An extension is available for Firefox that I'm desperately wanting in Mozilla. It allows you to set the default Text Zoom for all new windows and tabs.
For those of us hearing about this fork for the first time, could somebody explain what these people felt was so wrong about the FreeBSD tree that they decided to go off on their own?
Or, to put it another way... what's the diference between DragonFlyBSD and FreeBSD?
With all due respect, they answer your questions right on their home page! RTFHTML!
That being said, supplying your own broadband is one thing (you're probably a geek that would have it anyway), but all the rest is your CIO crossing a line (s)he shouldn't be crossing.
First, I think it would only be fair to point out that the cost of Linux should be compared to the cost of the server version of Windows. XP Home, and even XP Professional, are much more limited than your typical distribution of Linux.
Second, if you're taking the Linux plunge, it's generally trivial to test drive a free (as in beer) distribution of Linux before making the dive into a commercial distribution of Linux that comes with support contracts and other goodies.
Third, the fact that Linux lags behind when it comes to drivers can hardly be blamed on Linux. Hardware manufacturers (whether rightly or wrongly) tend to put a low priority on writing Linux drivers, if they write them at all.
Honestly, I blame this in part on the GNU Public License, since it's somewhat business unfriendly. This is just my honest opinion, please don't flame me for it.
I'm going to take a break from writing Java software using Sun's JDK, and boot up OpenOffice, and I'm going to write a letter to Sun, saying they never contribute anything! I'm going to save the document via NFS to my department file server, and get everyone to send their own copy of it to Sun! I'm so mad, I have half a mind to shutdown my x86 machine that runs Solaris!
Those greedy bastards! They never give anything to the community! WE DESERVE FREE HAND-OUTS!
A thick atmosphere in low gravity?
on
Titanic Saturn
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Inquiring minds want to know: how does Titan keep its thick atmosphere in such low (15% of Earth) gravity?
With all due respect (you're obviously extremely talented), your web site alone makes me question your design and artistic skills.
The font you use is unbelievably small and difficult to read. Even magnified in Mozilla, it's too small to read comfortably. And your thumbnails are similarly uselessly tiny. I gave up on your web site and game entirely just due to those factors alone.
I hope you pick better common sense defaults in your game!
And that is exactly how supply side ('trickle down') economics worked. It worked in the 80's and it's starting to work now, too.
It is good to see that some good is coming out of off shore outsourcing, at least.
Of course, this will get modded down because libertarian or conservative views get an automatic -1 (Not Liberal) here most of the time;)
I'm glad supply side ("trickle down") economics is working so well for India. Do you think the American government might do something for the shrinking American middle class next? Or has the American government decided that their new role in the world is to help everyone but American citizens?
1952 was the year that man made diamonds made their debut. Despite all the innacurate blather from Wired, we can still tell man made from natural diamond.Spectroscopic examination of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) created diamonds, which is the method Apollo uses, or the classic High Pressure/High temperature (HPHT) method, both have characteristic absorption spectra. Furthermore, there are some clues to be had with less esoteric equipment. CVD diamonds have a chararacteristic strain pattern in the crystal structure that is discernable. HPHT diamonds are more identifiable, as the gemmologist community has had more time to examine them... decades.
Err... Ahh... So I should avoid buying my wife a sythentic diamond if she has access to an electron microscope???
For a long time, I've been a huge proponent of ease-of-use. While I respected Linux from a technical perspective, I've long been dissapointed in it from an ease-of-use perspective.
That all changed the last time I tried Linux. Knoppix, to be exact. It was jaw-droppingly impressive to me: the hardware recognition; the ease-of-use; the clean interface (KDE, in this case, though I suspect GNOME is just as nice); everything was polished and smooth.
And then it hit me, there are only two things stopping Linux from making deep inroads into the desktop market these days:
1. Drivers, drivers, drivers. Not enough hardware makers are bothering with drivers for Linux. Kudos to all the Linux folks writing drivers, but Linux is always at least a step or two behind. However, this problem may be solved if the project that allows Windows drivers to work under Linux is successful.
