Tell me you haven't heard of or seen cases where a file that someone has been working on for weeks or months has been totally corrupted. It happens. It happens entirely too often. Sure, there's no substitute for backups, but you know you've lost entire files because you just created it that morning and hadn't done your daily backup yet. There are limits to the reasonable usefulness of backups
Same with regular saving. It doesn't matter how often you save, there's always the chance that it will be just after you've done something tricky or long-winded that the computer crashes or there's a power failure. If anything it's all the more annoying when that happens, as losing data that you were just about to save just makes you feel like the subject of a bad cosmic joke.
Data journalling in applications actually does seem like a good idea. Plus a better (and more consistent) way of falgging whether your currently open file has been modified or not would be nice. Especially when some applications don't flag up at all when you've exported to an non-native filetype. An at-a-glance way of seeing whether it's been saved, exported, modified or untouched would be so useful.
While using WMV on Linux will probably break the end user license...
And this is the problem and why MS are going to have a hard time trying to crack down on any attempts to stop Linux being able to run WMV.
Thanks to the "marvel" of Windows Movie Maker people with Windows XP can create these files from their Home PC without needing to either shell out on over-expensive software (except maybe Windows XP) or use pirate software (again, except maybe Windows XP). Unless there's a way of getting Windows Movie Maker to use other codecs then there is going to be more and more home content that will be open by nature but closed by implementation.
And unless there's a decent free alternative (which I'd like to know about, too) for editing video on Windows I can't think of any way of persuading these people to use formats that can be easily read elsewhere - hence needing to use what's unfortunately not a legal implementation just to play the stuff back.
How'd you manage to wind up with CSS on a DVD of your own stuff? You can make a DVD without it.
My guess would be that the poster got them converted by a company that automatically uses CSS when moving VHS to DVD format. I'm not sure why companies would do this, but there's always the chance that one does.
This attitude of "gotta have it right this second" doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
It does to me - at least for those who've spent money on a CD that won't do what they paid for without jumping through extra hoops. I have no interest in HL2 anyway, but I certainly do not believe that compulsary activation for single-player mode is in any way good or justifiable.
Once you've bought the CD/DVD from the shop it should be as simple as...
Run installation program
Go grab a drink whilst files copy
Run game.
With no other steps necessary - except maybe downloading subsequent patches. But not downloading key components purposefully excluded from the purchased CD. And not sitting in a queue of several thousand other people at the same time who all simply want to play what they've paid to play.
It's getting like the game publishers don't get why people choose certain options at install-time. "Full Install" - If people wanted to have to put any CD in the drive they'd not have chosen the Full Install now, would they? But no, games publishers allow us to copy all files onto the local machine, then force us to still run from the CD - or download a crack from those "pirates" who these obstacles were supposed to stop.
But the simple fact remains that people buy games to play. And making people wait to download or authenticate when they've purchased a bosed product is simply not on.
Just out of curiosity, anyone here still running 2.4? All the Linux users I know are on 2.6 for their machines. My Linux server is still 2.4, though.
I do. I'm running Fedora Core 1 (FC1 had issues with my hardware, and I'm giving FC3 a month or so before installing) and don't yet feel confident enough to risk using a non-stock kernel.
And since I brought it up, anyone here still got a Linux box running 2.2?
The only reason I'm not is because the old box I used as a fiileserver, gateway/firewall and testing webserver suffered terminal hard-drive failure a few months ago. Had that not happened it'd still be running, as even on 2.2.x it did what it needed to do.
They could release the information they do own. We don't need "all the information". We just need the basics like opcodes and register addresses. That information is not patentable (they're just numbers) and is not copyrightable (not creative). That information is simply a trade secret that nvidia CHOOSES to not give us, presumably because they're *ssholes. Nvidia can keep their precious licensed code; that's not the stuff we need to write our own driver.
Well in the updates to the interview that was previously mentioned here they do state that it's to do with the IP involved.
Plus the real issue probably isn't with the driver developers, probably more to do with management or even with IP lawyers.
Also it matters very little as to whether the trade secrets really need to be kept secret. I suspect that someone in their legal (or financial) department is saying that stuff "like opcodes and register addresses" are things that they can't release for free - even though that's information that they do own. And, sadly, they're the ones whose decisions tend to stick.
Yes, it sucks. But unfortunately big businesses still like to play the "Intellectual Property" game. Until that changes (Soon, please God, soon) then we're stuck with things happening this way.
I think that the message-pane is part of the IE-only code. As far as I know Exchange actually sends the data to the browser dependent on the browser itself, so the lack of pane in server-side not browser side from what I can tell. Which is a shame, as it's how I prefer to read my email.
I've not used Opera so I can't say for certain, but it might be the User Agent settings. Do you have it set to report as IE, by any chance?
I ask because I tried the same in Firefox a while back. I got it to report as IE so it could view the IE-only-but-probably-aren't sites out there. And it really messed up on Outlook Web Access.
OWA seems to use the UA string to decide which version of the page to send out. And the IE-specific version seems to be really IE-specific. I seem to remember it basically throwing out a page full of error messages. This is a shame, as being stuck using it I find that only the IE-specific version of OWA works the way I want it to, so I'm stuck using IE as a mail-client. (I'd rather use Thunderbird, or even OE, but we off-site people are stuck using a damned webmail interface)
But all of this isn't really a problem with Firefox or Opera, more a "feature" of Exchange's webmail.
