I wish I could post one response to multiple comments, but I can't...
Believe it or not, I do understand that a lot of companies use old software that was only made until 96 or so... until the developer went out of business, or got a better job, or whatever. However, what I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of people in the world that could write an application that does the exact same thing as the old one, more efficiently, at a relatively low cost, that would run better on newer hardware. Look at the unemployment rates of programmers in this country... if you need a program, I'm sure you could get a very talented person to write it for you for an extremely minimal cost. Even if you spent $5000 on a computer back in 1996, you've gotten more than 7 years worth out of it. That's more than almost any other purchase a company can make... aside from maybe furniture. It's time to upgrade. If NT4 works fine for you, great... but it won't always, and when it breaks and you have to upgrade, you'll be several generations behind the times.
I'm not a Microsoft fan, but even though they ARE a monopoly doesn't mean every single decision they make is evil. Occasionally they make a right choice, and this is one of those.
There are so many stereotypes in your message, I can't even think to respond to all of them. Management isn't always idiotic, and when they are, maybe you should explain to them what's dumb about their ideas... and document it. Then they can't blame you for things that don't work. Have you ever even considered that you get to be a manager based on your formidable technical and communicative skills? Also, they don't need our labor more than we need their wages. It's an even 50-50 split... or it should be. If it isn't, look for another job. They should be paying you a fair amount for the work you do, and you should do a fair amount of work for the amount you get paid. If it isn't that way, it's time to head down the road.
Assuming that Joe doesn't upgrade for a few more years, just because he doesn't feel that "needs" to, when will he? After his motherboard crashes and he's forced to buy a new machine? That could lead to problems installing NT4 on a Pentium 6. Yeah, it'll run fast... if it runs.
Think of upgrading as feet of snow. When it's snowing outside, you can go out and shovel for hours and keep up with it, or you can wait until it's done, and there's 5 feet out there and try to shovel it. If you do it while it's snowing, you'll spend just as much time doing it, but you won't be as sore the next day (since you never lifted more than 20 lbs.). If you do it all at once after it's stopped snowing, your back is going to really hurt, and you'll still spend several hours out there. (No, in my analogies, there are no bulldozers or snowblowers, so don't even ask.)
Aside from the technical arguments you give me, I can give you an analogy that will better explain why upgrading is better (most of the time).
What car do you drive? Is it automatic or manual? CD Player or 8-Track? 4-wheel drive or 2-wheel drive? Is it an SUV or a compact car? My point is this: a manual-shift compact (think beetle) 2-wheel drive car with an 8-track player gets you where you need to go... even if it was made in the 70's. It'll cost less and go farther than a 4-WD automatic Ford Expedition (for example) with a 6-disc CD Changer will. So why don't you run out and sell your cars and buy an old fashioned beetle?
You probably won't because you enjoy the updated things in the car more than you'd enjoy saving some money. You'd enjoy listening to Eminem on your 6-disc CD Changer a lot more than the Bee Gee's on your 8-Track. You'd enjoy driving through 2 feet of snow and not sliding around trying to get to work. It's only a car. It's primary function is to transport you from Place A to Place B safely and in a timely manner. Everything else is filler.
The same argument applies to NT4 vs. Windows 2000/2003/XP. NT4 may serve your files, but it can't do many other things that may make your job easier or more enjoyable.
Windows XP can be loaded on several different types of 64-bit processors, including the AMD that hasn't come out yet. I believe it also supports Alpha, but not PPC... but I could definitely be wrong.
The wisdom of/.'ers comes through again. I agree wholeheartedly. Next time someone tells you to purchase a Windows 2000/2003 Server, say OK, then order one with Red Hat (or Slackware, or Debian, or *insert favorite distro here*). They'll come to see the error of their ways, and lift you high above their heads and praise your name. After numerous such miracles, you may attain the status of "guru" and be deified by your fellow man. It can happen. You have the faith... you just need to use it.
I can't see how anybody can say that the security in NT4 was enough, especially compared to newer OS's. And if you want to get all technical about it, since Joe ServicePack has never received any support from Microsoft, then he's running Windows NT4 without any service packs... since the service packs have to be developed by Microsoft. Keeping that in mind, I'd say Joe ServicePack probably has a long and hard road ahead of him to upgrade to an operating system developed in the better part of the past decade. I wish him luck.
You've had the operating system for 7 years so far, and you don't want to (you don't feel like?) upgrade, yet you're worried about reliability and stability? You'd think that if something was to go wrong, you'd have figured out how to fix it in the past 7 years, and through the myriad books out there about the subject. Maybe you should re-evaluate your options...