2. Inertia. Everyone uses Windows, therefore...everyone keeps using Windows.
My hope is that the low cost of Linux will keep driving people into its loving arms.
So...how does this post apply to the topic at hand? Simple: anyone who has given modern distributions of Linux a chance already knows what I know: Linux is just as easy to use as Windows these days (or close enough that it doesn't matter), and the only thing holding Linux back now are the two items I listed above. Anyone who claims modern distributions of Linux are too hard to use probably shouldn't be using computers at all.
WinFS sounds promising, but unless Microsoft makes the WinFS specs open and free, it'll be yet another lock-in technology, which would be very dissapointing.
Adding metadata to all your files would require a lot of time and effort, and if it's a closed technology, it'd be yet another reason people wouldn't want to even attempt switching to another OS. I can almost hear it now...
"This other OS looks cool, but I've spent so much time adding metadata to all my files, and I can't export that metadata to this other OS because the format is proprietary and patented... I'd better stick with Windows, switching OS's would be too hard..."
Sorry, someone had to state the blatantly obvious. As usual, all promising technologies coming out of Microsoft are poisoned. And most people don't even realize it. Not even intelligent people. Most.NET developers don't even realize that.NET's so-called "standardization" via ECMA doesn't really make it an open standard (lots of the "standardized".NET technology is encumbered by patents).
-Teckla
Win98 vulnerabilities will still be patched
on
Windows 98 Phased Out
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Before people panic in the streets, it should be made clear that MS still plans to patch vulnerabilities in Win98. Hopefully this means people will keep using Windows Update to keep their system as risk free (from viruses, trojans, etc.) as reasonably possible. (Besides using things like virus scanners and anti-spyware tools, of course!)
I know I'm just stating the obvious here, but it seems worth mentioning, in case people really believe Cringely's "the sky is falling" claim regarding SCO and Linux.
First, there is Linux the kernel, and there is Linux the full featured operating system. The only thing in any danger is Linux the kernel, which is just a part of Linux the operating system. So, right off the bat, the potential danger is localized.
Second, once SCO is compelled by the courts to reveal the allegedly infringing code - if there is any - the Linux community will quickly replace it, and Linux will be back on track.
If, for some reason, replacing the allegedly infringing code is not possible, there are other kernels to turn to, including but not limited to the excellent BSD kernel (Free, Net, Open).
This SCO nonsense is just good entertainment for us, and a foolish money sink for companies like IBM that have to put up with SCO's obnoxiousness.
If budget is important, consider estimating electricity costs in a do-it-yourself solution. You might be surprised how much money worth of electricity a PC can use in just a year.
As an example, I've seen people "save money" by reusing old PC's as firewalls instead of buying a cheap $50 unit that does the same job. They're spending more money in electricity than it would have cost to buy the dedicated unit.
This is a public "thank you!" to the developers of Mozilla. I switched from IE to Mozilla about a year ago and haven't looked back. IE users don't know what they're missing.
One BIG thing the author of this article misses is that you never know what oddball technology that SEEMS like a kid's toy might end up being The Next Big Thing.
In the mid-80's I frequented a multi-user BBS which ran on Qnx. The machine? A 4.77 MHz 8088 IBM PC clone. It had 10 or 12 lines each running a 300 baud modem. It had email, newsgroups, chat, games, and downloads. I had a developer account and could compile C programs. All while the system was full. Without anyone even noticing. The OS is smooth as silk.
Later, the BBS was upgraded to an 8 MHz AT clone and 2400 baud modems. Still, smooth as silk, even at capacity.
The BBS never crashed once and always ran smooth.
I can't say much about today's Qnx, because I haven't used it. But yesterday's Qnx displayed a level of quality I've never seen in another OS. If I ever find myself needing medical attention, I usre as hell hope the OS running under the hood is Qnx. There is nothing more reliable.
You're ignoring the possibility that companies will be accused (in the court of public opinion) of violating the GPL when, in fact, it hasn't been violated.