Sorry to the Opera people, but the honest truth is that when you insisted on advertising in your browser we all instinctively thought spyware, malware other stuff. You should have reacted to how the world has changed if you wanted to stay in the running...
I'm not sure they're "out of the running" per se, but I do think that the advertising issue does work against them.
I know that one of the main reasons I stopped using Opera a few years ago was that it had this stupid advertising banner at the top. There was a reason I was after a free browser, and it was that (especially back then) I had very little money available. So not only would/could I not pay for Opera, the advertising was completely lost on me as I wasn't wanting to spend money on much else either.
I've never understood why people think advertising at me is going to work if I've already decided I don't want to spend money on a product. More often than not it's just sent me to the competition.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that. And I know full well that many Opera users simply used cracks to get rid of the advertising. I didn't bother, as by then I had found Mozilla which had no ad-banners from the get-go.
I know a lot of people still use Opera, though, so they prboably are still in ther running. However with Firefox both improving and gaining mindshare I'd say that Opera really need to work hard in the coming times.
I don't agree with him, and I don't think his answers tell the whole story (besides, the anti-IE ones don't exactly tell the whole story either), but they don't stop his points being valid.
"Because IE is ubiquitous, you hear a lot more about it, but I don't think that Internet Explorer is any less secure than any other browser out there," English said.
Up to a point I think he's right. OK, I admit I'd debate the "any less secure" statement, but I do agree that a major part of it is that IE is still so common so it's an easier target.
Though I certainly get the feeling that MS might well be counting the definitive version of Internet Explorer as being IE6 under XP SP2. And that is more secure - just not necessarily the major version of IE being used quite yet.
He also (undurprisingly) doesn't touch on the issue that IE bugs reach further than simply IE. "This bug affects you even if Internet Explorer is not your default browser" always irritates me no end. If I'm not using it then why should the flaw still matter? But the "integration" with Windows is the problem in this case. And if there's a flaw and no current patch you can't even uninstall the software until an update version comes out.
So regadless of the quantity of issues, the nature of the IE flaws is totally different.
"I don't agree that just because a (competing) product has a feature that we don't have, that feature is important," he said. "It is not. It is only important if it is a feature the customer wants. There are plenty of products out there with features we don't have. We have plenty of features that our customers don't use.
This is another point. There aren't a great deal of features that customers "want" that would attract them to switch. Firefox's real strength (in my opinion) is that it has features you that you never thought about, but that keep you from switching back
Up until recently not many non-geeks had probably heard of it, except maybe mentioned by a geek-type. But it's starting to be mentioned more and more in the media, so MS are understandably wanting to stop people making the initial switch.
Besides, many Windows users simply equate "The Internet" with "Internet Explorer" - or, more likely, with "The Blue e Icon". They're not looking for anything different because they don't even know that there are alternatives.
The real danger for those of us interested in the non-IE alternatives is to dismiss anything that comes from MS. Just because they don't say things the way we see them doesn't mean that their poitns don't have merit. Plus we do have to see things from their perspective to be able to validly counter their claims. Because the "M$ are fulla BS" approach isn't really going to get people interested in alternatives. But a reasoned argument about why a Microsoft statement doesn't tell the whole truth might at least get someone to listen.
It doesn't really matter whether or not the past election was really rigged. What really matters is that it clearly could have been, and many people believe that it was.
I think this is an important factor, both in the US and anywhere else. Once a significant amount of people believe that an election result was inaccurate (whether through being rigged, or simple mass problems) then up to a point it doesn't actually matter whether it was rigged or not. Whether the result is the correct one or not, as soon as there's a significant amount of doubt then it's as good (bad) as if the result was actually rigged. People lose confidence in the result, even if it is the correct one. And I'm sure that that's not a good thing.
I agree about 2000, but this time out there is no real question about who the legitimate winner of the election is. That said, the real problem in our voting system is the dramatic difference in how elections are run state to state and county to county.
Exactly. Like it or not Bush probably was the legitimate winner. The problem about the exact numbers and lack of verification, however, is an issue that needs looking at in case it's not so clear cut in the future. This time it looks like the errors wouldn't have affected the outcome. What about next time?
Plus this issue goes a lot wider as soon as you realise that more and more places are going to want to try electronic voting in the coming years. I've read that about 30% of precints used some sort of e-voting. So what about then it's 50%+? 100%? And in other countries all over the world? If the majority of the world's voting ever goes electronic I'd sure hope that all these issues were dealt with.
I don't know about lying but I also wouldn't tell exit polls. For one thing it's no-one's business except mine and those who count the votes who I vote for. Secondly I rarely tell people I know how I voted until well after an election, even friends and family. Thisdly if people ask me questions out in the street I habitually don't answer. Doesn't matter whether I'm coming out of a shop or a poll booth, my business is my own.
Whether Bush or Kerry should / should not have won is irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
Finally someone who sees this point. I've seen lots of "This proves the vote was rigged pro-Bush" and lots of "It wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome" over the past few days. And although certainly an issue it's far from the issue at hand.
OK, so if (and I'm saying "if" as I have no way of knowing one way or the other) the machines had miscounted in Bush's favour this would not be a good thing. But the real issue isn't in whose favour the errors occured, it's that there seem to be an increasing amount of them becoming apparent.
