Well I clicked on all 3 links, with my KDE linux box with Real player and mplayer plug-ins installed, which most of the time sort-of works with a bit of effort for video news clips etc., and for one reason or another none of the links found a specific plug-in that would do.
Where peronally, as I said, I use 2 things: real player, which is ugly but works most of the time, and mplayer, which does some very weird shit with Microsoft streaming stuff. Media stuff just has to work in the linux desktop, just so you don't feel like you are running though quicksand to view what every hot XXX website turns your on:
Jerking off in from of a linux box is to be more effort than reward.
:P
IBM should make their own site more linux friendly by using standard mime types to server up content, or at least use standard embedding stuff, rather than using what I assume is a javsascript check for a very particular plug in.
Overall though, I was shopping for a new PC today, and IBMs PC offereing seemed better value and less confusing.
But, Dell, Do we really need a billion versions of what is now, for most poeple, a simple desktop comodity - these days I simple don't have the care to do all that configuration shit - buying a PC is not exciting, it's tedious.
Here in Australia we have a TV program called CNNN (CHASER NON-STOP NEWS NETWORK), which is a spoof of CNN type news show and a barrage of useless information. That picture of Fred just made me think of that show. ho hum.
Spend a few minutes at that site and lighten your day.
I kind of like the idea my old data fades away. God knows I'm never going to convert those old Word Perfect documents store on 'lifetime guarantee' disks to something more modern. Hell, I'm not even going to put them in my floppy drive... (which itself is still in the orginal packing box that my laptop arrived in, might have thrown it out....).
Anything really important I bestow to the old favorite storage medium, paper. I particularly like the patent free imaging system called photography, and I've found an ink pen or graphite pencil to work in some pretty tough situtions (not to mention in letters to lovers), and can generally be ready without loading a new kernel module (though I hear XML is pretty cool, because it describes itself (ha, as if anyone's self opinion is likely to be accurate)).
What if, after the thief crashed your car (which looked road worthy and didn't have a notice saying 'this car is unsafe, do not drive'), your brakes were found to be faulty. Had they worked, the thief would probably have not killed someone during the getaway. Your own driving technique probably accomodates your faulty brakes, it was on your 'to-do' list...
Yes. I'd probably pay $10 per year to access the network, and claim it back on tax later, since job (work at home) job requires I use IM to communicate with other team members (all who have Windows).
As it is, I have to try and persuade the whole team to to change messenger product simply becuase I'm the only team member who works in a non-windows environment.
After all the problems I have telling them our internal systems really shouldn't be MS IE specific, it's another hard sell that make me sound like a whiner...
I don't get many either, and I know my freinds get these things (and have me in their address book), as I'm forever listening to their bleating help requests. As you can tell from my attitude I've served my time on a support desk many years ago and have no desire to return there, even as a volunteer...
Most of my mail comes via my free POP accress to my yahoo mail account (did they start to charge for that in USA? I remember a/. story on that a while ago...) I wonder if Yahoo filter suspect mail? If so it seems pretty efficient as I don't think I lose emails, and there's never anything in the spam folder when I bother to look on line.
Every 1800 number dialed within the USA to SCO costs them money.
How about calling 1-800-726-8649 for a few minutes a few times a day if you live in the USA and listen to their on-hold music? Or set your modem to auto-dial every few minutes?
Please note the above is not a serious suggestion, Mr SCO Lawyer;)
What a wonderful service this TV service must provide! I can barely find any content on TV I want to watch, and the really good quality programs often go out on free to air non-commercial channels anyway. I've also noticed that when I miss a program I'd decided to try an watch, I don't die.
I'd rather be listening to radio or reading a good book or having a conversation with someone or going for a mountain bike ride or a swim or rock-climbing or going to the cinema or fixing up my house or cook a nice meal or even working...
I doubt any government in this capitalist era will offer financial services of this nature. Goverments usually have no idea how to provide services at an affordable cose.
If my Ammex or Mastercard had a micropayment service I'd probably use that (and trust it more than some unknown).
The main difference between this and your normal card service would be there would be a max transaction size (say $5), and you would not have the same protection on this as on the rest of your credit card tranactions.
RG
Re:German website down
on
SCO SCO SCO!
·
· Score: 1
While the above may be true, if you are in a big corporation, even the intranet can be a wild and dangerous place, and attacks from within, both deliberate and accidental (viruses etc), can be a problem.
Maybe these big corporations (and the not so big too) will feel a bit let down by their previously trusted vendor, and will wonder if there are alternatives.
I do a bit of night riding - off road racing - currently my lighting rig has a 10W halogen wide angle light, and a 20W spotlight.I do have a white LED front light, which is pretty bright, but it's not useful for illumination, just for making me visable to traffic when riding on the road at night.
