You do not even know basic grammar and you want us to listen to you? Thanks, but I'll vote for another republican.
Make the Pie Higher
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!
And why should MS have to give everything away for free
Nice strawman. They shouldn't "give everything" away. They should make enough information freely available to allow their customers to connect whatever tools they wish to use with their Microsoft operating systems.
You may have heard recently that the internet is a set of pipes. Well, so are our LANs. Computers are the pumps that push a fluid called "information" around those LANs.
In any other field, the interface specs - thread type, external diameter, internal diameter, choke values, pressure, etc etc of those pumps would be made public to allow customers to chose the best pumps for their pipes. Anyone who wants to build a replacement pump to those specs can do so. Their method of powering the pumps can vary (electric, steam,petrol etc) and be more or less efficient, but nothing stops them from taking their place on the pipe.
Microsoft doesn't want you putting anyone else's tools on your pipework, but they especially don't want you and your mates building your own pumps, because then you might realise their special magic isn't that special at all, and that the really important and valuable thing is the information, not the tool that's used to shift it.
There's a large contingent of MS Shills and astroturfers who consistently mod down any insightful or interesting criticism of Microsoft. As long as you keep the discussion to the old, boring and easily refutable standards, you'll be left alone.
If you write anything other than a "softball" you'll pay for it in karma.
It's a fiendishly clever little piece of misdirection and sleight of hand, and as always, the devil is in the details:
Microsoft will make available, on commercially reasonable terms, all of the communications protocols...
The "commercially reasonable terms" can then be used to shut out their main competitors, particularly FOSS. If they charge even a few cents per SMB client, for example, that would rule out Samba.
Don't panic - this is a good thing. Microsoft need Process Explorer so they can work out what the hell their OS is doing, and then document it for the EU. They'll give it back to the community when they're finished with it.
It's hard to tell since their server's cactus, but it looks like it's imitating http://freshmeat.net/ (Disclaimer: another part of the nefarious OSTG network). Freshmeat is;
"searchable by project name or keyword, results in a list of suggested software."
"has a profile, beginning with a brief synopsis of what the software does."
"lists the licenses held for the open-source project, as well as a link to the full text of each license."
"offers information such as when the project was started, how many developers are actively working on it"
"the languages it uses"
"links to the project's home page"
"a breakdown of current activities"
etc
and has done for donkey's years. These guys have learned MS techniques well...
But do you really think an encyclopedia like Britannica would have had the same error?
You're right. You won't find a Catalan linguistic mistake in Brittanica. I wouldn't be so confidant about Dogon, Kwa, Gbe, Belarusian or Kalenjin though. Wikipedia
I used to think that but you will pick up the ribbon fairly quickly
I've been using it for a fair while now, and it still annoys me. Thing is, at the need of the beta period I'm going to have to decide whether to stick with my existing Office version (XP), switch to Open Office, or upgrade to Office 2007.
Right now, I just can't see any reason to upgrade. I've been a Office developer for more than a decade (switched from Paradox/Lotus to Office/Access 95), so this is a big decision for me. I've been a fairly vocal critic of MS since they started their customer harassment phase - I keep the install disks of my first Office XP Developer edition install nailed to the wall in front of me. It's there to remind me that I paid AU$1500 for a tool that won't activate on any computer in existence today.
I've never had an alternative until now though, and even if OOo isn't a perfect replacement, at least it's a way out of the trap. If I and others start developing for it and using it, we'll be well on the way to creating the platform OOo is going to need to hit critical mass.
I wonder though if I'd be better off to build one instead.
I've just done that. I put together a Sempron 2800 powered rig with 4 Western Digital WD5000YS SATA RAID drives for AU$2,300. I'm using ClarkConnect for the OS, and running the drives in a RAID 5 array, which gives about 1.5TB of usable space. The box runs headless, and is hidden away in a cupboard in my office.
Does that suggest that people will switch to OpenOffice rather tha Office 2007?
I'm running the beta of Office 2007 now, and there's no doubt that it's the biggest change to the Office interface since the switch from DOS. The new "ribbon" interface is a little easier of novices to do normal tasks with, but is a real hindrance to power users familiar with the '95-03 style Offices.
