I in now?!?!?
ttyl
Farrell
Want to know what really funny?
Did anyone else notice how soon this came out after the newer Linux kernels added that functionality? Could there be GPLed code in the new Vista kernel?
Inquiring minds want to know!
ttyl
Farrell
TANJ right!
I used to be a Christian, but for a number of reasons left that faith. But if there had been more Christians like yourself, I might still be one. Groups like the one in the article are part of the "Religous Reich", who aim to force everyone to believe as they do, and would make the United States a Theocracy, not a Democracy. And they are part of the reason I am no longer a Christian.
ttyl
Farrell
"I've got no problem with Jesus, it's his fan club I can't stand!"
I would have to second that...it's a great client! And it does all the major protocols.
ttyl
Farrell
Probably piracy makes up 90% of their numbers, and we know that the RIAA, MPAA, and their proxies world-wide probably over-estimate their figures by claiming that everyone who downloads something will not buy it. The article doesn't show the numbers breakdown...
ttyl
Farrell
I spent 2 and a half years in North Carolina, having been recruited from Canada. I had accepted because finding a tech job is very, very hard there...and still is.
Although I found housing to be cheaper, and many consumer goods...food was the same price, which meant everything was 20-30% more expensive. The tax rate was chaper, but there were more types of taxes. for example, I had to paid a tax to the city for the car, which I had never done in Canada, and the cost of health care insurance was huge. Drugs were very expensive, even with the co-pay. The antihistamine I use, Zirtec in the US, cost me a $30 (USD) co-pay. In Canada, Reactin, (same medication, different name) is half that in CDN dollars...which means I am paying about $13 USD for it.
Another example...Coca-Cola, which in Canada you can buy in slabs of 24 cans, usually for $7.99 CDN were absent in NC, and the 12 packs were $4.99 USD. As well, after I moved back, I am finding that computer equipment, with the exception of complete systems, are cheaper.
But things are not all rosy in Canada, either. We have one big problem here...the Human Resources people.
Since the meltdown of Nortel, there has been a glut of highly qualified techies. Between Notrel's layoffs, and the trickle-down effect, some estimate over 20,000 techies were released into the Canadian tech job market. Because of of this, the HR people have been able to get very specific in what they are looking for, and used to be able to find it. But now, most people have either left the tech field, or Canada, and still the HR people are very specific in what they are looking for, and are not willing to look at equivelent qualifications. For example, if you know AIX, Linux of many flavours, SCO, Solaris and Tru-64, chances are you could pick up HP-UX in a couple of weeks of on the job experience.
I spent an hour chatting with a former Federal Government HR person, and she said that the burnout rate in the HR field is very high, on the order of 2 to 3 years, so even if an HR person learns that someone who knows MS Word 2000 could probably do OK with Word 2003, they don't forward the resume to the manager who needs the talent to run his business.
That is why there is a tech shortage, not a lack of techies!
ttyl
Farrell McGovern
Oh, sorry, I should have said:
As the creator of MfxLinux , which I built for Crowell Systems... with an installed base of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5,000 users...based upon Slackware.
Sure, it doesn't have millions of users, but was not aimed at the general desktop market. If you want to learn more, click on the link above, and read the short article I wrote about it.
ttyl
Farrell
As the creator of a Slackware based distro, MfxLinux, I can tell you that Slackware is one of *the* best distros for building upon. In many ways, it holds true to the concept of Unix, which gives you the full control to either do something wonderful, or totally fsck up. And that is so nice after the hand-holding that Red Hat, for examples smothers you with. It might be great for newbies, but for those of us who really want to have full control of their system, it is probably one of the best Distros for that. I don't want to say the best, because there are still many distros I haven't tried, and something better might be out there. Part of the FUN of using Linux is the almost infinite combinations of software that can be had to build a Distro. IDIC.
ttyl
Farrell
I didn't know that! And it's the hub for the ENTIRE BitTorrent network?!?!?! WOW!
I guess that's the end of the BitTorrent network! Too bad!
MPAA is so clueless....Thank the Gods!
ttyl
Farrell
Fine, be Romanically Correct!
ttyl
Farrell
VI VI VI - The Number of the Beast!
