Use a higher level orchestration platform that's cloud/hypervisor agnostic. As fast as IaaS are evolving, the only thing certain is that they'll keep changing. Amazon & others will expand APIs, and deprecate things, too. OpenStack is new, but still relatively immature. VMWare is mature, but bloated and designed for lock-in.
You'll want to design your VMs in a way that's agnostic to the underlying layers. That way you can migrate easily as cost structures change, or features evolve. You'll want to be capable of that evolution with no discernible change to your users.
If a key feature is LDAP, long-term you'll want a solution that has policy in place now, and runway for you to implement governance and controls down the line. It would also help to have automated monitoring, lifecycle management, notifications, API-based programmability, etc.
You can build the basics with chef/puppet type automation, but then you've got to implement LDAP, policy, & governance on your own.
I'd suggest products like ServiceMesh, Enstratius, vCloud Director, and others. Most are pretty new. vCloud Director is designed to lock you into VMWare. Enstratius may stay relatively cloud agnostic now that Dell (its new owners) are dumping public cloud offerings. ServiceMesh is the disruptive startup with no IaaS alliances (at least until it gets acquired).
There are many open standards out there, but they do not mean free products. Look at any other engineering discipline, and you'll find ample sets of standards that help define, build, & create control systems, cars, structures, etc. None of those standards necessitate free products. We have been spoiled in software engineering that in the past many open standards have resulted in free products. Those days are over.
Content is king, and $ is the name of the game. Apple & Adobe are jockeying for long-term position in content delivery - i.e. future revenue. They're investing tons of $ to control eye-balls not just now, but years into the future. Companies (think P&G, ESPN, NY Times, WalMart) have to make money to survive. They will send their $ to whoever controls the most eye-balls. In the recent past, that was television, now its TV & internet, and in the future it will be internet driven, but the receiving devices will not be computers as we think of them. No one knows what they will be. Apple is trying to shape & dominate those devices. Adobe wants to make sure it doesn't get cut out. Google & Microsoft are playing catchup, but aren't necessarily Adobe's friends in this fight.
Adobe is no saint bearing the flag for free or open. They want lock-in to their products/platforms as much as Apple does. Let's be honest, these are massive companies engaged in a turf battle that each recognizes carries significant long-term value for their shareholders. The principles of open/free/compatible are nothing more than pawns used to gain competitive advantage.
This is all about the benjamins...
Personally, I don't care about Flash. I developed in ShockwaveFlash w/ Lingo 10+ years ago, and fundamentally, that's the same core technology set that Adobe's still peddling as Flash now. More bells, more whistles, more tools, same idea. As a company, they have every right to protect their cash cow (see Microsoft).
Like Apple or hate Apple, you have to say they're innovating, and they're not afraid to toss the past, even their own cash cows, in favor of the future. Integrated easy to use devices are for certain a big part of the future, and they proved it by refining the phone in a way no one else had the creativity to do.
Inxight (now apparently part of Business Objects) has a very good knowledge search, data mining, and concept analysis system in their Smart Discovery servers. I don't work for them, but helped evaluate and deploy the product in a previous job. Definitely had some useful features beyond just indexed search.
http://www.inxight.com/products/
Before you consider certifications for software and IT professionals, think on this...
Say your mother or wife detects a lump on her breast, or you detect one on your testicle. How would you go about choosing an oncologist, radiologist, or surgeon? Would you let anyone who said they knew what they were doing treat you, or would you prefer some assurance of their training? Would you want a doc that's AMA Board Certified? Trained at the best schools? One that studied with the best teachers peers?
Or maybe you're building a house? Would you let an unlicensed architect or construction contractor build it?
The fact is that we are all judged by previous education, experience, and training. A certification is one piece of that. It helps you stand out from your peers. It also represents an assurance of skill and knowledge. In many cases, such as the PE, medical certs, etc. they include legal assurances and liabilities.
