The great thing about advertising is that there is no viable and accurate way to measure return. Companies spend millions of dollars every year on advertising but they generally don't know whether or not it worked.
The best they can do is poll random samples and ask people if they've seen the ad. And that doesn't work very well.
ummm and in what world does a 17" crt compare with a lcd that probably costs $200-$300.
That leaves that lindows box at $200, add a 17" inch CRT, that's $250.
I think I'd definately prefer to support the linux system. Since there would never be real problems it's just the id10t problems that are coming for you regardless of what you give them.
Actually your frankenstein has a warranty as well. Each component will have a warranty. Your motherboard will likely be 3yr, your harddrive will likely be 1yr (thanks to a not so long ago get together of HDD manufacturers to take out the 3yr warranty), your RAM will be lifetime (unless you bought crap in which case why didn't you just buy from Dell?), your processor will be 3yr (you DID pay the extra $10 for a retail box rather than OEM right?), your case may or may not have a warranty... but if your case is broken, it's your fault anyway. Your powersupply will generally have a 90day to 1yr warranty.
Basically every component in the system will have from 1yr on up if you coughed up an extra $50 on the complete system. Or did you mean the tech support line? Surely nobody would be building a computer if they ever had need to call one of those support lines anyway. And if they are building it despite that, if they get a working system it would be merely the sheerest luck that they'd end up with one that is better than a dell system.
"Dell is typically 20-25% more expensive than a whitebox."
Not if you use the same bs integrated crap that dell does. Dell uses name chipsets in integrated a proprietary components and then calls it "product x" that "chipset x" would normally refer to.
His numbers were a bit high until you consider that his system probably included an LCD and/or he was looking at a system that dell considers a "workstation" which significantly jacks up the price from Dell but not on your whitebox system.
"Erm, yeah, well when it's kill the cloners or go out of business because they're stealing your market, what would you do? Lower prices? Right, then tell me what Apple is supposed to fund their R&D operations with. Happy thoughts?"
Increased sales from the larger marketshare they gain by lowering their prices. It's called competition, it drives prices down and quality/performance up. It's ALWAYS a good thing.
It's what is available in the contextual menu's that suck. If you find yourself doing it more than twice an hour when in the application, it should be in the menu when right-click/ctrl-click/whatever you want to do.
The OS was designed around a one button mouse concept. you don't miss right-click as much as a mac user because most of the functions that would normally be there are elsewhere instead. The problem is that they are commonly used functions that make ALOT easier.
I find myself right clicking an average of once per minute on windows. About once every 5mins on linux (generally because things are laid out better or the keystrokes are more useful than right click would be.) The mac is laid out better, but isn't even caught up to windows in terms of the usefulness of keystrokes, let alone linux. So that rates to looking for something in a right click menu about once every 2mins, finding every 3rd time if your used to it being there. If your used to the mac you look about once every 15mins.
yes but the functionality available via the right-click cmd+click is SEVERELY limited in comparison with other operating systems. Perhaps it's flushed out a bit since OS 9.5 but as of then and all MacOS prior to that right click was great and all but it really wasn't as helpful as on linux and windows. On windows everything and it's dog is available via rightclick.
On linux everything and it's dog is available if it's actually easier when it's there (except on the desktop in kde or gnome, neither of them have all the fundementals in the menu you get when you right click the desktop, notably the ability to create a new file of a basic type and have it open in the default editor for that type). Other than that you simply never look for something in the right click menu's that isn't there when you right-click.
On a mac it's SOMETIMES there. ctrl-clicking isn't so bad on a mac, but really that's because you probably won't find what your looking for if you do. The things most lacking in this regard were web browsers (netscape and IE when I last used a mac), netscape of course has always opened into an html editor (which is a royal pain in the arse if your a web designer who *gasp* actually knows html and writes it himself).
