Agreed, printing on Linux can be a real hassle if you don't spec out and buy a printer with known compatibility first. Even when I did (Canon MP620) it was a headache to get working. I had to get the drivers (can't remember if it was for the printer or the scanner portion) from Canon's Australian website. For some reason they didn't have them on their North American page..
The main reason it's so bad for cheap desktop printers is that there's no standard printing protocol like PCL or PostScript. Almost all of them put all the processing logic into the driver (so called WinPrinters), which makes writing one extremely difficult for anyone other than the manufacturer.
Cinemaware did this too when they freely released disk images of their old '80s games like Defender of the Crown. I remember them supplying the Eaglesoft cracked version for the C64 image. Funny stuff.
How is it proven? Were there a few wrong codes in the emulator values that made their way into the SkidRow crack? If not, there's no proof. The codes are the same for everyone, so it's possible SkidRow grabbed them all from Ubi's servers just like the emu crew did.
"the pirates must play through the entire game collecting the values which can take a few weeks to get 100% unless the process can somehow be automated"
And automation is exactly what will happen. Not sure if you were around the pirate scene in the 80's, but almost every game that was cracked also came with a trainer. The trainer was an added bonus that came about from the crackers needing to verify that all levels of the game worked. Quickest way was to cheat and zip through the game quickly without being killed.
This is problematic for RPGs though where it's difficult to verify all possible outcomes. In that case, you need to search the game code for all references to the protection calls, follow that call, and save off the response. Can be difficult if the call relies on values previously set in the game that you wouldn't know unless you were actually playing.
20 years? After 20 years, you're likely to have problems finding a technology that still exists to read that medium. Think about what you were using 20 years ago today. Floppy disks most likely.
What you need to do is migrate your backups to newer media technologies every few years. This way you'll never need to worry about the media itself having to last 20 years, plus you'll get the advantage of it taking up less physical space (a backup that took 100 floppies in 1995 would easily fit on a small USB keychain now, and would take only a few seconds to transfer)
This is just more of the short-sighted destructiveness known as "pull-forward economy". The people buying new cars probably would have done so within the next few years, but now you've enticed them to all buy NOW instead (and at the cost of taxpayer money). It's the same crap that happened with low interest rates and the housing bubble.
So what happens to new car sales next year and the year after? Way down, that's what. Then it'll be considered another crisis and the government will have to step in again and give more handouts to the car makers.
Don't believe what the government and economists tell you when they say they've learned from the great depression and previous recessions. They have learned absolutely nothing.
You can't do this though without changing not just the taxes, but the price of everything to match the lowest common denominator (that being the country that can produce product the cheapest). If Mexico can pay people $2/hr to build a car, try paying that to Americans when the cost of a house is $200k+. Even renting an apartment would be out of their financial reach. The workers won't be able to afford anything.
I don't foresee corporate globalization changing direction any time soon. You'll find that America's standard of living will drop, while other countries will see theirs rise, until some sort of equilibrium is reached.
Of course at that point you'll have One World Government, One World Currency, and the dreams of the NWO will be achieved.
Because Office provided pretty much everything anybody ever wanted (and far more than they ever used) many years ago.
Companies hit this point and it's an "oh, shit" moment because now they have to come up with something other than features and stability to get you to buy the next version.
Enter the eye-candy and change for the sake of change.
I agree with you except on the registry part. I'd much rather have an app write global settings in an.ini file in it's installation directory. Why? So if I need to move it to another computer, or I reinstall/upgrade Windows, it doesn't require reinstallation.
And the user settings? Pick a location and stick to it!! In XP it was bad enough. Where's your settings and save games? Well, they're probably in C:\Documents and Settings, but what path from there?
username.host? All Users? Default User?
And then from there is it in
Local Settings\Application Data? Local Settings\Apps? Application Data? My Documents?
There's not much consistency. And Vista isn't much better! They still have numerous locations, and they're different. Go from XP to Vista and want to move your save games over, where the fuck do they go?
And there's a multitude of directories under there too. "Local"? "Roaming"? WTF!?
Not to mention these strange virtualized directories that you can't access in Explorer and don't show up in a cmd prompt. Check out C:\Users\Public in Explorer, then look at it from a command prompt. COMPLETELY different.
What's the big deal? RHEL6 will be KVM based, but there will be a way to migrate your VMs from Xen over to it (one of the really nice features of virtualization is that moving virtual disks around is so easy).
