I used to support a single multiuser CPU with 100+ dumb-clients. It *does* mean there is a single point of failure, but since you are aware of the importance of keeping a single machine working properly, you make sure you get things right! You plan and check everything you do and you also make sure you have a plan B.
From a support perspective, things are super-easy. If there is a problem with the application, you can easily control the users terminal and see what is going on especially since in our case we were in the same building as the main CPU, so the traffic is local and in any case, text-based dumb terminal don't generate much traffic.
If you have a hardware problem you can have the user power-cycle the terminal; it'll be back running within seconds -- or not if it has actually hardware failed. In this case to replace a terminal, pick up a spare, walk out to the user, power off their terminal, unplug keyboard, power, serial (yeah... we were using serial terminals), remove old terminal, drop in new and plug in the 3 cables, power on and they're running again. Thus, a hardware problem can be quickly diagnosed (its pretty obvious) and resolved within 5 minutes.
In my case, we had to switch all our users over to Windows based machines which in theory shouldn't create problems but in practice meant *vastly* more support dealing with silly problems like increased hardware issues, weird problems that you never really get to the bottom of, and missing toolbars (older versions of Windows didn't allow locking of toolbars.
I honestly believe that giving most people something like Windows is very counter productive for a business. Yes, Word can product much prettier documents than we could before, but to a large extent, this doesn't help the day to day business operations. It absolutely definitely does increase the support costs however.
Obviously it depends on the company/organisation, and I can imagine that any company/org currently using thick clients would find it very hard to switch -- people expect to use Word/Excel these days, but I do think it's a shame; people can end up spending a lot of time not focusing on business objectives.
BTW, FWIW, I was subjected to using an AlphaMicro which for various reasons wasn't a bundle of joy. But I still hold with the idea of using dumb-terminals!:D
Accepting that mice aren't Microsoft's core business either, a Microsoft mouse is AFAIK the only mouse that comes with a huge booklet containing an EULA.
I always think it's funny when people point out that Windows has by far the greatest (desktop) market share, and is therefore the target of more virus/security attacks. Even if we gloss over the argument that Windows has poorly implemented security features, one still has to face the fact that Windows *IS* the target and victim of more attacks.
So even if you do believe that Windows is the target/victim of these attacks purely because of it's market share, isn't that alone a compelling reason to switch to an alternative?
If dell.co.uk sell them then they keep them very well hidden. Dell.co.uk *do* sell servers without OS's though, but I can't find any n-series in the UK.
But if email sending were non-free, would it affect spammers given that they send their email via botnets anyway?
It could be argued that there is a cost (albeit very very small) in sending email now since you need a computer, electricity and a network connection. And arguably, sending 1 million emails costs more since you need more of these resources. But none of that really affects spammers 'cos they are using someone elses computers/electric/bandwidth.
Can anybody implement for free?
I think so! But, you'll need to get a copy of the standard first, and I believe ISO normally charge.. rather more than I'd like for that.
Can MS get fined for saying they support the standard when in fact their software actually does not...
I doubt it, but if a test case can be produced to prove the fault, they'll maybe/probably/hopefully/perhaps fix it. Depending on whos asking for a fix!
You're right that *a standard* is far better than no standard at all. But the only reason MS have done this now is because they've been forced into it due to various governments demanding open standards for documents, and thus, by getting this adopted as a standard, they get to keep business! They are not interested in other people using the standard to write competing software, and as such, I expect they'll move the goal posts as soon as anyone gets close.
All true, but if it does get adopted as a standard, then MS can use this to ensure the continued use of MS Office by government agencies around the globe. If it doesn't get adopted, MS will be under pressure to provide a supported, native, OOD format.
Some email client (Outlook Express for one) don't use fixed width fonts with plain text emails which makes it hard to create anything like a table... which is a total pain in the arse!
I've only recently got into using PHP myself. I am an experienced programmer, but it is surprisingly difficult to find a good solid way to properly escape MySQL statements. And before anyone asks, I'd write a function myself (like I've previously done with ASP/SQL server), but MySQL itself seems to allow.... lets say, at lot of "flexibility" in the encoding that can be used, and similarly, I couldn't easily find a complete description of this.