Did you read the recent Slashdot story regarding Linksys and Linux/GPL?
Overall it seems safer for a company to take the safe road and choose FreeBSD for their embedded devices. I can only imagine there is a technical reason embedded device companies choose Linux/GPL over FreeBSD/BSD, a reason so overwhelming that they're willing to risk accusations of violating the GPL (whether they are justified accusations or not).
I've always wondered why embedded device makers choose Linux over FreeBSD. Does anyone know why?
I'm curious because using Linux (which is GPL'd) seems a bit risky. It seems every other week some poor embedded device company is being tarred and feathered for allegedly breaking the terms of the GPL.
Why do companies run the risk of Linux/GPL license problems when FreeBSD is available? This is not a troll, I am genuinely curious.
Most PHB's haven't figured it out yet: SOFTWARE IS HARD. It's amazingly complicated. It's also notoriously hard to come up with realistic estimates.
PHB's also haven't figured out that developers aren't interchangeable widgets. If you know C, it doesn't mean you'll be immediately productive in Korn shell scripting, and vice-versa.
PHB's also haven't figured out that experience is key. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, a young hotshot isn't going to be as productive as an experienced professional. Sure, the young hotshot might get v1.0 done first, but it'll be buggy, unreliable, unscalable, hard to maintain, etc.
The "problem with software" is almost entirely a management issue, imho.
Slashdot Mirror
An extension is available for Firefox that I'm desperately wanting in Mozilla. It allows you to set the default Text Zoom for all new windows and tabs.
Does anyone know if this is possible in Mozilla?
For those of us hearing about this fork for the first time, could somebody explain what these people felt was so wrong about the FreeBSD tree that they decided to go off on their own? Or, to put it another way... what's the diference between DragonFlyBSD and FreeBSD?
With all due respect, they answer your questions right on their home page! RTFHTML!
The subject says it all.
That being said, supplying your own broadband is one thing (you're probably a geek that would have it anyway), but all the rest is your CIO crossing a line (s)he shouldn't be crossing.
If you'd like to try scripting with Java, then I suggest looking into Mozilla Rhino, which allows one to script Java via JavaScript.
Rhino is a JavaScript interpreter written in Java, it's not a Java interpreter.
First, I think it would only be fair to point out that the cost of Linux should be compared to the cost of the server version of Windows. XP Home, and even XP Professional, are much more limited than your typical distribution of Linux.
Second, if you're taking the Linux plunge, it's generally trivial to test drive a free (as in beer) distribution of Linux before making the dive into a commercial distribution of Linux that comes with support contracts and other goodies.
Third, the fact that Linux lags behind when it comes to drivers can hardly be blamed on Linux. Hardware manufacturers (whether rightly or wrongly) tend to put a low priority on writing Linux drivers, if they write them at all.
Honestly, I blame this in part on the GNU Public License, since it's somewhat business unfriendly. This is just my honest opinion, please don't flame me for it.
-Teckla
Generating electricity is not green. Once again this is a demonstration of euphoric environmentalists not knowing how things work.
You're right, riding 30 pounds of bicycle isn't any more "green" than driving around 2000 pounds of car.
We'll try to keep such crazy thoughts out of our head from now on.
-Teckla
And before you mods beat me with the troll stick, try to keep in mind my post (above) was sarcasm.
Sun contributes a lot to the community, and continues to do so.
To the fine folks as Sun: Thanks for your contributions! Some of us appreciate it!
That does it!
I'm going to take a break from writing Java software using Sun's JDK, and boot up OpenOffice, and I'm going to write a letter to Sun, saying they never contribute anything! I'm going to save the document via NFS to my department file server, and get everyone to send their own copy of it to Sun! I'm so mad, I have half a mind to shutdown my x86 machine that runs Solaris!
Those greedy bastards! They never give anything to the community! WE DESERVE FREE HAND-OUTS!
Inquiring minds want to know: how does Titan keep its thick atmosphere in such low (15% of Earth) gravity?
-Teckla
Perhaps PPC can make a go of the desktop and server market, but it will be hard work to displace x86.
