1) Most of the important functionality (including the WebKit/Blink browser engine) are now embedded in Google Play Services, which you can't manage.
2) Total ownership of a device with a proprietary radio isn't realistic - even if you managed to install straight Linux on the thing (unlikely) the underlying firmware is in the bag.
3) Better to return that machine and go with a Yoga 2 Pro honestly. You'll have the ability to install Linux on it and have far greater control over your data.
4) A rooting tool is inherently untrustworthy as it exploits flaws in the target system. How can you truly know whether an oft-used method is trustworthy?
If you're not interested in the above, you don't really care about your data and shouldn't bother rooting it.
PerconaDB is a drop in replacement for MySQL. If you don't know who Percona are, you're missing out on some magic - these guys are MySQL tuning and recovery experts. I'd trust this over MariaDB - never even heard of MariaDB until I saw this article. http://www.percona.com/software/percona-server/downloads/
If you have any expectations of maintaining confidentiality for yourselves or your clients, a cloud service is not for you.
All cloud providers make claims as to the privacy of your data - when put to the test they'll hand it over to the wrong people in a heartbeat.
I'm assuming no one has yet noticed that the $99 fee is not going to last forever. From Microsoft's sysdev portal:
Microsoft is pleased to announce that, for a limited time, VeriSign is offering the ‘Microsoft Authenticode’ Digital Certificate at a substantially reduced price by following the link below.
Moreover as others have mentioned here, it's not guaranteed that any hardware manufacturers will include the capability to register one's own keys. I certainly haven't heard of any yet.
In a recent interview with an Iranian Linux publication, RMS had this to say about the very issue addressed here - it's an opinion I share.
"LR: What's the best way to advocate Free Software? Some Free Software users engage in technical debates with Microsoft and Apple fans, trying to convince them GNU/Linux is more powerful. Another group focus on philosophical and cultural aspects of Free Software and try to make people care about their freedom. Which of the two mentioned approaches are more effective?
RMS: They are both "effective" but they lead to different results.
If you convince people that some free software is technically superior, they might run some free software, but they will remain ready to use nonfree software in the areas where that is technically superior. They will continue to judge an important question based on superficial issues. This is just a partial success.
However, if you convince people that they deserve freedom, they will start rejecting nonfree software whether it is technically inferior or technically superior, because they will see that free software is ethically superior. They will understand the important question and judge it right. This is a full, deep success.
Another weakness of technical arguments is that nontechnical people probably won't care about them at all. But they can understand ethical arguments. Ethical arguments are the only way we can convince nontechnical people to become free software supporters.
I figure that users can judge for themselves whether program A is more convenient than program B. So I don't try to convince them about that sort of question, except when someone has preconceptions about free software and has not tried it. I focus on talking about freedom. "
I recently resumed using WindowMaker and I've been asking myself why I stopped. My current desktop consists of WindowMaker's 0.95 GIT snapshot and various XFCE components (filemanager, CD burning utility, etc) in addition to the usual mature selection of apps for every day use. WMFire even supports multiple cores (one dockapp per core looks really nice on new systems).
Menu is all set up using the XDG standards. I'd say I have all the functionality I have under GNOME 3, though it of course requires some preconfiguration.
I even found my old theme from 10 years ago. Hee!
I've been using the HP EliteBook 8540w and it's been hard to destroy. I ran an HP demo unit through the mill too (dropped it from six feet on all corners, etc) - it's rated for military use, and I'm pretty sure it's one step below the ruggedized laptops you can get with armor plating.
A small 25 user company would best take advantage of Windows 2008 Small Business, which allows for up to 75 users and includes both Exchange and SharePoint. After that you only deal with OEM licenses of Windows. Outlook is optional, as Exchange provides capable webmail services, but again, Office Small business edition provides reasonable pricing for a small shop.
Remote desktops is a possibility, but the real loss that will stem from the tide of cloud computing is the atrophy of the personal computer down to a set top box whose usage is supported by ads. An iPad or iPhone is an apt example - when the personal computer no longer exists, where will an end-user's freedom to explore go?
