Whenever Microsoft comes out and says that (pick whatever open standard) is not as good as their product I tend to get interested in whatever they have come out against.
I switched an old Microsoft server over to linux and I love it. I have tried Openoffice on several platforms and found it to be as good or better than Microsoft Office for about 90 percent of what people do with office programs. I am sure there are a few instances where Microsoft Office is better than Openoffice for a few people. Of course I have seen people use Microsoft Office when they should have moved to a program like QuarkXpress or Indesign.
Microsoft has always had a problem with formats and how they are implemented. Such as Microsoft Office not being able to open a Microsoft Works document. Making pre-corrupted document with the Mac version of Word 6. Having large amount of information being included in the word document from sectors on the hard drive.
It is a same that people are so biased with Windows that they won't even try openoffice. I think that many people who buy Microsoft office or even pirate it would be better served with the free openoffice. I think even some small offices would be better served with Linux computers running KDE and OpenOffice.
I agree I run MacOS X and find it the best of both worlds. I also have a windows machine that I use. This weekend I had an old PC that I used to run Windows 2000 Server and Exchange as a teaching machine for school. Now that I have finished my course I decided to install Linux on it. I downloaded the free version of Linux by Mandrake called Mandriva.
I was totally impressed! It was just as easy and in some cases easier to install than Windows. I found the same was true when configuring it. Most was done with a graphical interface. The 3 CD set came chock full of programs.....more than any off the shelf Windows Machine comes with and it has full Web, FTP, Samba and NFS servers as well.
If it were not for the very, very few Windows programs I need that either Linux or MacOS X does not cover I would move my other Windows box over to Linux.
I agree. I turn 45 tomorrow, May 11th, and I waited till I was over 30 to get married. I wish I was just 30 again and could relive all those great mistakes I made.......except the marriage part!
Microsoft Innovation? That is about the biggest oxymoron I have heard! Microsoft has already made inroads into making the internet a Windows only affair. There are web pages out there that will only work with Internet Explorer running on Windows. There are even more pages that provide fewer features if you are using anything other than the IE/Windows combination. Most of these pages would work with other browsers and platforms except for the fact they were created with Microsoft Content creation tools.
I think the biggest offender was a page on Microsofts own site. It was a page for users of other browsers and platforms to lodge a complaint with the U.S. Anti-Trust enforcement. For quite a long time the page was only viewable using Internet Explorer on Windows, which if you had those you would be less likely to complain. They did eventually fix the page but for a long time it was impossible to use for the people it was created for. Was this just an oversite on Microsofts part or part of their plan. I would normally say an oversite but with the zeal both Gates and that sweat monger Balmer have shown for owning the internet I have to wonder.
While I have never been snubbed, I have seen others get snubbed when asking simple questions. I do believe that newbies should do a little work on their own getting down the basics, the UNIX community could be more helpful.
This also shows in what passes for documentation of some of the programs. It is always assumed that the person knows how to compile and install the program.....even when the program does something that is not normally done. I have always been able to figure out what the programmer did and I can compile and install 90 percent of the programs I find but I do feel for new users. They are missing some quite good software and maybe even a program that they could use where no other exists.
However I must say that Windows users are even more snobby bunch. Some Windows users will harass anyone who does not uses Windows or anyone who thinks Windows is a crappy OS. Even when they are wrong on some of the facts about Windows they will think they are right and you are wrong just for taking a different view.
I would rather ask a question or answer one from a UNIX user than a Windows user any say of the week.
I don't know but some Canadian politician was blaming America for Canadians coming down here to buy guns. It seemed a little backwards to me. Wouldn't blame the people coming down here to buy guns?
I know my 2002 eMac has a Airport built in. However my PC is much easier to set-up for a connection. Since I use a linksys router and a linksys USB network adapter all I have to do is enter my password, on the Mac it is a long ascII number. That said my Mac never fails at a connection and sometimes the Windows box forgets it has a network adapter.
I am not sure but I think Apple beat the to that. At least in the laptops. They might have been on the advisory committee for the 802.11 standards or had some input maybe that's what they are talking about.....but then so did a lot of people.
I think the biggest clues are no AMD chips and no linux. Does Dell even sell a computer without an OS?
