Why do you think the tethering option is a good thing when they charge $20 IN ADDITION to what you're already paying? I don't get it. I can already tether just fine with my existing (grandfathered) $15/mo unlimited data plan. Probably against the TOS, but tell me what AT&T is actually doing for you when you pay them that extra $20 per month. Tethering shouldn't be disallowed in the first place. You pay for your data plan and that should be it.
Since most Linux systems dont even have the kind of application firewalls or antiviruses that Windows does, and because the Internet accessing is actually done via wget, they don't even get any kind of a "Give internet access to this application?" dialog.
These things slow your computer down and make using applications annoying. They exist on Windows because of the massive problem of malware on Windows. They do not exist on Linux because in general, malware on Linux is not a problem. You can speculate as to why, but that's the way it is. Where real problems exist with Linux, like rootkits, solutions exist (e.g. chkrootkit). If viruses and such get to be a problem, solutions will appear. At the moment virus scanners and outgoing firewall prompts are not needed on Desktop Linux and are a hindrance to usable computing. I think your post is FUD.
There appears to be an inverse relationship between IE market share and its implementation of standards. Applaud MS for good decisions, but never forget how they acted when they owned the market.
They left out something. Sucrose is a disaccharide and must be broken down into the components fructose and glucose by sucrase, which is REGULATED BY THE BODY. Since HFCS doesn't require this step, the body can't regulate its absorption as well. I'm sure they're aware of this, but conveniently left this important fact out. The wikipedia article has a good writeup on this subject.
I implemented a simple electronic filing system for a group and found that signatures are the most difficult piece to replace. Most people expect ink stained paper for certain documents and although there exists viable technical replacements, only those who understand those techniques feel comfortable with them.
Hard to believe, but when being consulted by another group wanting to implement a system like the one I did, their solution for a "digital signature" was to overlay a scanned image of the person's signature on the document as the one and only method of signing the document. This came from the group (in a gov. agency) responsible for implementing the electronic filing system. Also, at least locally, proper digital signatures haven't been tested in court and as a result, the decision makers aren't comfortable with them.
It seems clear to me at this point that ignorance is the biggest obstacle to using digital sigs. A major cultural change is required to make this happen and it has to be made as easy as possible. I think one approach that may be feasible is to associate a signing key with a physical object. This may be as simple as putting a signing key on a USB drive as it may be easier to convey the importance of protecting the key and the consequences of someone else acquiring it.
Except that cartilage loss doesn't heal; at least not that significantly. My wife is a radiologist and I'm going to see what she thinks about the images this evening.
I hope this is for real. I've worn the cartilage in my knees over the years and while I don't regret the activities that caused the wear, it sure would be nice to get some more life out of the joints. All of the methods used now, like micro-fracture are just not very good.
A little? They've used their monopoly to dominate the browser, office software and corporate email. They go out of their way to avoid interoperability with their protocols and file formats and use vertical integration in addition to lock users into the Microsoft world of software. They have a history of unethical practices and continue today (OOXML, Linux patent threats). Many of their offerings have superior alternatives, but fitting them in with Microsoft's closed ecosystem is too difficult so people just do the easy thing and buy they stuff that works with their Active Directory, Exchange and Desktops.
In the browser market, Microsoft has clearly shown abuse of their Desktop monopoly with their lack of standards compliance and proprietary extensions. Tell me why MS can't build a standards compliant browser with their resources. Even today, they're trying to push Siverlight to hold the keys to the web's multimedia and with MS holding patents, there will always be a cloud over compatible implementations like Mono. And don't say they won't play that card. They already did it with their Linux patent threats. They've been anti-competitive with I.E. They deserve this.
Being more conscious goes a long way. When I was shopping for a TV years ago, power consumption was a factor for me. I purchased a 52" LED DLP that uses on average 100 watts. By contrast, the plasmas I looked at were rated at about 500 watts. My home server with all 6 drives spinning consumes 100 watts. It can idle down to 60. Also I use it as a PVR (mythtv) and PBX (asterisk), which means less hardware. I think soon, if not now, the home server could be replaced with a low power ARM arch to handle storage, backup, media, etc.