Anyone who's already productive with the older apps will find it easier to shift to OOo than to Office 2007. There's a few new tricks under the hood of the suite, but nothing compelling enough to pay the cost of the new version. In fact, Access coders are definitely going to want to look for alternatives. The new version is pitched much more at desktop experimenters, to the serious detriment of professional developers.
Concentrations of gold don't seem to fit a natural process
Most of the gold in the world is in archaean deposits or was transported from archaean sources by alluvial processes. In these deposits, the gold was dissolved from basalt rocks by superheated water, then precipitated out into cracks and fissures as the water got too cold to maintain the solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis#Gold
The use of bacteria in mining is nothing new though. We've been using "bug leach" techniques in Australian mines for more than a decade. http://www.indmetlab.com.au/equipment/bio_metallur gy.php
The main novelty of this species of bacteria is that it produces metallic gold instead of gold compounds. Given the relative ease of precipitating gold from solution, I'm not sure if it'll be enough of an advance to be worth using.
Properly researched scholarly history is not written by a mass of semi-literate unscholarly non-experts
Encyclopedias, even conventionally published ones, have long surpassed the dusty old "scholarly history" concept. They index information generally, not just the stories from the olden days.
The rest of your rant merely echoes the problem conventional media has with all community developed resources. They don't exclude the people you don't like.
Your handle is well chosen - Geezer indeed. I'll try to stay off of your lawn.
This guy is overanalyzing "the Wikipedia phenomonon".
The question which isn't being asked is "why the bitter and sustained attacks on Wikipedia from the mass media?". What we have here is a free resource, a collaborative community effort which would be lauded as a benefit by any sane society, even if it isn't perfect. Instead it's being vilified. Why is this happening?
Successful community efforts terrify centralised mass media. Wikipedia, Wikinews et al, and even Youtube and Google Video are in their infancy now, and experiencing all the teething troubles you'd expect from a newborn. Anyone with a little vision though, can see the potential for these fledglings to replace todays big media organisations.
Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine says our culture is evolving into a "mass of niches". Community efforts are better suited to serving those niches than centralised mass media, and people like Jaron Lanier, who makes his living writing for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, etc, etc, recognise that threat and are fighting back.
This "Digital Maoism" article is an attempt at poisoning by association. The linking of Wikipedia and Maoist collectivism doesn't stand up to even minimal scrutiny. It's sole premise, once the verbiage has been stripped from the text, is that people take the information in Wikipedia too seriously.
That may be true, but it's not a valid criticism of Wikipedia. Many people take Fox news seriously too, but we don't see the Jaron Laniers of the world writing scholarly articles about that phenomenon.
However Linux MS Office would be very helpful for a lot of people who are stuck with the accumulated crud of Office macros or untranslatable (by OOo) Excel spreadsheets
It might be helpful now, but I'd say open source office packages will be capable of handling the macros and cruft sooner than MS will make Office cross platform. VBA is already partly supported in Novell's version of OOo, and is under heavy development for the mainstream version. http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/VBA
All of our programming computers use Windows 98 SE because everything after that had trouble with using the serial ports of out DOS
We've had similar problems with some control systems software for locomotives. After a fair bit of experimentation, we got it all running from Bochs - you still need the physical serial port - but Bochs lets you run the DOS apps from Linux (and XP for some things, but raw serial wasn't supported on Win32 last time I looked).
This does look like a nice desktop solution but I do not see any mass migrations to SLED in the enterprise.
I've just downloaded and installed it on a Centrino laptop, and I think any enterprise which does not consider it will be missing a major opportunity.
It is a lot simpler to configure and use than XP, and the default install includes an intelligent selection of the best of open source and proprietary Linux software, from project planners to video editors.
The install was as easy and quick as Doxtater suggests, and connection to our network was simple and seamless with both the wireless and wired LANs. I've only used the install for a couple of hours, but if anything, the reviewer has understated the usefulness of Beagle. When I selected text in Firefox to copy and paste here, the pop-up menu has a "Beagle" option which offers to find references to the text or the link
In fact, the version I've downloaded (RC3) looks like it's a bit more recent than the version reviewed. On the desktop is a link to a "Quick Start Tour", which is a training package in html/flash that takes you through step-by-step instructions for all of the major components of the OS and applications. There's more than sixty courses there.
The feel is much more polished than any other Linux distro I've used, and the interface is clear and consistent in use. OSX is prettier, but SLED 10 has a clean businesslike style which works well and is not intrusive. It definitely makes XP look old and clunky.