I agree. When MD first came out I lusted after one. I never got one because I really did not have a pressing need for one. I don't know if they MD - iPod comparison is a good one. They are really made for different things. A better comparison would be to the flash based and hard drive based pro recorders. Like These:
I always thought that the Sony MD format was pretty cool. I never had one but I wanted one. However the iPod kicks its ass in many ways. Not only that if you compare recording devices for use in live or small studio applications the mini disc recorders really pale in comparison to flash or hard drive based recorders. Apple does limit the iPod in some ways but to blow past those I added iPodLinux to my iPod and it is fully feaure packed. I can even record stereo files via a mic or inputs at up to 96Khz. While I have always had both Mac and PC's around I prefer to use the Mac. People claim that there are other players than the iPod but few if any of those support the Mac. Even Real which touted giving iPod users a choice did not have a Mac version of their music site. Last and certainly least is the coolness factor of using and being seen with your iPod. Actually I could care less if people know I own an iPod.
I looked at other players before getting an iPod most we so butt ugly but more important they were either a pain to use or in the case of the Creative Zen players the in-store demo players would crash. Hardly inspiring. I spent the extra cash for the iPod and have not been sorry I did so. There may be a place for mini disc players but I would be really hard press to find one given the power of flash and hard drive based recorders and players.
Being a Mac users since day one....and a PC users since day one as well, I know how good Apple is at customer service. However this is one company that has them beat hands down. Western Digital. Several years ago I had a WD 100gig hard drive go bad. I returned it to WD and they sent me a brand new 120gig drive to replace it. When I had problems with it, I thought, they sent another 120gig drive and told me to keep both for a month and send back the one I did not want. Turns out it was a flakey second hard drive that only had problems intermittently and affected both drives and I returned the second 120gig drive within a few days. The people at WD were polite, fast and knew their stuff. I only purchase Western Digital hard drives.
Apple has always been good in most respects but with the move to the iPod I think they have slipped on providing updates for iPods that are over one year old.
Uh, I said I have been to their site and did not see much in the way of anything there. Yes the big 3 second static test but I had already seen that.
They say it may take month to find out what went wrong with it but usually during launch that can be narrowed down very quickly. Usually engine failure, software failure or structural failure. Usually in that order.
When you build a new rocket motor it has to be tested quite a bit. It is usually strapped down and tested for the length of time it has to run and for the program actions it has to take such and moving the gimble to steer the rocket. The Russians did not do enough testing of their N1 motor for their moonshot missions and they lost a few rockets in the process. They had to go back to their old motor design. Scaled Composites did a full burn test of their motor and it worked flawlessly. Of course it was a much simpler design.
There on pad test was three seconds. Visiting their site does not really provide much information other than they were sure it would work and the rocket failed during the first stage burn.
If you have a link to information of when and were they tested the engine on a test bed like those at vandenberg were they run them through the launch program and burn time please feel free to post them.
If you have only tested the mounted engine for three seconds how did they know if it could even run long enough to reach orbit? It makes me wonder if they even ran the engine in a test bed mount for the full time to orbit that it had to burn.
Actually they hooked the computer up to the internet for the first time and within 1 minute it was already sending zombie emails and someone had already added 59 admin accounts.
There is dust there. Since there is low gravity and low atmospheric pressure I am not sure how much of a wind it would take to lift that dust. You can see in the picture link the august 2005 self portrait of Spirt.
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20 060104a/Sol583A_Deck_L456atc-A712R1_br.jpg
The panels are a little dusty but not that bad.
I think the rovers will still be going by the time Vista is released. However by the time Microsoft releases a version of Windows with decent security I think we will have warp drive.
Sometimes doing four or five things at the same time is not always the right way to do things, posting especially. While I can't promise I will do better next time, I will try;-)
Having been hit by my share of whirlwinds on earth, I think they get things more dusty than clean but it may be different on the red planet. With the atmosphere being much less dense than earth it is hard to say how fast or strong those winds are.
It could be that the soil was less magnetic than they thought or the winds packed more force than they thought. Even the gravity might have a helping hand as well.
While I think that the two rovers have done a great job, in fact, more than a great job, I am really waiting for the rover than will land at the edge of the mars polar cap. I think that if they ever find life on mars and I doubt they will for many reason, it will be close to where water is present. The Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter may actually do a better job than the two rovers.
Yep you are correct. Sorry I was confusing the RS6000 brand of IBM chips with the RAD 6000.
I was also quoting NASA as for them being cheap. When the landers were on there way they said in interviews on TV that they were cheaper chips......looking at wiki it is hard to find many other RAD hardened chips.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista......but it might need three or four of the cards to run smoothly ;-)
Whenever Microsoft comes out and says that (pick whatever open standard) is not as good as their product I tend to get interested in whatever they have come out against.
I switched an old Microsoft server over to linux and I love it. I have tried Openoffice on several platforms and found it to be as good or better than Microsoft Office for about 90 percent of what people do with office programs. I am sure there are a few instances where Microsoft Office is better than Openoffice for a few people. Of course I have seen people use Microsoft Office when they should have moved to a program like QuarkXpress or Indesign.