But IE didn't even have a view source if I remember correctly in the rightclick menu. This is an issue when your trying to view the source of multiple frames in a webpage your running directly off your drive to make on the fly changes and refresh the visible display. This one simple feature has the ability to magically turn the browser into a fairly slick html/javascript/whateverscript IDE.
This is just one example but I found similar small issues (no individual other thing was so big that it stands out in my mind) but added up, even after 2yrs it was still something that frustrated me each and every day.
Those benchmarks didn't even show the g5 to be a superior chip with the results that were shown. They also weren't very comprehensive and lacked the detail needed to evaluate if they are in fact valid results at all.
Personally I think we will find that the G5 is a faster chip, or at least comparable. But this isn't that finding by a long shot.
"all those studies paid for by M$ showing windows is faster than linux?"
maybe I'm crazy, but I'm fairly sure (though I haven't seen any) that if M$ paid someone to run benchmarks on the OS then they would also give them permission to do the benchmarks. That's the whole idea, only MS benchmarks on the OS are ever seen by the general public.
"Or that the TCO is lower?"
Don't see what that has to do with performance and stability benchmarks so I'm not even sure that would qualify? IANAL so if it does qualify, refer to my answer on the other MS funded studies.
"hardware benchmarks you see everywhere"
Those would be umm HARDWARE benchmarks. Not benchmarking the OS itself.
ok I've heard people say this before like it's an issue. But I've never actually seen ANYONE use windows on the high end servers or datacenters. I've seen windows in small server roles, but I've never heard of someone actually USING clustering capabilities in windows or going beyond what a single system can do. A quad processor x86 box is hardly high end after all.
Andy I am most definately a linux advocate as you'll find reading my previous posts. And killing a process on linux has never locked the system short of kill -9 1, but I have seen gui crashes. And I've certainly seen gui crashes in which keyboard input was ignored and you could not ctrl+alt+anything.
They certainly aren't an everyday or everyweek or even everymonth event but they do happen. Personally I just walk 3 feet to my wife's computer and ssh into my system and take care of it (the system hasn't crashed after a ll).
hardly unlikely, it happens all the time. You download the iso, the iso is corrupted, you delete the iso and download it again, the iso is corrupted. Is this is a software failure? by your test yes it is. In reality your hard drive has a few bad sectors and your unallocating them deleting the iso and reusing when you download it again causing the repeated result.
Or you boot system, start process x, at stage y you get a segfault, you reboot and try it again, and again and again, it always happens at stage y of process x, and doesn't occur when you run other things which appear fine. Is this a software problem? no At stage y process x consumes a massive amount of memory and comes across a bad byte in RAM. Your not running anything else that would require allocating that block of ram and therefore you only see it when running process x at stage y.
Consistant result, but it's really hardware failure.
Both of these are so common as to have happened to most every experienced computer user a number of times.
Apple stole the idea on which they built the gui concepts microsoft in turn cloned, from xerox.
Granted xerox was stupid enough to let Jobs walk through their lab. But then Jobs was stupid enough to do a hell of alot more than that for gates, providing api's etc etc etc to get him to develop software.
Actually I find that anaconda does a superior job of detecting hardware to anything short of a mac using all apple hardware. 99.999% of the time you run the install and your done as far as hardware configuration goes.
Winmodems might still be an issue, I really wouldn't know... broadband is everywhere, and if windows has an edge on modems that were designed to run exclusively on windows, linux certainly beats windows hands down for detecting network cards that weren't.
If you should run into an oddball piece of hardware, it's rare enough that a google search for "linux insert your hardware here" will undoubtedly yield a howto that describes how to make your hardware work step by step. These things are no more difficult for someone who doesn't know how to use their OS than the same task in windows. They are extremely easy for someone who DOES know how to use their OS regardless of which system your on.
Generally it takes under an hour to have a desktop system up running and fully configured, updated and ready to go. A server typically takes less however there is a bit of time to configure services depending on just what your setting up.