Make no mistake, this is a landmark distro. For the first time, I'd feel confident about sitting an average computer user in front of a Linux distro and telling them to get started. The clean interface and built-in training mean that most would have less difficulty making the transition to SLED than they would from Win 2000 to XP.
Slashdot Mirror
Make the Pie Higher
You could nail the door shut.
Nice strawman. They shouldn't "give everything" away. They should make enough information freely available to allow their customers to connect whatever tools they wish to use with their Microsoft operating systems.
You may have heard recently that the internet is a set of pipes. Well, so are our LANs. Computers are the pumps that push a fluid called "information" around those LANs.
In any other field, the interface specs - thread type, external diameter, internal diameter, choke values, pressure, etc etc of those pumps would be made public to allow customers to chose the best pumps for their pipes. Anyone who wants to build a replacement pump to those specs can do so. Their method of powering the pumps can vary (electric, steam,petrol etc) and be more or less efficient, but nothing stops them from taking their place on the pipe.
Microsoft doesn't want you putting anyone else's tools on your pipework, but they especially don't want you and your mates building your own pumps, because then you might realise their special magic isn't that special at all, and that the really important and valuable thing is the information, not the tool that's used to shift it.
There's a large contingent of MS Shills and astroturfers who consistently mod down any insightful or interesting criticism of Microsoft. As long as you keep the discussion to the old, boring and easily refutable standards, you'll be left alone.
If you write anything other than a "softball" you'll pay for it in karma.
It's a fiendishly clever little piece of misdirection and sleight of hand, and as always, the devil is in the details:
The "commercially reasonable terms" can then be used to shut out their main competitors, particularly FOSS. If they charge even a few cents per SMB client, for example, that would rule out Samba.Don't panic - this is a good thing. Microsoft need Process Explorer so they can work out what the hell their OS is doing, and then document it for the EU. They'll give it back to the community when they're finished with it.
That's a good thing. We need more Slashdotters.
- "searchable by project name or keyword, results in a list of suggested software."
- "has a profile, beginning with a brief synopsis of what the software does."
- "lists the licenses held for the open-source project, as well as a link to the full text of each license."
- "offers information such as when the project was started, how many developers are actively working on it"
- "the languages it uses"
- "links to the project's home page"
- "a breakdown of current activities"
- etc
and has done for donkey's years. These guys have learned MS techniques well...Because speed isn't always the goal. I used 4 because that gave me the space and redundancy I needed, not to get a high transfer speed.
You're right. You won't find a Catalan linguistic mistake in Brittanica. I wouldn't be so confidant about Dogon, Kwa, Gbe, Belarusian or Kalenjin though. Wikipedia
I've been using it for a fair while now, and it still annoys me. Thing is, at the need of the beta period I'm going to have to decide whether to stick with my existing Office version (XP), switch to Open Office, or upgrade to Office 2007.
Right now, I just can't see any reason to upgrade. I've been a Office developer for more than a decade (switched from Paradox/Lotus to Office/Access 95), so this is a big decision for me. I've been a fairly vocal critic of MS since they started their customer harassment phase - I keep the install disks of my first Office XP Developer edition install nailed to the wall in front of me. It's there to remind me that I paid AU$1500 for a tool that won't activate on any computer in existence today.
I've never had an alternative until now though, and even if OOo isn't a perfect replacement, at least it's a way out of the trap. If I and others start developing for it and using it, we'll be well on the way to creating the platform OOo is going to need to hit critical mass.
I've just done that. I put together a Sempron 2800 powered rig with 4 Western Digital WD5000YS SATA RAID drives for AU$2,300. I'm using ClarkConnect for the OS, and running the drives in a RAID 5 array, which gives about 1.5TB of usable space. The box runs headless, and is hidden away in a cupboard in my office.
I'm running the beta of Office 2007 now, and there's no doubt that it's the biggest change to the Office interface since the switch from DOS. The new "ribbon" interface is a little easier of novices to do normal tasks with, but is a real hindrance to power users familiar with the '95-03 style Offices.
Anyone who's already productive with the older apps will find it easier to shift to OOo than to Office 2007. There's a few new tricks under the hood of the suite, but nothing compelling enough to pay the cost of the new version. In fact, Access coders are definitely going to want to look for alternatives. The new version is pitched much more at desktop experimenters, to the serious detriment of professional developers.