Microsoft has always had a problem with formats and how they are implemented. Such as Microsoft Office not being able to open a Microsoft Works document. Making pre-corrupted document with the Mac version of Word 6. Having large amount of information being included in the word document from sectors on the hard drive.
It is a same that people are so biased with Windows that they won't even try openoffice. I think that many people who buy Microsoft office or even pirate it would be better served with the free openoffice. I think even some small offices would be better served with Linux computers running KDE and OpenOffice.
I agree I run MacOS X and find it the best of both worlds. I also have a windows machine that I use. This weekend I had an old PC that I used to run Windows 2000 Server and Exchange as a teaching machine for school. Now that I have finished my course I decided to install Linux on it. I downloaded the free version of Linux by Mandrake called Mandriva.
I was totally impressed! It was just as easy and in some cases easier to install than Windows. I found the same was true when configuring it. Most was done with a graphical interface. The 3 CD set came chock full of programs.....more than any off the shelf Windows Machine comes with and it has full Web, FTP, Samba and NFS servers as well.
If it were not for the very, very few Windows programs I need that either Linux or MacOS X does not cover I would move my other Windows box over to Linux.
I agree. I turn 45 tomorrow, May 11th, and I waited till I was over 30 to get married. I wish I was just 30 again and could relive all those great mistakes I made.......except the marriage part!
Microsoft Innovation? That is about the biggest oxymoron I have heard! Microsoft has already made inroads into making the internet a Windows only affair. There are web pages out there that will only work with Internet Explorer running on Windows. There are even more pages that provide fewer features if you are using anything other than the IE/Windows combination. Most of these pages would work with other browsers and platforms except for the fact they were created with Microsoft Content creation tools.
I think the biggest offender was a page on Microsofts own site. It was a page for users of other browsers and platforms to lodge a complaint with the U.S. Anti-Trust enforcement. For quite a long time the page was only viewable using Internet Explorer on Windows, which if you had those you would be less likely to complain. They did eventually fix the page but for a long time it was impossible to use for the people it was created for. Was this just an oversite on Microsofts part or part of their plan. I would normally say an oversite but with the zeal both Gates and that sweat monger Balmer have shown for owning the internet I have to wonder.
While I have never been snubbed, I have seen others get snubbed when asking simple questions. I do believe that newbies should do a little work on their own getting down the basics, the UNIX community could be more helpful.
This also shows in what passes for documentation of some of the programs. It is always assumed that the person knows how to compile and install the program.....even when the program does something that is not normally done. I have always been able to figure out what the programmer did and I can compile and install 90 percent of the programs I find but I do feel for new users. They are missing some quite good software and maybe even a program that they could use where no other exists.
However I must say that Windows users are even more snobby bunch. Some Windows users will harass anyone who does not uses Windows or anyone who thinks Windows is a crappy OS. Even when they are wrong on some of the facts about Windows they will think they are right and you are wrong just for taking a different view.
I would rather ask a question or answer one from a UNIX user than a Windows user any say of the week.
I don't know but some Canadian politician was blaming America for Canadians coming down here to buy guns. It seemed a little backwards to me. Wouldn't blame the people coming down here to buy guns?
We have almost the same signs down here in the states except they say "Guns" for all the nice Canadian tourists ;-)
How come nobody mentions price when talking about the PGG or Romulain Ale. What is a better buy for my gold-pressed latinum?
I know my 2002 eMac has a Airport built in. However my PC is much easier to set-up for a connection. Since I use a linksys router and a linksys USB network adapter all I have to do is enter my password, on the Mac it is a long ascII number. That said my Mac never fails at a connection and sometimes the Windows box forgets it has a network adapter.
I am a MCSE and I still prefer Macs to PC's.
I am not sure but I think Apple beat the to that. At least in the laptops. They might have been on the advisory committee for the 802.11 standards or had some input maybe that's what they are talking about.....but then so did a lot of people.
I think the biggest clues are no AMD chips and no linux. Does Dell even sell a computer without an OS?
Did they go to the Al Gore school of claims that are not true. What is funny is that Wintels other lapdog, ZDnet is reporting it. Dell Ditty anyone?