Gee, the last time I installed a linux system it took one reboot through the whole process including gettting it up to date. The one where i rebooted into my new linux system.
With this technology, ALL of the stories could be reported.
"which are the relevant facts about a story"
odd, I myself get very pissed about reporters who don't give ALL the facts. If you mean summarizing, that is EXACTLY what this is supposed to do.
"who's lying and who's telling the truth about a story"
That's for the reader to decide. A reporter who makes judgements concerning what they are reporting and expresses their view of the subject is a bad one. At least in terms of news, a review of course is another matter since that is it's entire purpose.
"You might not like the judgments that a reporter makes"
A reporter shouldn't be making judgements, this is constant, most reporters do and slant the news toward what THEY believe is the truth, letting their own opinion of the matter interfere with the information they provide me to use to form MY opinion. A reporter should be a fact gather and a writer, nothing more. Gather the facts, put as much information about the subject as possible down in as concise a manner as possible SO THAT I THE READER can decide what it means, who is telling the truth and whether or not it's interesting.
then why aren't there too many of them for the mailserver? Are you assuming for some reason that the mailserver can handle a larger volume than the spammer?
The spammer can precalculate this for every mail and THEN send them all out instead of doing both simulatenously like the mailserver has to. The mailserver also has to do this for alot more than the spammers mail. Further, if every mail needs to be calculate seperately then tables are worthless. If not, every mail the spammer sends is going to be identical, which means he only needs to experience that delay ONCE and send the identical mail 2 million times.
Slashdot Mirror
The great thing about advertising is that there is no viable and accurate way to measure return. Companies spend millions of dollars every year on advertising but they generally don't know whether or not it worked.
The best they can do is poll random samples and ask people if they've seen the ad. And that doesn't work very well.
Not to compete with a 2ghz opt it's not.
ummm and in what world does a 17" crt compare with a lcd that probably costs $200-$300.
That leaves that lindows box at $200, add a 17" inch CRT, that's $250.
I think I'd definately prefer to support the linux system. Since there would never be real problems it's just the id10t problems that are coming for you regardless of what you give them.
Actually your frankenstein has a warranty as well. Each component will have a warranty. Your motherboard will likely be 3yr, your harddrive will likely be 1yr (thanks to a not so long ago get together of HDD manufacturers to take out the 3yr warranty), your RAM will be lifetime (unless you bought crap in which case why didn't you just buy from Dell?), your processor will be 3yr (you DID pay the extra $10 for a retail box rather than OEM right?), your case may or may not have a warranty... but if your case is broken, it's your fault anyway. Your powersupply will generally have a 90day to 1yr warranty.
Basically every component in the system will have from 1yr on up if you coughed up an extra $50 on the complete system. Or did you mean the tech support line? Surely nobody would be building a computer if they ever had need to call one of those support lines anyway. And if they are building it despite that, if they get a working system it would be merely the sheerest luck that they'd end up with one that is better than a dell system.
You judge a system based on noice level and how slick the case looks? Your too far gone. Go on in your Dell dreamland.
"Dell is typically 20-25% more expensive than a whitebox."
Not if you use the same bs integrated crap that dell does. Dell uses name chipsets in integrated a proprietary components and then calls it "product x" that "chipset x" would normally refer to.
His numbers were a bit high until you consider that his system probably included an LCD and/or he was looking at a system that dell considers a "workstation" which significantly jacks up the price from Dell but not on your whitebox system.
"Erm, yeah, well when it's kill the cloners or go out of business because they're stealing your market, what would you do? Lower prices? Right, then tell me what Apple is supposed to fund their R&D operations with. Happy thoughts?"
Increased sales from the larger marketshare they gain by lowering their prices. It's called competition, it drives prices down and quality/performance up. It's ALWAYS a good thing.
It's what is available in the contextual menu's that suck. If you find yourself doing it more than twice an hour when in the application, it should be in the menu when right-click/ctrl-click/whatever you want to do.
