MS supports running Linux on Virtual Server 2005 R2......though I have no idea how well it works.
It seems to work just as well as VMWare Server, although admittedly I didn't do much with it as I was just seeing if Ubuntu would install and run. I can't compare it with ESX as we won't be getting that until the summer, but I'm not sure that would be a fair comparison anyway. Comparing ESX and the virtualisation in Longhorn would be fairer. I wouldn't be surprised if the first version works reasonably well, but I know that VMWare will have something to worry about in the long run.
So what's bad for the consumer here? Companies still in business making a profit, or killing off all the companies until the one remaining LCD maker can charge the earth for them?
Or more to the point, not being pressured by competition to provide better products. Personally I'd rather have to pay a little more and have a choice of manufacturers, than pay less and get stuck with only one. I can't see how that would benefit consumers in the long run.
If you can't handcode an iptables rule (including new chains) you don't deserve to have a Linux firewall, goddamn it.
Spoken like a true computer scientist. I know, I used to be one. You see, the problem is you're spending too much time getting excited about the solution and not enough time looking at the problem.
It certainly doesn't hurt to have an understanding of the underlying mechanics of Linux based firewalls, but it shouldn't have to be a prerequisite of solving your problem. I've been a Linux user for 10+ years and I use IPCop at home. I'm familiar enough with iptables to solve any problems I might encounter, but I'm not interested in any more than that. I actually want to use my computers as tools, rather than spending all my time figuring out how to do something which should be easy.
Would you recommend every motorist should be able to strip their engine down and rebuild it? It just isn't feasible, or sensible.
I think you misunderstood the original post. I believe the point he was making was corporations are using Apache left right and centre, but very few of them are giving anything back (bar bug reports, and probably not even much of that). They are harnessing the benefit of the developers work, and not having to pay anything for it. That's the nature of open source though. I'm not saying it's good or bad.
At MS he was the dictator, what he said went and anybody who questioned him could be canned.
I find that highly unlikely. You don't get to be in Bill's position without having a good understanding and working relationship with the people around you. Yes, I'm sure he has ignored advice given by his staff and gone his own way on numerous occasions. However, to think that he ignores their comments completely would be idiotic. He knows when to listen to advice, and more importantly, when to follow it. As a non-American, I'm quite intrigued by the idea of his running.
This in a nutshell is why people continue to happily use Microsoft software. It just works for most people. Now, you can with a bit fiddling get something like this setup in Linux, but install Exchange and use Outlook and it becomes a doddle. We switched from using IMAP and a crufty Webmail setup to Exchange and are now far more productive.
This the biggest problem facing the open source community as I see it. Very few groups are taking a step back to look at the big picture, to solve the big problems. Yes, most of what you can do in Windows you can do in Linux, but sometimes it takes a great deal of effort to put all the pieces together, and for many companies it's far easier, quicker and cheaper to just pay for off the shelf software to do all the hard work for you.
And before someone jumps in with the whole security and virus argument, it just doesn't wash. It's disturbingly easy to keep a secure Windows network with a decent firewall and some centrally managed anti-virus. We've been doing it for years with no problems whatsoever.
As a long time (10+ years) Linux user, I'm hugely impressed with how things have changed for the better, especially in the last few years. Things are improving constantly. It just has so much further to go before it's a viable alternative to Microsoft's offerings for most businesses.
Well, it's not a bank per se, but the London Stock Exchange recently converted to SQL Server. As far as I know, there have been no major problems. No doubt they had a team of Microsoft guys on site for months before they threw the switch, but then with a job that big you'd need to.
I'm going to assume a great deal of the bitterness towards SQL Server on here is just because it's Microsoft. However, it has its roots in Sybase, which when I used it several years back I found to be very good. We've not had any problems with SQL Server at my current workplace either. My experience of Oracle is one I'm happy to forget, but I recognise its great versatility. Just a shame you have to pay through the nose for it.
Could somebody explain to me why so many US houses seem to be built of wood? Why not use concrete, mortar, brick and tile, like we do over here in the UK? Is this a cost thing? Lack of resources? Everytime I see hurricanes on the news I'm still baffled why you keep putting glorified sheds (shacks) bang smack in the way of mother nature. It just seems dumb.
