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User: qeL3-i

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  1. Re:customers move to competitors? on Solaris 9: Sticker Shock · · Score: 1

    Don't forget that Sun also has binary compatibility. The application that runs on your SS5 will also run on your E15k. If you replace your developer's SS5 (HAW HAW) with a Linux box, then the application has to be recompiled to run on the E15k.

  2. Re:Gee - Using EXISTING laws! on NY AG Sues MonsterHut Over Marketing Spam · · Score: 1
    Assuming they all from different senders, and are all fraudulent (which I realize is quite an assumption) let's figure out just how much time/money it would take to prosecute them all.

    They don't have to prosecute them all. They could just prosecute one every day. After a few weeks of spammers being chucked in jail, the spammers MIGHT get a clue.

  3. Re:One folder to rule them all... on Improving Unix Mail Storage? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Postfix is good, free, and open source. It's also easy to configure. You should be able to get it going in about half an hour.

    As for Microsoft and Exchange Server, aren't they convicted criminals? I don't want to use software made by criminals. If they are willing to break the anti-trust laws, what other laws might they be willing to break? I don't trust them with my email.

  4. What it's all about on Media Giants to Join Dow-Jones Libel Appeal · · Score: 2, Informative

    This story is about whether Mr Gutnick, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, can sue Dow Jones in Victoria where he lives, or in New Jersey where Dow Jones's headquarters is. Geoffrey Robertson QC is appearing for Dow Jones on appeal from the Victorian Supreme Court, which said that Gutnick could sue in Victoria.

    As Robertson says, if Gutnick can sue Dow Jones in Victoria, then it would impose a severe burden on website publishers who would have to comply with the law of every country which the Internet reaches to.

    If courts in other countries use the ruling in this case as a precedent, it could affect web publishing all over the world. The High Court is thus allowing media companies such as CNN, Yahoo, Amazon, etc to join the case because it affects them.

  5. Re:It's not as advanced as this site... on Kartoo Search Engine Presents Results as a Map · · Score: 1
    sometimes it takes days to get an answer, but I always get one and it's always goo.

    Mate, if the answer is always "goo", why do you keep going back? It sounds like a waste of time to me.

    Who is the President of the USA? GOO!
    How far is it from the sun to the earth? GOO!
    What is the name of that free software thing that's not unix? GOO!
  6. Re:Flash? on Kartoo Search Engine Presents Results as a Map · · Score: 1

    I once saw a website for a company that claimed to be "search engine experts". Their entire site was in flash, which meant that search engines like Google couldn't index any of it. A friend of mine was searching for the site, and had used two search terms: the name of the company and the word "Ireland", which is where the company is based. He got zero hits. I suggested that he take out "Ireland" and try again. Then Google got a hit on their site. It's not too smart to put everything in flash if you expect text search engines to help people find your site. These people had basically NO TEXT which directly translated to NO HITS. Think about that.

    It also means that people who use browsers which don't have flash plugins can't see anything that's in the flash section. If that's your whole site, they can't get any information at all. One group in particular is blind people using Lynx and a screen reader. Those people are unfairly discriminated against because they can't see sites which are all flash, nor can they effectively use sites which depend heavily on Javascript. Web site designers need to design their sites to avoid these problems, and they need to test their sites to make sure that people can read what's on the site even if they don't have MS Internet Exploder with Flash and Javascript enabled. At least Kartoo has HTML and plain text options - somebody planned ahead. Good on them. Many other sites don't, like Hotmail. You used to be able to use Lynx to access Hotmail, now you can't. Microsoft has excluded blind people from their website.

  7. Re:I'm wondering... on Microsoft Battles Free Software at Pentagon · · Score: 1
    Some things I can honestly say I would not wish the government to use freely availible source for. Who here can prove they have a justifiable need for the targetting solution computations of a nuclear missile? (And what foreign, possibly hostile, powers would love to see software along those lines open sourced?)

    Do you think that the government should have the source code for the targetting software? Or do you think that Microsoft should have it and only give the government binaries?

    Don't be fooled by the people who don't WANT you to have software! Just because it's open source, doesn't mean you MUST distribute it. It means, "YOU'VE GOT THE SOURCE". And you SHOULD have the source if you have the software. And you should have the documentation too. And the specifications for the file formats.
  8. Most secure computer in the world on Microsoft Battles Free Software at Pentagon · · Score: 1

    Oh YEAH? What about my Sinclair ZX-80 which is hasn't been powered on for TWENTY-FIVE years, and is sitting in a bank vault SURROUNDED BY ARMED GUARDS??? ON THE MOON!!! What about that, smart guy?