Also, people need to have confidence in the integrity of the elections process (which these efforts help provide), or else our government has no legitimacy.
Exactly. If e-voting was used here in the UK I'd be worried about errors regardless of whether my chosen candidate/party (or even the perceived popular one) won or lost. Even if it's a result you wish for it's useless unless you can be confident that the results are being counted properly. I'd certainly want the vistor (whoever it was) to have won "beyond reasonable doubt".
Heck, right now if I was a pro-Bush American voter I'd be worried about these reports for much the same reasons. With all of this doubt flying around I'd want to be able to point to a verified recount to disprove the people suggesting untoward happenings.
Whether you're on the winning or losing side a verifiable paper trail is necessary. If things do go wrong then it is in both sides' best interests to be sure of the true result.
Yes, primarily the problem was with the machines. But when a machine does throw up a glitch that should have been picked up in testing, but wasn't, then the operators do have to pay attention.
And that's where the primary worry comes in. Whether by accident, incompetence or malice these errors do occur from time to time, and slip through the testing net. The problem itself doesn't lie with the operators, true, but vigilance should be exercised from start to finish with machines put to such a task as an election.
Through CS lectures to IT Support one thing I've learned is that "perfect reliability" is a great goal but a hard one to acheive. And with something like voting machines every level up to and including the operators needs to be alert on the off-chance that a bug did escape the previous stage.
OK, this particular bug is so major it should have been picked up way before the systems went live. As you say it was either gross incompetence or an act of malice. The cause of the problem isn't with the operators, but if e-voting is used more and more (as it probably will) then even the operators must be alert. Even for the bugs that, by rights, should have got nowhere near a live machine.
I was really stoked when I heard they were going to have a force battle because I hoped it would rock- lots of subtle effects, a heat haze of power expanding around them as they stared at each other unmoving as wind picked up, something...
I'm not sure that would work so well in a film. Certainly I don't think that the more casual viewer would find it quite so interesting.
I've seen that kind of scene before. Subtle tests of power, or even just two opponents facing off, unmoving, playing out possibilities before finally committing to an attack. It does work well, but it was in a TV series where it doesn't take up so much of the overall time in comparison.
Unfortunately in a film it wouldn't necessarily be quite so effective. Especially in a cinema, as these kinds of encounters rarely happen near the beginning of the film. So you'd get two characters standing still, nothing major visibly happening, and the effects of a cinema-size bucket of cola making it's effects known...
Unfortunately, flashy fights do grab your attention. They're also more likely to get more bums on seats, more word of mouth, even more heated discussion if it comes down to it.
I would have prefered never see Yoda use a saber, but I did enjoy the fight. I hope we never see Palpatine lower himself to that point, though, he's much cooler in my opinion as a consummate manipulator.
It's all-but-inevitable that he will use one though. And for the same reasons I think. Although from a pure-story point of view the strongest show of power is never having to actually use it, from a Movie point of view that simply doesn't always work. People want to see people use their powers.
Besides, even if he does then just think about it. In a total of six films (well, five he's visibly in) Palpatine will have only drawn a lightsaber once. Yet still had been basically the Big Bad of the entire saga.
I remember seeing this discussed on/. a year or so ago. People thinking that Yoda was "stronger" or "above" needing to fight the way he did. One problem with this would be that if he really could be all-but-unstoppable using the Force then how come everything still went pear-shaped?
I think the best theory I saw here was that, for one thing, this is a somewhat younger Yoda. Possibly something occured between AoTC and ESB that turn him against thinking that fighting is always an answer - quite possibly the events concerning Anakin's turning to Vader. Ep2 Yoda isn't the same as Ep5 Yoda. He's younger. He's one of many many Jedi. Realisation about the Sith threat is still relatively new. In ESB he was tired, in hiding and quite possibly a bit jaded. Something had obviously changed him, and with the very large turnaround in the "World Order" it's a rather believable change.
Also remember that Yoda didn't pull out his lightsaber until he'd tried other methods first. He only drew his weapon as a last resort - which still seems a very Yoda thing to me.
In this case the/. summary (at least) isn't implying that the lost votes would have changed who won. And that's not really the issue in hand.
No, regardless of whether the votes would have made a difference or not it's bloody worrying that such an error was overlooked. If these machines become more and more used and the operators ignore messages like this routinely then next time (whether in the US, UK, or anywhere else) it might well be a significant difference lost.
The only special software on my comupteer is software to build the index files for moving through the music based on the tag files.
Why do they (only) do it that way? Is there any real technical reason why they can't have a "Reindex Database" function in the menus on the unit itself? Even if only as an alternative method to using the software.
Seeing that many units these days just register as a USB mass-storage drive then I can't understand why they make you use a seperate utility to copy files across.
The Unit which allows this (as well as Ogg Vorbis support) it the one that's most likely to get my money. Although shipping with an official Linux client would definitely be a close second. But that's what's holding me back from buying any player at the moment. No officially=supported way of running under Linux.
GIMP is a free package for people who care about FREE software, not for people who are cheap. People who are cheap, simply grab a pirated copy of Photoshop.
Not entirely. Some of use use GIMP 'cos we're cheap but still want a legit solution.
Granted I'm more about Free software now than when I started with the GIMP, but I mainly use it as it doesn't cost anything and it's legitimately so and it's cross-platform.