The question shouldn't be "why do we need these certs?", but how do we make certifications for computer science and IT that are as strong as other professional certifications for doctors, architects, civil/mechanical engineers, etc. No one should ever think that is just meaningless paper certification.
I'd argue that neither the Cube or Newton were as failed as the blurb purports. They were in fact too far ahead of their time. The Mini is very much an evolution of the Cube, and a great one at that. The Newton pre-dated the age of the Palm, PocketPC, and Blackberry. While Apple never dominated those arenas, it was most definitely ahead of the curve and leading the way. The difference with the latest products, Mini, iPod, iTunes, etc., is that Apple not only led the way, but kept its lead with broad appeal and great usability.
This lawsuit & settlement make a lot of sense. Intergraphs technology for high-speed bus(es) and caching was stolen by Intel. In order for Intel to have created and sold chips using that technology, they must have had to release some or all of that intellectual property to PC manufacturers so that they could create motherboards for those processors. (Remember that caching occurs both on and off-chip).
I wouldn't be surprised if other motherboard manufacturers are next or have already settled. IBM may also be next, however it may be the one manufacturer that can defend such a lawsuit. IBM has a long history of processor, bus, and cache development for big iron, Power Series and PowerPCs that is completely unrelated to Intel's technologies or platforms, However, IBM's PC division (now owned by a Chinese company who's name I can't remember) may be just as susceptible as the other PC manufacturers.
What does surprise me is that HP, Dell, and Gateway aren't suing the pants off of Intel for negligence. If not for Intel's stealing of intellectual property and redistributing it as their own, those companies would not be payiong out millions of dollars to settle these lawsuits.
No doubt that in the narrow-margin PC business, consumers will eventually foot the bill anyway.
I don't know of any open source efforts in this area, but both Maple (http://www.maplesoft.com/) and MathCAD (http://www.mathcad.com/) are excellent packages. From personal experience, I'd say Mathematica or Matlab are the most powerful tools, but that Maple and MathCAD are significantly easier to learn and teach. Both also have really cheap academic versions with support, between $99 and $150, I believe. They're also fully compatible with Matlab & Mathematica, so upgrading later doesn't lose you all your old projects.
Caveat:
The danger with software that does complex problem solving is that students, especially pre-college the variety, get so dependent on using the tool to find the answer that they forget the basics of what they're doing and what it means. I saw this happen to a lot of my peers during my undregraduate degree, because my university was piloting laptop-based courses for math and physics. By the time they got to differential equations, the laptop kids knew the commands to get the answer, but had no idea what it meant or how to solve the problem sans software.
I avoided this by always doing the work by hand, and then checking it with the software. My teachers forced that on us from the first time we used Maple version 3 in high school. I stuck to it throughout college (except the really insane engineering problems that take days to solve by hand). I strongly suggest that you enforce similar policies for your students, especially for the fundamentals.
Will your skills suffer greatly by staying where you are? Probably not. IMO most of learning is what you put into it. If you put in the effort, you'll walk away learning a lot whether you go to the top schools or the not so top schools.
However, where the prestige, or lack thereof, of your school will hurt you is in getting your foot in the door. While it probably shouldn't, the name of the school carries weight. When someone reading your resume recognizes and respects the school you're from, that helps get you an interview. After that, it's what you've learned, your experience, and your skills that get you the job.
There's one other benefit to a better school. Networking, and no, not the wired/wireless kind. At a better school for your field of interest (i.e. CS), you're going to meet lots of other top people in the field. That network of people will help you create and find better opportunities in the future. Who you know really matters, so the better people you associate with, the better off you'll be.
I ended up choosing a smaller but well-regarded private engineering school over a very good but large state school. While I probably would have learned just as much at the latter, the career, networking, and academic environment at the former formed a far better foundation for my career. This is evidenced by the results, as I had a number of equally intelligent friends go to the latter school. I've had significantly more career opportunities due to my school's reputation and the social network I made there than my friends from the state school. It certainly helps that I did well in school and have good experience, but I definitely would not be where I am today had I chose differently.
