Of course, there's so little number of GNU/Linux installations out there that it's almost irrelevant.
Um, I think you meant "there's so little number of GNU/Linux desktop installations." And yeah, compared to Windows the market share isn't much. But... next year will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop. I'm certain of it.
Those are only useful because windows is broken. If you could install apps as easily on windows as you could on linux from one central source no one would bother with that.
They might make a launcher that calls firefox with their portable preferences folder, but no reason to go carting firefox around.
That's really not true, not anymore. It used to be, but since Microsoft made some critical additions to Windows in order to support.Net, it's now perfectly possible to create fully-XCOPY-deployable applications in Windows XP SP2+. Nor do they have to be written in.Net. Not too many developers seem to be taking advantage of this yet (probably because they're accustomed to using setup generators like Wise or InstallShield) and it can be a little tricky, but the results are well worth the effort. Ultimately, it's nothing more than what.Net is doing, but applied to other languages.
Personally, I think you're going to see repositories for WIndows apps coming along eventually. It's just too powerful a concept to be ignored forever. Actually, that's true for a lot of what Unix-derived operating systems have to offer. What is Microsoft's UAC but a somewhat lame implementation of Unix security? Windows users complain vociferously the first time their OS asks for authorization to perform some task: Linux/Unix types just say "well, it's about time!"
What you're talking about is the use of manifests, and a specific WIN32 call, SetDLLDirectory. Between those two, you can make pretty much any application XCOPY-deployable, although they don't exist on older versions of Windows. The hard part is creating and managing your manifests, as well as keeping track of OS-specific versions of your DLLs, but it's doable. No more SETUP.EXEs, nothing installed in any \System folder, no registry entries. I've deployed some fairly substantial non-.Net applications to XP SP2+, Vista, Windows 7 as well as Server 2003 and 2008 using this method: just copy the application to a directory of your choice, and run. Makes testing a lot easier too.
So, technically I'd say Windows is ahead there, although from the developer's perspective it can be tricky to achieve, and you still have to deal with the issue of licensing and other restrictions for any of your non-free or commercial redistributables. For that reason it's not really a huge advantage for WIndows developers unless you're coding in.Net, where you already have several hundred megabytes of runtimes already in your target OS.
7-11 can get $35 for an emergency iPhone charging solution
An emergency charging solution. That's just hysterical.
Actually, for ten bucks each on Ebay I picked up three of these lithium-ion battery packs (list price was close to a hundred.) Came in a nice leather zipper case with a dozen adapters and voltage converters for different phones. The packs themselves just have a regular USB jack on the side. So far I've been through three different cell phones (nothing from Apple) that I've used them with, plus other things like some MP3 players. Interestingly, my girlfriend got me an iPod Nano a year ago, and while it comes with a USB cable, it only seems to charge if connected to a computer.
I also prefer phones with a removable battery pack. That turned me off to the iPhone the instant I found that out. I like to keep charged spares around (especially for power-hungry smartphones) if I'm going to be away from a car or a power outlet for an extended period.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
As an aside, I've generally had a harder time trying to find a car mechanic who is both honest and competent, than I have had in finding a decent attorney.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
On the other hand, I'm reminded of this story (there are many variations):
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.
Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines.
They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.
The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.
The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.
They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
"One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999"
Granted, most attorneys do make heavy use of boilerplate, but then again, most legal tasks are entirely routine. In any event, you're paying a professional for both his knowledge of the law, and knowing how to apply it to your situation. I know what you're saying and it's often true: many attorneys do milk the system. But I have lawyers in my family, and number them among my friends. Not all lawyers are crooks, most are honest and earn their keep.
I would say a more correct complaint would be towards a legal system that requires attorneys to be such an integral part of our lives. That wasn't always the case, but as the law has increased in complexity and overall retardedness, the need for a competent lawyer to navigate it's intricacies is frequently a necessity.
He sued the wrong party, simple as that. The corporation should have been the one sued, but he admits that it was broke, so he sued someone with money who was involved in a way. The lawyers weren't under oath at the trial (though perhaps they should be). Quite simply, they didn't do anything illegal. You can argue it should be, but currently it isn't. Case closed.
I wasn't arguing anything, just commenting on the summary. You could argue that I should have RTFA, but I didn't. Case closed.
Something that bothers me about the conspiracy/incompetence dichotomy is that it seems to ignore other possibilities such as run of the mill negligence.
The net effect of incompetence on the part of the judiciary is much the same as negligence: justice is not done.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
I'm guessing you meant $150 an hour. It's the paralegals that make the fifteen.