PPC is already doing well in the desktop and server markets. Macs (desktop) use PowerPC CPUs, and many IBM servers use Power CPUs.
-Teckla
With all due respect (you're obviously extremely talented), your web site alone makes me question your design and artistic skills.
The font you use is unbelievably small and difficult to read. Even magnified in Mozilla, it's too small to read comfortably. And your thumbnails are similarly uselessly tiny. I gave up on your web site and game entirely just due to those factors alone.
I hope you pick better common sense defaults in your game!
-Teckla
And that is exactly how supply side ('trickle down') economics worked. It worked in the 80's and it's starting to work now, too.
It is good to see that some good is coming out of off shore outsourcing, at least.
Of course, this will get modded down because libertarian or conservative views get an automatic -1 (Not Liberal) here most of the time ;)
I'm glad supply side ("trickle down") economics is working so well for India. Do you think the American government might do something for the shrinking American middle class next? Or has the American government decided that their new role in the world is to help everyone but American citizens?
-Teckla
1952 was the year that man made diamonds made their debut. Despite all the innacurate blather from Wired, we can still tell man made from natural diamond.Spectroscopic examination of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) created diamonds, which is the method Apollo uses, or the classic High Pressure/High temperature (HPHT) method, both have characteristic absorption spectra. Furthermore, there are some clues to be had with less esoteric equipment. CVD diamonds have a chararacteristic strain pattern in the crystal structure that is discernable. HPHT diamonds are more identifiable, as the gemmologist community has had more time to examine them... decades.
Err... Ahh... So I should avoid buying my wife a sythentic diamond if she has access to an electron microscope???
-Teckla
For a long time, I've been a huge proponent of ease-of-use. While I respected Linux from a technical perspective, I've long been dissapointed in it from an ease-of-use perspective.
That all changed the last time I tried Linux. Knoppix, to be exact. It was jaw-droppingly impressive to me: the hardware recognition; the ease-of-use; the clean interface (KDE, in this case, though I suspect GNOME is just as nice); everything was polished and smooth.
And then it hit me, there are only two things stopping Linux from making deep inroads into the desktop market these days:
1. Drivers, drivers, drivers. Not enough hardware makers are bothering with drivers for Linux. Kudos to all the Linux folks writing drivers, but Linux is always at least a step or two behind. However, this problem may be solved if the project that allows Windows drivers to work under Linux is successful.
2. Inertia. Everyone uses Windows, therefore...everyone keeps using Windows.
My hope is that the low cost of Linux will keep driving people into its loving arms.
So...how does this post apply to the topic at hand? Simple: anyone who has given modern distributions of Linux a chance already knows what I know: Linux is just as easy to use as Windows these days (or close enough that it doesn't matter), and the only thing holding Linux back now are the two items I listed above. Anyone who claims modern distributions of Linux are too hard to use probably shouldn't be using computers at all.
-Teckla
WinFS sounds promising, but unless Microsoft makes the WinFS specs open and free, it'll be yet another lock-in technology, which would be very dissapointing.
Adding metadata to all your files would require a lot of time and effort, and if it's a closed technology, it'd be yet another reason people wouldn't want to even attempt switching to another OS. I can almost hear it now...
"This other OS looks cool, but I've spent so much time adding metadata to all my files, and I can't export that metadata to this other OS because the format is proprietary and patented... I'd better stick with Windows, switching OS's would be too hard..."
Sorry, someone had to state the blatantly obvious. As usual, all promising technologies coming out of Microsoft are poisoned. And most people don't even realize it. Not even intelligent people. Most .NET developers don't even realize that .NET's so-called "standardization" via ECMA doesn't really make it an open standard (lots of the "standardized" .NET technology is encumbered by patents).
-Teckla
Before people panic in the streets, it should be made clear that MS still plans to patch vulnerabilities in Win98. Hopefully this means people will keep using Windows Update to keep their system as risk free (from viruses, trojans, etc.) as reasonably possible. (Besides using things like virus scanners and anti-spyware tools, of course!)