Not everyone who uses Free software is (initially) altruistic. More that not everyone who is cheap believes in using a dodgy copy.
Using a 'phone isn't as trivial for everyone as most people think. Although I doubt the grandparent poster is in this category there are people out there for whom making a non-personal 'phone-call is a heck of a trial.
Simple, Quick, and WORKS.
I get anxiety attacks sometimes trying to make phone-calls. To me that's more than enough for me to never buy software that requires phone-activation. I'm not paying for something that ensures me having to work myself into a right state merely to use what I've legitimately paid for.
No definitely not "simple" in my case. And I know that my anxiety issues are minor compared to some. And my experience with any phone-support line tends to suggest it wouldn't be "quick" either.
Allowing you to run your legal copy legally.
Plus, anxiety issues or not, why should someone have to phone up to validate something they've paid (usually a lot of) money for just because they've chosen/needed to change the hardware several times?
Once you've bought it the software's still legal. You shouldn't have to go out of your way so that the company you've already paid can "allow" you to get what you paid for.
To put it differently, OpenOffice would probably have a big jump in market share if all the pirated or incorrectly licensed versions of MS Office wordlwide were replaced with OpenOffice.
Well yeah, but it's also (unfortunately) not quite that simple. If there really was no way of running an unlicensed version of MS Office then although there would be a jump in OOo installations there'd probably also be a jump in legitimate MS Office purchases. And the latter would simply be for maximum compatibility. Even if it's just a single copy to tidy up files at their end before sending them out. So not everyone would replace all wrong-licensed copies with OOo.
Unfortunately the biggest hangups with OpenOffice are probably still due to not-quite-perfect compatibility with MS Office formats. Word Documents exported from Writer still have a tendancy to not always display quite right, and vice-versa. Exporting PowerPoint files from OOo is also interesting, as some things simply don't survive the export process - which is fun when trying to create presentations without an actual copy of PowerPoint - although the free Viewer is dead useful for seeing which bits don't work. Also saving out to a non-native format is a pain, and (obviously) MS Office doesn't recognise OOo's formats.
Sadly it seems like the real thing stopping OpenOffice from jumping ahead lies in Microsoft's hands. If they'd publish fully Open format specs and include OOo files in the list of importable file-formats then their effort would probably lose them a lot of sales as many people would jump ship without losing compatibility.
As much as they hate it, organisations using pirate copies are still in their benefit - although they'd obviously rather they were purchased copies. As if one small company might not be able to afford legit copies of Office it's still a company generating files that other people (with enough money) might want to open.
But this is probably why they will never open the specs to their file formats if they can possibly help it. If they wish to stamp out piracy of their products they have to ensure that there's no cheap/free alternative for organisations or individuals who wish to be fully compatible with Office-format files will ditch them as soon as possible.
The trouble with the BSD licence is that it does not oblige you to distribute the source code with any derivative work {unless you go for the two-clause, source-only distribution licence..... which is fine for stuff written in an interpreted language, but not much cop for something like an OS kernel}. This means that someone else can take all your hard work -- which you intended to be for the benefit of everyone -- and "fence it in" by distributing a modified version in binary form only, and not giving anybody the source code.
I'd say it's not exactly "the trouble with" the BSD license, more an issue with it. Some coders obviously don't mind that a commercial derivative can be made that might contain their contributions, and that's up to them.
On the one hand (and for some coders) it could well be seen as a weakness in the license. But, to play Devil's Advocate, it can easily also play out as a strength. There are companies out there who, like it or not, will not sue a strong copyleft license. There's no way that every software house out there is going to be comfortable with having to release any and all modifications to code they used for a product. However if they can modify some code under a BSD-style and keep some parts to themselves there's still a good chance of them coming up with something interoperable with other systems.
I think that both types of license are vital, certainly at the moment. Both have their pros and their cons. I like the idea behind the GPL and like that it legally guarantees that people can't derive a closed product from a GPL project. I also think the BSD license has one major thing going for it. You don't have to contribute back. But many people, and companies, do just that. (e.g. Apple seem to share their Darwin changes back with the BSD community) True these companies might not release everything but they don't technically have to release anything, yet they still choose to. And it's probably an ideal language for when you can't take an "all or nothing" approach to releasing your code.
Plus although I guess that such modifications are released because it's in their own best interests (i.e. if someone else can tweak one of their mods then they don't have to) it's nice that they consider sharing many of their changes rather than keeping all their work secret being in their best interests. It might only be a small step forward, but it's probably a significant one.
Many newer ATM's are moving to high-resolution color screens to display more attractive (and annoying) multimedia interfaces.
The Halifax ATMs switched to Windows (either NT4 or 2K, can't remember which) a couple years back. I remember watching some install script or other run on one of the machines one day. Wasn't really impressed, as personally it's a little worrying - I'll use Windows where necessary but think it's overkill for dedicated systems which end up with unnecessary cruft still running somewhere. (Unless MS really do release versions of Windows with no Web/Email/Media software force-installed)
Now we have cashpoints with colour screens that are really pretty but basically do exactly the same job as the old ones did. The significant differences are probably behind the scenes, and I have to say I'm a little wary of it running Windows behind it all.
