Outlook as a rich client does a lot more than calendar and email
Other than integration with Active Directory, what else does Outlook do out of the box?
(I do know that it's relatively simple to extend Outlook, and that for many organizations getting rid of Outlook would be as impossible as getting rid of Excel or Word. But without paying a developer, what does Outlook do other than directory, calendar, and email?)
It sounds like the county has multiple databases, and the database available to the public records, and the database used to compute the actual tax bills, were separate databases. And, it sounds like there was a single property valued at $121,000 in one system, and $400,000,000 in the other.
This is interesting to me, because I suspect I bet the totals in both systems come up pretty close to the same. In other words, I bet there's one property "accidentally" valued at $400,000,000, and a lot of properties "accidentally" valued at $0. Who in the county might actually own one of those accidentally undervalued properties is left as an exercise to the reader.
As long as he keeps getting modded to +5 and getting dozens of replies to posts containing gems like "In a democracy, you can't vote", I'll be in his fan club.
Who cares? We're talking about science, and there is no such thing as a "scientific fact." You may as well ask me my definition of "unicorn".
I say things like round earth is "just a theory" or heliocentrism is "just a theory" to stick a fork in the craw of the fools who say the big bang is "just a theory".
(I never claimed that the "Intelligent Designer", "Intelligent Mover", or "Intelligent Navigator" ideas are theories, because they're obviously not.)
In science, there's no such thing as a "fact". I suppose the closest thing that would match the defintion of a fact might be a "direct observation", but direct observation is a mostly useless way to describe the world.
For example, the first time anyone every directly observed that the world was round was when Neil Armstrong stood on the moon in 1969 and looked back at the earth. Until that time, "the earth is round" was really just a theory. Maybe the "Intelligent Navigator" just picked up our ships and planes when they got too near the edge of the world, and put them down again on the other side.
So? Despite the mountains of observations, Heliocentrism is still just a scientfic theory, exactly like Gravity and Evolution and the Big Bang and thousands of other scientific theories.
Any attempt to call Heliocentrism a "fact" or a "law" or anything of the sort might be fine if you're talking to people who don't know the definitions of words, and you have an interest in maintainting their ignorance. But I really think that sort of squishy reasoning has lead us to the point we're at today, where a shocking number of people think that a scientific theory any mostly unsubstantiated idea, and Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, too.
Anyhow, maybe we navigate spacecraft to Venus and Mars because the "Intelligent Mover" pushes around our spaceships the same way he pushes around the planets.
No-one has ever "proved" Heliocentrism. It is a scientific theory, exactly like the Big Bang and Evolution.
It's a very excellent theory, and is consistent with an almost uncountable number of observations made through the years. But it's still "just" a theory.
In fact, it's entirely plausible that some "Intelligent Mover" just pushes the stars and planets and satellites around the heavens to trick us.
For any article on which I have even rudimentary knowledge, the majority of highly rated posts are either banal and insipid, or are blatant trolls, intentionally packed with half-truths, provocative statements, and fallacious arguments. There are very, very few gems, and they are often not rated well.
I think it's pretty safe to assume the same is true of articles outside my general areas of knowledge.
Comments on Slashdot are generally as reliable as the weekly world news, and about as entertaining. It's a pretty safe bet that most of the moderation is done either by people who are clueless about the subjects they're moderating, or by people who are intentionally breaking the system. Moderation exists to only increase the general amusement level of the site, but it does nothing to increase the site's overall useful information content.
Migration tools are almost always written by the group benefitting from the migration to their product, because migration sees people leaving the original platform.
That's only true for programs that have already been written. You made it clear that you are going to target your development specifically to Postgres, and these tools would primarily exist to mitigate the risk of that decision.
Seriously, think about what you're asking. Choosing a software platform for a new project is basically about cost, benefit, and risk. And for a database, more than any other platform decision, the risk comes most dear. Anything that Oracle builds to make Postgres a safer option for your new development can only hurt Oracle.