And having to click the arrow in MS Office everytime I want to access a menu item I haven't used in the last 2 minutes is the worst invention
I'm in total agreement there. The first thing I do is turn that off. That's what options and preferences are for. My colleague however thinks it's very useful. He thinks you need to be a regular user of Office to get the "benefit" of it, and like you, I'm not.
My main grumble about OpenOffice is the godawful widget set they've created. If they switch to either Gtk or Qt it would improve usability no end. At the very least the fonts will be usable and scale in the same manner as all of my other programs.
Do you want to be in Microsoft's shadow? Are you an "almost as good" substitute for MS, or are you actually better? Do you have origional ideas?
The problem with this is Microsoft have a huge budget and endless resources to develop these new ideas. On the flip side, while the "open source community" can probably outdo Microsoft in terms of developer numbers, there is no effectve way of mobilising that "workforce" towards a common goal. Even Sun has been unable to create a usable GUI for Openoffice. It sucks terribly in comparison with MS Office.
I'll be the first to cheer when someone comes up with a more usable interface. I won't be holding my breath though.
Don't be so quick to dismiss Microsoft's effort. They will have done a huge amount of usability testing before release. Personally I quite like the new ribbon design, and especially like the little fade-in popup when you select text. Minmize the ribbon and you have a very clear and uncluttered interface.
A book? on CSS? Why? Do you often find yourself writing CSS without Internet access?
Some people (myself included) just like to sit back and read a book to give themselves some familiarity with the problems before they get down to doing the actual work. This is especially true of a cookbook, which is less of a reference than a source of neat ideas.
And if these guys were real CSS gurus, they would have written their book in XML and CSS and used Prince to convert it and then open sourced the book code.
I can't tell if you're being facetious, or you're just a prat. I fail to see why after having writen a book the author should be expected to give away that work.
How do these things work on different ring mains? Given that the first floor of my house is on a different ring main (not unusual obviously) to the ground floor, how would I be able to communicate between them? The fusebox is the only place they come together. Can the RF make the jump between them?
I was reffering to the offers from Carphone Warehouse, Orange, SKY, NTL and a few others. They are usually free if you sign up to whatever other service they offer for the same price they used to charge for that on its own.
See here for some of the problems Carphone Warehouse are having. The marketing is good, but when you dig a little deeper things are not always as they appear. My Dad was told he could receive free Sky broadband, but when he went to order, they wanted 17.99 a month for it. Seems the free broadband wasn't in his area yet, not that that stopped them from encouraging him to order it.
And how come you are still on 512K? I didn't think anyone sold those accounts anymore as even the crappy old BT network supports 1Meg ADSL. Try speaking to you ISP and they might give a you a free upgrade if you threaten to switch.
I was on a fixed rate 1mbit line. I switched to the rate adaptive and it's dropped to around 512K. I'm in the process of trying to get that sorted, but I'm not ever going to get anything more than 1mbit with current technology. No LLU here yet.
The reason it is so slow on Janet (UK Accademic Network) is because of all the other students downloading Pr0n
No, we're not even close to saturating our 100 mbit line. I admin the network here so I keep a pretty close eye on traffic.
Here in the UK slashdot is near instantaneous over 24 Megabit ADSL. 2 Megabit ADSL accounts are given away for free in the UK now with most phone connections. The slowest account people actually pay money for is 8 Megabit ADSL.
What?! What?!!!! If you're referring to the offers from people like Carphone Warehouse, it's far from free. Virtually everyone is still paying for their ADSL. And I'm paying for mine, which is currently running at 512K, because thats all the line supports. 8Mbit/s is just a dream until BT upgrade to their 21 Century Network (yeah, good luck with that). Maybe if you're living in London you have more options open to you, but the rest of the country is still far behind that.
And FYI, I'm on a 100mbit JANET connection and Slashdot is far from instantaneous. Personally, I think you're talking out of your arse.