Because if it stops working, you have to reload it. Reloading W2K is a lot easier and faster than NT4. Besides, maybe, just maybe, sometime in the near future, somebody will want (gasp) a NEW FEATURE! If, and when, that time comes, you'll be stuck. Maybe sometime you'll want Active Directories... except when that happens in 2007, you'll only have worked with Windows NT4 for the last 11 years and will have no clue what Active Directories are, or how to use them... so the learning curve on getting YOU up to speed keeps the company from moving forward.
Sometimes having a server that works isn't enough. Eventually you will need more features or additional security or more hardware/storage. When that time comes, you'll be screwed.
I know a lot of people are nostalgic for the "old days" when NT4 was brand new, and was the best option in the market... as long as you wanted to pay premium dollar for Microsoft's products... but seriously, who cares about it anymore?
NT4 came out 7 years ago... and 6 service packs later, they almost have it working. There are still so many bugs with it, I can't keep track. It's a nightmare to maintain, and nothing is kept in a logical place. Even the log-in key-press sequence (ctrl-alt-del) is anti-intuitive. The graphics are horrible and bland. The hardware support is pathetic, even for its day. To my knowledge, you STILL can't access anything via USB on NT4. It's a system-resource hog (that's kind of given, since it IS Microsoft). Can ANYBODY tell me why they're still using it? The cost for maintaining it over 6 months is more than purchasing a new computer with Windows 2000/XP. What can NT4 possibly offer that Windows 2000/XP (or even Linux) can't? All the other options are easier to work with and/or cheaper.
I don't blame Microsoft at all for getting rid of it. I just wish they would have done it sooner... or even never come out with it in the first place. They could have just continued development on it until 1999 and come out with Windows 2000 and actually had a product that made it worthwhile to put on a server (in some people's opinions).
Well, while we're at it, why not go for IPv7? Seriously, what's another few numbers... if 18327.2506.47124.1792/60 is no problem, then why not 58265.19673.683.42763.28690.9637.28634.19572,28692.13634.2734.44783.2392.10582.0/5328. Hey, that's no problem. You might have to get more memory in your PDA though...
There's a secret in that number... particularly the netmask... can anybody guess what it is?
In certain circumstances, when time may be a factor, making a mountain out of a molehill can prove beneficial to everyone involved. The reason is that people think there's more risk involved than there actually is, and fix whatever problems there were before the "deadline" arrives.
On an off-topic note, has anyone heard anything about a live-action Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie (that doesn't suck like the BBC one from way-back)? I read a rumor about it a while ago, but haven't heard anything since...
I'm a Libertarian... and I certainly don't advocate socialism. In fact, I'd be more for anarchy than socialism. First law of nature: Survival of the fittest.
I'll take that same train of logic and replace "my mother" with "my supervisor". When my supervisor uses it, I will accept that it's popular. However, if I told my supervisor that we're running GNU upstairs, he'd have no clue what I was talking about (not that that's new...).
I suppose the deciding factor would be what the definition of "Unix-like" is. If it's as simple as an operating system that uses commands on a command line including, but not specifically limited to ls, cd, mkdir, rm, etc., then DOS would probably be Unix-like. So, it depends... which monopolistic Satan-organization does Slashdot hate more, at this particular moment... SCO or Microsoft?
I'll grant that I wasn't really around much in the early 90's, so I can't speak from the first-person in regards to what he's talking about. I would guess that Linux Torvalds really didn't think one thing or another about GNU when he wrote the first Linux kernel. He probably approved of it, but I don't remember reading anywhere in his initial post in 1991 (or 92?) that his brand-new kernel was developed specifically so GNU could be complete.
GNU and Linux may have grown up together, but they weren't born in the same house... or even in the same neighborhood. Linux became popular practically IMMEDIATELY. GNU's still kinda working on it.
About your rant about filthy socialists... Um... RMS looks filthy, and from his past remarks, he tends to be socialist. The parent's comment was 100% accurate. At no point did he say that all socialists were hippies, or that all filthy people were socialists. I know quite a few filthy SOB's that aren't socialists. He also didn't say (per se) that socialism was bad, even though historically, there's never been a country that survived for very long in socialism.
I'm tempted to think both. I think it started with SCO thinking it could shake the money tree and gather whatever they could, but when Microsoft saw that they were getting press (after all, who really gives a flying f*** about SCO in the first place), they decided that they could have a third-party threaten lawsuit after lawsuit without ever REALLY being responsible. They had enough money to do it... they just didn't want the bad press. All they have to do is slap a NDA on their deal with SCO, and all is quiet on the frontier...
Something just occurred to me... what's so special about that projector? Is it incredibly high resolution, or extremely high framerate?