KVM is part of the default Linux kernel now, and Xen isn't, so there's none of this hassle with backporting Xen patches to older kernels and having to do extra testing with each release.
In the end, most of this should be pretty transparent.
They were threatened by Bush and Co with financial meltdown, martial law, armageddon, etc. They were browbeaten into submission that this was the ONLY solution and not approving it would mean economic annihilation, despite being given no proof or assurances that this plan even has a hope of fixing anything, and has a good chance of making things even worse. They were probably told that this bill would keep coming up until they eventually gave up and passed it.
What gets me is that nobody stood up and said "let's get some proposed solutions from someone who WASN'T part of creating the problem in the first place." Is that really so much to ask?
Thanks for the link, but only one of those solutions *might* have had a chance at sidestepping my problem.
#1 obviously didn't work #3 wouldn't be sufficient since it doesn't transfer everything, I'd still be stuck reinstalling apps #4 sysprep probably wouldn't work due to the limitations described in the link in that section.
And for #2, I'm pretty sure I went that route and I don't recall getting an option to repair, but that could have been due to another problem I had with my nLite-created WinXP disc that had the new SATA drivers on it.
It's not like I flew into this blindly. I did do a bit of research on how to manage this, but you really only get one attempt at this unless you want to go swapping motherboards back and forth. I tried some esoteric looking solution that involved removing as many drivers as I could and deleting the "enum" section of the registry. Either I missed something, or that process doesn't work.
The registry works, for the OS only. When apps start storing crap in there, all bets are off. Microsoft encourages this though, and no matter who's to blame, it's still a shitty situation.
You don't need to tell me about the downfalls of the windows registry. I got to live it, yet again, the other week when I upgraded my motherboard and had to reinstall windows (why is there no option to tell windows to 'redetect hardware' instead of loading an incorrect SATA driver and immediately BSODing?).
So, as usual, many of the applications and games I had installed that decided to store all their settings in the registry had a fit when I tried to run them. Had they used.ini files in their respective directories, this wouldn't have been a problem. It would also allow me to:
1. Move the app/game to somewhere else on the system without needing to reinstall.
2. Back up the entire program, including it's settings.
3. Move the program to another system by just copying it.
I hate the registry. It should be for the OS only, and read-only for applications.
I have no issues with people not having expertise in a certain area, but the situation just seems... unfair. I have some expertise in fixing cars, so I fix my own when something goes wrong and I've saved thousands of dollars by doing so. Many people who can do things themselves view the industry fees as a scam, just as the tech-savvy folks on slashdot view any computer-related service fees as a rip-off.
If you know a bit about plumbing, you can save yourself a fortune. If can work with wood, you can do your own home improvements. These jobs aren't rocket science. They don't require university degrees. They just require some skill, experience, and know-how. Sorta like fixing a computer does.
The issue is that poor computer tech pays big bucks to have his plumbing fixed, his A/C unit serviced, his driveway redone, etc, but never gets to recoup his costs because his services, for some reason, are deserving of minimum wage even though they are not that different than other skilled workers. When the plumber needs his computer fixed, it must feel like quite the bargain compared to what he charges for his time and what the mechanic charged to fix the plumber's van.
This causes a feedback-loop problem. Since pay is poor, people don't want to be front-line techs. The qualified people leave to do other work (maybe become a plumber!) so you're left with less-skillful people in the pool, or skillful people who are unhappy and plan to jump ship at the drop of a hat. This leads to poorer service, and therefore an unwillingness to pay a premium for it, which leads to lower wages, more lost workers, etc...
I don't get this attitude towards the computer industry. In every other industry, you get bent right over for EVERYTHING. Get a car fixed, you're looking at $100/hr if it's a dealership, plus shop materials, plus parts at a premium price. Need an A/C unit fixed? Plumbing fixed? Kitchen cabinets installed? All big ticket items (In an article I read "For a mid-range kitchen remodeling job, the average cost was $43,804." 43 FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS!!). People will bitch about it, but they'll always pay up, and in the end consider the person they paid to be a "highly qualified professional that was worth it" even though in many cases they are anything BUT. I've seen shoddy work in every industry, as well as good work.
Comes to computers and everybody wants everything for free, or for minimum-wage prices. Why is this industry so inferior? Why don't they deserve to make a decent living like your local plumber?