My advice: go to the best (for learning/teaching), most reputable school you will be accepted to, can afford, and aligns most with your career interests.
My side job is purposefully different from my work. I referee ice hockey and inline hockey. The pay is pretty decent, $10 to $50+ for a one hour game, depending on the level of play, league, and location. Plus, you get some exercise, meet new people outside of IT/CS, and get to teach new players how to play the game.
Up front costs do stink a little if you start from scratch, $200-$300 is typical for all new gear and 1st year registration. But that's deductible, and if you referee a few games per month, you're back in the black pretty quickly.
I have also performed freelance home computer services, but playing & refereeing hockey have generally been more fun and better for my % body fat.
My car's EPA ratings are 22 mpg city and 30 mpg highway (manual transmission). I typically average 27-28 mpg through every day driving, and on road trips can get 32 mpg. Not bad at all considering it's got 170k miles on it (original engine & tranny) and that I've been getting those numbers or better since 1996 when I got it. It's actually a 1993 model car.
The coverage by the media on these viruses is just outright terrible. There's always the assumption that all users are affected, when in reality a number of users are completely unaffacted by these viruses (reduced internet bandwidth aside). The growing number of Linux, MacOS X, BSD, and various other unix-based flavors are largely unaffected by these attacks. Furthermore, those Windows users who keep up with patches & fixes and use firewalls are also largely unaffacted.
This piece by MSNBC is a prime example that never once clarifies that some people may not even be affected by these viruses.
For the "cyber" reporters out there: get a clue and portray more than one perspective.
I beg to differ - one of the few things stopping me from purchasing a phone is the fact that I do not want to pay for hundreds of features that I will never use. All I want is an address book and a way to make calls.
What makes you think your view represents the masses? Most people just want a good deal on a phone and service plan so that they're not out a lot of money and they get decent service. The phone companies and vendors offer better rebate packages and deal on the fancy phones, and go figure that those sell...
Heck I just bought a Sony Ericsson T610 (Camera phone, MMS, Bluetooth, etc.) for my parents off of Amazon because it worked out to $100 minus $200 in mail-in rebates plus a free Jabra Bluetooth headset. Now the last thing they need is a fancy feature they don't understand, but screw plain and simple with a deal that good!
Silly slashdotter, not everyone in the world is like you....
That's right, drink Coke and give your money to the Mormons....
yes, the Mormons bought Coke...
No matter what you do you're giving money to big brother. Contrary to Orwell's foresight, big brother is not the government, though they are trying, but it is the corporate animal. Anywhere you turn, any product you buy is somehow handing money to big brother.
Apple's vision is like any other company's vision, return profit and value to the shareholder. Apple chooses design, innovation, and integration to build products. Other companies choose to profit from licensing, high-volume production, etc. In the end it's all about money.
Testing?! You want testing?!
Let's not forget that the government is required to hire the lowest biddder for the job, not the most qualified or most thorough.
Meanwhile, reckless security or not, the Republicans definitely violated counter intrusion laws and possibly even wire-tap laws depending on the intrusion method.
In the end, the people who get screwed out of all of this is us, the taxpayer. Our money is wasted on staff time spent re-securing every server in DC, dealing with press inquiries, spinning the issue for the November election, etc. Maybe if they spent less time snooping and conspiring, they could get to the tasks of improving education funding, mitigating health care cost inflation, and reducing the national debt.
I wonder what would happen if we had term limits of one term. Would they actually try to accomplish something rather than angling for their next re-election??
If Visa/Mastercard or American Express choose to adopt SpeedPass of some other sort of quickpay system, you'll see the availability (what you called "lack of support") issue work itself out very quickly (1-2 years for 70-80% availability).
Discover just doesn't have the maret share or availability to make it happen, at least compared to Visa/MC or AMEX.
But while these systems belong to private companies (Exxon-Mobil) or networks (EZPass), they won't see availability expand rapidly. For example, SpeedPass has been around for at least 3-4 years, as Mobil started it well before the merger with Exxon.