Having said all of that, despite my personal opinions of Windows in mission-critical systems I've never seen an ATM with a BSOD, never seen a Windows-releated crash/error message and never really had any other problems than the standard out of specific-denomination/printer-paper/etc difficulties that are totally OS-independant.
This latest news is a little worrying, but really just an extension of it. As long, though, as the ATM IP-network is totally physically seperate from the actual Internet (and I'm reasonaly certain it will be seperate) then it's as safe as any network (WIndows or otherwise) can be.
Besides if they were silly enough to actually put them live on the Internet then even running a more secure OS woudn't be secure enough.
I don't pretend to understand why even a die-hard windows user (and I run Windows at home) would want it in an ATM, but there you have it.
"Management Decision", probably. Managers (even some Tech Managers) do seem to like Windows. They're heard of it, they know it "works", and it probably comes with a good support package.
I guess that it doesn't matter how less prone your system is to crashing, the management (understandably) won't want to risk that one crash being something that can't get-fixed/assign-blame. Enterprise-level Linux distros are definitely getting there, but unless they also have Enterprise-level software available for them with similar support then Windows is going to be the way forward for the time being. 'Cos if the only available current ATM software runs on Windows then banks are going to go with it.
From what I can tell, it looks like MS want their idea to be the standard, yet they also want their idea to be one that you have to pay for a license to use.
Basically having what everyone uses and getting paid for it. Plus if, as it seems, the license is incompatible with F/OSS MTAs then suddenly any non-commercial offering has a damn hard time competing with "what everyone else uses".
It's like MP3 or ISO-MPEG4. Both are, I believe, published standards. Both also require a license to use. Which is why some Linux distros have issues with supporting MP3 out of the box (trivial to fix, but still requires post-installation steps), or that XViD (at last check) would only distribute source and not binaries from their official site.
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Same with regular saving. It doesn't matter how often you save, there's always the chance that it will be just after you've done something tricky or long-winded that the computer crashes or there's a power failure. If anything it's all the more annoying when that happens, as losing data that you were just about to save just makes you feel like the subject of a bad cosmic joke.
Data journalling in applications actually does seem like a good idea. Plus a better (and more consistent) way of falgging whether your currently open file has been modified or not would be nice. Especially when some applications don't flag up at all when you've exported to an non-native filetype. An at-a-glance way of seeing whether it's been saved, exported, modified or untouched would be so useful.
And this is the problem and why MS are going to have a hard time trying to crack down on any attempts to stop Linux being able to run WMV.
Thanks to the "marvel" of Windows Movie Maker people with Windows XP can create these files from their Home PC without needing to either shell out on over-expensive software (except maybe Windows XP) or use pirate software (again, except maybe Windows XP). Unless there's a way of getting Windows Movie Maker to use other codecs then there is going to be more and more home content that will be open by nature but closed by implementation.
And unless there's a decent free alternative (which I'd like to know about, too) for editing video on Windows I can't think of any way of persuading these people to use formats that can be easily read elsewhere - hence needing to use what's unfortunately not a legal implementation just to play the stuff back.
My guess would be that the poster got them converted by a company that automatically uses CSS when moving VHS to DVD format. I'm not sure why companies would do this, but there's always the chance that one does.
It does to me - at least for those who've spent money on a CD that won't do what they paid for without jumping through extra hoops. I have no interest in HL2 anyway, but I certainly do not believe that compulsary activation for single-player mode is in any way good or justifiable.
Once you've bought the CD/DVD from the shop it should be as simple as...
- Run installation program
- Go grab a drink whilst files copy
- Run game.
With no other steps necessary - except maybe downloading subsequent patches. But not downloading key components purposefully excluded from the purchased CD. And not sitting in a queue of several thousand other people at the same time who all simply want to play what they've paid to play.It's getting like the game publishers don't get why people choose certain options at install-time.
"Full Install" - If people wanted to have to put any CD in the drive they'd not have chosen the Full Install now, would they? But no, games publishers allow us to copy all files onto the local machine, then force us to still run from the CD - or download a crack from those "pirates" who these obstacles were supposed to stop.
But the simple fact remains that people buy games to play. And making people wait to download or authenticate when they've purchased a bosed product is simply not on.
I do. I'm running Fedora Core 1 (FC1 had issues with my hardware, and I'm giving FC3 a month or so before installing) and don't yet feel confident enough to risk using a non-stock kernel.
The only reason I'm not is because the old box I used as a fiileserver, gateway/firewall and testing webserver suffered terminal hard-drive failure a few months ago. Had that not happened it'd still be running, as even on 2.2.x it did what it needed to do.
Well in the updates to the interview that was previously mentioned here they do state that it's to do with the IP involved.
Plus the real issue probably isn't with the driver developers, probably more to do with management or even with IP lawyers.
Also it matters very little as to whether the trade secrets really need to be kept secret. I suspect that someone in their legal (or financial) department is saying that stuff "like opcodes and register addresses" are things that they can't release for free - even though that's information that they do own. And, sadly, they're the ones whose decisions tend to stick.
Yes, it sucks. But unfortunately big businesses still like to play the "Intellectual Property" game. Until that changes (Soon, please God, soon) then we're stuck with things happening this way.
I think that the message-pane is part of the IE-only code. As far as I know Exchange actually sends the data to the browser dependent on the browser itself, so the lack of pane in server-side not browser side from what I can tell. Which is a shame, as it's how I prefer to read my email.