As far as Oracle is concerned, you're giving them a choice between you building your new application for Oracle today, versus you building an application for Postgres today, with the possibility of migrating sometime in the future. It's pretty easy to see which choice benefits Oracle.
I'm asking for a free (beer) migration tool, and an open source testing tool to reduce my risks when considering deploying to a commercial database.
So, write one. Or, convince someone they'll make money by writing one. Since the tool you're describing is primarily targetted to Postgres users, I assume you'd want to talk to the Postgres guys about developing it.
Obviously, Oracle isn't going to write tools to make it easier for you to do Postgres development.
This was gorgeous. A traditionalist might argue that you went to far when you included Oasis, but I disagree. You stepped to the mad edge, peered gently into the abyss, and jumped in. The fact that you pulled it off, even on a site as ripe as slashdot, deserves accolades.
They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
People would show up at club meetings and sell pirated copies of commercial software? And people didn't see anything wrong with this?
Frankly, every time I read this letter, I'm very damned impressed with Bill Gates. He's worked very had to create an environment where commercial software can exist, and I'm very damned grateful to him for it.
Re:depends on how you measure improvements
on
Hard Drive Memory Lane
·
· Score: 2, Informative
They can actually break the sound barrier?
No. The speed of sound at sea level is about 340 meters per second, or about 13,400 inches per second. On a 3.5" disk, that works out to about 1200 revolutions per second, or 72,000 revolutions per minute.
So, a 3.5" disk would need to spin about 10 times as fast as they do now to break the sound barrier.
now go fix/explain American political "rhetoric" please.
Public rhetoric in American politics has two parts:
Cynical politicians pushing wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations, and
Cynical talking heads on 24-hour news stations yelling at each other about wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations.
Most of the public face of politics looks like a Jerry Springer show (and is about as real as the Jerry Springer show was) because our politicians find it immensely profitable. Divisive policies (like gay marriage or abortion) and divisive nominations (like Alito) are pushed by both sides because they're very successful fund raising mechanisms, not for ideological reasons.
But frankly, I think we have to worry a lot more about the parts we don't see. The part of the iceberg above the water didn't sink the Titanic.
Technically, if you have a restore disc or OEM Windows and your mobo dies, you are supposed to buy a new copy of Windows.
If your customer has purchased a non-transferable copy of Windows, they can't transfer it to a new computer. That's the license, and the customer agreed to it when they bought the software (or clicked on the EULA). Microsoft bears some responsibility for not making the licensing terms clear to their customers, and for leaving it up to you to explain to them. But ultimately your customers have to be responsible for knowing what they own.
And if you start swapping out parts on a machine, at some point Microsoft must draw the line and say "this is no longer the same machine." Fortunately, the line isn't crossed by swapping the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the CD-ROM drive, the case, the power supply, the memory, the extra hard drives, the sound card, etc. It may be crossed if you swap the CPU, the motherboard, the Ethernet card, or the boot drive, at Microsoft's discretion. It sounds like they've allowed you to cross the line several times, but abused the situation and they've cracked down on you.
I can offer sympathy, but I can't offer any advice.
(Frankly, I'm not fond of the idea of non-transferable software, and I'd be very surprised if it help up in court in every US State or foreign country. But that rant does nothing to help solve your current situation, and it does nothing to help your customers. If your customers have a licensing dispute with Microsoft, and wish to find an advocate for their cause, I would suggest that they hire a lawyer, and not ask their local small computer repair shop for legal advice.)
Microsoft told us we couldn't do it. When a customer brings a PC in for repair. we have to use their original Windows CD and licence COA.
Of course. Microsoft would be insane to allow anything else, and you would be insane to expect anything else.
Your real question seems to be in three parts.