The problem is, you tried to sue a laywer. The funny thing about judges: they used to be lawyers. You remember that old joke claiming that sharks don't eat lawyers out of "professional courtesy"? Same goes for judges. You can sue a doctor, a corporation, or your ex-wife, fine, but if you sue a laywer the entire legal profession closes ranks and roots for the home team.
We make fun of China and other places, but it seems that our judiciary is now pretty much bought in many places.
Check out this article on how many businesses see corruption as a barrier to entry to markets.
In this case it may simply have been incompetence. Seriously. We expect to be able to hold the judiciary to a higher standard, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. There's also the fact that he wasn't paying an expensive attorney.
But... yeah, when you get right down to it, he was suing lawyers. That's not so easy to do, especially if they have friends (or friends of friends) on the bench. This decision does seem pretty raw, I mean, the other side admitted wrongdoing. Something smells here.
Huh? He got screwed by a criminal corporation and a gang of corrupt attorneys. He's "entitled" to some redress for what they put him through. Do you have a problem with that?
As for power plugs. just about everyone is using micro-USB. Enough user so that it's absolutely now the accepted standard.
Well, thank you for the informative post, it's the kind of response I was hoping for with my original post, but I do wish I'd never mentioned power plugs.
Well, sort of. More like AT&T has become SBC in an alien-parasite-converts-human-tissue-into-bug-eyed-monster sort of way... and anyone who thinks that SBC (Stupid Bastards Club, Southern Boys Club, Sodomized By Cowboys, whatever) is in improvement over the old AT&T is mistaken. That's why I was trying to say in my earlier posts: that the breakup of AT&T, while presumably well-intentioned, did not have the desired effect, and in fact has resulted in a corporate and regulatory environment conducive to even greater abuse. Probably greater profit too, given the caliber of the people who ran SBC. Edward J. "These are my pipes!" Whitacre comes to mind.
Stephen Colbert had an hilarious take on the subject (search Youtube for "stephen colbert AT&T", I'd link to it but for some reason Chrome isn't letting me copy & paste between tabs. Oddly, I can cut & paste into a text editor. I'm on Ubuntu at the moment.... works fine in Chrome on Windows though.)
Then you don't understand how things work here. The likes of Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, U.S. Cellular and the rest will happily jack their rates through the roof: it's our constant complaining and threatening to go elsewhere that keeps them somewhat in line. The key is having the ability to go elsewhere.
And FCC should get their act together and make sure that frequencies are allocated for mobile phone systems in a way that matches what other countries runs.
One could argue the the rest of the world went off on their own and made themselves incompatible with the U.S.... the technology largely originated here. But that's the problem with early adopters of any major technology. Take broadcast television: we started that ball rolling with NTSC: but by the time other countries got on board with TV, technology had progressed to where high-resolution standards were possible. So we ended up with the short end of the stick, and only with the past year or so have we gone to a true high-definition broadcast standard. To a degree, that's what's happening here in the cellular market, although I agree that the regulatory issues overshadow that now, given how fast the tech is changing.
Word up. I've been a T-Mobile customer for just over a decade now (originally signed up as Voicestream).
I've pretty much always bought unlocked phones from elsewhere to use on their network. It's nice that they actually give those people a discounted monthly plan now for not subsidizing phone handsets, without signing for 1-2 year contracts. This often turns out to be cheaper in the long run.
I agree. They're pretty damn friendly in that regard. That's one reason they've kept my business after having been through every major provider except for Sprint.
T-Mobile will unlock the phones for you when you have been on their network for 3 months, if I remember correctly.
Yes, however they won't do that on their latest, greatest phones... you have to wait until your contract period is up in that case. When I bought a G1 right after they came out, I was told that I couldn't get an unlock code for it. I went online a month later and bought one for ten bucks, so really, it's not that big a deal. Matter of fact, there are plenty of outfits that will calculate an unlock code for most phones out there. I've done it for a bunch of handsets from different manufacturers and haven't had a problem yet.
Sure, but if you'll read my original post again (and for God's sake, would every please stop talking about power connectors, I'm sorry I mentioned that) you'll notice that's not what I was talking about. A SIM card is not a radio.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, there's so little number of GNU/Linux installations out there that it's almost irrelevant.
Um, I think you meant "there's so little number of GNU/Linux desktop installations." And yeah, compared to Windows the market share isn't much. But ... next year will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop. I'm certain of it.
Those are only useful because windows is broken. If you could install apps as easily on windows as you could on linux from one central source no one would bother with that.
They might make a launcher that calls firefox with their portable preferences folder, but no reason to go carting firefox around.