The Tinkerer's Sunset is a good example of what bothers me about the current widespread embrace of cloud computing.
The only reason this stuff is so popular now is because people won't pay $99.99 for a MS Office license anymore so instead MS/Google are writing server-side adware to try and get the $99 from advertisers over a couple of years.
Ah... no. That's the reason that they're doing it, not the reason that it's popular. The reason that it's popular is that it's useful and free (again, if you don't want to pay for the ad-free version).
Hear hear! That's basically the upshot yes. You're foisting your personal documents onto a public server, you're allowing a company to index it and show you ads based on the resulting content you save/create, and people do it because they know only that they dislike Microsoft and don't want to pay money for goods and services.
It'll be interesting to see the advertising bubble burst when everyone realises those little sidebar ads don't generate nearly enough revenue in the real world.
Rich client software connecting to network servers is a long-standing formula that everyone has employed until the cloud buzzword bandwagon rolled into town. In most cases software applications running on the local computer will remain much more feature-rich and contain much more functionality than a web based application.
The day web based applications overtake desktop applications is the day the web browser weighs in at over a gigabyte in size, accounting for all the API's and associated background services that will be required to deliver them.
This is just another attempt at offering 'software as a service', rental software which is something slashdotters moaned loudly about when Microsoft promoted the concept in the early 2000's. Now that Google is planning on it, it's being hailed as heroism.
Windows 7 preserves almost all the metaphors and usage traits people are used to from XP, and introduces new convenience features. I think a transition to Windows 7 from XP would be a much smoother process than an introduction to a new platform.
Is there a good reason to switch the family to Linux, other than for ideological reasons?
My tech life got a lot easier when I decided I wasn't going to mess with email anymore, just like the day I decided I was going to ignore Microsoft's APIs. Both are losing propositions in the extreme. This is ridiculous. Blocking spam is not so impossible as to warrant outsourcing.
I am sick of IT professionals outsourcing their tasks because they lack the talent to implement solutions on their own. Either swim with the big fish or get out of the pond.
Slashdot Mirror
Available for advanced / enterprise users.
1) Most of the important functionality (including the WebKit/Blink browser engine) are now embedded in Google Play Services, which you can't manage.
2) Total ownership of a device with a proprietary radio isn't realistic - even if you managed to install straight Linux on the thing (unlikely) the underlying firmware is in the bag.
3) Better to return that machine and go with a Yoga 2 Pro honestly. You'll have the ability to install Linux on it and have far greater control over your data.
4) A rooting tool is inherently untrustworthy as it exploits flaws in the target system. How can you truly know whether an oft-used method is trustworthy?
If you're not interested in the above, you don't really care about your data and shouldn't bother rooting it.
if you're going to sync nightly anyway, why bother with a cloud service? just sync at night.
PerconaDB is a drop in replacement for MySQL. If you don't know who Percona are, you're missing out on some magic - these guys are MySQL tuning and recovery experts. I'd trust this over MariaDB - never even heard of MariaDB until I saw this article. http://www.percona.com/software/percona-server/downloads/
If you have any expectations of maintaining confidentiality for yourselves or your clients, a cloud service is not for you. All cloud providers make claims as to the privacy of your data - when put to the test they'll hand it over to the wrong people in a heartbeat.
I'm assuming no one has yet noticed that the $99 fee is not going to last forever. From Microsoft's sysdev portal:
Moreover as others have mentioned here, it's not guaranteed that any hardware manufacturers will include the capability to register one's own keys. I certainly haven't heard of any yet.
Ain't that the truth.
In a recent interview with an Iranian Linux publication, RMS had this to say about the very issue addressed here - it's an opinion I share.
"LR: What's the best way to advocate Free Software? Some Free Software users engage in technical debates with Microsoft and Apple fans, trying to convince them GNU/Linux is more powerful. Another group focus on philosophical and cultural aspects of Free Software and try to make people care about their freedom. Which of the two mentioned approaches are more effective?
RMS: They are both "effective" but they lead to different results.