The typical response is "oh well, they don't know anything anyways, I wouldn't pay for those twits to look at my system" which completely ignores the facts that the person with the problem doesn't have the skills to fix it themselves, and the fact that because the pay is so shitty, you're generally not going to find the really qualified people willing to take the jobs.
So yeah, I say gouge the people for what you can. Every other industry does it to us and it's not going to change anytime soon. It's time for us to take some of that money back.
Is this actually being paid out by manufacturers/importers? I ask because I keep seeing CD-R media for extremely low prices which makes this hard to believe. From the link you provided:
In fact, in volume terms, most CDs used to copy music are "ordinary" CD-Rs and CD-RWs (subject to a levy of 21c), not "Audio" products (subject to a levy of 77c).
But just a cursory look shows that you can buy CD-Rs for $0.264 each, meaning that they're actually selling these discs for 5.4 cents each, assuming that the levy has been passed onto you. Is this correct?
The established players have formed and desire the current situation. They won't change it.
As for a new party to get their foot in the door, good luck with that. Unless you develop a completely new printing technology, you're stuck walking through the patent minefield that covers the inkjet tech. The major players have so many patents (and we all know how vague and broad a patent can be) that you will be litigated to death as soon as they got wind of you trying to encroach on their space.
You can't let the market decide because in this case, it's NOT a fair playing field. Patent law has thoroughly sabotaged any chances of that.
This is similar to the old Infocom text adventure "A Mind Forever Voyaging" where you play the role of a sentient supercomputer who runs a simulation of a senator's view for the future called "The Plan". You simulate the world as it would exist 10, 20, 30..80 years in the future under his changes, record and bring back data on how it's doing.
Excellent game. Not a lot of problem solving, but just an amazingly well done story and a great concept.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, printing on Linux can be a real hassle if you don't spec out and buy a printer with known compatibility first. Even when I did (Canon MP620) it was a headache to get working. I had to get the drivers (can't remember if it was for the printer or the scanner portion) from Canon's Australian website. For some reason they didn't have them on their North American page..
The main reason it's so bad for cheap desktop printers is that there's no standard printing protocol like PCL or PostScript. Almost all of them put all the processing logic into the driver (so called WinPrinters), which makes writing one extremely difficult for anyone other than the manufacturer.
Would you prefer they Hacked the Gibson?
Cinemaware did this too when they freely released disk images of their old '80s games like Defender of the Crown. I remember them supplying the Eaglesoft cracked version for the C64 image. Funny stuff.
How is it proven? Were there a few wrong codes in the emulator values that made their way into the SkidRow crack? If not, there's no proof. The codes are the same for everyone, so it's possible SkidRow grabbed them all from Ubi's servers just like the emu crew did.
"the pirates must play through the entire game collecting the values which can take a few weeks to get 100% unless the process can somehow be automated"
And automation is exactly what will happen. Not sure if you were around the pirate scene in the 80's, but almost every game that was cracked also came with a trainer. The trainer was an added bonus that came about from the crackers needing to verify that all levels of the game worked. Quickest way was to cheat and zip through the game quickly without being killed.
This is problematic for RPGs though where it's difficult to verify all possible outcomes. In that case, you need to search the game code for all references to the protection calls, follow that call, and save off the response. Can be difficult if the call relies on values previously set in the game that you wouldn't know unless you were actually playing.
The arms war continues...
20 years? After 20 years, you're likely to have problems finding a technology that still exists to read that medium. Think about what you were using 20 years ago today. Floppy disks most likely.
What you need to do is migrate your backups to newer media technologies every few years. This way you'll never need to worry about the media itself having to last 20 years, plus you'll get the advantage of it taking up less physical space (a backup that took 100 floppies in 1995 would easily fit on a small USB keychain now, and would take only a few seconds to transfer)
UTF-8 doesn't do the name justice. It's supposed to have a little heart over the "i" where the dot usually is.
As long as you get to beat (skip to 3:40) a confession out of a punk, I'm up for it.
This is just more of the short-sighted destructiveness known as "pull-forward economy". The people buying new cars probably would have done so within the next few years, but now you've enticed them to all buy NOW instead (and at the cost of taxpayer money). It's the same crap that happened with low interest rates and the housing bubble.
So what happens to new car sales next year and the year after? Way down, that's what. Then it'll be considered another crisis and the government will have to step in again and give more handouts to the car makers.