And sadly, googling for answers tends to pull up and awful lot of very badly coded/out of date examples.
Whilst I agree that the programmer needs to be responsible, the fact is that many people "programming" with PHP are _not_ programmers, or at the very least, are inexperienced programmers. So consequently, they write insecure applications.
So the argument that the developers of PHP could do more does seem valid! And the point that the previous poster made about lots of poorly coded functions, also seems valid.
The only thing I can think of is that there is a problem with the new page Zoom functionality in IE7. See this page for examples of the IE7 zoom bug. Perhaps the layout the article author was using was particularly affected (or afflicted?) by this bug causing the image buttons to appear not to work?
Totally agree. I wonder how it managed to get approved by ECMA? IIRC only IBM didn't agree to its approval; all other parties (whoever they are) agreed. I don't understand what they felt was good about this "standard" especially given that ODF had already been approved.
...and make Microsoft a huge enemy of all business
I can't help thinking that the current sound-bites from Ballmer could be used in a professional marketing campaign to discredit MS right now. Perhaps IBM/Redhat/whoever.. but someone with deep marketing pockets could exploit this right now, just as MS get a little roughed up by the EU, and just before the Vista roll out. Seriously, this IS the time for switching to Linux and MS is providing the incentive, but someone needs to capitalise... just as MS would if things were the other way around!
I agree, and I think the this new MS strategy is probably in response to the EU action. I suspect the intent is to milk what money they can get from whoever (Novell, RedHat if they can, anyone else) whilst dragging their feet with the EU.
So actually, it's the usual MS strategy!!
If you're outside the EU, you probably need to look at forcing MS to open their API's also since when push-come-to-shove, MS will likely try milking anything/anyone they can.
Microsoft is a buisness, it exists to make money.
I think we all understand this, but the problem being addressed by the EU is Microsoft's abuse of it's position as a monopoly. The reason Windows + MS stack are used by 90_whatever_percent of users is because there is no viable alternative; the reason there is no viable alternative is due to MS locking out of competition.
Rather than speculating about what _might_ happen if there was a "free market" lets just take and existing example of MS Word; this is a word-processor that commands a remarkably high price for something that is, in this day and age, commodity software. By rights, all PC's should ship with a decent WP, but they typically don't (if MS Works is bundled, it is still an additional cost to the consumer).
The only reason MS is able to continue to charge the same high prices for the same software, year on year, is because they lock everything else out.
Just to be fair, I do understand _why_ they do this; they're a business (a very successful one at that) and in order to grow market share, they will do things to impead their competitors. But consumers _do_ suffer, thus the state (in this case the EU) is attempting to take steps level the playing field and allow fair competition.
I've not had a chance to RTFA, but I can't help thinking that giving MS nine days to come up with the answer to immortal life and document their API's is a little harsh!</sarcasm> ;)
Or MS could play on a more level playing field? To be fair to MS, some of their products are quite good. People would still buy MS products even with compeditive products available, but MS would likely be constrained in their pricing.
Net result, likely consumer/small-biz software would be cheaper, but I think larger businesses would still be paying much the same (product support costs money even if you supply FOSS).
Understand what your saying... but there are some extensions such as SmartSearch which were written by Ben Goodger (and Chris Povirk), AND where updated 16th September that are not compatible. And according to the comments on "Firefox Addons", can simply be fixed by changing the version check code.
No that's changing the text size, which isn't the same as zooming!;)
The "zoom" feature on IE7 and Opera will resize text and images, which on the one-hand tends to make images look fugly, but on the otherhand does make sense if you want the entire web page to be better visible to people with poor eyesight.
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I used to support a single multiuser CPU with 100+ dumb-clients. It *does* mean there is a single point of failure, but since you are aware of the importance of keeping a single machine working properly, you make sure you get things right! You plan and check everything you do and you also make sure you have a plan B.
:D
From a support perspective, things are super-easy. If there is a problem with the application, you can easily control the users terminal and see what is going on especially since in our case we were in the same building as the main CPU, so the traffic is local and in any case, text-based dumb terminal don't generate much traffic.