  9. Re:What are their selling points? on Microsoft Battles Free Software at Pentagon · · Score: 1
    capitalism is the opposite of communism. in communism - man exploits man -

    Therefore in capitalism, man exploits man. Ooooh spooky! The exact opposite!

    On one side, we have Mr William Gates III who says that you should use only his software, and you should pay him a lot of money for it. And if somebody else tries making software, Mr Gates and his cronies will illegally drive them out of business and take over their market. Even his Hotmail site now says that Konqueror browser is "No longer supported, please upgrade to MSIE" if you try to change your "Options". Yes changing options on a web site MUST require a much more advanced browser than Konqueror. ILLEGAL ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES. CONVICTED.

    On the other side we have Mr Richard Stallman and friends (and some enemies) who want software to be FREE and want you to have it. They want you to have every right to use the software any way you like, except you can't take away anybody else's right to do the same thing.

    I know which side I'm on. LIVE FREE OR DIE!
  10. Re:Good deal for the enerprise on Xserve Outside the Reality Distortion Field · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AND! It doesn't come with Windows and all the associated site-licensing and audits and stuff. That's gotta be a big load off an IT manager's mind.

  11. Re:Animal 57!!! on Featherless Chickens · · Score: 1

    It's true all right. Here's a writeup about it, including a picture. Except it's Animal 57, not Animal 54. The Animal 54s were too mutant to survive.

  12. Re:Perhaps broadband should charge 'per megabyte'? on Death of Decent Australian Broadband · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You see, internet usage in the USA is subsidized by users who aren't in the USA. That's because ISPs in say Europe have to pay for traffic both to and from the USA. If a European user downloads an ISO from the USA, the European ISP has to pay for it. If a US user downloads an ISO from a European site, the European ISP still has to pay for it. It's the same in Australia.

    This fabulous deal is called "peering". If you're a Tier-1 ISP, you don't pay for data. This is by agreement amongst the ISPs. All the Tier-1 ISPs are in the USA, and guess what? They won't let any non-US ISPs join the club.

    Eventually the principals of "free market forces", "globalism", and "user pays" will take over, and people in the USA will face a dramatic increase in internet costs. Then we're going to see a lot of complaining! But it'll actually be a fairer system, except for people in the USA who won't be getting a free ride any more.

    There's no point saying "But the USA INVENTED the Internet!!!1!". Weren't cars invented in the USA? But you don't get free cars. And sooner or later, you won't get "free" internet any more either.

  13. No problem on Programming Contests - Worthwhile for Real Life? · · Score: 1
    (1) People think they must be a super-good programmer to enter, or face belittlement
    (2) The problems are too hard.

    Almost anybody can be very useful to a software engineering project. Sure there are some people who can quickly write working code to solve a problem, but not everybody can do that. However, the whole team can reach the objective quicker if other people do simpler tasks so that the "super programmers" can get on with the really difficult stuff. Things like installing development software, reading the documentation to find out all about how to use it most effectively, writing documentation, including requirements, design docs, test docs, doing the hard slog of GUI design and implementation, and testing the software to find bugs and make sure it meets the requirements. People can even help by providing good working conditions to help the programmers work more quickly and effectively. Find out what they need to work as quickly and efficiently as possible, and give it to them.

    These are all vital parts of a software engineering project. Almost anybody can do something useful along these lines in a programming contest, and it's the same in the "Real World". For example, get somebody involved in the contest as a "manager", and they might be able to get a job as a software manager or team leader, when they have more "Real World" experience.

    Go for it. And remember to have fun. You only go to university for a few years, but the "Real World" lasts the rest of your life.
  14. Re:Correction on The Universe in 4 Lines of Code? · · Score: 1

    Won't I still be able to find out the question by using "ps -fe"? You know, because it's on the command line?

    And now your code is wrong, because argv[1] is a char * and Question is a char. You can't assign a char pointer to a char. Furthermore, even if Question was a char *, setting Question to NULL won't have any effect on argv[1]. I'm seriously starting to doubt that you're even trying to compile and test this code before you post it here.

  15. Re:Is this really a bad thing? on The End Of The Innovation Road for CMOS · · Score: 1
    From an economical point of view, things have to get faster otherwise companies will go out of buisness

    I don't agree. For example, your car is ten years old and can go 160km/h. Do you refuse to buy a new one because the new ones can only go 165km/h? There is a limit where the equipment is "fast enough", and you would replace a computer because it is getting too old and flaky, not because you want a computer that is three times faster than your old one. Replacement of old computers means more sales.