That's really not true, not anymore. It used to be, but since Microsoft made some critical additions to Windows in order to support .Net, it's now perfectly possible to create fully-XCOPY-deployable applications in Windows XP SP2+. Nor do they have to be written in .Net. Not too many developers seem to be taking advantage of this yet (probably because they're accustomed to using setup generators like Wise or InstallShield) and it can be a little tricky, but the results are well worth the effort. Ultimately, it's nothing more than what .Net is doing, but applied to other languages.
Personally, I think you're going to see repositories for WIndows apps coming along eventually. It's just too powerful a concept to be ignored forever. Actually, that's true for a lot of what Unix-derived operating systems have to offer. What is Microsoft's UAC but a somewhat lame implementation of Unix security? Windows users complain vociferously the first time their OS asks for authorization to perform some task: Linux/Unix types just say "well, it's about time!"
Making applications portable is handy for doing things like running them from a USB stick. It also makes backup much more convenient.
Copy the program and its data in one shot, carry it with you, and use anywhere.
Windows apps are ahead of the game on this one:
http://portableapps.com/
What you're talking about is the use of manifests, and a specific WIN32 call, SetDLLDirectory. Between those two, you can make pretty much any application XCOPY-deployable, although they don't exist on older versions of Windows. The hard part is creating and managing your manifests, as well as keeping track of OS-specific versions of your DLLs, but it's doable. No more SETUP.EXEs, nothing installed in any \System folder, no registry entries. I've deployed some fairly substantial non-.Net applications to XP SP2+, Vista, Windows 7 as well as Server 2003 and 2008 using this method: just copy the application to a directory of your choice, and run. Makes testing a lot easier too.
.Net, where you already have several hundred megabytes of runtimes already in your target OS.
So, technically I'd say Windows is ahead there, although from the developer's perspective it can be tricky to achieve, and you still have to deal with the issue of licensing and other restrictions for any of your non-free or commercial redistributables. For that reason it's not really a huge advantage for WIndows developers unless you're coding in
The problem with comparing engineers to attorneys is you can hire an attorney to put that chalk mark anywhere you want it. (or an economist)
Well, maybe if lawyers spent more time chalking up economists we'd all be better off.
7-11 can get $35 for an emergency iPhone charging solution
An emergency charging solution. That's just hysterical.
Actually, for ten bucks each on Ebay I picked up three of these lithium-ion battery packs (list price was close to a hundred.) Came in a nice leather zipper case with a dozen adapters and voltage converters for different phones. The packs themselves just have a regular USB jack on the side. So far I've been through three different cell phones (nothing from Apple) that I've used them with, plus other things like some MP3 players. Interestingly, my girlfriend got me an iPod Nano a year ago, and while it comes with a USB cable, it only seems to charge if connected to a computer.
I also prefer phones with a removable battery pack. That turned me off to the iPhone the instant I found that out. I like to keep charged spares around (especially for power-hungry smartphones) if I'm going to be away from a car or a power outlet for an extended period.
What I meant is that there is no SBC. It is again under the AT&T brand (albeit Inc as opposed to Corp).
My understanding is that there is no AT&T. The original parent company was subsumed by SBC.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
As an aside, I've generally had a harder time trying to find a car mechanic who is both honest and competent, than I have had in finding a decent attorney.
to navigate it's intricacies
Dammit, I hate it when I do that.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
On the other hand, I'm reminded of this story (there are many variations):
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.
Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines.
They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.
The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.
The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.
They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
"One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999"
Granted, most attorneys do make heavy use of boilerplate, but then again, most legal tasks are entirely routine. In any event, you're paying a professional for both his knowledge of the law, and knowing how to apply it to your situation. I know what you're saying and it's often true: many attorneys do milk the system. But I have lawyers in my family, and number them among my friends. Not all lawyers are crooks, most are honest and earn their keep.
I would say a more correct complaint would be towards a legal system that requires attorneys to be such an integral part of our lives. That wasn't always the case, but as the law has increased in complexity and overall retardedness, the need for a competent lawyer to navigate it's intricacies is frequently a necessity.
He sued the wrong party, simple as that. The corporation should have been the one sued, but he admits that it was broke, so he sued someone with money who was involved in a way. The lawyers weren't under oath at the trial (though perhaps they should be). Quite simply, they didn't do anything illegal. You can argue it should be, but currently it isn't. Case closed.
I wasn't arguing anything, just commenting on the summary. You could argue that I should have RTFA, but I didn't. Case closed.
Something that bothers me about the conspiracy/incompetence dichotomy is that it seems to ignore other possibilities such as run of the mill negligence.
The net effect of incompetence on the part of the judiciary is much the same as negligence: justice is not done.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
I'm guessing you meant $150 an hour. It's the paralegals that make the fifteen.
Am I missing something?
