Even if Gnome was half as decent as KDE, I still wouldn't pay because it's FREE! Thank goodness for open source! whoopie!!!! I will say thank you to all the coders who contributed. I am certian that all your hard work will not go to waste - (a programmer has got to make a living somehow).
It's not just MS software that needs to tested on 'clean' boxes. I develop for MS and UNIX and even in writing ANSI-compliant C, i've found weird things between clean SUN boxes, MS boxes, and linux boxes. Software NEEDS to be tested on non-dev boxes whether it's UNIX-based or non-UNIX based (win, MAC)
Hi, I am a software designer for a large corporation (as well as free-lance) I have found that there are people in this world who have a natural knack for crashing computers and finding bugs in software. It's kind of like the light/dark side of the force.
Some people - such as myself- can simply enter a room with a 'mis-behaving' computer, and it will all of the sudden start working properly. Likewise, there are people who can just LOOK at a computer and it will start to malfunction.
I have three people (natural crashers) that I have beta test all of my software that are incredible testers. By the time each one of them sees three or four revisions, the software is nearly flawless.
Don't be fooled, some people are just plain idiots. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between an idiot and someone with the crashing-gift. For example: A natural crasher AND an idiot may try to put text in a numeric-only field, but the idiot will want you to change the database format to allow text - whereas the 'natural crasher' will tell you that it doesn't make sense to turn that field into a text field - but he wanted to see what would happen if he tried it.
Once you stumble onto one of these amazing people, your software design will improve 10-fold.
Stuff like this is bad for everyone. This was obviosly sabotage (just like most of their bugs) Flaming them just encourages more Gates-haters to do shît like this.
I think most M$-haters would actually like M$ products if they didn't come from Microsoft. Most peoples' hatred is based on ignorance and brainwashing - like this artical does (if it comes from M$, it must be bad). I'de love for M$ to do a test, and secretly release some software (Open-spurce of course) without letting anyone know that it was developed by M$.
I really think Slashdot is going down-hill. How the heck does this guys problems even matter. This is NOT slashdot material. This is plainly here just to flame M$ and for the author to give woodies to all the M$ haters.
If you go to a technical school, nobody will hire you for anything other than what you learned in tech-school. (Except burger flipping, lawn mowing and aswering phones) Whereas technical school can produce great workers within a trained field, you don't get a well-rounded education with such a narrowly-focussed curriculum.
Let's suppose you don't go to college, and you spend all your time getting certifications and real-world experience to be a System Administrator. Now suppose, a year into your first 'real' job, you realize that you hate it and want to do somthing else. Unless you want to mow lawns, tele-market, or flip burgers, you are SCREWED!
With a college degreee you have a MUCH better chance getting a job "outside" your field of specialty.
For Example: When I left High School, I thought I wanted to be a chemist, so I went to college and got a BS in Chemistry. I got a cool job as an inorganic chemist right out of college making so-so money. It turned out that STUDYING chemistry was a LOT more fun than doing it every day, so while I was working in the lab, I taught myself VB. I liked VB so much more than chemistry that I quit my job (5 years ago) , and now make 75K a year +benefits as a VB programmer. Had I not gone to college, no employer would have hired me as a programmer. If I had gone to a "vo-tek" school for chemistry, my only option would be to stick to chemistry, and I would be stuck doing a job that I hated.
I didn't mean to say that Star Office exports are *incompatible* I meant to say that they are not 100% as they claim.
$75.95 for CRAP? I've got more I can sell you
on
StarOffice 6.0
·
· Score: 1
I *know* I'm gonna get flamed for this, but the last several releases of Star Office have absolutely SUCKED. We've been running them on our Sparc/Sunrays for the past few years. They still have no concept of formatting or tables. Their image foramtting is non-existant, and their exports are STILL incompatible with M$. For Unix-flavors, I'd much rather stick with wordperfect, or writing the document in HTML (which is about as cross-platform as it gets).
And about that pathetic price: Most people don't know this, but you can buy MS Office Professional OEM (no manuals) for about $99 (but you have to know an authorized seller) They aren't *supposed* to sell you their copies for pre-installing on PC's, but many of them will if you're polite.
I think that Star Office is a good start, but it should still be free because in my opinion it's still beta-quality. If Star does manage to start getting market-share, I am sure the M$ will drop their prices, and maybe even release a Unix-flavor - which shouldn't be too difficult since they *steal* code from BSD as it stands - I am sure that UNIX ports are in the future for M$ - They are just squeezing every little penny from the market that they can.