Silly people, Lotus Notes is not the only product IBM makes....
I'm no fan of Lotus Notes, but let's face it, IBM got screwed by having to maintain legacy support.
On the other hand, IBM Research has some other tremendously usable products such as NotesBuddy. NotesBuddy is an excellent light-weight e-mail/messaging client that interfaces to POP3, Lotus Notes, and Sametime. A number of the features their new prototype has are part of or very similar to NotesBuddy.
Don't judge the prototype by the legacy of Lotus Notes. Judge it by its features and interface, which IMO look very useful and usable. Message threading is one of the most useful features coming into e-mail clients right now, and IBM Research was augmented it well with the thread map and message map features. The chat integration is solid for quick replies to small inquiries or other short tasks. The calendar on the same pane is something I would pay to have now and will definitely improve productivity.
All they need to add is really intelligent spam and PHB filtering.
Of course the state controls the distribution of liquor. If they let it move in and out freely, how could they apply a sin tax to it? They'd have no way of knowing if the alcohol taxes being paid were correct.
(Same applies for almost all sin taxes, cigarettes--tax sticker, gasoline-pump monitors, luxury cars-car dealers, etc.)
This is interesting because of the fact that it is an INTERNAL network. I can understand why they have the tracing in place....but if they didn't, how would the RIAA find out what was being traded?...
The RIAA need not break in to monitor, they can just subpoena the school's log files...
A few years ago my university firewalled the student (i.e. dorm) network, including blocking all incoming traffic. You had to get permission to have web/ftp/ssh ports unblocked for your IP. All that was because we were #1 on the RIAA's list of campuses trading illegal music files, and the pressure they exerted on the administration.
The logging functionality for this 'new' system is almost certainly for auditing and institutional CYA.
Part of going to school isn't just saying the Pledge, and it's not just about making your own beliefs known. It is also learning how to act when confronted with other peoples' beliefs, and how to be respectful of that even when you don't agree.
While I agree that a high school student should have the integrity and understanding to make their beliefs known and still be respectful, can we realistically expect an elementary school student to do so? What about special education students? What about institutional and peer pressures for conformity?
I stood without reciting and respected the others saying the pledge in my high school years. However, during middle school & elementary school, I was required to recite the pledge by teachers, peers, and administrators. That was an institutional violation of my rights.
I am glad that someone is fighting for actual separation of church and state.
IBM may have something to say about this. Their Sametime corporate IM and collaboration system has had this functionality for at least 3 years.
While talk and other small scale packages may have a case against the patent, but no money to file suit, IBM has a case, money, and the IP lawyers to shred this patent up.
The telephone system is legally considered an open forum. It was built with the taxes of your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.
While the Constitution does not say this explicitly, there are over 215 years of law and precedence that do. The Constitution is the basis for our legal system, not the legal system itself.
Constitution does not recognize equality for companies, charities, and such; it recognizes equality for individuals.
You are definitely wrong on this one. With respect to the law (remember that this is all going on in a courtroom), people, corporations, charities, non-profits, and other organizations are all equal. What makes the DNC list illegal is that some have more access than others to the telephone network, which is a public resource.
Equality is a main theme of the Constitution and to toss it away because you don't want corporations to call you is ridiculous.
I'd rather have a DNC list that prohibits anyone from calling me without my permission, including charities, non-profits, and political organizations.
As much as I hate telemarketers and their incessant calling during dinner time, the telemarketing corporations have this one right, and they are actually fighting the good fight.
The current do not call list discriminates specifically against corporations, because it exempts charities, non-profits, and political organizations from the regulation.
So the Christian Coalition, KKK, Republican National Congress, Greenpeace, United Way, and Democratic National Congress can call you all they want, while Joe Inventor who's selling his new widget to sanitize your toilet seat can't call you.