Thanks. I actually spent some time thinking about and typing in that response rather than rushing in and disagreeing with you for the hell of it. Luckily it was a slow afternoon at work;)
Comments like yours are the reason I read Slashdot. Despite the flood of crap that generally goes with every article, there's always a few decent comments to provoke some lively and interesting discussion. But I'm guessing this thread is now boring the pants off everyone else, so I'm off...:)
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The problem with DRM when applied to media, especially music, is that it is a technical "solution" to a social problem. However, there are a number of small artists who have their work ripped off and lose a substantial amount of revenue because of it. If we lived in a society in which everybody paid for their right to use a copy of this media, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, we don't.
I agree that in terms of fair use it has a number of problems, and of course unless this stuff is made available in a non DRM'd format when the copyright expires, it's essentially still copyrighted. I'm not sure how to solve that to be honest.
Until there is a significant change in both how we as consumers view artists work, and how they (and more importantly the big media companies who represent them) view us, I don't see things changing for the better.
Ultimately, you can just say fuck you, I'm not buying your DRM'd media. If you're in the majority, things may change for the better. If not, I'm afraid you're stuck with it.
No, it's not. It's a perfectly sensible and potentially useful technology. The way it's been [ab]used by the Music and Movie industry leaves a considerable amount to be desired, but that does not make the idea of protecting your data a bad one. Even if you think e.g. music should be freely copyable, I can't see how you could claim the same for the financial reports of a business. The ability to restrict when, where and how a piece of data is used is a perfectly valid one.
I wish people would open their eyes a little to the wider world in which we live, and maybe see things from someone else's perspective for a change.
Quite frankly I hate having to wear it myself, but it's the law here, so... no choice.
So, if it wasn't the law, you'd choose not to wear it? I can't even begin to imagine why you'd not want to. There is absolutely no way on earth I would drive or be a passenger in a car without wearing a seatbelt.
This wiki should answer that question for you. I've been using Edgy for a few weeks and I can certainly say that startup feels a lot faster. Whether it actually is faster is I'm not sure, I've never timed it, but perception is just as important as hard figures.
Actually, Brent Spiner wanted that to be his last appearance as Data, as he felt he was getting to old to play a character that doesn't age. Which he was, to be fair.
one could make the case that the internet allows users to waste their time more... um... efficiently (snicker)
While I didn't miss the humour there, I think there is more than a grain of truth to that statement. At least if they are surfing websites they are at their desk. If the phone rings, or someone walks over to discuss something they can stop what they're doing and get straight back to work. If they've sneaked off somewhere to read a magazine/have a smoke/whatever, they're not immediately available.
Ultimately, as many people have pointed out, people need downtime. I don't think browsing porn (at work!) is a good thing, but I have no problem with someone checking their email or doing a quick bit of online shopping. As with everything, moderation is the key.
Like I said, HCI is the problem. The difference is a PDA sized device is more or less usable for interactive programs, whereas most smartphones I've seen so far are still phone sized devices. The screen is tiny and the keypad is useless for any significant amount of text input. Couple a wireless headset with a PDA with phone capablities and you have your smart phone, but at a useful PDA size.
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It seems to work just as well as VMWare Server, although admittedly I didn't do much with it as I was just seeing if Ubuntu would install and run. I can't compare it with ESX as we won't be getting that until the summer, but I'm not sure that would be a fair comparison anyway. Comparing ESX and the virtualisation in Longhorn would be fairer. I wouldn't be surprised if the first version works reasonably well, but I know that VMWare will have something to worry about in the long run.
Glad I'm not an American consumer then. Or American, come to that.
Or more to the point, not being pressured by competition to provide better products. Personally I'd rather have to pay a little more and have a choice of manufacturers, than pay less and get stuck with only one. I can't see how that would benefit consumers in the long run.
Spoken like a true computer scientist. I know, I used to be one. You see, the problem is you're spending too much time getting excited about the solution and not enough time looking at the problem.
It certainly doesn't hurt to have an understanding of the underlying mechanics of Linux based firewalls, but it shouldn't have to be a prerequisite of solving your problem. I've been a Linux user for 10+ years and I use IPCop at home. I'm familiar enough with iptables to solve any problems I might encounter, but I'm not interested in any more than that. I actually want to use my computers as tools, rather than spending all my time figuring out how to do something which should be easy.
Would you recommend every motorist should be able to strip their engine down and rebuild it? It just isn't feasible, or sensible.