Problems:
(a) batter life - even driven by sealed lead acid, you only get 1.5 hours from a reasonable sized battery, then you've got a to rechange. Not so useful for 24 hour races (ever been the the battery recharge tent for one of those?) and if you have an unexpecyed emergency.
(b) battery size and weight - has to be attached to bike frame somehow (in water bottle cage, or, like me just use gaffer tape to frame). We pay lots of money for the latest lightweighy alloy componant, and then we add a kew kilos of lead.
(b) gradually dims - better if you control light brightness with puslse mechanism, but ideally for night riding/racing, you want full beam headlights all the time.
What I'd really like is something that floodlights the area in front of the bike equivalent to about 50Watts of halogen lighting, with a rechargeable battery life of 4 hours or so.
I use a similar device, a netgear thing - somehow I feel likihood of Netgear and others in the same market place getting a quick fixs out is remote. The o/s it runs doesn't give much away about itself, but it's not actually written by netgear (syos or something), and the documentation is minimal for some non-intuitive commands. Guess you get what you pay for, to an extent, that's why big firms buy expensive gear.
At least if happen to hear about such a vulnerabilty I can build a linux box to do the same. but dedicating a noisy big old pc to this task...who would want to? Already my house is never really quiet.
Related question re. Database development
on
PostgreSQL 7.3 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is slightly off-topics but anyway...
There have been some references to msAccess here, what I like about Access is the ease I can build an ad hoc database application (but where the data could be reused easily should there be a later requirement).
While Postgres sounds great, I want to know if there are and tools that approach this ease of development, within a linux environment. Ability to choose the back-end database would be a huge plus - I'd certainly give Postgres a go.
How hard could it be for Dell to pre-install something FreeDOS to their systems?
Lets face it, they are not going to do this unless forced. The Linux market is too small to be significant - most of us who buy pre-built systems probably put up with donating some cash to Microsoft for software we do not use.
Business and governement spends a lot of time naval gazing and thinking about how crap the programs we use are, and wondering how much momey this is costing us.
Computer tools are amazing, when you think about their complexity. Learn to to live with their quirks, and when delayed (i.e. waiting for Winodws to reboot),do something else that is also productive instead.
If you want an easy solution try Packeteer's Packet shaper. At my work we use one of these because the company likes everything to be supported, with nice overpriced training courses....(hey I got a week working in the city while on the course, made a change from the 'burbs...)
It manages traffic though a web (or command line), supports partitions and policies on classes created from just about anything you can thing of.Easy to change on the fly for when someone in IT needs to dlownload so ISOs in a hurry...
Watch out for it sending clear text passwords - perhaps it's worst problems are it's a bit sluggish on the web interface, and it does not support a secure authenication method. You can, however, create a policy that will limit access to it's web and telnet interface to particular workstations, which helps a bit...
Slashdot Mirror
Where peronally, as I said, I use 2 things: real player, which is ugly but works most of the time, and mplayer, which does some very weird shit with Microsoft streaming stuff. Media stuff just has to work in the linux desktop, just so you don't feel like you are running though quicksand to view what every hot XXX website turns your on:
IBM should make their own site more linux friendly by using standard mime types to server up content, or at least use standard embedding stuff, rather than using what I assume is a javsascript check for a very particular plug in.
Overall though, I was shopping for a new PC today, and IBMs PC offereing seemed better value and less confusing.
But, Dell, Do we really need a billion versions of what is now, for most poeple, a simple desktop comodity - these days I simple don't have the care to do all that configuration shit - buying a PC is not exciting, it's tedious.
RG
I think I'd better tone down the comment's I place on the SCO feedback page every time I feel frustrated... ;)
RG
Spend a few minutes at that site and lighten your day. I kind of like the idea my old data fades away. God knows I'm never going to convert those old Word Perfect documents store on 'lifetime guarantee' disks to something more modern. Hell, I'm not even going to put them in my floppy drive... (which itself is still in the orginal packing box that my laptop arrived in, might have thrown it out....).
Anything really important I bestow to the old favorite storage medium, paper. I particularly like the patent free imaging system called photography, and I've found an ink pen or graphite pencil to work in some pretty tough situtions (not to mention in letters to lovers), and can generally be ready without loading a new kernel module (though I hear XML is pretty cool, because it describes itself (ha, as if anyone's self opinion is likely to be accurate)).
RG
Lets extend this scenario....
What if, after the thief crashed your car (which looked road worthy and didn't have a notice saying 'this car is unsafe, do not drive'), your brakes were found to be faulty. Had they worked, the thief would probably have not killed someone during the getaway. Your own driving technique probably accomodates your faulty brakes, it was on your 'to-do' list...
Do you share some of the liability?
RG
Yes. I'd probably pay $10 per year to access the network, and claim it back on tax later, since job (work at home) job requires I use IM to communicate with other team members (all who have Windows).