I ask only because I can get a laptop with a projector for less than $6,000 that will play DVD's on a big screen... just add an Audigy 2 sound card, and you've got full 6.1 surround sound to go with it... so why spend $225,000 when you can just spend $6,000?
OK, then my argument still stands... for 20,000 screens at $300,000 apiece (rounding up), it's $6 billion... So, when it's all said and done, it'd take 6 years to make it back. Why not start with 1,000 screens for a mere $300 million and work up from there? Theoretically, the price for the digital projectors will go down as both the technology advanced, and as more are made (equally out the supply vs. demand), so after the first 10,000, the price should drop fairly dramatically.
It wouldn't benefit others. It would benefit themselves. I can certainly understand them being tight-wads and not wanting to spend an extra cent on anything, but given that Pluto Nash cost somewhere around $100,000,000 to make, and only brought back $5,000,000 (and THAT's being generous), it doesn't look like they're being TOO stingy.
Besides, if they spend $2.5 billion to make $3.0 billion in the next 3 years, they're making $500,000,000... enough to make 4 sequels to Pluto Nash (unless there's a God in heaven).
There are also big economic advantages for the studios. They stand to save $1 billion each year if they no longer have to produce and ship film prints...
But digital projectors are much more expensive than conventional ones
I understand that the studios will save money by digital filming, and that each theater will have to spend a lot of money to upgrade to digital... so here's my question. If there are around 5000 theaters in the country, with a total of 20,000 screens (actual numbers would help), and each screen costs $20,000 (seems like much, but OK), why don't the studios purchase the equipment for the theaters? Given $20,000 for 20,000 screens, that's only $400,000,000. If it'll save them $1,000,000,000, why not? Even if each screen costs $50,000, and there are 50,000 screens in the country, that's STILL "only" $2,500,000,000. Given that they're certainly not short on money, it seems like a sensible investment to me.
Do digital cameras really have a future? Aren't they all being integrated into cell phones, which are being integrated into PDA's, which are also running double-duty as MP3 players? In 5 years, am I going to have to run to Best Buy and get a Personal Digital MP3 Cell Camera Phone?
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I wish I could post one response to multiple comments, but I can't...
Believe it or not, I do understand that a lot of companies use old software that was only made until 96 or so... until the developer went out of business, or got a better job, or whatever. However, what I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of people in the world that could write an application that does the exact same thing as the old one, more efficiently, at a relatively low cost, that would run better on newer hardware. Look at the unemployment rates of programmers in this country... if you need a program, I'm sure you could get a very talented person to write it for you for an extremely minimal cost. Even if you spent $5000 on a computer back in 1996, you've gotten more than 7 years worth out of it. That's more than almost any other purchase a company can make... aside from maybe furniture. It's time to upgrade. If NT4 works fine for you, great... but it won't always, and when it breaks and you have to upgrade, you'll be several generations behind the times.
I'm not a Microsoft fan, but even though they ARE a monopoly doesn't mean every single decision they make is evil. Occasionally they make a right choice, and this is one of those.
I already have a Unix SA job, so I don't need yours. Thanks anyway.
There are so many stereotypes in your message, I can't even think to respond to all of them. Management isn't always idiotic, and when they are, maybe you should explain to them what's dumb about their ideas... and document it. Then they can't blame you for things that don't work. Have you ever even considered that you get to be a manager based on your formidable technical and communicative skills? Also, they don't need our labor more than we need their wages. It's an even 50-50 split... or it should be. If it isn't, look for another job. They should be paying you a fair amount for the work you do, and you should do a fair amount of work for the amount you get paid. If it isn't that way, it's time to head down the road.
Assuming that Joe doesn't upgrade for a few more years, just because he doesn't feel that "needs" to, when will he? After his motherboard crashes and he's forced to buy a new machine? That could lead to problems installing NT4 on a Pentium 6. Yeah, it'll run fast... if it runs.
Think of upgrading as feet of snow. When it's snowing outside, you can go out and shovel for hours and keep up with it, or you can wait until it's done, and there's 5 feet out there and try to shovel it. If you do it while it's snowing, you'll spend just as much time doing it, but you won't be as sore the next day (since you never lifted more than 20 lbs.). If you do it all at once after it's stopped snowing, your back is going to really hurt, and you'll still spend several hours out there. (No, in my analogies, there are no bulldozers or snowblowers, so don't even ask.)
Aside from the technical arguments you give me, I can give you an analogy that will better explain why upgrading is better (most of the time).