-Teckla
I know I'm just stating the obvious here, but it seems worth mentioning, in case people really believe Cringely's "the sky is falling" claim regarding SCO and Linux.
First, there is Linux the kernel, and there is Linux the full featured operating system. The only thing in any danger is Linux the kernel, which is just a part of Linux the operating system. So, right off the bat, the potential danger is localized.
Second, once SCO is compelled by the courts to reveal the allegedly infringing code - if there is any - the Linux community will quickly replace it, and Linux will be back on track.
If, for some reason, replacing the allegedly infringing code is not possible, there are other kernels to turn to, including but not limited to the excellent BSD kernel (Free, Net, Open).
This SCO nonsense is just good entertainment for us, and a foolish money sink for companies like IBM that have to put up with SCO's obnoxiousness.
There's nothing to see here. Move on.
-Teckla
Nevermind the fact that I'm 34 and don't even play computer games.
What does your being 34 years old have to do with your not playing video games?
-Teckla
If budget is important, consider estimating electricity costs in a do-it-yourself solution. You might be surprised how much money worth of electricity a PC can use in just a year.
As an example, I've seen people "save money" by reusing old PC's as firewalls instead of buying a cheap $50 unit that does the same job. They're spending more money in electricity than it would have cost to buy the dedicated unit.
-Teckla
This is a public "thank you!" to the developers of Mozilla. I switched from IE to Mozilla about a year ago and haven't looked back. IE users don't know what they're missing.
Thanks for the hard work! Mozilla rocks!
-Teckla
One BIG thing the author of this article misses is that you never know what oddball technology that SEEMS like a kid's toy might end up being The Next Big Thing.
-Teckla
In the mid-80's I frequented a multi-user BBS which ran on Qnx. The machine? A 4.77 MHz 8088 IBM PC clone. It had 10 or 12 lines each running a 300 baud modem. It had email, newsgroups, chat, games, and downloads. I had a developer account and could compile C programs. All while the system was full. Without anyone even noticing. The OS is smooth as silk.
Later, the BBS was upgraded to an 8 MHz AT clone and 2400 baud modems. Still, smooth as silk, even at capacity.
The BBS never crashed once and always ran smooth.
I can't say much about today's Qnx, because I haven't used it. But yesterday's Qnx displayed a level of quality I've never seen in another OS. If I ever find myself needing medical attention, I usre as hell hope the OS running under the hood is Qnx. There is nothing more reliable.
-Teckla
You're ignoring the possibility that companies will be accused (in the court of public opinion) of violating the GPL when, in fact, it hasn't been violated.
Did you read the recent Slashdot story regarding Linksys and Linux/GPL?
Overall it seems safer for a company to take the safe road and choose FreeBSD for their embedded devices. I can only imagine there is a technical reason embedded device companies choose Linux/GPL over FreeBSD/BSD, a reason so overwhelming that they're willing to risk accusations of violating the GPL (whether they are justified accusations or not).
-Teckla
I've always wondered why embedded device makers choose Linux over FreeBSD. Does anyone know why?
I'm curious because using Linux (which is GPL'd) seems a bit risky. It seems every other week some poor embedded device company is being tarred and feathered for allegedly breaking the terms of the GPL.
Why do companies run the risk of Linux/GPL license problems when FreeBSD is available? This is not a troll, I am genuinely curious.
-Teckla
Most PHB's haven't figured it out yet: SOFTWARE IS HARD. It's amazingly complicated. It's also notoriously hard to come up with realistic estimates.
PHB's also haven't figured out that developers aren't interchangeable widgets. If you know C, it doesn't mean you'll be immediately productive in Korn shell scripting, and vice-versa.
PHB's also haven't figured out that experience is key. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, a young hotshot isn't going to be as productive as an experienced professional. Sure, the young hotshot might get v1.0 done first, but it'll be buggy, unreliable, unscalable, hard to maintain, etc.
The "problem with software" is almost entirely a management issue, imho.
-Teckla