I think you misunderstood the original post. I believe the point he was making was corporations are using Apache left right and centre, but very few of them are giving anything back (bar bug reports, and probably not even much of that). They are harnessing the benefit of the developers work, and not having to pay anything for it. That's the nature of open source though. I'm not saying it's good or bad.
I find that highly unlikely. You don't get to be in Bill's position without having a good understanding and working relationship with the people around you. Yes, I'm sure he has ignored advice given by his staff and gone his own way on numerous occasions. However, to think that he ignores their comments completely would be idiotic. He knows when to listen to advice, and more importantly, when to follow it. As a non-American, I'm quite intrigued by the idea of his running.
This in a nutshell is why people continue to happily use Microsoft software. It just works for most people. Now, you can with a bit fiddling get something like this setup in Linux, but install Exchange and use Outlook and it becomes a doddle. We switched from using IMAP and a crufty Webmail setup to Exchange and are now far more productive.
This the biggest problem facing the open source community as I see it. Very few groups are taking a step back to look at the big picture, to solve the big problems. Yes, most of what you can do in Windows you can do in Linux, but sometimes it takes a great deal of effort to put all the pieces together, and for many companies it's far easier, quicker and cheaper to just pay for off the shelf software to do all the hard work for you.
And before someone jumps in with the whole security and virus argument, it just doesn't wash. It's disturbingly easy to keep a secure Windows network with a decent firewall and some centrally managed anti-virus. We've been doing it for years with no problems whatsoever.
As a long time (10+ years) Linux user, I'm hugely impressed with how things have changed for the better, especially in the last few years. Things are improving constantly. It just has so much further to go before it's a viable alternative to Microsoft's offerings for most businesses.
Well, it's not a bank per se, but the London Stock Exchange recently converted to SQL Server. As far as I know, there have been no major problems. No doubt they had a team of Microsoft guys on site for months before they threw the switch, but then with a job that big you'd need to.
I'm going to assume a great deal of the bitterness towards SQL Server on here is just because it's Microsoft. However, it has its roots in Sybase, which when I used it several years back I found to be very good. We've not had any problems with SQL Server at my current workplace either. My experience of Oracle is one I'm happy to forget, but I recognise its great versatility. Just a shame you have to pay through the nose for it.
Could somebody explain to me why so many US houses seem to be built of wood? Why not use concrete, mortar, brick and tile, like we do over here in the UK? Is this a cost thing? Lack of resources? Everytime I see hurricanes on the news I'm still baffled why you keep putting glorified sheds (shacks) bang smack in the way of mother nature. It just seems dumb.
I'm in total agreement there. The first thing I do is turn that off. That's what options and preferences are for. My colleague however thinks it's very useful. He thinks you need to be a regular user of Office to get the "benefit" of it, and like you, I'm not.
My main grumble about OpenOffice is the godawful widget set they've created. If they switch to either Gtk or Qt it would improve usability no end. At the very least the fonts will be usable and scale in the same manner as all of my other programs.
The problem with this is Microsoft have a huge budget and endless resources to develop these new ideas. On the flip side, while the "open source community" can probably outdo Microsoft in terms of developer numbers, there is no effectve way of mobilising that "workforce" towards a common goal. Even Sun has been unable to create a usable GUI for Openoffice. It sucks terribly in comparison with MS Office.
I'll be the first to cheer when someone comes up with a more usable interface. I won't be holding my breath though.
Don't be so quick to dismiss Microsoft's effort. They will have done a huge amount of usability testing before release. Personally I quite like the new ribbon design, and especially like the little fade-in popup when you select text. Minmize the ribbon and you have a very clear and uncluttered interface.
Some people (myself included) just like to sit back and read a book to give themselves some familiarity with the problems before they get down to doing the actual work. This is especially true of a cookbook, which is less of a reference than a source of neat ideas.
I can't tell if you're being facetious, or you're just a prat. I fail to see why after having writen a book the author should be expected to give away that work.
Good point, hadn't thought about the meter. Thanks :)
How do these things work on different ring mains? Given that the first floor of my house is on a different ring main (not unusual obviously) to the ground floor, how would I be able to communicate between them? The fusebox is the only place they come together. Can the RF make the jump between them?