What car do you drive? Is it automatic or manual? CD Player or 8-Track? 4-wheel drive or 2-wheel drive? Is it an SUV or a compact car? My point is this: a manual-shift compact (think beetle) 2-wheel drive car with an 8-track player gets you where you need to go... even if it was made in the 70's. It'll cost less and go farther than a 4-WD automatic Ford Expedition (for example) with a 6-disc CD Changer will. So why don't you run out and sell your cars and buy an old fashioned beetle?
You probably won't because you enjoy the updated things in the car more than you'd enjoy saving some money. You'd enjoy listening to Eminem on your 6-disc CD Changer a lot more than the Bee Gee's on your 8-Track. You'd enjoy driving through 2 feet of snow and not sliding around trying to get to work. It's only a car. It's primary function is to transport you from Place A to Place B safely and in a timely manner. Everything else is filler.
The same argument applies to NT4 vs. Windows 2000/2003/XP. NT4 may serve your files, but it can't do many other things that may make your job easier or more enjoyable.
Windows XP can be loaded on several different types of 64-bit processors, including the AMD that hasn't come out yet. I believe it also supports Alpha, but not PPC... but I could definitely be wrong.
The wisdom of /.'ers comes through again. I agree wholeheartedly. Next time someone tells you to purchase a Windows 2000/2003 Server, say OK, then order one with Red Hat (or Slackware, or Debian, or *insert favorite distro here*). They'll come to see the error of their ways, and lift you high above their heads and praise your name. After numerous such miracles, you may attain the status of "guru" and be deified by your fellow man. It can happen. You have the faith... you just need to use it.
I can't see how anybody can say that the security in NT4 was enough, especially compared to newer OS's. And if you want to get all technical about it, since Joe ServicePack has never received any support from Microsoft, then he's running Windows NT4 without any service packs... since the service packs have to be developed by Microsoft. Keeping that in mind, I'd say Joe ServicePack probably has a long and hard road ahead of him to upgrade to an operating system developed in the better part of the past decade. I wish him luck.
You've had the operating system for 7 years so far, and you don't want to (you don't feel like?) upgrade, yet you're worried about reliability and stability? You'd think that if something was to go wrong, you'd have figured out how to fix it in the past 7 years, and through the myriad books out there about the subject. Maybe you should re-evaluate your options...
Because if it stops working, you have to reload it. Reloading W2K is a lot easier and faster than NT4. Besides, maybe, just maybe, sometime in the near future, somebody will want (gasp) a NEW FEATURE! If, and when, that time comes, you'll be stuck. Maybe sometime you'll want Active Directories... except when that happens in 2007, you'll only have worked with Windows NT4 for the last 11 years and will have no clue what Active Directories are, or how to use them... so the learning curve on getting YOU up to speed keeps the company from moving forward.
Sometimes having a server that works isn't enough. Eventually you will need more features or additional security or more hardware/storage. When that time comes, you'll be screwed.
I know a lot of people are nostalgic for the "old days" when NT4 was brand new, and was the best option in the market... as long as you wanted to pay premium dollar for Microsoft's products... but seriously, who cares about it anymore?
NT4 came out 7 years ago... and 6 service packs later, they almost have it working. There are still so many bugs with it, I can't keep track. It's a nightmare to maintain, and nothing is kept in a logical place. Even the log-in key-press sequence (ctrl-alt-del) is anti-intuitive. The graphics are horrible and bland. The hardware support is pathetic, even for its day. To my knowledge, you STILL can't access anything via USB on NT4. It's a system-resource hog (that's kind of given, since it IS Microsoft). Can ANYBODY tell me why they're still using it? The cost for maintaining it over 6 months is more than purchasing a new computer with Windows 2000/XP. What can NT4 possibly offer that Windows 2000/XP (or even Linux) can't? All the other options are easier to work with and/or cheaper.
I don't blame Microsoft at all for getting rid of it. I just wish they would have done it sooner... or even never come out with it in the first place. They could have just continued development on it until 1999 and come out with Windows 2000 and actually had a product that made it worthwhile to put on a server (in some people's opinions).
Well, while we're at it, why not go for IPv7? Seriously, what's another few numbers... if 18327.2506.47124.1792/60 is no problem, then why not 58265.19673.683.42763.28690.9637.28634.19572,28692 .13634.2734.44783.2392.10582.0/5328. Hey, that's no problem. You might have to get more memory in your PDA though...
There's a secret in that number... particularly the netmask... can anybody guess what it is?
In certain circumstances, when time may be a factor, making a mountain out of a molehill can prove beneficial to everyone involved. The reason is that people think there's more risk involved than there actually is, and fix whatever problems there were before the "deadline" arrives.