Just being conscious about power goes a long way - and I think the biggest problem is that most people don't care. The same reason so many single people drive huge SUVs when they've got nothing to tow or haul. Buy a power meter (kill-a-watt) to see how much juice your devices are using. Consider power consumption when buying devices.
Especially on LTS releases. For most non-geeks, a major upgrade every 6 months is too much. Going from LTS to LTS is more realistic. Right now, 8.04 is the current LTS and installing new software (e.g. gtkpod, songbird) is very difficult because it too often requires upgrades of major libraries. For an OS only 2 years old, that's not good.
Ubuntu's (and other Linux distros) heavy use of dynamic libraries are a major contributor to this problem. It would be great if Ubuntu could provide updates to libraries to allow newer applications to run. I don't know how it might be done. Maybe having multiple versions or just insuring backwards compatibility. A 3 year old Ubuntu PC needs to be able to install the latest versions of software easily.
You'll need to transcode twice anyway. Or can your phone playback h.264 at 1080p? Yea. Mine neither. As it stands now, I've got a DV collection that I transcode for family on the web (in theora at full res) and my n800 at 480x240 xvid. Chances are that h.264 file isn't going to play on all the devices you want it to without a transcode.
Chicken and the egg. There was a time when there was no hardware support for h.264. And now? Have some backbone and make something happen instead of just being a follower. If enough of us published videos in theora, it could make a difference. mp3 made its advance this way. It's feasible using fallback techniques like "video for everybody".
You're leaving out an important factor; Volume. You can't assume that a book must sell at Y to make up for a fixed cost of X. Like any other market, there exists a price point which maximizes profit and E-READERS ARE CHANGING THAT POINT. There have been a few reports out recently (I think one was from Amazon) saying that on average, people purchase more books for their e-reader than they did before. So it makes since that the price can come down if volume is up.
I just downloaded the latest version of ffmpeg2theora because I wanted to see how it fared with the new lib (Thusnelda) and let me say I'm impressed. I've been encoding my home DV movies using the default settings. These movies are 720 x 480 and my bitrates tend to be about 1400kbps with quality that is virtually indistinguishable from the source material. I encoded a few at 800 kbps. At that lower bitrate artifacts become noticeable, but quality is still quite good. My source material is a bit grainy in low light so I think encoding will perform even better in bright scenes.
If you haven't checked out theora in a while, have another look. It seems there's been some real progress made lately.
I think Windows Vista/7 has really warped peoples notion of useful memory size. There are many uses for a device like this that don't require gigabytes of RAM. The applications that run on a Nokia N800/N810 with 128Mb of RAM are a testament to that. I would certainly have a use for a sub-notebook sized device with the power and power consumption of my N800.
Last I checked, speakeasy didn't do any type of blocking or tampering (e.g. ports 25 and 80 are open), but they are more expensive than the alternatives. Plus their support staff are highly competent.
FTP would be dead if Microsoft would adopt the SSH suite, since SSH has the exact same capabilities as FTP. SSH is the swiss army knife of encrypted networking. Port tunneling is very useful. Less known, but also very nice is the ability to use pipes like this:
echo "hello" | ssh remote_host "cat > hello.txt"
You could use it to make a large backup without consuming disk space on the local machine.
tar -zc directory_to_backup | ssh remote_host "cat > backup.tar.gz"
It also works very well with rsync. Combine with hard links for a
great backup strategy.
I like to see the surprise from Microsoft centric developers when they discover what SSH can do. They seem to all have this false assumption that it's just for getting a shell on a remote UNIX system.
Though I haven't kept up with SSH development on Windows, two applications I've used on Windows are:
WinSCP and
PUTTYsshwindows also looks interesting as I use cygwin + SSH
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you think the tethering option is a good thing when they charge $20 IN ADDITION to what you're already paying? I don't get it. I can already tether just fine with my existing (grandfathered) $15/mo unlimited data plan. Probably against the TOS, but tell me what AT&T is actually doing for you when you pay them that extra $20 per month. Tethering shouldn't be disallowed in the first place. You pay for your data plan and that should be it.
Someone showed me this demonstration today and I don't see any reasons it could not work. It's using hay to soak up the oil. What do you think?