I've not used Opera so I can't say for certain, but it might be the User Agent settings. Do you have it set to report as IE, by any chance?
I ask because I tried the same in Firefox a while back. I got it to report as IE so it could view the IE-only-but-probably-aren't sites out there. And it really messed up on Outlook Web Access.
OWA seems to use the UA string to decide which version of the page to send out. And the IE-specific version seems to be really IE-specific. I seem to remember it basically throwing out a page full of error messages. This is a shame, as being stuck using it I find that only the IE-specific version of OWA works the way I want it to, so I'm stuck using IE as a mail-client. (I'd rather use Thunderbird, or even OE, but we off-site people are stuck using a damned webmail interface)
But all of this isn't really a problem with Firefox or Opera, more a "feature" of Exchange's webmail.
I'm not sure they're "out of the running" per se, but I do think that the advertising issue does work against them.
I know that one of the main reasons I stopped using Opera a few years ago was that it had this stupid advertising banner at the top. There was a reason I was after a free browser, and it was that (especially back then) I had very little money available. So not only would/could I not pay for Opera, the advertising was completely lost on me as I wasn't wanting to spend money on much else either.
I've never understood why people think advertising at me is going to work if I've already decided I don't want to spend money on a product. More often than not it's just sent me to the competition.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that. And I know full well that many Opera users simply used cracks to get rid of the advertising. I didn't bother, as by then I had found Mozilla which had no ad-banners from the get-go.
I know a lot of people still use Opera, though, so they prboably are still in ther running. However with Firefox both improving and gaining mindshare I'd say that Opera really need to work hard in the coming times.
I don't agree with him, and I don't think his answers tell the whole story (besides, the anti-IE ones don't exactly tell the whole story either), but they don't stop his points being valid.
Up to a point I think he's right. OK, I admit I'd debate the "any less secure" statement, but I do agree that a major part of it is that IE is still so common so it's an easier target.
Though I certainly get the feeling that MS might well be counting the definitive version of Internet Explorer as being IE6 under XP SP2. And that is more secure - just not necessarily the major version of IE being used quite yet.
He also (undurprisingly) doesn't touch on the issue that IE bugs reach further than simply IE. "This bug affects you even if Internet Explorer is not your default browser" always irritates me no end. If I'm not using it then why should the flaw still matter? But the "integration" with Windows is the problem in this case. And if there's a flaw and no current patch you can't even uninstall the software until an update version comes out.
So regadless of the quantity of issues, the nature of the IE flaws is totally different.
This is another point. There aren't a great deal of features that customers "want" that would attract them to switch. Firefox's real strength (in my opinion) is that it has features you that you never thought about, but that keep you from switching back
Up until recently not many non-geeks had probably heard of it, except maybe mentioned by a geek-type. But it's starting to be mentioned more and more in the media, so MS are understandably wanting to stop people making the initial switch.
Besides, many Windows users simply equate "The Internet" with "Internet Explorer" - or, more likely, with "The Blue e Icon". They're not looking for anything different because they don't even know that there are alternatives.
The real danger for those of us interested in the non-IE alternatives is to dismiss anything that comes from MS. Just because they don't say things the way we see them doesn't mean that their poitns don't have merit. Plus we do have to see things from their perspective to be able to validly counter their claims. Because the "M$ are fulla BS" approach isn't really going to get people interested in alternatives. But a reasoned argument about why a Microsoft statement doesn't tell the whole truth might at least get someone to listen.
I think this is an important factor, both in the US and anywhere else. Once a significant amount of people believe that an election result was inaccurate (whether through being rigged, or simple mass problems) then up to a point it doesn't actually matter whether it was rigged or not. Whether the result is the correct one or not, as soon as there's a significant amount of doubt then it's as good (bad) as if the result was actually rigged. People lose confidence in the result, even if it is the correct one. And I'm sure that that's not a good thing.
Exactly. Like it or not Bush probably was the legitimate winner. The problem about the exact numbers and lack of verification, however, is an issue that needs looking at in case it's not so clear cut in the future. This time it looks like the errors wouldn't have affected the outcome. What about next time?
Plus this issue goes a lot wider as soon as you realise that more and more places are going to want to try electronic voting in the coming years. I've read that about 30% of precints used some sort of e-voting. So what about then it's 50%+? 100%? And in other countries all over the world? If the majority of the world's voting ever goes electronic I'd sure hope that all these issues were dealt with.
I don't know about lying but I also wouldn't tell exit polls. For one thing it's no-one's business except mine and those who count the votes who I vote for. Secondly I rarely tell people I know how I voted until well after an election, even friends and family. Thisdly if people ask me questions out in the street I habitually don't answer. Doesn't matter whether I'm coming out of a shop or a poll booth, my business is my own.
Finally someone who sees this point. I've seen lots of "This proves the vote was rigged pro-Bush" and lots of "It wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome" over the past few days. And although certainly an issue it's far from the issue at hand.
OK, so if (and I'm saying "if" as I have no way of knowing one way or the other) the machines had miscounted in Bush's favour this would not be a good thing. But the real issue isn't in whose favour the errors occured, it's that there seem to be an increasing amount of them becoming apparent.