The OS was designed around a one button mouse concept. you don't miss right-click as much as a mac user because most of the functions that would normally be there are elsewhere instead. The problem is that they are commonly used functions that make ALOT easier.
I find myself right clicking an average of once per minute on windows. About once every 5mins on linux (generally because things are laid out better or the keystrokes are more useful than right click would be.) The mac is laid out better, but isn't even caught up to windows in terms of the usefulness of keystrokes, let alone linux. So that rates to looking for something in a right click menu about once every 2mins, finding every 3rd time if your used to it being there. If your used to the mac you look about once every 15mins.
yes but the functionality available via the right-click cmd+click is SEVERELY limited in comparison with other operating systems. Perhaps it's flushed out a bit since OS 9.5 but as of then and all MacOS prior to that right click was great and all but it really wasn't as helpful as on linux and windows. On windows everything and it's dog is available via rightclick.
On linux everything and it's dog is available if it's actually easier when it's there (except on the desktop in kde or gnome, neither of them have all the fundementals in the menu you get when you right click the desktop, notably the ability to create a new file of a basic type and have it open in the default editor for that type). Other than that you simply never look for something in the right click menu's that isn't there when you right-click.
On a mac it's SOMETIMES there. ctrl-clicking isn't so bad on a mac, but really that's because you probably won't find what your looking for if you do. The things most lacking in this regard were web browsers (netscape and IE when I last used a mac), netscape of course has always opened into an html editor (which is a royal pain in the arse if your a web designer who *gasp* actually knows html and writes it himself).
But IE didn't even have a view source if I remember correctly in the rightclick menu. This is an issue when your trying to view the source of multiple frames in a webpage your running directly off your drive to make on the fly changes and refresh the visible display. This one simple feature has the ability to magically turn the browser into a fairly slick html/javascript/whateverscript IDE.
This is just one example but I found similar small issues (no individual other thing was so big that it stands out in my mind) but added up, even after 2yrs it was still something that frustrated me each and every day.
Those benchmarks didn't even show the g5 to be a superior chip with the results that were shown. They also weren't very comprehensive and lacked the detail needed to evaluate if they are in fact valid results at all.
Personally I think we will find that the G5 is a faster chip, or at least comparable. But this isn't that finding by a long shot.
"all those studies paid for by M$ showing windows is faster than linux?"
maybe I'm crazy, but I'm fairly sure (though I haven't seen any) that if M$ paid someone to run benchmarks on the OS then they would also give them permission to do the benchmarks. That's the whole idea, only MS benchmarks on the OS are ever seen by the general public.
"Or that the TCO is lower?"
Don't see what that has to do with performance and stability benchmarks so I'm not even sure that would qualify? IANAL so if it does qualify, refer to my answer on the other MS funded studies.
"hardware benchmarks you see everywhere"
Those would be umm HARDWARE benchmarks. Not benchmarking the OS itself.
ok I've heard people say this before like it's an issue. But I've never actually seen ANYONE use windows on the high end servers or datacenters. I've seen windows in small server roles, but I've never heard of someone actually USING clustering capabilities in windows or going beyond what a single system can do. A quad processor x86 box is hardly high end after all.
dunno, most other OS's have clauses in the EULA which prevent you from publishing benchmarks performed on them.
Andy I am most definately a linux advocate as you'll find reading my previous posts. And killing a process on linux has never locked the system short of kill -9 1, but I have seen gui crashes. And I've certainly seen gui crashes in which keyboard input was ignored and you could not ctrl+alt+anything.
They certainly aren't an everyday or everyweek or even everymonth event but they do happen. Personally I just walk 3 feet to my wife's computer and ssh into my system and take care of it (the system hasn't crashed after a
ll).