That is definitely a violation of the first amendment because it grants Group A more freedom of speech and access than Group B. Remember that the telephone system is a public resource and that the government is responsible for ensuring equal access to it.
The real solution is to also ban charities, non-profits, and political organizations from calling numbers listed on the DNC list. However, legislators will never do this because those organizations provide a large percentage of campaign contributions and exert tremendous policital influence.
Slashdot Mirror
You'll want to design your VMs in a way that's agnostic to the underlying layers. That way you can migrate easily as cost structures change, or features evolve. You'll want to be capable of that evolution with no discernible change to your users.
If a key feature is LDAP, long-term you'll want a solution that has policy in place now, and runway for you to implement governance and controls down the line. It would also help to have automated monitoring, lifecycle management, notifications, API-based programmability, etc.
You can build the basics with chef/puppet type automation, but then you've got to implement LDAP, policy, & governance on your own.
I'd suggest products like ServiceMesh, Enstratius, vCloud Director, and others. Most are pretty new. vCloud Director is designed to lock you into VMWare. Enstratius may stay relatively cloud agnostic now that Dell (its new owners) are dumping public cloud offerings. ServiceMesh is the disruptive startup with no IaaS alliances (at least until it gets acquired).
espn3.com now has many live games. Eventually, the content contracts for leagues will all allow live streaming either with or w/o payment.
There are many open standards out there, but they do not mean free products. Look at any other engineering discipline, and you'll find ample sets of standards that help define, build, & create control systems, cars, structures, etc. None of those standards necessitate free products. We have been spoiled in software engineering that in the past many open standards have resulted in free products. Those days are over.
Content is king, and $ is the name of the game. Apple & Adobe are jockeying for long-term position in content delivery - i.e. future revenue. They're investing tons of $ to control eye-balls not just now, but years into the future. Companies (think P&G, ESPN, NY Times, WalMart) have to make money to survive. They will send their $ to whoever controls the most eye-balls. In the recent past, that was television, now its TV & internet, and in the future it will be internet driven, but the receiving devices will not be computers as we think of them. No one knows what they will be. Apple is trying to shape & dominate those devices. Adobe wants to make sure it doesn't get cut out. Google & Microsoft are playing catchup, but aren't necessarily Adobe's friends in this fight.
Adobe is no saint bearing the flag for free or open. They want lock-in to their products/platforms as much as Apple does. Let's be honest, these are massive companies engaged in a turf battle that each recognizes carries significant long-term value for their shareholders. The principles of open/free/compatible are nothing more than pawns used to gain competitive advantage.
This is all about the benjamins...
Personally, I don't care about Flash. I developed in ShockwaveFlash w/ Lingo 10+ years ago, and fundamentally, that's the same core technology set that Adobe's still peddling as Flash now. More bells, more whistles, more tools, same idea. As a company, they have every right to protect their cash cow (see Microsoft).
Like Apple or hate Apple, you have to say they're innovating, and they're not afraid to toss the past, even their own cash cows, in favor of the future. Integrated easy to use devices are for certain a big part of the future, and they proved it by refining the phone in a way no one else had the creativity to do.
Inxight (now apparently part of Business Objects) has a very good knowledge search, data mining, and concept analysis system in their Smart Discovery servers. I don't work for them, but helped evaluate and deploy the product in a previous job. Definitely had some useful features beyond just indexed search. http://www.inxight.com/products/
Before you consider certifications for software and IT professionals, think on this...
Say your mother or wife detects a lump on her breast, or you detect one on your testicle. How would you go about choosing an oncologist, radiologist, or surgeon? Would you let anyone who said they knew what they were doing treat you, or would you prefer some assurance of their training? Would you want a doc that's AMA Board Certified? Trained at the best schools? One that studied with the best teachers peers?
Or maybe you're building a house? Would you let an unlicensed architect or construction contractor build it?
The fact is that we are all judged by previous education, experience, and training. A certification is one piece of that. It helps you stand out from your peers. It also represents an assurance of skill and knowledge. In many cases, such as the PE, medical certs, etc. they include legal assurances and liabilities.