If you have a hardware problem you can have the user power-cycle the terminal; it'll be back running within seconds -- or not if it has actually hardware failed. In this case to replace a terminal, pick up a spare, walk out to the user, power off their terminal, unplug keyboard, power, serial (yeah... we were using serial terminals), remove old terminal, drop in new and plug in the 3 cables, power on and they're running again. Thus, a hardware problem can be quickly diagnosed (its pretty obvious) and resolved within 5 minutes.
In my case, we had to switch all our users over to Windows based machines which in theory shouldn't create problems but in practice meant *vastly* more support dealing with silly problems like increased hardware issues, weird problems that you never really get to the bottom of, and missing toolbars (older versions of Windows didn't allow locking of toolbars.
I honestly believe that giving most people something like Windows is very counter productive for a business. Yes, Word can product much prettier documents than we could before, but to a large extent, this doesn't help the day to day business operations. It absolutely definitely does increase the support costs however.
Obviously it depends on the company/organisation, and I can imagine that any company/org currently using thick clients would find it very hard to switch -- people expect to use Word/Excel these days, but I do think it's a shame; people can end up spending a lot of time not focusing on business objectives.
BTW, FWIW, I was subjected to using an AlphaMicro which for various reasons wasn't a bundle of joy. But I still hold with the idea of using dumb-terminals!
Accepting that mice aren't Microsoft's core business either, a Microsoft mouse is AFAIK the only mouse that comes with a huge booklet containing an EULA.
I always think it's funny when people point out that Windows has by far the greatest (desktop) market share, and is therefore the target of more virus/security attacks. Even if we gloss over the argument that Windows has poorly implemented security features, one still has to face the fact that Windows *IS* the target and victim of more attacks.
So even if you do believe that Windows is the target/victim of these attacks purely because of it's market share, isn't that alone a compelling reason to switch to an alternative?
If dell.co.uk sell them then they keep them very well hidden. Dell.co.uk *do* sell servers without OS's though, but I can't find any n-series in the UK.
Good point!
But if email sending were non-free, would it affect spammers given that they send their email via botnets anyway?
It could be argued that there is a cost (albeit very very small) in sending email now since you need a computer, electricity and a network connection. And arguably, sending 1 million emails costs more since you need more of these resources. But none of that really affects spammers 'cos they are using someone elses computers/electric/bandwidth.
They should just supply cyanide pills and then we can all benefit from a reduced carbon footprint right now! :D
I don't *know* the answers but I believe:
Can anybody implement for free?
I think so! But, you'll need to get a copy of the standard first, and I believe ISO normally charge.. rather more than I'd like for that.
Can MS get fined for saying they support the standard when in fact their software actually does not...
I doubt it, but if a test case can be produced to prove the fault, they'll maybe/probably/hopefully/perhaps fix it. Depending on whos asking for a fix!
You're right that *a standard* is far better than no standard at all. But the only reason MS have done this now is because they've been forced into it due to various governments demanding open standards for documents, and thus, by getting this adopted as a standard, they get to keep business! They are not interested in other people using the standard to write competing software, and as such, I expect they'll move the goal posts as soon as anyone gets close.
Microsoft isn't doing this for you silly! The whole intent is likely that it is *hard* for anyone to implement.
All true, but if it does get adopted as a standard, then MS can use this to ensure the continued use of MS Office by government agencies around the globe. If it doesn't get adopted, MS will be under pressure to provide a supported, native, OOD format.
Some email client (Outlook Express for one) don't use fixed width fonts with plain text emails which makes it hard to create anything like a table... which is a total pain in the arse!
Agree totally.
I've only recently got into using PHP myself. I am an experienced programmer, but it is surprisingly difficult to find a good solid way to properly escape MySQL statements. And before anyone asks, I'd write a function myself (like I've previously done with ASP/SQL server), but MySQL itself seems to allow.... lets say, at lot of "flexibility" in the encoding that can be used, and similarly, I couldn't easily find a complete description of this.