I agree. When MD first came out I lusted after one. I never got one because I really did not have a pressing need for one. I don't know if they MD - iPod comparison is a good one. They are really made for different things. A better comparison would be to the flash based and hard drive based pro recorders. Like These:
y /PR/PCM-D1.html
4 96-main.html
http://aes.harmony-central.com/119AES/Content/Son
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2
I always thought that the Sony MD format was pretty cool. I never had one but I wanted one. However the iPod kicks its ass in many ways. Not only that if you compare recording devices for use in live or small studio applications the mini disc recorders really pale in comparison to flash or hard drive based recorders. Apple does limit the iPod in some ways but to blow past those I added iPodLinux to my iPod and it is fully feaure packed. I can even record stereo files via a mic or inputs at up to 96Khz. While I have always had both Mac and PC's around I prefer to use the Mac. People claim that there are other players than the iPod but few if any of those support the Mac. Even Real which touted giving iPod users a choice did not have a Mac version of their music site. Last and certainly least is the coolness factor of using and being seen with your iPod. Actually I could care less if people know I own an iPod.
I looked at other players before getting an iPod most we so butt ugly but more important they were either a pain to use or in the case of the Creative Zen players the in-store demo players would crash. Hardly inspiring. I spent the extra cash for the iPod and have not been sorry I did so. There may be a place for mini disc players but I would be really hard press to find one given the power of flash and hard drive based recorders and players.
Being a Mac users since day one....and a PC users since day one as well, I know how good Apple is at customer service. However this is one company that has them beat hands down. Western Digital. Several years ago I had a WD 100gig hard drive go bad. I returned it to WD and they sent me a brand new 120gig drive to replace it. When I had problems with it, I thought, they sent another 120gig drive and told me to keep both for a month and send back the one I did not want. Turns out it was a flakey second hard drive that only had problems intermittently and affected both drives and I returned the second 120gig drive within a few days. The people at WD were polite, fast and knew their stuff. I only purchase Western Digital hard drives.
Apple has always been good in most respects but with the move to the iPod I think they have slipped on providing updates for iPods that are over one year old.
That was the link I was looking for! Thank You!
I looks like it did well in the full mission test. For some reason I missed that when I was looking at the videos.
Uh, I said I have been to their site and did not see much in the way of anything there. Yes the big 3 second static test but I had already seen that.
They say it may take month to find out what went wrong with it but usually during launch that can be narrowed down very quickly. Usually engine failure, software failure or structural failure. Usually in that order.
When you build a new rocket motor it has to be tested quite a bit. It is usually strapped down and tested for the length of time it has to run and for the program actions it has to take such and moving the gimble to steer the rocket. The Russians did not do enough testing of their N1 motor for their moonshot missions and they lost a few rockets in the process. They had to go back to their old motor design. Scaled Composites did a full burn test of their motor and it worked flawlessly. Of course it was a much simpler design.
There on pad test was three seconds. Visiting their site does not really provide much information other than they were sure it would work and the rocket failed during the first stage burn.
If you have a link to information of when and were they tested the engine on a test bed like those at vandenberg were they run them through the launch program and burn time please feel free to post them.
If you have only tested the mounted engine for three seconds how did they know if it could even run long enough to reach orbit? It makes me wonder if they even ran the engine in a test bed mount for the full time to orbit that it had to burn.
Actually they hooked the computer up to the internet for the first time and within 1 minute it was already sending zombie emails and someone had already added 59 admin accounts.
Since they move at a slow walking pace at best I doubt they could generate a breeze in the low pressure but all that bumping just might help.
There is dust there. Since there is low gravity and low atmospheric pressure I am not sure how much of a wind it would take to lift that dust. You can see in the picture link the august 2005 self portrait of Spirt. http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20 060104a/Sol583A_Deck_L456atc-A712R1_br.jpg
The panels are a little dusty but not that bad.
I think the rovers will still be going by the time Vista is released. However by the time Microsoft releases a version of Windows with decent security I think we will have warp drive.
That was the one I was going to post alright;-)
;-)
Sometimes doing four or five things at the same time is not always the right way to do things, posting especially. While I can't promise I will do better next time, I will try
Having been hit by my share of whirlwinds on earth, I think they get things more dusty than clean but it may be different on the red planet. With the atmosphere being much less dense than earth it is hard to say how fast or strong those winds are.
It could be that the soil was less magnetic than they thought or the winds packed more force than they thought. Even the gravity might have a helping hand as well.
While I think that the two rovers have done a great job, in fact, more than a great job, I am really waiting for the rover than will land at the edge of the mars polar cap. I think that if they ever find life on mars and I doubt they will for many reason, it will be close to where water is present. The Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter may actually do a better job than the two rovers.
Yep you are correct. Sorry I was confusing the RS6000 brand of IBM chips with the RAD 6000.
I was also quoting NASA as for them being cheap. When the landers were on there way they said in interviews on TV that they were cheaper chips......looking at wiki it is hard to find many other RAD hardened chips.