See here for some of the problems Carphone Warehouse are having. The marketing is good, but when you dig a little deeper things are not always as they appear. My Dad was told he could receive free Sky broadband, but when he went to order, they wanted 17.99 a month for it. Seems the free broadband wasn't in his area yet, not that that stopped them from encouraging him to order it.
I was on a fixed rate 1mbit line. I switched to the rate adaptive and it's dropped to around 512K. I'm in the process of trying to get that sorted, but I'm not ever going to get anything more than 1mbit with current technology. No LLU here yet.
No, we're not even close to saturating our 100 mbit line. I admin the network here so I keep a pretty close eye on traffic.
What?! What?!!!! If you're referring to the offers from people like Carphone Warehouse, it's far from free. Virtually everyone is still paying for their ADSL. And I'm paying for mine, which is currently running at 512K, because thats all the line supports. 8Mbit/s is just a dream until BT upgrade to their 21 Century Network (yeah, good luck with that). Maybe if you're living in London you have more options open to you, but the rest of the country is still far behind that.
And FYI, I'm on a 100mbit JANET connection and Slashdot is far from instantaneous. Personally, I think you're talking out of your arse.
Thanks. I actually spent some time thinking about and typing in that response rather than rushing in and disagreeing with you for the hell of it. Luckily it was a slow afternoon at work ;)
:)
Comments like yours are the reason I read Slashdot. Despite the flood of crap that generally goes with every article, there's always a few decent comments to provoke some lively and interesting discussion. But I'm guessing this thread is now boring the pants off everyone else, so I'm off...
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. The problem with DRM when applied to media, especially music, is that it is a technical "solution" to a social problem. However, there are a number of small artists who have their work ripped off and lose a substantial amount of revenue because of it. If we lived in a society in which everybody paid for their right to use a copy of this media, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, we don't.
I agree that in terms of fair use it has a number of problems, and of course unless this stuff is made available in a non DRM'd format when the copyright expires, it's essentially still copyrighted. I'm not sure how to solve that to be honest.
Until there is a significant change in both how we as consumers view artists work, and how they (and more importantly the big media companies who represent them) view us, I don't see things changing for the better.
Ultimately, you can just say fuck you, I'm not buying your DRM'd media. If you're in the majority, things may change for the better. If not, I'm afraid you're stuck with it.
No, it's not. It's a perfectly sensible and potentially useful technology. The way it's been [ab]used by the Music and Movie industry leaves a considerable amount to be desired, but that does not make the idea of protecting your data a bad one. Even if you think e.g. music should be freely copyable, I can't see how you could claim the same for the financial reports of a business. The ability to restrict when, where and how a piece of data is used is a perfectly valid one.
I wish people would open their eyes a little to the wider world in which we live, and maybe see things from someone else's perspective for a change.
So, if it wasn't the law, you'd choose not to wear it? I can't even begin to imagine why you'd not want to. There is absolutely no way on earth I would drive or be a passenger in a car without wearing a seatbelt.
This wiki should answer that question for you. I've been using Edgy for a few weeks and I can certainly say that startup feels a lot faster. Whether it actually is faster is I'm not sure, I've never timed it, but perception is just as important as hard figures.
Actually, Brent Spiner wanted that to be his last appearance as Data, as he felt he was getting to old to play a character that doesn't age. Which he was, to be fair.
While I didn't miss the humour there, I think there is more than a grain of truth to that statement. At least if they are surfing websites they are at their desk. If the phone rings, or someone walks over to discuss something they can stop what they're doing and get straight back to work. If they've sneaked off somewhere to read a magazine/have a smoke/whatever, they're not immediately available.
Ultimately, as many people have pointed out, people need downtime. I don't think browsing porn (at work!) is a good thing, but I have no problem with someone checking their email or doing a quick bit of online shopping. As with everything, moderation is the key.
Like I said, HCI is the problem. The difference is a PDA sized device is more or less usable for interactive programs, whereas most smartphones I've seen so far are still phone sized devices. The screen is tiny and the keypad is useless for any significant amount of text input. Couple a wireless headset with a PDA with phone capablities and you have your smart phone, but at a useful PDA size.
The rest of the world would like to know too, so we can have some appropriate form of celebration... :)