As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, customers frequently blame you because they don't understand the license of the copy of Windows XP they own. Many customers bring in non-transferable OEM copies (or obviously pirated copies), and are very disappointed when you tell them that you can't sell them a brand new computer (or motherboard, CPU, and RAM, which is basically the same thing as far as Microsoft is concerned) and install their copy of Windows on it. Microsoft has been very helpful in the past, and kindly allowed you to install dodgy copies or non-transferable copies, despite the obvious license violations. But you really need to find a way to explain to your customers why you can't help them pirate software, and you have to do it in a way that won't lose customers.
As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, you end up downloading a lot of patches. Is there some way to cache patches locally, so you don't run up huge bandwidth bills?
As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, you end up installing many, many different versions of windows on many different machines. Obviously, you have to install the version of Windows that the customer has a license for; that was never in doubt. However, there are so many different versions of Windows. You wish there were some way to automate the install and patch process. Most of the solutions from Microsoft and third parties are geared towards corporate and university networks, usually with volume licensing. Are there any solutions geared toward your situation?
Frankly, if you're making a good-faith effort to do the right thing, hopefully Microsoft can help you here, since your problems cost you money and customers, and probably cost Microsoft money and customers, too.
Google had two options: either provide a subset of their services to users in China, or provide no service at all. If they're not misrepresenting the service to Chinese users, then I don't feel they've crossed the ethical line.
They would, however, be evil if they gave a record of searches to the Chinese government, giving the government the ability to take action against citizens based on the search terms used. If a country were to demand that Google actively participate in repression against its own Citizens, then I believe Google would be morally bound to close shop in that country.
Slashdot Mirror
a bit too professional, if you know what I mean
Fraknly, I don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about.
Outlook as a rich client does a lot more than calendar and email
Other than integration with Active Directory, what else does Outlook do out of the box?
(I do know that it's relatively simple to extend Outlook, and that for many organizations getting rid of Outlook would be as impossible as getting rid of Excel or Word. But without paying a developer, what does Outlook do other than directory, calendar, and email?)
It sounds like the county has multiple databases, and the database available to the public records, and the database used to compute the actual tax bills, were separate databases. And, it sounds like there was a single property valued at $121,000 in one system, and $400,000,000 in the other.
This is interesting to me, because I suspect I bet the totals in both systems come up pretty close to the same. In other words, I bet there's one property "accidentally" valued at $400,000,000, and a lot of properties "accidentally" valued at $0. Who in the county might actually own one of those accidentally undervalued properties is left as an exercise to the reader.
Your fan club might even appreciate it.
As long as he keeps getting modded to +5 and getting dozens of replies to posts containing gems like "In a democracy, you can't vote", I'll be in his fan club.
The man is a God at what he does.
what is your definition of a fact?
Who cares? We're talking about science, and there is no such thing as a "scientific fact." You may as well ask me my definition of "unicorn".
I say things like round earth is "just a theory" or heliocentrism is "just a theory" to stick a fork in the craw of the fools who say the big bang is "just a theory".
(I never claimed that the "Intelligent Designer", "Intelligent Mover", or "Intelligent Navigator" ideas are theories, because they're obviously not.)
What is your definition of a fact, wiseguy?
In science, there's no such thing as a "fact". I suppose the closest thing that would match the defintion of a fact might be a "direct observation", but direct observation is a mostly useless way to describe the world.
For example, the first time anyone every directly observed that the world was round was when Neil Armstrong stood on the moon in 1969 and looked back at the earth. Until that time, "the earth is round" was really just a theory. Maybe the "Intelligent Navigator" just picked up our ships and planes when they got too near the edge of the world, and put them down again on the other side.
So? Despite the mountains of observations, Heliocentrism is still just a scientfic theory, exactly like Gravity and Evolution and the Big Bang and thousands of other scientific theories.
Any attempt to call Heliocentrism a "fact" or a "law" or anything of the sort might be fine if you're talking to people who don't know the definitions of words, and you have an interest in maintainting their ignorance. But I really think that sort of squishy reasoning has lead us to the point we're at today, where a shocking number of people think that a scientific theory any mostly unsubstantiated idea, and Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, too.
Anyhow, maybe we navigate spacecraft to Venus and Mars because the "Intelligent Mover" pushes around our spaceships the same way he pushes around the planets.