Exactly. If e-voting was used here in the UK I'd be worried about errors regardless of whether my chosen candidate/party (or even the perceived popular one) won or lost. Even if it's a result you wish for it's useless unless you can be confident that the results are being counted properly. I'd certainly want the vistor (whoever it was) to have won "beyond reasonable doubt".
Heck, right now if I was a pro-Bush American voter I'd be worried about these reports for much the same reasons. With all of this doubt flying around I'd want to be able to point to a verified recount to disprove the people suggesting untoward happenings.
Whether you're on the winning or losing side a verifiable paper trail is necessary. If things do go wrong then it is in both sides' best interests to be sure of the true result.
Yes, primarily the problem was with the machines. But when a machine does throw up a glitch that should have been picked up in testing, but wasn't, then the operators do have to pay attention.
And that's where the primary worry comes in. Whether by accident, incompetence or malice these errors do occur from time to time, and slip through the testing net. The problem itself doesn't lie with the operators, true, but vigilance should be exercised from start to finish with machines put to such a task as an election.
Through CS lectures to IT Support one thing I've learned is that "perfect reliability" is a great goal but a hard one to acheive. And with something like voting machines every level up to and including the operators needs to be alert on the off-chance that a bug did escape the previous stage.
OK, this particular bug is so major it should have been picked up way before the systems went live. As you say it was either gross incompetence or an act of malice. The cause of the problem isn't with the operators, but if e-voting is used more and more (as it probably will) then even the operators must be alert. Even for the bugs that, by rights, should have got nowhere near a live machine.
I'm not sure that would work so well in a film. Certainly I don't think that the more casual viewer would find it quite so interesting.
I've seen that kind of scene before. Subtle tests of power, or even just two opponents facing off, unmoving, playing out possibilities before finally committing to an attack. It does work well, but it was in a TV series where it doesn't take up so much of the overall time in comparison.
Unfortunately in a film it wouldn't necessarily be quite so effective. Especially in a cinema, as these kinds of encounters rarely happen near the beginning of the film. So you'd get two characters standing still, nothing major visibly happening, and the effects of a cinema-size bucket of cola making it's effects known...
Unfortunately, flashy fights do grab your attention. They're also more likely to get more bums on seats, more word of mouth, even more heated discussion if it comes down to it.
It's all-but-inevitable that he will use one though. And for the same reasons I think. Although from a pure-story point of view the strongest show of power is never having to actually use it, from a Movie point of view that simply doesn't always work. People want to see people use their powers.
Besides, even if he does then just think about it. In a total of six films (well, five he's visibly in) Palpatine will have only drawn a lightsaber once. Yet still had been basically the Big Bad of the entire saga.
I remember seeing this discussed on /. a year or so ago. People thinking that Yoda was "stronger" or "above" needing to fight the way he did. One problem with this would be that if he really could be all-but-unstoppable using the Force then how come everything still went pear-shaped?
I think the best theory I saw here was that, for one thing, this is a somewhat younger Yoda. Possibly something occured between AoTC and ESB that turn him against thinking that fighting is always an answer - quite possibly the events concerning Anakin's turning to Vader. Ep2 Yoda isn't the same as Ep5 Yoda. He's younger. He's one of many many Jedi. Realisation about the Sith threat is still relatively new. In ESB he was tired, in hiding and quite possibly a bit jaded. Something had obviously changed him, and with the very large turnaround in the "World Order" it's a rather believable change.
Also remember that Yoda didn't pull out his lightsaber until he'd tried other methods first. He only drew his weapon as a last resort - which still seems a very Yoda thing to me.
In this case the /. summary (at least) isn't implying that the lost votes would have changed who won. And that's not really the issue in hand.
No, regardless of whether the votes would have made a difference or not it's bloody worrying that such an error was overlooked. If these machines become more and more used and the operators ignore messages like this routinely then next time (whether in the US, UK, or anywhere else) it might well be a significant difference lost.
Why do they (only) do it that way? Is there any real technical reason why they can't have a "Reindex Database" function in the menus on the unit itself? Even if only as an alternative method to using the software.
Seeing that many units these days just register as a USB mass-storage drive then I can't understand why they make you use a seperate utility to copy files across.
The Unit which allows this (as well as Ogg Vorbis support) it the one that's most likely to get my money. Although shipping with an official Linux client would definitely be a close second. But that's what's holding me back from buying any player at the moment. No officially=supported way of running under Linux.
Not entirely. Some of use use GIMP 'cos we're cheap but still want a legit solution.
Granted I'm more about Free software now than when I started with the GIMP, but I mainly use it as it doesn't cost anything and it's legitimately so and it's cross-platform.
Not everyone who uses Free software is (initially) altruistic. More that not everyone who is cheap believes in using a dodgy copy.
Using a 'phone isn't as trivial for everyone as most people think. Although I doubt the grandparent poster is in this category there are people out there for whom making a non-personal 'phone-call is a heck of a trial.
I get anxiety attacks sometimes trying to make phone-calls. To me that's more than enough for me to never buy software that requires phone-activation. I'm not paying for something that ensures me having to work myself into a right state merely to use what I've legitimately paid for.
No definitely not "simple" in my case. And I know that my anxiety issues are minor compared to some. And my experience with any phone-support line tends to suggest it wouldn't be "quick" either.
Plus, anxiety issues or not, why should someone have to phone up to validate something they've paid (usually a lot of) money for just because they've chosen/needed to change the hardware several times?