    Also, if lots more speed is needed by new software, no doubt computer companies will come up with ways to network lots of computers to do the job, thus selling even more computers. Speed isn't everything.
  16. Re:Structures? on The End Of The Innovation Road for CMOS · · Score: 1

    Yes, I'm being quite loose with that phrase. I mean "Meets the requirements and doesn't have too many killer bugs". Sorry about that, Chief. The real point is that correctness (as in "meets the requirements") is more important than speed, and there's not much point trying to maximise speed if it means that you can't maintain the software or expand it to meet new requirements.

  17. Re:Structures? on The End Of The Innovation Road for CMOS · · Score: 1

    "Simple fast-to-write code" is good code. One of the most important things about software is maintainability. Simple code is much easier to maintain than complex code, and is therefore better. Code filled with premature optimisations is likely to be also filled with bugs.

    The best code is the simplest code which meets the requirements. If it is found to be too slow after it has been proved to be correct, then it can be optimised. The code should be profiled before optimisation so that the minimum amount of optimisation necessary to achieve the desired speed can be used. Then when the software needs to be extended due to new requirements or have bugs fixed, there is much less chance of new bugs being introduced. Speed isn't everything, correctness is much more important. If you value speed much more highly than correctness, here is a blindingly fast program you can use for anything:

    int main()
    {
    return 0;
    }

    If you really want to see what happens when you have to scrape every last bit out of the bucket, buy yourself a 386SX33 with 2MB of RAM and a 10MB hard disk and go for it. It should only cost you about $20. Report back in a few months and tell us how you're getting along.

    Me, I'm going to keep aiming for correct code that runs reasonably fast on average hardware of the day, whatever that might be.

  18. Re:Useless. on The Universe in 4 Lines of Code? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It won't be a "waste of a brilliant mind". If he succeeds, it's not a waste. If he fails, he's shown that there are no easy answers in that direction, so then other people will try other directions of research which might be more fruitful.

  19. Re:Correction on The Universe in 4 Lines of Code? · · Score: 1

    What's the "argv[1] = NULL" for? Wouldn't this do the same thing?

    int main()
    {
    return 42;
    }

  20. Different answer on Open Source Distributed File Systems? · · Score: 1
    Why not try something different? Like install a CVS server and give everybody WinCVS and other clients like good old command-line cvs to connect to it. Then all your important documents are in one place so you can easily back them up. You have logs so that you can see who made changes and when.

    Problems:
    1. People are using binary formats which doesn't allow CVS to merge them
    2. WinCVS user interface may be too complicated for an average user
    Solutions:
    1. Change to a text format
    2. Training, or simplify the interface
  21. Re:They were called 'skyWALKs' for a reason on Ten Technology Disasters · · Score: 1

    It seems to me that if you allow people to walk around on something, you should design it to hold at least the load that would be caused if it was totally full of people. One day, it will be full for some reason (like "watching fireworks" for example), and if it's not strong enough it will collapse. I'm not a structural engineer or architect however, so that's just what I would expect from those professionals who design buildings and structures to hold people.

  22. Re:Cost of retraining? on Migrating Your Office from Windows to Linux? · · Score: 1
    I wouldn't want to see it become dumbed-down just to compete with Windows.

    There's no need to worry about Linux being dumbed-down. Everybody will still be free to run whatever distribution, window manager, browser, editor, etc they wish. An easy-to-use Linux to make it simple for users to migrate from Windows or Macintosh would be good. Once they are comfortable with Simple Linux, they can move on to more advanced concepts if they want to. If they are happy with what they can do with a simplified distribution, they can stay there. It's a win/win situation.
  23. Re:Privilege on OpenSSH-3.2.2 Released · · Score: 1

    Come on, it's not that difficult...

    grep "^priv" /usr/dict/words
    privacies
    privacy
    private
    privately
    privates
    privation
    privations
    privies
    privilege
    privileged
    privileges
    privy

    PRIVILEGE is the correct spelling.

  24. Re:Design patterns and Lisp on Bitter Java · · Score: 1
    That kind of flexibility, which allows the programmer to mold the language to fit his (and his tasks) needs, is really what makes Lisp great to work with.

    It's just that English is deficient. There's no genderless pronoun that suits.

    How about:
    That kind of flexibility, which allows programmers to mold the language to fit their needs (and their tasks' needs), is really what makes Lisp great to work with.

    Oh look, English can handle it.
  25. Anybody tried it yet? on GCC 3.1 Released · · Score: 1

    Has anybody tried using it yet? I don't want to be the first kid on the block to give it a go...