Most of the gold in the world is in archaean deposits or was transported from archaean sources by alluvial processes. In these deposits, the gold was dissolved from basalt rocks by superheated water, then precipitated out into cracks and fissures as the water got too cold to maintain the solution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis#Gold
The use of bacteria in mining is nothing new though. We've been using "bug leach" techniques in Australian mines for more than a decade. http://www.indmetlab.com.au/equipment/bio_metallur gy.php
The main novelty of this species of bacteria is that it produces metallic gold instead of gold compounds. Given the relative ease of precipitating gold from solution, I'm not sure if it'll be enough of an advance to be worth using.
Yes, it does.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=302 878
Product Activation. When your hardware dies it can be replaced and ReactOS will keep running.
Encyclopedias, even conventionally published ones, have long surpassed the dusty old "scholarly history" concept. They index information generally, not just the stories from the olden days.
The rest of your rant merely echoes the problem conventional media has with all community developed resources. They don't exclude the people you don't like.
Your handle is well chosen - Geezer indeed. I'll try to stay off of your lawn.
The question which isn't being asked is "why the bitter and sustained attacks on Wikipedia from the mass media?". What we have here is a free resource, a collaborative community effort which would be lauded as a benefit by any sane society, even if it isn't perfect. Instead it's being vilified. Why is this happening?
Successful community efforts terrify centralised mass media. Wikipedia, Wikinews et al, and even Youtube and Google Video are in their infancy now, and experiencing all the teething troubles you'd expect from a newborn. Anyone with a little vision though, can see the potential for these fledglings to replace todays big media organisations.
Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine says our culture is evolving into a "mass of niches". Community efforts are better suited to serving those niches than centralised mass media, and people like Jaron Lanier, who makes his living writing for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, etc, etc, recognise that threat and are fighting back.
This "Digital Maoism" article is an attempt at poisoning by association. The linking of Wikipedia and Maoist collectivism doesn't stand up to even minimal scrutiny. It's sole premise, once the verbiage has been stripped from the text, is that people take the information in Wikipedia too seriously.
That may be true, but it's not a valid criticism of Wikipedia. Many people take Fox news seriously too, but we don't see the Jaron Laniers of the world writing scholarly articles about that phenomenon.
Sounds like you need to get some wing mirrors installed.
Rocks don't do that. Their failure mode is to lie there and gather moss.
It might be helpful now, but I'd say open source office packages will be capable of handling the macros and cruft sooner than MS will make Office cross platform. VBA is already partly supported in Novell's version of OOo, and is under heavy development for the mainstream version. http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/VBA
No drivers? No antivirus? No firewall? No additional software to install?
I don't think you'll ge much done with that "out of the box" copy of XP. The malware vendors will love you forever though...
We've had similar problems with some control systems software for locomotives. After a fair bit of experimentation, we got it all running from Bochs - you still need the physical serial port - but Bochs lets you run the DOS apps from Linux (and XP for some things, but raw serial wasn't supported on Win32 last time I looked).
I've just downloaded and installed it on a Centrino laptop, and I think any enterprise which does not consider it will be missing a major opportunity.
It is a lot simpler to configure and use than XP, and the default install includes an intelligent selection of the best of open source and proprietary Linux software, from project planners to video editors. The install was as easy and quick as Doxtater suggests, and connection to our network was simple and seamless with both the wireless and wired LANs. I've only used the install for a couple of hours, but if anything, the reviewer has understated the usefulness of Beagle. When I selected text in Firefox to copy and paste here, the pop-up menu has a "Beagle" option which offers to find references to the text or the link
In fact, the version I've downloaded (RC3) looks like it's a bit more recent than the version reviewed. On the desktop is a link to a "Quick Start Tour", which is a training package in html/flash that takes you through step-by-step instructions for all of the major components of the OS and applications. There's more than sixty courses there.
The feel is much more polished than any other Linux distro I've used, and the interface is clear and consistent in use. OSX is prettier, but SLED 10 has a clean businesslike style which works well and is not intrusive. It definitely makes XP look old and clunky.
Make no mistake, this is a landmark distro. For the first time, I'd feel confident about sitting an average computer user in front of a Linux distro and telling them to get started. The clean interface and built-in training mean that most would have less difficulty making the transition to SLED than they would from Win 2000 to XP.