Don't believe what the government and economists tell you when they say they've learned from the great depression and previous recessions. They have learned absolutely nothing.
You can't do this though without changing not just the taxes, but the price of everything to match the lowest common denominator (that being the country that can produce product the cheapest). If Mexico can pay people $2/hr to build a car, try paying that to Americans when the cost of a house is $200k+. Even renting an apartment would be out of their financial reach. The workers won't be able to afford anything.
I don't foresee corporate globalization changing direction any time soon. You'll find that America's standard of living will drop, while other countries will see theirs rise, until some sort of equilibrium is reached.
Of course at that point you'll have One World Government, One World Currency, and the dreams of the NWO will be achieved.
Because Office provided pretty much everything anybody ever wanted (and far more than they ever used) many years ago.
Companies hit this point and it's an "oh, shit" moment because now they have to come up with something other than features and stability to get you to buy the next version.
Enter the eye-candy and change for the sake of change.
I agree with you except on the registry part. I'd much rather have an app write global settings in an .ini file in it's installation directory. Why? So if I need to move it to another computer, or I reinstall/upgrade Windows, it doesn't require reinstallation.
And the user settings? Pick a location and stick to it!! In XP it was bad enough. Where's your settings and save games? Well, they're probably in C:\Documents and Settings, but what path from there?
username.host?
All Users?
Default User?
And then from there is it in
Local Settings\Application Data?
Local Settings\Apps?
Application Data?
My Documents?
There's not much consistency. And Vista isn't much better! They still have numerous locations, and they're different. Go from XP to Vista and want to move your save games over, where the fuck do they go?
C:\Users\username?
C:\Users\Public?
C:\ProgramData?
And there's a multitude of directories under there too. "Local"? "Roaming"? WTF!?
Not to mention these strange virtualized directories that you can't access in Explorer and don't show up in a cmd prompt. Check out C:\Users\Public in Explorer, then look at it from a command prompt. COMPLETELY different.
What's the big deal? RHEL6 will be KVM based, but there will be a way to migrate your VMs from Xen over to it (one of the really nice features of virtualization is that moving virtual disks around is so easy).
KVM is part of the default Linux kernel now, and Xen isn't, so there's none of this hassle with backporting Xen patches to older kernels and having to do extra testing with each release.
In the end, most of this should be pretty transparent.
They were threatened by Bush and Co with financial meltdown, martial law, armageddon, etc. They were browbeaten into submission that this was the ONLY solution and not approving it would mean economic annihilation, despite being given no proof or assurances that this plan even has a hope of fixing anything, and has a good chance of making things even worse. They were probably told that this bill would keep coming up until they eventually gave up and passed it.
What gets me is that nobody stood up and said "let's get some proposed solutions from someone who WASN'T part of creating the problem in the first place." Is that really so much to ask?
Tinfoil hat? You'd like to think that, but sometimes the conspiracy theories are actually true
Thanks for the link, but only one of those solutions *might* have had a chance at sidestepping my problem.
#1 obviously didn't work
#3 wouldn't be sufficient since it doesn't transfer everything, I'd still be stuck reinstalling apps
#4 sysprep probably wouldn't work due to the limitations described in the link in that section.
And for #2, I'm pretty sure I went that route and I don't recall getting an option to repair, but that could have been due to another problem I had with my nLite-created WinXP disc that had the new SATA drivers on it.
It's not like I flew into this blindly. I did do a bit of research on how to manage this, but you really only get one attempt at this unless you want to go swapping motherboards back and forth. I tried some esoteric looking solution that involved removing as many drivers as I could and deleting the "enum" section of the registry. Either I missed something, or that process doesn't work.
The registry works, for the OS only. When apps start storing crap in there, all bets are off. Microsoft encourages this though, and no matter who's to blame, it's still a shitty situation.
You don't need to tell me about the downfalls of the windows registry. I got to live it, yet again, the other week when I upgraded my motherboard and had to reinstall windows (why is there no option to tell windows to 'redetect hardware' instead of loading an incorrect SATA driver and immediately BSODing?).
.ini files in their respective directories, this wouldn't have been a problem. It would also allow me to:
So, as usual, many of the applications and games I had installed that decided to store all their settings in the registry had a fit when I tried to run them. Had they used
1. Move the app/game to somewhere else on the system without needing to reinstall.
2. Back up the entire program, including it's settings.
3. Move the program to another system by just copying it.
I hate the registry. It should be for the OS only, and read-only for applications.
