They decided to move to Linux in Oct 2009. The latest outage was in November 2009 on the old system. They haven't moved to the new Linux system yet (hint: it takes more than a month). So we can run this up the Slashdot flagpole and all have another round of bashing Microsoft of their lousy LSE software if you want.
I wouldn't give up hope. I used to be in the same situation as you at Tahoe. I was >18,000 ft from the CO so no DSL. About a year ago, ATT installed a box across the street from my house and now the whole neighborhood has DSL.
I think that most phones are overpriced. You can buy an iPhone clone from China for $100 (or less) which has all of the hardware of the iPhone (touch screen, GSM radio, WiFi, camera, memory and processor plus various sensors, GPS. etc.). Granted that these are all cheapest quality and the software is terrible but I doubt that buying first quality parts in large quantities would be much more expensive... certainly not enough to justify a $600 or more price. When you consider that the software is free (Android) or amortized over millions of units, there shouldn't be much software or development cost per unit. (These clone phones have to amortize development costs over relatively small numbers of units so they have a disadvantage there.) I do think that smartphones are overpriced.
NT is is an improvement but fundamentally flawed also. It has been patched extensively in Vista/7 but due to the underlying fundamental flaws of the OS architecture, there will always be another hole just waiting to be exploited.
The new Windows security model is much better than the older versions. However, even if it was enforced completely and executed perfectly, it would not be as good as the Unix/Linux model of granular read, write, execute permissions and it still suffers from the problem of having a monolithic core so once it is breached by a poorly written program, it can be completely compromised.
Of course, in the real world, Windows has done a poor job of implementing the security model with a large number of irritating notifications that numb the user to real threats and there is a large amount of legacy software that does not observe the security model and will not run without big holes in the system.
Microsoft should have done what Apple did which is take a Unix OS with good security and build their OS on top of that. Their approach of patching up a poor foundation will not work.
Windows was designed as a single-user monolithic system with no mechanism to prevent malware from accessing the full machine. Newer versions have had security features patched into this system in an attempt to improve security but still leave many holes and a compromise anywhere in Windows gives malware access to the entire machine. Even the newest versions of Windows are easily compromised. In a monolithic system a security breach anywhere compromises the entire system. Monolithic design, core access and remote procedure calls all contribute to an easily compromised system. Windows 7 has patched on some improvements such as ASLR and DEP have made it harder to compromise machines but still leave the core monolithic structure exposed. Since there is still a lot of software which requires XP mode virtualization in Windows 7 and since this mode is a huge security hole which leaves the entire monolithic OS vulnerable, we are still seeing lots of malware on Windows 7. (If you run XP in a VM on Linux, it will effectively isolate the Windows VM from the rest of the Linux machine... not so on Windows.)
Unix was designed as a multi-user modular system with security built into the file, data, and execution modes and this gives it a secure foundation that is difficult to penetrate. By isolating files, data, and execution permissions, Linux gives each process the permissions it needs and effectively isolates the rest of the system from malware. Even poorly written Linux software will not allow access to the core of the machine. The layers of security and modular design limit the damage.
The problem is that Windows does not have a competent security model and this makes it easy for people to keep finding holes for malware. Even if Windows was open source and people fixed a bunch of broken stuff, you would still have the problem of Windows not having a good security foundation (even forcing all Windows users out of administrator mode wouldn't help much because file access is still wide open).
This Chinese company has the right idea. Take Linux which is solid and has a good security model and make it look like Windows. That way you get the advantages of having a secure OS and it keeps all of the clueless users happy with their familiar look and feel.
Actually, that's how I have my FireFox set up... opens each hyperlink in a new tab (not window). I do this so I can keep reading then go on to check out the links. Also, many times I want to view more than one link from a page and this lets me keep the page open to find the other links.
I would personally like to put in an endorsement for Christmas since I have had much better luck asking for things from Santa than asking for things from the baby Jesus/God combo. I don't think baby Jesus has once answered my prayers but the whole Christmas list thing works quite well and I am a true believer.
Produced from 1924 to 1954 in fairly large quantities. I had a friend with one of these. It was huge. Drove cross country in it one summer. Great road trip.
Not sure what you point is but you seem to be implying (naively) that XML is less efficient than MS Word doc format.
A simple test:"Hello world" saved in different formats:
.doc 24,064 bytes
.xml 4,306 bytes
.odt 7,280 bytes
(I used MS Word 2003 to save the xml so this is a MS version of xml. Don't know why you had a problem with your version of MS Word editing XML. MS makes lots of random changes to MS Word with each version so yours might have had some brain damaged code in it... it could be either an older or a newer version of word.)
Sorry for replying to myself but it seems that the author was referring to "free open source", not "free vs. paid" apps and there is no data (and the article submitter seems to be just speculating on his "impression") on that so please ignore my parent post until we can find some actual data.
But there's a problem: few of these Android apps are free software.
Wrong.