No-one has ever "proved" Heliocentrism. It is a scientific theory, exactly like the Big Bang and Evolution.
It's a very excellent theory, and is consistent with an almost uncountable number of observations made through the years. But it's still "just" a theory.
In fact, it's entirely plausible that some "Intelligent Mover" just pushes the stars and planets and satellites around the heavens to trick us.
Has the Big Bang been established as scientific fact? Not saying it isn't, just would like some more info.
No. But remember, the Theory of Heliocentrism (the idea that the earth orbits the sun) has not been established as a scientific fact, either.
Joeseph Liberman
Joseph Lieberman usually votes against gun control legislation. But I trust you won't let that interfere with your opinion of him.
For any article on which I have even rudimentary knowledge, the majority of highly rated posts are either banal and insipid, or are blatant trolls, intentionally packed with half-truths, provocative statements, and fallacious arguments. There are very, very few gems, and they are often not rated well.
I think it's pretty safe to assume the same is true of articles outside my general areas of knowledge.
Comments on Slashdot are generally as reliable as the weekly world news, and about as entertaining. It's a pretty safe bet that most of the moderation is done either by people who are clueless about the subjects they're moderating, or by people who are intentionally breaking the system. Moderation exists to only increase the general amusement level of the site, but it does nothing to increase the site's overall useful information content.
I'm targeting my development specifically to leave Postgres for a commercial database.
You have an existing, completed program you want to evaluate on Oracle?
Migration tools are almost always written by the group benefitting from the migration to their product, because migration sees people leaving the original platform.
That's only true for programs that have already been written. You made it clear that you are going to target your development specifically to Postgres, and these tools would primarily exist to mitigate the risk of that decision.
Seriously, think about what you're asking. Choosing a software platform for a new project is basically about cost, benefit, and risk. And for a database, more than any other platform decision, the risk comes most dear. Anything that Oracle builds to make Postgres a safer option for your new development can only hurt Oracle.
As far as Oracle is concerned, you're giving them a choice between you building your new application for Oracle today, versus you building an application for Postgres today, with the possibility of migrating sometime in the future. It's pretty easy to see which choice benefits Oracle.
I'm asking for a free (beer) migration tool, and an open source testing tool to reduce my risks when considering deploying to a commercial database.
So, write one. Or, convince someone they'll make money by writing one. Since the tool you're describing is primarily targetted to Postgres users, I assume you'd want to talk to the Postgres guys about developing it.
Obviously, Oracle isn't going to write tools to make it easier for you to do Postgres development.
I'd love to develop my apps with Postgres, then deploy to Oracle or DB2 with an automated tool.
That's a great idea. You should write a tool like that, and ask the Postgres maintainers to included with Postgres.
This was gorgeous. A traditionalist might argue that you went to far when you included Oasis, but I disagree. You stepped to the mad edge, peered gently into the abyss, and jumped in. The fact that you pulled it off, even on a site as ripe as slashdot, deserves accolades.
So perhaps someone should start a project similar to WINE, to add Carbon and Cocoa API compatibility.
I bet someone with strong marketing skills could make a shitload of money doing that.
Oh, wait...
They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
People would show up at club meetings and sell pirated copies of commercial software? And people didn't see anything wrong with this?
Frankly, every time I read this letter, I'm very damned impressed with Bill Gates. He's worked very had to create an environment where commercial software can exist, and I'm very damned grateful to him for it.
I know the libertarian "corporations do everything better than government" sentiment is popular on /.
/..
You've misunderstood which sentiment is popular on
They can actually break the sound barrier?
No. The speed of sound at sea level is about 340 meters per second, or about 13,400 inches per second. On a 3.5" disk, that works out to about 1200 revolutions per second, or 72,000 revolutions per minute.
So, a 3.5" disk would need to spin about 10 times as fast as they do now to break the sound barrier.
I've always wondered why these advances in hardware ALWAYS follow such a relatively linear trajectory.