The question shouldn't be "why do we need these certs?", but how do we make certifications for computer science and IT that are as strong as other professional certifications for doctors, architects, civil/mechanical engineers, etc. No one should ever think that is just meaningless paper certification.
I'd argue that neither the Cube or Newton were as failed as the blurb purports. They were in fact too far ahead of their time. The Mini is very much an evolution of the Cube, and a great one at that. The Newton pre-dated the age of the Palm, PocketPC, and Blackberry. While Apple never dominated those arenas, it was most definitely ahead of the curve and leading the way. The difference with the latest products, Mini, iPod, iTunes, etc., is that Apple not only led the way, but kept its lead with broad appeal and great usability.
Arguments for/against patents aside....
This lawsuit & settlement make a lot of sense. Intergraphs technology for high-speed bus(es) and caching was stolen by Intel. In order for Intel to have created and sold chips using that technology, they must have had to release some or all of that intellectual property to PC manufacturers so that they could create motherboards for those processors. (Remember that caching occurs both on and off-chip).
I wouldn't be surprised if other motherboard manufacturers are next or have already settled. IBM may also be next, however it may be the one manufacturer that can defend such a lawsuit. IBM has a long history of processor, bus, and cache development for big iron, Power Series and PowerPCs that is completely unrelated to Intel's technologies or platforms, However, IBM's PC division (now owned by a Chinese company who's name I can't remember) may be just as susceptible as the other PC manufacturers.
What does surprise me is that HP, Dell, and Gateway aren't suing the pants off of Intel for negligence. If not for Intel's stealing of intellectual property and redistributing it as their own, those companies would not be payiong out millions of dollars to settle these lawsuits.
No doubt that in the narrow-margin PC business, consumers will eventually foot the bill anyway.
I don't know of any open source efforts in this area, but both Maple (http://www.maplesoft.com/) and MathCAD (http://www.mathcad.com/) are excellent packages. From personal experience, I'd say Mathematica or Matlab are the most powerful tools, but that Maple and MathCAD are significantly easier to learn and teach. Both also have really cheap academic versions with support, between $99 and $150, I believe. They're also fully compatible with Matlab & Mathematica, so upgrading later doesn't lose you all your old projects.
Caveat:
The danger with software that does complex problem solving is that students, especially pre-college the variety, get so dependent on using the tool to find the answer that they forget the basics of what they're doing and what it means. I saw this happen to a lot of my peers during my undregraduate degree, because my university was piloting laptop-based courses for math and physics. By the time they got to differential equations, the laptop kids knew the commands to get the answer, but had no idea what it meant or how to solve the problem sans software.
I avoided this by always doing the work by hand, and then checking it with the software. My teachers forced that on us from the first time we used Maple version 3 in high school. I stuck to it throughout college (except the really insane engineering problems that take days to solve by hand). I strongly suggest that you enforce similar policies for your students, especially for the fundamentals.
Will your skills suffer greatly by staying where you are? Probably not. IMO most of learning is what you put into it. If you put in the effort, you'll walk away learning a lot whether you go to the top schools or the not so top schools.
However, where the prestige, or lack thereof, of your school will hurt you is in getting your foot in the door. While it probably shouldn't, the name of the school carries weight. When someone reading your resume recognizes and respects the school you're from, that helps get you an interview. After that, it's what you've learned, your experience, and your skills that get you the job.
There's one other benefit to a better school. Networking, and no, not the wired/wireless kind. At a better school for your field of interest (i.e. CS), you're going to meet lots of other top people in the field. That network of people will help you create and find better opportunities in the future. Who you know really matters, so the better people you associate with, the better off you'll be.
I ended up choosing a smaller but well-regarded private engineering school over a very good but large state school. While I probably would have learned just as much at the latter, the career, networking, and academic environment at the former formed a far better foundation for my career. This is evidenced by the results, as I had a number of equally intelligent friends go to the latter school. I've had significantly more career opportunities due to my school's reputation and the social network I made there than my friends from the state school. It certainly helps that I did well in school and have good experience, but I definitely would not be where I am today had I chose differently.