On an off-topic note, has anyone heard anything about a live-action Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie (that doesn't suck like the BBC one from way-back)? I read a rumor about it a while ago, but haven't heard anything since...
I'm a Libertarian... and I certainly don't advocate socialism. In fact, I'd be more for anarchy than socialism. First law of nature: Survival of the fittest.
Well, according to history, no governments last... so with your logic, anarchy is the best.
Republics last longer than socialist governments. Prove me wrong...
I'll take that same train of logic and replace "my mother" with "my supervisor". When my supervisor uses it, I will accept that it's popular. However, if I told my supervisor that we're running GNU upstairs, he'd have no clue what I was talking about (not that that's new...).
I suppose the deciding factor would be what the definition of "Unix-like" is. If it's as simple as an operating system that uses commands on a command line including, but not specifically limited to ls, cd, mkdir, rm, etc., then DOS would probably be Unix-like. So, it depends... which monopolistic Satan-organization does Slashdot hate more, at this particular moment... SCO or Microsoft?
I'll grant that I wasn't really around much in the early 90's, so I can't speak from the first-person in regards to what he's talking about. I would guess that Linux Torvalds really didn't think one thing or another about GNU when he wrote the first Linux kernel. He probably approved of it, but I don't remember reading anywhere in his initial post in 1991 (or 92?) that his brand-new kernel was developed specifically so GNU could be complete.
GNU and Linux may have grown up together, but they weren't born in the same house... or even in the same neighborhood. Linux became popular practically IMMEDIATELY. GNU's still kinda working on it.
About your rant about filthy socialists... Um... RMS looks filthy, and from his past remarks, he tends to be socialist. The parent's comment was 100% accurate. At no point did he say that all socialists were hippies, or that all filthy people were socialists. I know quite a few filthy SOB's that aren't socialists. He also didn't say (per se) that socialism was bad, even though historically, there's never been a country that survived for very long in socialism.
I'm tempted to think both. I think it started with SCO thinking it could shake the money tree and gather whatever they could, but when Microsoft saw that they were getting press (after all, who really gives a flying f*** about SCO in the first place), they decided that they could have a third-party threaten lawsuit after lawsuit without ever REALLY being responsible. They had enough money to do it... they just didn't want the bad press. All they have to do is slap a NDA on their deal with SCO, and all is quiet on the frontier...
Something just occurred to me... what's so special about that projector? Is it incredibly high resolution, or extremely high framerate?
I ask only because I can get a laptop with a projector for less than $6,000 that will play DVD's on a big screen... just add an Audigy 2 sound card, and you've got full 6.1 surround sound to go with it... so why spend $225,000 when you can just spend $6,000?
$225,000 for ONE projector? Holy shit.
OK, then my argument still stands... for 20,000 screens at $300,000 apiece (rounding up), it's $6 billion... So, when it's all said and done, it'd take 6 years to make it back. Why not start with 1,000 screens for a mere $300 million and work up from there? Theoretically, the price for the digital projectors will go down as both the technology advanced, and as more are made (equally out the supply vs. demand), so after the first 10,000, the price should drop fairly dramatically.
It wouldn't benefit others. It would benefit themselves. I can certainly understand them being tight-wads and not wanting to spend an extra cent on anything, but given that Pluto Nash cost somewhere around $100,000,000 to make, and only brought back $5,000,000 (and THAT's being generous), it doesn't look like they're being TOO stingy.
Besides, if they spend $2.5 billion to make $3.0 billion in the next 3 years, they're making $500,000,000... enough to make 4 sequels to Pluto Nash (unless there's a God in heaven).
There are also big economic advantages for the studios. They stand to save $1 billion each year if they no longer have to produce and ship film prints...
But digital projectors are much more expensive than conventional ones
I understand that the studios will save money by digital filming, and that each theater will have to spend a lot of money to upgrade to digital... so here's my question. If there are around 5000 theaters in the country, with a total of 20,000 screens (actual numbers would help), and each screen costs $20,000 (seems like much, but OK), why don't the studios purchase the equipment for the theaters? Given $20,000 for 20,000 screens, that's only $400,000,000. If it'll save them $1,000,000,000, why not? Even if each screen costs $50,000, and there are 50,000 screens in the country, that's STILL "only" $2,500,000,000. Given that they're certainly not short on money, it seems like a sensible investment to me.
Do digital cameras really have a future? Aren't they all being integrated into cell phones, which are being integrated into PDA's, which are also running double-duty as MP3 players? In 5 years, am I going to have to run to Best Buy and get a Personal Digital MP3 Cell Camera Phone?
Who the hell modded this offtopic? The topic is Neverwinter Nights for Linux... in case you're dumb, NW = NeverWinter Nights.