Doubling every year is linear? I always thought linear meant something else. I guess I learn something new every day.
Public rhetoric in American politics has two parts:
- Cynical politicians pushing wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations, and
- Cynical talking heads on 24-hour news stations yelling at each other about wedge issues to raise money for 527 / 501c4 organizations.
Most of the public face of politics looks like a Jerry Springer show (and is about as real as the Jerry Springer show was) because our politicians find it immensely profitable. Divisive policies (like gay marriage or abortion) and divisive nominations (like Alito) are pushed by both sides because they're very successful fund raising mechanisms, not for ideological reasons.But frankly, I think we have to worry a lot more about the parts we don't see. The part of the iceberg above the water didn't sink the Titanic.
Technically, if you have a restore disc or OEM Windows and your mobo dies, you are supposed to buy a new copy of Windows.
If your customer has purchased a non-transferable copy of Windows, they can't transfer it to a new computer. That's the license, and the customer agreed to it when they bought the software (or clicked on the EULA). Microsoft bears some responsibility for not making the licensing terms clear to their customers, and for leaving it up to you to explain to them. But ultimately your customers have to be responsible for knowing what they own.
And if you start swapping out parts on a machine, at some point Microsoft must draw the line and say "this is no longer the same machine." Fortunately, the line isn't crossed by swapping the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the CD-ROM drive, the case, the power supply, the memory, the extra hard drives, the sound card, etc. It may be crossed if you swap the CPU, the motherboard, the Ethernet card, or the boot drive, at Microsoft's discretion. It sounds like they've allowed you to cross the line several times, but abused the situation and they've cracked down on you.
I can offer sympathy, but I can't offer any advice.
(Frankly, I'm not fond of the idea of non-transferable software, and I'd be very surprised if it help up in court in every US State or foreign country. But that rant does nothing to help solve your current situation, and it does nothing to help your customers. If your customers have a licensing dispute with Microsoft, and wish to find an advocate for their cause, I would suggest that they hire a lawyer, and not ask their local small computer repair shop for legal advice.)
Microsoft told us we couldn't do it. When a customer brings a PC in for repair. we have to use their original Windows CD and licence COA.
Of course. Microsoft would be insane to allow anything else, and you would be insane to expect anything else.
Your real question seems to be in three parts.
- As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, customers frequently blame you because they don't understand the license of the copy of Windows XP they own. Many customers bring in non-transferable OEM copies (or obviously pirated copies), and are very disappointed when you tell them that you can't sell them a brand new computer (or motherboard, CPU, and RAM, which is basically the same thing as far as Microsoft is concerned) and install their copy of Windows on it. Microsoft has been very helpful in the past, and kindly allowed you to install dodgy copies or non-transferable copies, despite the obvious license violations. But you really need to find a way to explain to your customers why you can't help them pirate software, and you have to do it in a way that won't lose customers.
- As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, you end up downloading a lot of patches. Is there some way to cache patches locally, so you don't run up huge bandwidth bills?
- As a repair shop routinely working on consumer PCs, you end up installing many, many different versions of windows on many different machines. Obviously, you have to install the version of Windows that the customer has a license for; that was never in doubt. However, there are so many different versions of Windows. You wish there were some way to automate the install and patch process. Most of the solutions from Microsoft and third parties are geared towards corporate and university networks, usually with volume licensing. Are there any solutions geared toward your situation?
Frankly, if you're making a good-faith effort to do the right thing, hopefully Microsoft can help you here, since your problems cost you money and customers, and probably cost Microsoft money and customers, too.Google had two options: either provide a subset of their services to users in China, or provide no service at all. If they're not misrepresenting the service to Chinese users, then I don't feel they've crossed the ethical line.
They would, however, be evil if they gave a record of searches to the Chinese government, giving the government the ability to take action against citizens based on the search terms used. If a country were to demand that Google actively participate in repression against its own Citizens, then I believe Google would be morally bound to close shop in that country.