I have no issues with people not having expertise in a certain area, but the situation just seems... unfair. I have some expertise in fixing cars, so I fix my own when something goes wrong and I've saved thousands of dollars by doing so. Many people who can do things themselves view the industry fees as a scam, just as the tech-savvy folks on slashdot view any computer-related service fees as a rip-off.
If you know a bit about plumbing, you can save yourself a fortune. If can work with wood, you can do your own home improvements. These jobs aren't rocket science. They don't require university degrees. They just require some skill, experience, and know-how. Sorta like fixing a computer does.
The issue is that poor computer tech pays big bucks to have his plumbing fixed, his A/C unit serviced, his driveway redone, etc, but never gets to recoup his costs because his services, for some reason, are deserving of minimum wage even though they are not that different than other skilled workers. When the plumber needs his computer fixed, it must feel like quite the bargain compared to what he charges for his time and what the mechanic charged to fix the plumber's van.
This causes a feedback-loop problem. Since pay is poor, people don't want to be front-line techs. The qualified people leave to do other work (maybe become a plumber!) so you're left with less-skillful people in the pool, or skillful people who are unhappy and plan to jump ship at the drop of a hat. This leads to poorer service, and therefore an unwillingness to pay a premium for it, which leads to lower wages, more lost workers, etc...
I don't get this attitude towards the computer industry. In every other industry, you get bent right over for EVERYTHING. Get a car fixed, you're looking at $100/hr if it's a dealership, plus shop materials, plus parts at a premium price. Need an A/C unit fixed? Plumbing fixed? Kitchen cabinets installed? All big ticket items (In an article I read "For a mid-range kitchen remodeling job, the average cost was $43,804." 43 FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS!!). People will bitch about it, but they'll always pay up, and in the end consider the person they paid to be a "highly qualified professional that was worth it" even though in many cases they are anything BUT. I've seen shoddy work in every industry, as well as good work.
Comes to computers and everybody wants everything for free, or for minimum-wage prices. Why is this industry so inferior? Why don't they deserve to make a decent living like your local plumber?
The typical response is "oh well, they don't know anything anyways, I wouldn't pay for those twits to look at my system" which completely ignores the facts that the person with the problem doesn't have the skills to fix it themselves, and the fact that because the pay is so shitty, you're generally not going to find the really qualified people willing to take the jobs.
So yeah, I say gouge the people for what you can. Every other industry does it to us and it's not going to change anytime soon. It's time for us to take some of that money back.
Ugh, should've previewed... ST3500630AS
Is this actually being paid out by manufacturers/importers? I ask because I keep seeing CD-R media for extremely low prices which makes this hard to believe. From the link you provided:
In fact, in volume terms, most CDs used to copy music are "ordinary" CD-Rs and CD-RWs (subject to a levy of 21c), not "Audio" products (subject to a levy of 77c).
But just a cursory look shows that you can buy CD-Rs for $0.264 each, meaning that they're actually selling these discs for 5.4 cents each, assuming that the levy has been passed onto you. Is this correct?
That already exists. It's called "money".
Yes! I was just playing NOLF the other day. The game is just all-round superb.
It's got a decent graphics engine with nice lighting.
Nice positional sound which helps if you like a stealth approach.
Stealth gameplay is great, enemies hear you when they should and don't have cyborg vision so you have a fighting chance.
There's a variety of ways to complete missions depending on whether you like stealth or full out combat.
Creative level design.
The storyline, dialog, and characters are hilarious.
One of my favourite FPS games of all time.
The established players have formed and desire the current situation. They won't change it.
As for a new party to get their foot in the door, good luck with that. Unless you develop a completely new printing technology, you're stuck walking through the patent minefield that covers the inkjet tech. The major players have so many patents (and we all know how vague and broad a patent can be) that you will be litigated to death as soon as they got wind of you trying to encroach on their space.
You can't let the market decide because in this case, it's NOT a fair playing field. Patent law has thoroughly sabotaged any chances of that.
This is similar to the old Infocom text adventure "A Mind Forever Voyaging" where you play the role of a sentient supercomputer who runs a simulation of a senator's view for the future called "The Plan". You simulate the world as it would exist 10, 20, 30..80 years in the future under his changes, record and bring back data on how it's doing.
Excellent game. Not a lot of problem solving, but just an amazingly well done story and a great concept.