And sadly, googling for answers tends to pull up and awful lot of very badly coded/out of date examples.
Whilst I agree that the programmer needs to be responsible, the fact is that many people "programming" with PHP are _not_ programmers, or at the very least, are inexperienced programmers. So consequently, they write insecure applications.
So the argument that the developers of PHP could do more does seem valid! And the point that the previous poster made about lots of poorly coded functions, also seems valid.
The only thing I can think of is that there is a problem with the new page Zoom functionality in IE7. See this page for examples of the IE7 zoom bug. Perhaps the layout the article author was using was particularly affected (or afflicted?) by this bug causing the image buttons to appear not to work?
Totally agree. I wonder how it managed to get approved by ECMA? IIRC only IBM didn't agree to its approval; all other parties (whoever they are) agreed. I don't understand what they felt was good about this "standard" especially given that ODF had already been approved.
Good observation!
;)
I don't know how any MS employee sleeps at night knowing they are helping these bastards make more money.
Yeah, you'd imagine they'd loose all their good employees to the likes of Google.... oh hang on...
...and make Microsoft a huge enemy of all business
I can't help thinking that the current sound-bites from Ballmer could be used in a professional marketing campaign to discredit MS right now. Perhaps IBM/Redhat/whoever.. but someone with deep marketing pockets could exploit this right now, just as MS get a little roughed up by the EU, and just before the Vista roll out. Seriously, this IS the time for switching to Linux and MS is providing the incentive, but someone needs to capitalise... just as MS would if things were the other way around!
I agree, and I think the this new MS strategy is probably in response to the EU action. I suspect the intent is to milk what money they can get from whoever (Novell, RedHat if they can, anyone else) whilst dragging their feet with the EU.
So actually, it's the usual MS strategy!!
If you're outside the EU, you probably need to look at forcing MS to open their API's also since when push-come-to-shove, MS will likely try milking anything/anyone they can.
Microsoft is a buisness, it exists to make money.
I think we all understand this, but the problem being addressed by the EU is Microsoft's abuse of it's position as a monopoly. The reason Windows + MS stack are used by 90_whatever_percent of users is because there is no viable alternative; the reason there is no viable alternative is due to MS locking out of competition.
Rather than speculating about what _might_ happen if there was a "free market" lets just take and existing example of MS Word; this is a word-processor that commands a remarkably high price for something that is, in this day and age, commodity software. By rights, all PC's should ship with a decent WP, but they typically don't (if MS Works is bundled, it is still an additional cost to the consumer).
The only reason MS is able to continue to charge the same high prices for the same software, year on year, is because they lock everything else out.
Just to be fair, I do understand _why_ they do this; they're a business (a very successful one at that) and in order to grow market share, they will do things to impead their competitors. But consumers _do_ suffer, thus the state (in this case the EU) is attempting to take steps level the playing field and allow fair competition.
I've not had a chance to RTFA, but I can't help thinking that giving MS nine days to come up with the answer to immortal life and document their API's is a little harsh!</sarcasm>
;)
Or MS could play on a more level playing field? To be fair to MS, some of their products are quite good. People would still buy MS products even with compeditive products available, but MS would likely be constrained in their pricing.
Net result, likely consumer/small-biz software would be cheaper, but I think larger businesses would still be paying much the same (product support costs money even if you supply FOSS).
I hate MOD_UP comments.... but, can someone please mod the previous comment up?!
Understand what your saying... but there are some extensions such as SmartSearch which were written by Ben Goodger (and Chris Povirk), AND where updated 16th September that are not compatible. And according to the comments on "Firefox Addons", can simply be fixed by changing the version check code.
So its... a little tardy on some people's!
Good call! ;D
The Ubuntu team should soooo send a cake to the Vista team when they release.
No that's changing the text size, which isn't the same as zooming! ;)
The "zoom" feature on IE7 and Opera will resize text and images, which on the one-hand tends to make images look fugly, but on the otherhand does make sense if you want the entire web page to be better visible to people with poor eyesight.
There's a nice short description IE/Firefox/Opera size/zoom features on this page.