Probably Turbogears, Django and the other web frameworks that were springing up at the time.
See Speakeasy
Virus scanners and outgoing firewalls are a crummy way to handle these threats. Linux handles them in a better way
Since most Linux systems dont even have the kind of application firewalls or antiviruses that Windows does, and because the Internet accessing is actually done via wget, they don't even get any kind of a "Give internet access to this application?" dialog.
These things slow your computer down and make using applications annoying. They exist on Windows because of the massive problem of malware on Windows. They do not exist on Linux because in general, malware on Linux is not a problem. You can speculate as to why, but that's the way it is. Where real problems exist with Linux, like rootkits, solutions exist (e.g. chkrootkit). If viruses and such get to be a problem, solutions will appear. At the moment virus scanners and outgoing firewall prompts are not needed on Desktop Linux and are a hindrance to usable computing. I think your post is FUD.
Yea. Except for the ones marked "Remote Code Execution" and "Critical". No sweat.
There appears to be an inverse relationship between IE market share and its implementation of standards. Applaud MS for good decisions, but never forget how they acted when they owned the market.
They left out something. Sucrose is a disaccharide and must be broken down into the components fructose and glucose by sucrase, which is REGULATED BY THE BODY. Since HFCS doesn't require this step, the body can't regulate its absorption as well. I'm sure they're aware of this, but conveniently left this important fact out. The wikipedia article has a good writeup on this subject.
Store hashes of the data and frequently archive (and never dispose) them.
I implemented a simple electronic filing system for a group and found that signatures are the most difficult piece to replace. Most people expect ink stained paper for certain documents and although there exists viable technical replacements, only those who understand those techniques feel comfortable with them.
Hard to believe, but when being consulted by another group wanting to implement a system like the one I did, their solution for a "digital signature" was to overlay a scanned image of the person's signature on the document as the one and only method of signing the document. This came from the group (in a gov. agency) responsible for implementing the electronic filing system. Also, at least locally, proper digital signatures haven't been tested in court and as a result, the decision makers aren't comfortable with them.
It seems clear to me at this point that ignorance is the biggest obstacle to using digital sigs. A major cultural change is required to make this happen and it has to be made as easy as possible. I think one approach that may be feasible is to associate a signing key with a physical object. This may be as simple as putting a signing key on a USB drive as it may be easier to convey the importance of protecting the key and the consequences of someone else acquiring it.
I quit using Windows a few years ago, but does IIS still run as LocalSystem? At the time I thought it was ridiculous to run IIS for that reason alone.
Dr. Chris Centeno posts several times at the end of the article and addresses most of the issues raised here. Definitely worth reading.
Wait awhile and magically the body heals itself.
Except that cartilage loss doesn't heal; at least not that significantly. My wife is a radiologist and I'm going to see what she thinks about the images this evening.
I hope this is for real. I've worn the cartilage in my knees over the years and while I don't regret the activities that caused the wear, it sure would be nice to get some more life out of the joints. All of the methods used now, like micro-fracture are just not very good.
A little? They've used their monopoly to dominate the browser, office software and corporate email. They go out of their way to avoid interoperability with their protocols and file formats and use vertical integration in addition to lock users into the Microsoft world of software. They have a history of unethical practices and continue today (OOXML, Linux patent threats). Many of their offerings have superior alternatives, but fitting them in with Microsoft's closed ecosystem is too difficult so people just do the easy thing and buy they stuff that works with their Active Directory, Exchange and Desktops.
In the browser market, Microsoft has clearly shown abuse of their Desktop monopoly with their lack of standards compliance and proprietary extensions. Tell me why MS can't build a standards compliant browser with their resources. Even today, they're trying to push Siverlight to hold the keys to the web's multimedia and with MS holding patents, there will always be a cloud over compatible implementations like Mono. And don't say they won't play that card. They already did it with their Linux patent threats. They've been anti-competitive with I.E. They deserve this.
You'll have to have multiple versions anyway. Say a 1080p version for a large screen and a 360p version for a small screen.