"vi, the editor with two modes, insert and beep!" - Julie Lavoie
ttyl
Farrell
If I thought that kicking out the current government was going to change things, I would be all for it..but there is a good change that the PQ, or the so-called Conservatives (aka the reheated Reform Party) would end up in charge, and neither of them are any better than the Liberals, and are probably much worse. Must be time to join the NDP!
ttyl
Farrell
Thank you, Google Cache!
c a.geocities.com/infringements%40rogers.com/+Louise tte+Lanteigne+&hl=en&client=firefox-a
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:zQLM8Fs0lo8J:
ttyl
Farrell
IBM eServers model 200 had a run of bad caps in the CPU area...they would explode, sometimes leaving a dent and residue on the case...nastynastynasty...They will replace the MB free of charge. We had a few of these when I was working at Crowell Systems...as well as a few of our customers.
ttyl
Farrell
No one expects the Spammish repetition!
p amspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspam
spamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspams
ttyl
Farrell
What's really funny is that according to Netcraft, the Citizens Against Government Waste are using Open Source, Open Standard software:
Site report for www.cagw.org
Site http://www.cagw.org/ Last reboot 158 days ago Uptime graph
Domain cagw.org Netblock owner convio.com
IP address 66.45.103.69 Site rank 120043
Country US Nameserver named.cagw.org
Date first seen August 1997 DNS admin netadmin@convio.com
Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS unknown
Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States Nameserver Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States
Hosting HistoryNetblock Owner IP address OS Web Server LastChanged
convio.com 8025 I.H. 35 North AUSTIN TX US 78753 66.45.103.69 FreeBSD Apache 1-Jun-2005
And wait, could it be that "Americans for Technology Leadership" also run Open Source, Open Standards software? You betcha!
Site report for www.techleadership.org
Site http://www.techleadership.org/ Last reboot 58 days ago Uptime graph
Domain techleadership.org Netblock owner Global Net Access, LLC
IP address 65.254.39.124 Site rank 889858
Country US Nameserver ns.ez-web-hosting.com
Date first seen November 1999 DNS admin billingsys@ez-web-hosting.com
Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS ez13.ez-web-hosting.com
Organisation Association for Competitive Te, 1413 K Street, N.W., Washington, 20005, United States Nameserver Organisation Ez-Web-Hosting, 4633 Welborn Dr., Sherrills Ford, 28673, United States
Netblock Owner IP address OS Web Server Last changed
Global Net Access, LLC 55 Marietta St, NW Suite 1720 Atlanta GA US 30303 65.254.39.124 Linux Apache/1.3.33 Unix mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP-CGI/0.1b 29-Sep-2005
If MS's pro-predatory "standards" are so much better than Open Standards, then why are these organizations using software founded and created upon and with Open Source, Open Standards software?
There is a name for this type organization: Hypocrite
ttyl
Farrell
Time for the internet to declare it's independance!
...with tongue lightly planted in cheek...
Let's have a Boston DNS party!
Tell the US & UN to get stuffed!
ttyl
Farrell
Of course the leaked it! How else will the non-megacorp developers had software ready for it when it comes out?
Besides, that is their marketing strategy...You give it away so that it becomes a defacto standard, then make money by calling the Lawman on their users, and then charging big money to be legit...funny how the recording industry has finally clued into this marketing strategy.
ttyl
Farrell
Just for the record, I submitted the story shortly after I read it on the NY Times site, then went to the International Herald Tribune's site which NYT pointed to for the original. I submitted only after checking that the story had not already been posted on Slashdot. I do think that the story is important enough to have ongoing conversations aobut. It could fragment the Internet, just like what happened to Fidonet when people thoght they could do it better than the International Fido Net Association (IFNA). I don't want that to happen to the Internet, but I don't like politicians deciding how my technology works...or doesn't work. I mentioned in my submission that it might be time to establish a datahaven, and convince all the techies that the datahaven should run the DNS and IP assignments based purely on technical considerations. But that's just me.
ttyl
Farrell
It's not just cheap workers, but they are also looking for people with very,
very detailed qualifications. And what is worse, the HR departments/agencies
will not forward your resumes unless you state you have *all* of those
qualifications. They also don't know about equivelent qualifications...like
if you have worked with BSD unix flavours, Solaris, Linux, SCO, Tru64, but
don't have HP-UX, they will not forward your resume...and thus you have no
chance at the job. But chances are, if the manager looking for a HP-UX
person would probably consider someone with all that Unix experience. Sadly,
unless you lie on your resume, you sometimes won't get a chance at a many
jobs today. I guess that is why I am unemployed.
ttyl
Farrell
About 8 years ago, when I was writing software for OS/2, I ran across an interesting extension that IBM had for its DB2 software, called (I think) the Ultimedia extensions. These would allow you to search photos for a type of object that it understood. So you could tell it to search for all pictures that had a red ball and a tree...and it would return a list of all photos with those two objects. It was really interesting, but I have not heard anything about it since then...
ttyl
Farrell