You consider multiple kernel compiles and a full blown memory diag proportional troubleshooting when you can't unzip a tarball?
hardly unlikely, it happens all the time. You download the iso, the iso is corrupted, you delete the iso and download it again, the iso is corrupted. Is this is a software failure? by your test yes it is. In reality your hard drive has a few bad sectors and your unallocating them deleting the iso and reusing when you download it again causing the repeated result.
Or you boot system, start process x, at stage y you get a segfault, you reboot and try it again, and again and again, it always happens at stage y of process x, and doesn't occur when you run other things which appear fine. Is this a software problem? no At stage y process x consumes a massive amount of memory and comes across a bad byte in RAM. Your not running anything else that would require allocating that block of ram and therefore you only see it when running process x at stage y.
Consistant result, but it's really hardware failure.
Both of these are so common as to have happened to most every experienced computer user a number of times.
Apple stole the idea on which they built the gui concepts microsoft in turn cloned, from xerox.
Granted xerox was stupid enough to let Jobs walk through their lab. But then Jobs was stupid enough to do a hell of alot more than that for gates, providing api's etc etc etc to get him to develop software.
Actually I find that anaconda does a superior job of detecting hardware to anything short of a mac using all apple hardware. 99.999% of the time you run the install and your done as far as hardware configuration goes.
Winmodems might still be an issue, I really wouldn't know... broadband is everywhere, and if windows has an edge on modems that were designed to run exclusively on windows, linux certainly beats windows hands down for detecting network cards that weren't.
If you should run into an oddball piece of hardware, it's rare enough that a google search for "linux insert your hardware here" will undoubtedly yield a howto that describes how to make your hardware work step by step. These things are no more difficult for someone who doesn't know how to use their OS than the same task in windows. They are extremely easy for someone who DOES know how to use their OS regardless of which system your on.
Generally it takes under an hour to have a desktop system up running and fully configured, updated and ready to go. A server typically takes less however there is a bit of time to configure services depending on just what your setting up.
yes I agree, the world is a really shitty place. Perhaps we should go postal on these guys, light them on fire and piss on them.
Oh you didn't know? that's why Osama and his followers are so pissed at the US.
They've used winXP and really want a piece of Microsoft, which the world knows owns the US since the DOJ case.
Gee, the last time I installed a linux system it took one reboot through the whole process including gettting it up to date. The one where i rebooted into my new linux system.
Open source was able to match the big boys in one swoop. Refer to winex and you'll find most all of those titles in the store run on linux.
yes but a true geek would manage to light them on fire with nothing but a paperclip and woodshavings at his disposal.
"which stories are worth reporting"
With this technology, ALL of the stories could be reported.
"which are the relevant facts about a story"
odd, I myself get very pissed about reporters who don't give ALL the facts. If you mean summarizing, that is EXACTLY what this is supposed to do.
"who's lying and who's telling the truth about a story"
That's for the reader to decide. A reporter who makes judgements concerning what they are reporting and expresses their view of the subject is a bad one. At least in terms of news, a review of course is another matter since that is it's entire purpose.
"You might not like the judgments that a reporter makes"
A reporter shouldn't be making judgements, this is constant, most reporters do and slant the news toward what THEY believe is the truth, letting their own opinion of the matter interfere with the information they provide me to use to form MY opinion. A reporter should be a fact gather and a writer, nothing more. Gather the facts, put as much information about the subject as possible down in as concise a manner as possible SO THAT I THE READER can decide what it means, who is telling the truth and whether or not it's interesting.
then why aren't there too many of them for the mailserver? Are you assuming for some reason that the mailserver can handle a larger volume than the spammer?
The spammer can precalculate this for every mail and THEN send them all out instead of doing both simulatenously like the mailserver has to. The mailserver also has to do this for alot more than the spammers mail. Further, if every mail needs to be calculate seperately then tables are worthless. If not, every mail the spammer sends is going to be identical, which means he only needs to experience that delay ONCE and send the identical mail 2 million times.