Being more conscious goes a long way. When I was shopping for a TV years ago, power consumption was a factor for me. I purchased a 52" LED DLP that uses on average 100 watts. By contrast, the plasmas I looked at were rated at about 500 watts. My home server with all 6 drives spinning consumes 100 watts. It can idle down to 60. Also I use it as a PVR (mythtv) and PBX (asterisk), which means less hardware. I think soon, if not now, the home server could be replaced with a low power ARM arch to handle storage, backup, media, etc.
Just being conscious about power goes a long way - and I think the biggest problem is that most people don't care. The same reason so many single people drive huge SUVs when they've got nothing to tow or haul. Buy a power meter (kill-a-watt) to see how much juice your devices are using. Consider power consumption when buying devices.
Especially on LTS releases. For most non-geeks, a major upgrade every 6 months is too much. Going from LTS to LTS is more realistic. Right now, 8.04 is the current LTS and installing new software (e.g. gtkpod, songbird) is very difficult because it too often requires upgrades of major libraries. For an OS only 2 years old, that's not good.
Ubuntu's (and other Linux distros) heavy use of dynamic libraries are a major contributor to this problem. It would be great if Ubuntu could provide updates to libraries to allow newer applications to run. I don't know how it might be done. Maybe having multiple versions or just insuring backwards compatibility. A 3 year old Ubuntu PC needs to be able to install the latest versions of software easily.
It's no more a schrodinger than h.264. Both have known patent holders. Both may still have patent trolls.
You'll need to transcode twice anyway. Or can your phone playback h.264 at 1080p? Yea. Mine neither. As it stands now, I've got a DV collection that I transcode for family on the web (in theora at full res) and my n800 at 480x240 xvid. Chances are that h.264 file isn't going to play on all the devices you want it to without a transcode.
Chicken and the egg. There was a time when there was no hardware support for h.264. And now? Have some backbone and make something happen instead of just being a follower. If enough of us published videos in theora, it could make a difference. mp3 made its advance this way. It's feasible using fallback techniques like "video for everybody".
You're leaving out an important factor; Volume. You can't assume that a book must sell at Y to make up for a fixed cost of X. Like any other market, there exists a price point which maximizes profit and E-READERS ARE CHANGING THAT POINT. There have been a few reports out recently (I think one was from Amazon) saying that on average, people purchase more books for their e-reader than they did before. So it makes since that the price can come down if volume is up.
I just downloaded the latest version of ffmpeg2theora because I wanted to see how it fared with the new lib (Thusnelda) and let me say I'm impressed. I've been encoding my home DV movies using the default settings. These movies are 720 x 480 and my bitrates tend to be about 1400kbps with quality that is virtually indistinguishable from the source material. I encoded a few at 800 kbps. At that lower bitrate artifacts become noticeable, but quality is still quite good. My source material is a bit grainy in low light so I think encoding will perform even better in bright scenes.
If you haven't checked out theora in a while, have another look. It seems there's been some real progress made lately.
I think Windows Vista/7 has really warped peoples notion of useful memory size. There are many uses for a device like this that don't require gigabytes of RAM. The applications that run on a Nokia N800/N810 with 128Mb of RAM are a testament to that. I would certainly have a use for a sub-notebook sized device with the power and power consumption of my N800.
Last I checked, speakeasy didn't do any type of blocking or tampering (e.g. ports 25 and 80 are open), but they are more expensive than the alternatives. Plus their support staff are highly competent.
FTP would be dead if Microsoft would adopt the SSH suite, since SSH has the exact same capabilities as FTP. SSH is the swiss army knife of encrypted networking. Port tunneling is very useful. Less known, but also very nice is the ability to use pipes like this:
echo "hello" | ssh remote_host "cat > hello.txt"
You could use it to make a large backup without consuming disk space on the local machine.
tar -zc directory_to_backup | ssh remote_host "cat > backup.tar.gz"
It also works very well with rsync. Combine with hard links for a great backup strategy.
I like to see the surprise from Microsoft centric developers when they discover what SSH can do. They seem to all have this false assumption that it's just for getting a shell on a remote UNIX system.
Though I haven't kept up with SSH development on Windows, two applications I've used on Windows are: WinSCP and PUTTY sshwindows also looks interesting as I use cygwin + SSH