My advice: go to the best (for learning/teaching), most reputable school you will be accepted to, can afford, and aligns most with your career interests.
I used to work at NI. If you want the skinny, get me on AIM or via private message (how do you send one on
My side job is purposefully different from my work. I referee ice hockey and inline hockey. The pay is pretty decent, $10 to $50+ for a one hour game, depending on the level of play, league, and location. Plus, you get some exercise, meet new people outside of IT/CS, and get to teach new players how to play the game.
Up front costs do stink a little if you start from scratch, $200-$300 is typical for all new gear and 1st year registration. But that's deductible, and if you referee a few games per month, you're back in the black pretty quickly.
I have also performed freelance home computer services, but playing & refereeing hockey have generally been more fun and better for my % body fat.
My car's EPA ratings are 22 mpg city and 30 mpg highway (manual transmission). I typically average 27-28 mpg through every day driving, and on road trips can get 32 mpg. Not bad at all considering it's got 170k miles on it (original engine & tranny) and that I've been getting those numbers or better since 1996 when I got it. It's actually a 1993 model car.
The coverage by the media on these viruses is just outright terrible. There's always the assumption that all users are affected, when in reality a number of users are completely unaffacted by these viruses (reduced internet bandwidth aside). The growing number of Linux, MacOS X, BSD, and various other unix-based flavors are largely unaffected by these attacks. Furthermore, those Windows users who keep up with patches & fixes and use firewalls are also largely unaffacted.
This piece by MSNBC is a prime example that never once clarifies that some people may not even be affected by these viruses.
For the "cyber" reporters out there: get a clue and portray more than one perspective.
What makes you think your view represents the masses? Most people just want a good deal on a phone and service plan so that they're not out a lot of money and they get decent service. The phone companies and vendors offer better rebate packages and deal on the fancy phones, and go figure that those sell...
Heck I just bought a Sony Ericsson T610 (Camera phone, MMS, Bluetooth, etc.) for my parents off of Amazon because it worked out to $100 minus $200 in mail-in rebates plus a free Jabra Bluetooth headset. Now the last thing they need is a fancy feature they don't understand, but screw plain and simple with a deal that good!
Silly slashdotter, not everyone in the world is like you....
That's right, drink Coke and give your money to the Mormons....
yes, the Mormons bought Coke...
No matter what you do you're giving money to big brother. Contrary to Orwell's foresight, big brother is not the government, though they are trying, but it is the corporate animal. Anywhere you turn, any product you buy is somehow handing money to big brother.
Apple's vision is like any other company's vision, return profit and value to the shareholder. Apple chooses design, innovation, and integration to build products. Other companies choose to profit from licensing, high-volume production, etc. In the end it's all about money.
Get over it.
Testing?! You want testing?! Let's not forget that the government is required to hire the lowest biddder for the job, not the most qualified or most thorough. Meanwhile, reckless security or not, the Republicans definitely violated counter intrusion laws and possibly even wire-tap laws depending on the intrusion method. In the end, the people who get screwed out of all of this is us, the taxpayer. Our money is wasted on staff time spent re-securing every server in DC, dealing with press inquiries, spinning the issue for the November election, etc. Maybe if they spent less time snooping and conspiring, they could get to the tasks of improving education funding, mitigating health care cost inflation, and reducing the national debt. I wonder what would happen if we had term limits of one term. Would they actually try to accomplish something rather than angling for their next re-election??
If Visa/Mastercard or American Express choose to adopt SpeedPass of some other sort of quickpay system, you'll see the availability (what you called "lack of support") issue work itself out very quickly (1-2 years for 70-80% availability). Discover just doesn't have the maret share or availability to make it happen, at least compared to Visa/MC or AMEX. But while these systems belong to private companies (Exxon-Mobil) or networks (EZPass), they won't see availability expand rapidly. For example, SpeedPass has been around for at least 3-4 years, as Mobil started it well before the merger with Exxon.