As it is, I have to try and persuade the whole team to to change messenger product simply becuase I'm the only team member who works in a non-windows environment.
After all the problems I have telling them our internal systems really shouldn't be MS IE specific, it's another hard sell that make me sound like a whiner...
RG
Well sco.com seems to be down... sco.org is a childrens charity.
I don't get many either, and I know my freinds get these things (and have me in their address book), as I'm forever listening to their bleating help requests. As you can tell from my attitude I've served my time on a support desk many years ago and have no desire to return there, even as a volunteer...
/. story on that a while ago...) I wonder if Yahoo filter suspect mail? If so it seems pretty efficient as I don't think I lose emails, and there's never anything in the spam folder when I bother to look on line.
Most of my mail comes via my free POP accress to my yahoo mail account (did they start to charge for that in USA? I remember a
RG
Please note the above is not a serious suggestion, Mr SCO Lawyer ;)
RG
If I used such a service, I'd simply unsubscribe.
What a wonderful service this TV service must provide! I can barely find any content on TV I want to watch, and the really good quality programs often go out on free to air non-commercial channels anyway. I've also noticed that when I miss a program I'd decided to try an watch, I don't die.
I'd rather be listening to radio or reading a good book or having a conversation with someone or going for a mountain bike ride or a swim or rock-climbing or going to the cinema or fixing up my house or cook a nice meal or even working...
RG
I doubt any government in this capitalist era will offer financial services of this nature. Goverments usually have no idea how to provide services at an affordable cose.
If my Ammex or Mastercard had a micropayment service I'd probably use that (and trust it more than some unknown).
The main difference between this and your normal card service would be there would be a max transaction size (say $5), and you would not have the same protection on this as on the rest of your credit card tranactions.
RG
Nice to see their site runs linux...
RG
While the above may be true, if you are in a big corporation, even the intranet can be a wild and dangerous place, and attacks from within, both deliberate and accidental (viruses etc), can be a problem.
Maybe these big corporations (and the not so big too) will feel a bit let down by their previously trusted vendor, and will wonder if there are alternatives.
RG
I have been asked to research Ensim virtual hosting product, which "requires Redhat 7.2".
I want to know how long that version will continue to have security updates released for it etc.
Information nowhere to be seen on the RH website that I could see.
RG
(b) gradually dims - better if you control light brightness with puslse mechanism, but ideally for night riding/racing, you want full beam headlights all the time.
I've been wondering about getting on of these head fitting lights from Jaycar this year (not its in AU$, so it's cheap!).
What I'd really like is something that floodlights the area in front of the bike equivalent to about 50Watts of halogen lighting, with a rechargeable battery life of 4 hours or so.
I use a similar device, a netgear thing - somehow I feel likihood of Netgear and others in the same market place getting a quick fixs out is remote. The o/s it runs doesn't give much away about itself, but it's not actually written by netgear (syos or something), and the documentation is minimal for some non-intuitive commands. Guess you get what you pay for, to an extent, that's why big firms buy expensive gear.
At least if happen to hear about such a vulnerabilty I can build a linux box to do the same. but dedicating a noisy big old pc to this task...who would want to? Already my house is never really quiet.
RG
Hey thanks for the tip, just what i needed.
RG
This is slightly off-topics but anyway...
There have been some references to msAccess here, what I like about Access is the ease I can build an ad hoc database application (but where the data could be reused easily should there be a later requirement).
While Postgres sounds great, I want to know if there are and tools that approach this ease of development, within a linux environment. Ability to choose the back-end database would be a huge plus - I'd certainly give Postgres a go.
RG
Lets face it, they are not going to do this unless forced. The Linux market is too small to be significant - most of us who buy pre-built systems probably put up with donating some cash to Microsoft for software we do not use.
Electronica from Scotland.
Computer tools are amazing, when you think about their complexity. Learn to to live with their quirks, and when delayed (i.e. waiting for Winodws to reboot),do something else that is also productive instead.
RG
It manages traffic though a web (or command line), supports partitions and policies on classes created from just about anything you can thing of.Easy to change on the fly for when someone in IT needs to dlownload so ISOs in a hurry...
Watch out for it sending clear text passwords - perhaps it's worst problems are it's a bit sluggish on the web interface, and it does not support a secure authenication method. You can, however, create a policy that will limit access to it's web and telnet interface to particular workstations, which helps a bit...
Careful what you wish for. There are people out here in real world who cannot afford to get sued.
RG
With you there, the lack of awareness of my co-workers of the issues that ultimately affect and surround their jobs and lives astounds me.
Does it have revision control etc. (including being able to exchange that with MS Word docs)?
That is probably the feature I really find is missing in Open Office.
RG
The copyright notice says Ask Jeeves. Am I correct in thinking this leads back to Microsoft ownership?
If so I think I'll stick with an organisation I trust not to distort the results.
RG