I went and clicked the links (I know, I am new here) and if you look at the actual data in AndroidLib (http://www.androlib.com/appstatsfreepaid.aspx), you will see that 60% of the apps are free apps.
I just bought a BluRay disc player for my rental home and it allows you to connect to the net and download stuff to a USB memory stick plus the discs themselves can link to the net and download additional content. It all runs on Linux. I didn't have time to fully explore but it all looks quite useful.
the iphone has a custom chip built by Infineon (who have only really made TPM's previously, no comm chips though).
From what I've heard, this custom chip is causing a lot of the poor connection performance of the iphone... it might have been better to stick with something that was proven to work.
now here's the rub, taxes. You have to pay to get it out of the manufacturers nation and you have to pay to get it into your nation. Often it will pass through some holding nation which will require a small import fee to be paid. For example, to get a HTC phone to Australia, we have to pay export tariffs in Taiwan, import duties in Australia (these are quite high unfortunately) and an import/holding fee in somewhere like Singapore. This is all before the local sales tax of 10% is added, or the vendors overheads and margin.
My $71 iphone clone came with free shipping and no taxes of any kind... no duty... no import fees... no export fees... no sales tax... free shipping from somewhere in China to my house in the US.
with phones the panels are of varying size and varying resolutions with each mixture of size and resolution requiring it's own production line
Screens are cheap and will be getting cheaper. There was recently a huge settlement in a price fixing case on phone screens so apparently the manufacturers felt that the already cheap cost of these needed to be augmented to support their profits.
I don't know why these phones are so expensive. The basic parts (touchscreen, processor, memory, case) are cheap... it should be cheaper than a netbook which has more pieces (keyboard, hard disk, lots of ports).
I have seen those China iPhone clones which have all of the hardware functionality of the iPhone (with lousy software) for $100 so the hardware can't cost much. The software can't cost much when amortized over millions of phones. Seems like there is a lot of profit in phones.
Two SIM phones are common in Asia and among the low cost clone phones. You don't see them in the US or even Europe since the telcos are adamant that they do not want you to have access to any other 'service'.
I just bought a very cheap iPhone clone Sciphone i9+ from Hong Kong for US$71 that has dual SIMS micro memory card slot. iPhone-like icons, camera, video, acceleration sensor (changes orientation of photos when you tilt the phone, etc.), FM radio, lots of other stuff.
The dual SIMS are great for me since I can have both my Swisscom SIM and my ATT SIM in the phone (and both active at the same time, if I want).
The phone, however, is of dodgy quality and the OS is proprietary. It does have Java so you can add software to it easily.
I have to agree this drives me crazy. We have huge wide screens where I work and I see all of the clueless running Outlook full screen. When they compose a message they get about 50 words across the full screen. Long messages will wrap to two whole lines!
I had the same problem a few years ago when my daughter started college. Dell had a special discount for UCSD students. It wasn't hard to figure out that the 'special' price after their 'discount' was more than the regular prices... waste of time scam.
I live in a rural area more than 18,000 feet from the central office and I used to have this problem... too far from the CO for DSL service. However, eventually ATT installed a box on the pole across the street from me. This has fiber optic from the central office and DSL to the neighborhood... works great! This is not rocket science. Telcos are installing fiber for their trunk lines and this moves digital services out from the CO.
The fact that the OSs with Ext4 outperformed the Ext3 file system on their 32 Gig SSD machine would seem proof that Ext4 is indeed faster on small netbooks in spite of having to do a bunch of other stuff... maybe all that other stuff makes it faster.
Slashdot Mirror
They decided to move to Linux in Oct 2009. The latest outage was in November 2009 on the old system. They haven't moved to the new Linux system yet (hint: it takes more than a month). So we can run this up the Slashdot flagpole and all have another round of bashing Microsoft of their lousy LSE software if you want.
I wouldn't give up hope. I used to be in the same situation as you at Tahoe. I was >18,000 ft from the CO so no DSL. About a year ago, ATT installed a box across the street from my house and now the whole neighborhood has DSL.
So.. it sounds like the wok worked!
I think that most phones are overpriced. You can buy an iPhone clone from China for $100 (or less) which has all of the hardware of the iPhone (touch screen, GSM radio, WiFi, camera, memory and processor plus various sensors, GPS. etc.). Granted that these are all cheapest quality and the software is terrible but I doubt that buying first quality parts in large quantities would be much more expensive... certainly not enough to justify a $600 or more price. When you consider that the software is free (Android) or amortized over millions of units, there shouldn't be much software or development cost per unit. (These clone phones have to amortize development costs over relatively small numbers of units so they have a disadvantage there.) I do think that smartphones are overpriced.
Overall security discussion:
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/views/article.php/3665801/Linux-vs-Windows-Which-is-Most-Secure.htm
Monolithic vs modular design (it's not what you think it is) and other security issues:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/security_report_windows_vs_linux/#execsummary
NT is is an improvement but fundamentally flawed also. It has been patched extensively in Vista/7 but due to the underlying fundamental flaws of the OS architecture, there will always be another hole just waiting to be exploited.