If you convince people that some free software is technically superior, they might run some free software, but they will remain ready to use nonfree software in the areas where that is technically superior. They will continue to judge an important question based on superficial issues. This is just a partial success.
However, if you convince people that they deserve freedom, they will start rejecting nonfree software whether it is technically inferior or technically superior, because they will see that free software is ethically superior. They will understand the important question and judge it right. This is a full, deep success.
Another weakness of technical arguments is that nontechnical people probably won't care about them at all. But they can understand ethical arguments. Ethical arguments are the only way we can convince nontechnical people to become free software supporters.
I figure that users can judge for themselves whether program A is more convenient than program B. So I don't try to convince them about that sort of question, except when someone has preconceptions about free software and has not tried it. I focus on talking about freedom. "
Their GIT was updated as recently as last month. I'm excited!
I recently resumed using WindowMaker and I've been asking myself why I stopped. My current desktop consists of WindowMaker's 0.95 GIT snapshot and various XFCE components (filemanager, CD burning utility, etc) in addition to the usual mature selection of apps for every day use. WMFire even supports multiple cores (one dockapp per core looks really nice on new systems). Menu is all set up using the XDG standards. I'd say I have all the functionality I have under GNOME 3, though it of course requires some preconfiguration. I even found my old theme from 10 years ago. Hee!
Check out the newest 0.95 GIT snapshot. Its wmmenugen utility generates the menu from the contents of /usr/share/applications. Quite nice.
I doubt the iPad is going to be sturdy or rugged by any stretch of the imagination.
I've been using the HP EliteBook 8540w and it's been hard to destroy. I ran an HP demo unit through the mill too (dropped it from six feet on all corners, etc) - it's rated for military use, and I'm pretty sure it's one step below the ruggedized laptops you can get with armor plating.
A small 25 user company would best take advantage of Windows 2008 Small Business, which allows for up to 75 users and includes both Exchange and SharePoint. After that you only deal with OEM licenses of Windows. Outlook is optional, as Exchange provides capable webmail services, but again, Office Small business edition provides reasonable pricing for a small shop.
Remote desktops is a possibility, but the real loss that will stem from the tide of cloud computing is the atrophy of the personal computer down to a set top box whose usage is supported by ads. An iPad or iPhone is an apt example - when the personal computer no longer exists, where will an end-user's freedom to explore go?
The Tinkerer's Sunset is a good example of what bothers me about the current widespread embrace of cloud computing.
Why does't slashdot have a like button
It takes Microsoft Excel approximately 1.5 seconds to load on a moderately old PC running Windows XP; this with many more features available to it...
The only reason this stuff is so popular now is because people won't pay $99.99 for a MS Office license anymore so instead MS/Google are writing server-side adware to try and get the $99 from advertisers over a couple of years.
Ah... no. That's the reason that they're doing it, not the reason that it's popular. The reason that it's popular is that it's useful and free (again, if you don't want to pay for the ad-free version).
That was an odd way of agreeing with him. :-)
Hear hear! That's basically the upshot yes. You're foisting your personal documents onto a public server, you're allowing a company to index it and show you ads based on the resulting content you save/create, and people do it because they know only that they dislike Microsoft and don't want to pay money for goods and services.
It'll be interesting to see the advertising bubble burst when everyone realises those little sidebar ads don't generate nearly enough revenue in the real world.
Crap. I misread the post to which I replied. I thought they were referring to Internet Explorer and not just version 6 :[
The day web based applications overtake desktop applications is the day the web browser weighs in at over a gigabyte in size, accounting for all the API's and associated background services that will be required to deliver them.
This is just another attempt at offering 'software as a service', rental software which is something slashdotters moaned loudly about when Microsoft promoted the concept in the early 2000's. Now that Google is planning on it, it's being hailed as heroism.
~65% of users in America and Europe actually. Let's not declare IE dead before its time.
Windows 7 preserves almost all the metaphors and usage traits people are used to from XP, and introduces new convenience features. I think a transition to Windows 7 from XP would be a much smoother process than an introduction to a new platform.
Is there a good reason to switch the family to Linux, other than for ideological reasons?
Hahah.