Silly people, Lotus Notes is not the only product IBM makes....
I'm no fan of Lotus Notes, but let's face it, IBM got screwed by having to maintain legacy support.
On the other hand, IBM Research has some other tremendously usable products such as NotesBuddy. NotesBuddy is an excellent light-weight e-mail/messaging client that interfaces to POP3, Lotus Notes, and Sametime. A number of the features their new prototype has are part of or very similar to NotesBuddy.
Don't judge the prototype by the legacy of Lotus Notes. Judge it by its features and interface, which IMO look very useful and usable. Message threading is one of the most useful features coming into e-mail clients right now, and IBM Research was augmented it well with the thread map and message map features. The chat integration is solid for quick replies to small inquiries or other short tasks. The calendar on the same pane is something I would pay to have now and will definitely improve productivity.
All they need to add is really intelligent spam and PHB filtering.
Of course the state controls the distribution of liquor. If they let it move in and out freely, how could they apply a sin tax to it? They'd have no way of knowing if the alcohol taxes being paid were correct.
(Same applies for almost all sin taxes, cigarettes--tax sticker, gasoline-pump monitors, luxury cars-car dealers, etc.)
What do you think this is a free country??
The RIAA need not break in to monitor, they can just subpoena the school's log files...
A few years ago my university firewalled the student (i.e. dorm) network, including blocking all incoming traffic. You had to get permission to have web/ftp/ssh ports unblocked for your IP. All that was because we were #1 on the RIAA's list of campuses trading illegal music files, and the pressure they exerted on the administration.
The logging functionality for this 'new' system is almost certainly for auditing and institutional CYA.
While I agree that a high school student should have the integrity and understanding to make their beliefs known and still be respectful, can we realistically expect an elementary school student to do so? What about special education students? What about institutional and peer pressures for conformity?
I stood without reciting and respected the others saying the pledge in my high school years. However, during middle school & elementary school, I was required to recite the pledge by teachers, peers, and administrators. That was an institutional violation of my rights.
I am glad that someone is fighting for actual separation of church and state.
IBM may have something to say about this. Their Sametime corporate IM and collaboration system has had this functionality for at least 3 years.
While talk and other small scale packages may have a case against the patent, but no money to file suit, IBM has a case, money, and the IP lawyers to shred this patent up.
The telephone system is legally considered an open forum. It was built with the taxes of your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.
While the Constitution does not say this explicitly, there are over 215 years of law and precedence that do. The Constitution is the basis for our legal system, not the legal system itself.
You are definitely wrong on this one. With respect to the law (remember that this is all going on in a courtroom), people, corporations, charities, non-profits, and other organizations are all equal. What makes the DNC list illegal is that some have more access than others to the telephone network, which is a public resource.
Equality is a main theme of the Constitution and to toss it away because you don't want corporations to call you is ridiculous.
I'd rather have a DNC list that prohibits anyone from calling me without my permission, including charities, non-profits, and political organizations.
As much as I hate telemarketers and their incessant calling during dinner time, the telemarketing corporations have this one right, and they are actually fighting the good fight.
The current do not call list discriminates specifically against corporations, because it exempts charities, non-profits, and political organizations from the regulation.
So the Christian Coalition, KKK, Republican National Congress, Greenpeace, United Way, and Democratic National Congress can call you all they want, while Joe Inventor who's selling his new widget to sanitize your toilet seat can't call you.
That is definitely a violation of the first amendment because it grants Group A more freedom of speech and access than Group B. Remember that the telephone system is a public resource and that the government is responsible for ensuring equal access to it.
The real solution is to also ban charities, non-profits, and political organizations from calling numbers listed on the DNC list. However, legislators will never do this because those organizations provide a large percentage of campaign contributions and exert tremendous policital influence.