First of all, you are absolutely correct about the RIAA only looking out for their OWN protection. They don't give a dåm about the artists. But it's sickening that you think that their greed is a justifiable cause to steal profits from them.
I Like your idea about paying the artists directly - but you don't realize that most record labels OWN the rights to the profit on that music, and (even if people did pay the artists directly) they would have complete legal rights to the money you send them. In fact, the artist could be sued for everything they own if it was ever found out. Most record labels are pure evil, and have already (through the use of lawyers) though out every way that an artist can beat the system.
Independent artists are the way to go such as found at: http://www.audiokingdom.com The only reason they are not popular is because they don't have a billion-dollar marketing machine behind them to brain-wash everyone into wanting their music. If you REALLY want to help the music industry, turn off your radios and your tv's and start supporting your local artists instead of the ones that record labels brainwash you into supporting!
ALSO: you are completely full of shït if you actually believe that downloading an MP3 (one that isn't 'released' by the artist) is not stealing. It certainly IS stealing - there is no way to get over that fact.
Your pathetic rhetoric about 'electrons and such' is revolting! How can you justify your actions when you already know how little artists make from labels, and how they are trapped into contracts? I can understand downloading songs that are not available on the shelves, or live recordings, and stuff that you can't order from a catalog, but we all know that the majority of the piracy that occurs is music that is available on the shelves!
C'mon people: get a job a buy the friggin CD! Do you think that artists actually spend hours upon hours working hard to make an album just so that some little punk can download their music on the web? If they didn't think they could make a living producing music, most of them would be flipping burgers at Denny's or driving busses for a living. When you download an MP3 (or copy a friends CD) rather than buy the CD, you are completely undermining the careers of these musicians.
If an artist wants to support the MP3 movement by releasing their songs that's fine. Download to your hearts content. Many respectable artists such as Chuck-D have a fantastic vision for music - but it's not a reality yet. Just because one artist says it's ok, it does not mean that they are giving you permission to download everyone elses music.
If you even had an ounce of creativity in your blood, you'd soon realize that copying ANYTHING that is copyrited is determental to the dream that people can make a living doing what they love.
PS: This exact same concept applies to programmers and 'big-bad software companies'
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If I don't want all the features, can I get a stripped-down version for less money? - you know like they want M$ to do?
Even if Gnome was half as decent as KDE, I still wouldn't pay because it's FREE! Thank goodness for open source! whoopie!!!! I will say thank you to all the coders who contributed. I am certian that all your hard work will not go to waste - (a programmer has got to make a living somehow).
It's not just MS software that needs to tested on 'clean' boxes. I develop for MS and UNIX and even in writing ANSI-compliant C, i've found weird things between clean SUN boxes, MS boxes, and linux boxes. Software NEEDS to be tested on non-dev boxes whether it's UNIX-based or non-UNIX based (win, MAC)
Hi, I am a software designer for a large corporation (as well as free-lance) I have found that there are people in this world who have a natural knack for crashing computers and finding bugs in software. It's kind of like the light/dark side of the force.
Some people - such as myself- can simply enter a room with a 'mis-behaving' computer, and it will all of the sudden start working properly. Likewise, there are people who can just LOOK at a computer and it will start to malfunction.
I have three people (natural crashers) that I have beta test all of my software that are incredible testers. By the time each one of them sees three or four revisions, the software is nearly flawless.
Don't be fooled, some people are just plain idiots. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between an idiot and someone with the crashing-gift. For example: A natural crasher AND an idiot may try to put text in a numeric-only field, but the idiot will want you to change the database format to allow text - whereas the 'natural crasher' will tell you that it doesn't make sense to turn that field into a text field - but he wanted to see what would happen if he tried it.
Once you stumble onto one of these amazing people, your software design will improve 10-fold.
Stuff like this is bad for everyone. This was obviosly sabotage (just like most of their bugs) Flaming them just encourages more Gates-haters to do shît like this. I think most M$-haters would actually like M$ products if they didn't come from Microsoft. Most peoples' hatred is based on ignorance and brainwashing - like this artical does (if it comes from M$, it must be bad). I'de love for M$ to do a test, and secretly release some software (Open-spurce of course) without letting anyone know that it was developed by M$.
I really think Slashdot is going down-hill. How the heck does this guys problems even matter. This is NOT slashdot material. This is plainly here just to flame M$ and for the author to give woodies to all the M$ haters.
Mine is the same as always - unchecked. Stop being an asshole.