Once you've bought it the software's still legal. You shouldn't have to go out of your way so that the company you've already paid can "allow" you to get what you paid for.
Well yeah, but it's also (unfortunately) not quite that simple. If there really was no way of running an unlicensed version of MS Office then although there would be a jump in OOo installations there'd probably also be a jump in legitimate MS Office purchases. And the latter would simply be for maximum compatibility. Even if it's just a single copy to tidy up files at their end before sending them out. So not everyone would replace all wrong-licensed copies with OOo.
Unfortunately the biggest hangups with OpenOffice are probably still due to not-quite-perfect compatibility with MS Office formats. Word Documents exported from Writer still have a tendancy to not always display quite right, and vice-versa. Exporting PowerPoint files from OOo is also interesting, as some things simply don't survive the export process - which is fun when trying to create presentations without an actual copy of PowerPoint - although the free Viewer is dead useful for seeing which bits don't work. Also saving out to a non-native format is a pain, and (obviously) MS Office doesn't recognise OOo's formats.
Sadly it seems like the real thing stopping OpenOffice from jumping ahead lies in Microsoft's hands. If they'd publish fully Open format specs and include OOo files in the list of importable file-formats then their effort would probably lose them a lot of sales as many people would jump ship without losing compatibility.
As much as they hate it, organisations using pirate copies are still in their benefit - although they'd obviously rather they were purchased copies. As if one small company might not be able to afford legit copies of Office it's still a company generating files that other people (with enough money) might want to open.
But this is probably why they will never open the specs to their file formats if they can possibly help it. If they wish to stamp out piracy of their products they have to ensure that there's no cheap/free alternative for organisations or individuals who wish to be fully compatible with Office-format files will ditch them as soon as possible.
I'd say it's not exactly "the trouble with" the BSD license, more an issue with it. Some coders obviously don't mind that a commercial derivative can be made that might contain their contributions, and that's up to them.
On the one hand (and for some coders) it could well be seen as a weakness in the license. But, to play Devil's Advocate, it can easily also play out as a strength. There are companies out there who, like it or not, will not sue a strong copyleft license. There's no way that every software house out there is going to be comfortable with having to release any and all modifications to code they used for a product. However if they can modify some code under a BSD-style and keep some parts to themselves there's still a good chance of them coming up with something interoperable with other systems.
I think that both types of license are vital, certainly at the moment. Both have their pros and their cons. I like the idea behind the GPL and like that it legally guarantees that people can't derive a closed product from a GPL project. I also think the BSD license has one major thing going for it. You don't have to contribute back. But many people, and companies, do just that. (e.g. Apple seem to share their Darwin changes back with the BSD community) True these companies might not release everything but they don't technically have to release anything, yet they still choose to. And it's probably an ideal language for when you can't take an "all or nothing" approach to releasing your code.
Plus although I guess that such modifications are released because it's in their own best interests (i.e. if someone else can tweak one of their mods then they don't have to) it's nice that they consider sharing many of their changes rather than keeping all their work secret being in their best interests. It might only be a small step forward, but it's probably a significant one.
The Halifax ATMs switched to Windows (either NT4 or 2K, can't remember which) a couple years back. I remember watching some install script or other run on one of the machines one day. Wasn't really impressed, as personally it's a little worrying - I'll use Windows where necessary but think it's overkill for dedicated systems which end up with unnecessary cruft still running somewhere. (Unless MS really do release versions of Windows with no Web/Email/Media software force-installed)
Now we have cashpoints with colour screens that are really pretty but basically do exactly the same job as the old ones did. The significant differences are probably behind the scenes, and I have to say I'm a little wary of it running Windows behind it all.
Having said all of that, despite my personal opinions of Windows in mission-critical systems I've never seen an ATM with a BSOD, never seen a Windows-releated crash/error message and never really had any other problems than the standard out of specific-denomination/printer-paper/etc difficulties that are totally OS-independant.
This latest news is a little worrying, but really just an extension of it. As long, though, as the ATM IP-network is totally physically seperate from the actual Internet (and I'm reasonaly certain it will be seperate) then it's as safe as any network (WIndows or otherwise) can be.
Besides if they were silly enough to actually put them live on the Internet then even running a more secure OS woudn't be secure enough.
"Management Decision", probably. Managers (even some Tech Managers) do seem to like Windows. They're heard of it, they know it "works", and it probably comes with a good support package.
I guess that it doesn't matter how less prone your system is to crashing, the management (understandably) won't want to risk that one crash being something that can't get-fixed/assign-blame. Enterprise-level Linux distros are definitely getting there, but unless they also have Enterprise-level software available for them with similar support then Windows is going to be the way forward for the time being. 'Cos if the only available current ATM software runs on Windows then banks are going to go with it.
From what I can tell, it looks like MS want their idea to be the standard, yet they also want their idea to be one that you have to pay for a license to use.
Basically having what everyone uses and getting paid for it. Plus if, as it seems, the license is incompatible with F/OSS MTAs then suddenly any non-commercial offering has a damn hard time competing with "what everyone else uses".
It's like MP3 or ISO-MPEG4. Both are, I believe, published standards. Both also require a license to use. Which is why some Linux distros have issues with supporting MP3 out of the box (trivial to fix, but still requires post-installation steps), or that XViD (at last check) would only distribute source and not binaries from their official site.