Of course, in the real world, Windows has done a poor job of implementing the security model with a large number of irritating notifications that numb the user to real threats and there is a large amount of legacy software that does not observe the security model and will not run without big holes in the system.
Microsoft should have done what Apple did which is take a Unix OS with good security and build their OS on top of that. Their approach of patching up a poor foundation will not work.
Unix was designed as a multi-user modular system with security built into the file, data, and execution modes and this gives it a secure foundation that is difficult to penetrate. By isolating files, data, and execution permissions, Linux gives each process the permissions it needs and effectively isolates the rest of the system from malware. Even poorly written Linux software will not allow access to the core of the machine. The layers of security and modular design limit the damage.
This Chinese company has the right idea. Take Linux which is solid and has a good security model and make it look like Windows. That way you get the advantages of having a secure OS and it keeps all of the clueless users happy with their familiar look and feel.
Brilliant!
Actually, that's how I have my FireFox set up... opens each hyperlink in a new tab (not window). I do this so I can keep reading then go on to check out the links. Also, many times I want to view more than one link from a page and this lets me keep the page open to find the other links.
I would personally like to put in an endorsement for Christmas since I have had much better luck asking for things from Santa than asking for things from the baby Jesus/God combo. I don't think baby Jesus has once answered my prayers but the whole Christmas list thing works quite well and I am a true believer.
Produced from 1924 to 1954 in fairly large quantities. I had a friend with one of these. It was huge. Drove cross country in it one summer. Great road trip.
A simple test:"Hello world" saved in different formats:
(I used MS Word 2003 to save the xml so this is a MS version of xml. Don't know why you had a problem with your version of MS Word editing XML. MS makes lots of random changes to MS Word with each version so yours might have had some brain damaged code in it... it could be either an older or a newer version of word.)
Sorry for replying to myself but it seems that the author was referring to "free open source", not "free vs. paid" apps and there is no data (and the article submitter seems to be just speculating on his "impression") on that so please ignore my parent post until we can find some actual data.
Wrong.
I went and clicked the links (I know, I am new here) and if you look at the actual data in AndroidLib (http://www.androlib.com/appstatsfreepaid.aspx), you will see that 60% of the apps are free apps.
Whooooosh....
But why are you displaying or editing raw XML?
Don't you know how to use an editor?
Have you ever tried to view or edit a MS Word document without using an editor?
I just bought a BluRay disc player for my rental home and it allows you to connect to the net and download stuff to a USB memory stick plus the discs themselves can link to the net and download additional content. It all runs on Linux. I didn't have time to fully explore but it all looks quite useful.
My $71 iphone clone came with two batteries.
From what I've heard, this custom chip is causing a lot of the poor connection performance of the iphone... it might have been better to stick with something that was proven to work.
My $71 iphone clone came with free shipping and no taxes of any kind... no duty... no import fees... no export fees... no sales tax... free shipping from somewhere in China to my house in the US.
Screens are cheap and will be getting cheaper. There was recently a huge settlement in a price fixing case on phone screens so apparently the manufacturers felt that the already cheap cost of these needed to be augmented to support their profits.
I have seen those China iPhone clones which have all of the hardware functionality of the iPhone (with lousy software) for $100 so the hardware can't cost much. The software can't cost much when amortized over millions of phones. Seems like there is a lot of profit in phones.
I just bought a very cheap iPhone clone Sciphone i9+ from Hong Kong for US$71 that has dual SIMS micro memory card slot. iPhone-like icons, camera, video, acceleration sensor (changes orientation of photos when you tilt the phone, etc.), FM radio, lots of other stuff.
The dual SIMS are great for me since I can have both my Swisscom SIM and my ATT SIM in the phone (and both active at the same time, if I want).
The phone, however, is of dodgy quality and the OS is proprietary. It does have Java so you can add software to it easily.
I have to agree this drives me crazy. We have huge wide screens where I work and I see all of the clueless running Outlook full screen. When they compose a message they get about 50 words across the full screen. Long messages will wrap to two whole lines!
The parent was a troll and didn't deserve a response.
I had the same problem a few years ago when my daughter started college. Dell had a special discount for UCSD students. It wasn't hard to figure out that the 'special' price after their 'discount' was more than the regular prices... waste of time scam.
I live in a rural area more than 18,000 feet from the central office and I used to have this problem... too far from the CO for DSL service. However, eventually ATT installed a box on the pole across the street from me. This has fiber optic from the central office and DSL to the neighborhood... works great! This is not rocket science. Telcos are installing fiber for their trunk lines and this moves digital services out from the CO.
The fact that the OSs with Ext4 outperformed the Ext3 file system on their 32 Gig SSD machine would seem proof that Ext4 is indeed faster on small netbooks in spite of having to do a bunch of other stuff... maybe all that other stuff makes it faster.