If you go to a technical school, nobody will hire you for anything other than what you learned in tech-school. (Except burger flipping, lawn mowing and aswering phones) Whereas technical school can produce great workers within a trained field, you don't get a well-rounded education with such a narrowly-focussed curriculum.
If these "cool chips" work, they could be used to cool AIR that is flowing over a circuit / chip. This would avoid hot / cold spots.
Let's suppose you don't go to college, and you spend all your time getting certifications and real-world experience to be a System Administrator. Now suppose, a year into your first 'real' job, you realize that you hate it and want to do somthing else. Unless you want to mow lawns, tele-market, or flip burgers, you are SCREWED!
With a college degreee you have a MUCH better chance getting a job "outside" your field of specialty.
For Example: When I left High School, I thought I wanted to be a chemist, so I went to college and got a BS in Chemistry. I got a cool job as an inorganic chemist right out of college making so-so money. It turned out that STUDYING chemistry was a LOT more fun than doing it every day, so while I was working in the lab, I taught myself VB. I liked VB so much more than chemistry that I quit my job (5 years ago) , and now make 75K a year +benefits as a VB programmer. Had I not gone to college, no employer would have hired me as a programmer. If I had gone to a "vo-tek" school for chemistry, my only option would be to stick to chemistry, and I would be stuck doing a job that I hated.
I didn't mean to say that Star Office exports are *incompatible* I meant to say that they are not 100% as they claim.
I *know* I'm gonna get flamed for this, but the last several releases of Star Office have absolutely SUCKED. We've been running them on our Sparc/Sunrays for the past few years. They still have no concept of formatting or tables. Their image foramtting is non-existant, and their exports are STILL incompatible with M$. For Unix-flavors, I'd much rather stick with wordperfect, or writing the document in HTML (which is about as cross-platform as it gets). And about that pathetic price: Most people don't know this, but you can buy MS Office Professional OEM (no manuals) for about $99 (but you have to know an authorized seller) They aren't *supposed* to sell you their copies for pre-installing on PC's, but many of them will if you're polite. I think that Star Office is a good start, but it should still be free because in my opinion it's still beta-quality. If Star does manage to start getting market-share, I am sure the M$ will drop their prices, and maybe even release a Unix-flavor - which shouldn't be too difficult since they *steal* code from BSD as it stands - I am sure that UNIX ports are in the future for M$ - They are just squeezing every little penny from the market that they can.
First of all, you are absolutely correct about the RIAA only looking out for their OWN protection. They don't give a dåm about the artists. But it's sickening that you think that their greed is a justifiable cause to steal profits from them.
I Like your idea about paying the artists directly - but you don't realize that most record labels OWN the rights to the profit on that music, and (even if people did pay the artists directly) they would have complete legal rights to the money you send them. In fact, the artist could be sued for everything they own if it was ever found out. Most record labels are pure evil, and have already (through the use of lawyers) though out every way that an artist can beat the system.
Independent artists are the way to go such as found at: http://www.audiokingdom.com The only reason they are not popular is because they don't have a billion-dollar marketing machine behind them to brain-wash everyone into wanting their music. If you REALLY want to help the music industry, turn off your radios and your tv's and start supporting your local artists instead of the ones that record labels brainwash you into supporting!
ALSO: you are completely full of shït if you actually believe that downloading an MP3 (one that isn't 'released' by the artist) is not stealing. It certainly IS stealing - there is no way to get over that fact.
Your pathetic rhetoric about 'electrons and such' is revolting! How can you justify your actions when you already know how little artists make from labels, and how they are trapped into contracts? I can understand downloading songs that are not available on the shelves, or live recordings, and stuff that you can't order from a catalog, but we all know that the majority of the piracy that occurs is music that is available on the shelves!
C'mon people: get a job a buy the friggin CD! Do you think that artists actually spend hours upon hours working hard to make an album just so that some little punk can download their music on the web? If they didn't think they could make a living producing music, most of them would be flipping burgers at Denny's or driving busses for a living. When you download an MP3 (or copy a friends CD) rather than buy the CD, you are completely undermining the careers of these musicians.
If an artist wants to support the MP3 movement by releasing their songs that's fine. Download to your hearts content. Many respectable artists such as Chuck-D have a fantastic vision for music - but it's not a reality yet. Just because one artist says it's ok, it does not mean that they are giving you permission to download everyone elses music.
If you even had an ounce of creativity in your blood, you'd soon realize that copying ANYTHING that is copyrited is determental to the dream that people can make a living doing what they love.
PS: This exact same concept applies to programmers and 'big-bad software companies'