Yes. This is Slashdot, and we don't much like judges who reach decisions that our cursory inspection of the article summary find wanting.
The problem is, you tried to sue a laywer. The funny thing about judges: they used to be lawyers. You remember that old joke claiming that sharks don't eat lawyers out of "professional courtesy"? Same goes for judges. You can sue a doctor, a corporation, or your ex-wife, fine, but if you sue a laywer the entire legal profession closes ranks and roots for the home team.
Yes. The Thin Armani Line.
Plain and simple.
We make fun of China and other places, but it seems that our judiciary is now pretty much bought in many places.
Check out this article on how many businesses see corruption as a barrier to entry to markets.
In this case it may simply have been incompetence. Seriously. We expect to be able to hold the judiciary to a higher standard, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. There's also the fact that he wasn't paying an expensive attorney.
... yeah, when you get right down to it, he was suing lawyers. That's not so easy to do, especially if they have friends (or friends of friends) on the bench. This decision does seem pretty raw, I mean, the other side admitted wrongdoing. Something smells here.
But
I'm not entitled to what I want... WAHHHHH
Huh? He got screwed by a criminal corporation and a gang of corrupt attorneys. He's "entitled" to some redress for what they put him through. Do you have a problem with that?
As for power plugs. just about everyone is using micro-USB. Enough user so that it's absolutely now the accepted standard.
Well, thank you for the informative post, it's the kind of response I was hoping for with my original post, but I do wish I'd never mentioned power plugs.
I hate to tell you, but SBC is AT&T again...
Well, sort of. More like AT&T has become SBC in an alien-parasite-converts-human-tissue-into-bug-eyed-monster sort of way ... and anyone who thinks that SBC (Stupid Bastards Club, Southern Boys Club, Sodomized By Cowboys, whatever) is in improvement over the old AT&T is mistaken. That's why I was trying to say in my earlier posts: that the breakup of AT&T, while presumably well-intentioned, did not have the desired effect, and in fact has resulted in a corporate and regulatory environment conducive to even greater abuse. Probably greater profit too, given the caliber of the people who ran SBC. Edward J. "These are my pipes!" Whitacre comes to mind.
.... works fine in Chrome on Windows though.)
Stephen Colbert had an hilarious take on the subject (search Youtube for "stephen colbert AT&T", I'd link to it but for some reason Chrome isn't letting me copy & paste between tabs. Oddly, I can cut & paste into a text editor. I'm on Ubuntu at the moment
and they still complain.
Then you don't understand how things work here. The likes of Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, U.S. Cellular and the rest will happily jack their rates through the roof: it's our constant complaining and threatening to go elsewhere that keeps them somewhat in line. The key is having the ability to go elsewhere.
And FCC should get their act together and make sure that frequencies are allocated for mobile phone systems in a way that matches what other countries runs.
One could argue the the rest of the world went off on their own and made themselves incompatible with the U.S. ... the technology largely originated here. But that's the problem with early adopters of any major technology. Take broadcast television: we started that ball rolling with NTSC: but by the time other countries got on board with TV, technology had progressed to where high-resolution standards were possible. So we ended up with the short end of the stick, and only with the past year or so have we gone to a true high-definition broadcast standard. To a degree, that's what's happening here in the cellular market, although I agree that the regulatory issues overshadow that now, given how fast the tech is changing.
Unfortunately though, it left the scumbag's link visible when you quoted it in your (higher-mod'd by default) post :-(.
Yeah. Sorry. Won't do that again.
Word up. I've been a T-Mobile customer for just over a decade now (originally signed up as Voicestream).
I've pretty much always bought unlocked phones from elsewhere to use on their network. It's nice that they actually give those people a discounted monthly plan now for not subsidizing phone handsets, without signing for 1-2 year contracts. This often turns out to be cheaper in the long run.
I agree. They're pretty damn friendly in that regard. That's one reason they've kept my business after having been through every major provider except for Sprint.
T-Mobile will unlock the phones for you when you have been on their network for 3 months, if I remember correctly.
Yes, however they won't do that on their latest, greatest phones ... you have to wait until your contract period is up in that case. When I bought a G1 right after they came out, I was told that I couldn't get an unlock code for it. I went online a month later and bought one for ten bucks, so really, it's not that big a deal. Matter of fact, there are plenty of outfits that will calculate an unlock code for most phones out there. I've done it for a bunch of handsets from different manufacturers and haven't had a problem yet.
lol
Hello Alex. Welcome back.
Ever heard of a sim-card?
Sure, but if you'll read my original post again (and for God's sake, would every please stop talking about power connectors, I'm sorry I mentioned that) you'll notice that's not what I was talking about. A SIM card is not a radio.