I've never had to learn how to edit a configuration file
I agree. Having all the configuration information, for all applications, bundled up with lots of other stuff in that registry makes editing so much simpler snd safer.
the URL that's coded into SUS to synchronize with updates is -- wait for it -- a windowsupdate.com URL!
This is amusing (and further embarrassment for MS) but should not take much to fix. There is a configuration option in SUS that allows setting of the synchronization server.
Notably, Microsoft refused to give permission to ISPs to burn CD's or make floppies with the Blaster patch on them.
I had not heard this. Do you have any references? On the face of it, this could lay MS open to legal action by the ISPs for damages that could and should have been prevented.
Probably true, but the authorities could be in denial. Remember the shuttle disaster. For the first few days, they said it definitely was not caused by the foam issue.
IE would not have been my choice of core architecture around which to build a system maintenance utility. That said, I think it quite appropriate that MS base something like Windows Update around something specific. What MS was (past tense) trying to do with Windows Update is intrinsically hard and you definitely want to minimise the number of variables you are dealing with. This is a very different matter from locking out competitive browsers for general Internet surfing.
What I find very difficult to understand is how, with the amount of money MS has thrown at the problem, they can currently have such poorly designed implementations (multiple) for product updates.
If copyright law forbids a license that allows multiple copies to be made, presumably this means that parts of SCO's agreement with IBM for use of the old Unix code base are invalid.
Come to think of it, SCO's source code agreements with everyone else (including Sun and MS) are probably invalid also. This is hilarious.
I am now waiting for SCO's explanation on how code in Linux can still be a secret in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of people regularly look at it. Next, we can learn how patent law does not permit Novell to retain Unix patents when relinguishing the source code and why SCO really does have the right to keep talking about its right to the 'Unix' IP (when it is supposed to have no such right because it does not even own the Unix trademark).
"IMAP is just not a very rich protocol," Steve Conn, Exchange Server product manager, told ZDNet Australia
... considering that, bad as the IMAP support in OE is, the IMAP support in Outlook is even worse. If they are going to try to move users onto Outlook, they had better try to build the impression that IMAP is intrinsically bad, not that MS (deliberately or otherwise) has a terrible implementation in their flagship email client.
Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you will get hit by a train
Actually, eventually there will be a fix for this. Consider nanomachines that can take a complete molecular scan of your body and store it somewhere. This scan would be run each night. Further, consider technologies able to reconstruct you from your backup, in the event of some kind of catastrophic failure. This may come within the next 100 years.
The hard drive could be internal. The advantage of external (USB2 or firewire) comes when the user installs a new computer. Installing his backup device on his new machine is easier.
A business opportunity? Perhaps, but something like this would need heavy marketing. It would be interesting to build something like this into a Linux distribution if, say, Red Hat, IBM or Sun would support it.
Many years ago, when I was working for IBM, I spent an evening talking with a Systems Engineer from Turkey. Back in the 1960s, he had been one of a team involved in selling the first computer in Turkey, a 2K (!!) 1401. On the strength of this sale, the whole team went out on the town to celebrate. Yes, computers have come a long way.
I am going to play devil's advocate a bit here. IMHO, eye candy has very little to do with whether a game has long term appeal. The two main factors that determine whether a game is addictive are: general concept and method of interaction.
At the risk of showing my age, the original (mainframe, text based) Adventure game of the 1970s appealed to me in terms of general concept to a greater degree than anything since (with the possible exception of The Sims). Much imitated since, of course, but the graphics versions are no more addictive than the original.
On method of interaction, games consoles have a slight advantage over PCs and PCs have a big advantage over mainframe/mini based systems owing to the availablity of peripherals appropriate to game play (even the mouse is far better than a keyboard). For the most part, though, progress in enhancing this part of the gamers' experience has been diappointing in recent years. Some multi user shoot-up type games have resulted in incremental improvements in interaction, but we are really no nearer to true virtual reality than we were ten years ago.
Why is eye candy of limited importance? Mainly because the effect is transitory. You are no more likely to watch the same movie many times than to repeatedly read the same book. In both cases, if well crafted with an engaging story line, you may. But dramatic visual effects alone will not draw you back again and again to the same movie.
Consumer level PC need a VERY GOOD inexpensive method of backing up stuff... I'm talking the whole hard drive in a manner of minutes. Cheap. Often.
The hardware and software to do highly appopriate backup of consumer level PCs already exists. The main problem is that Joe User has no idea of how to do it. For a typical user, what is needed is:
* Large external hard drive (USB2 or IEEE1394)
* Image backup utility such as Acronis
* Realtime incremental backup utility for the small number of directories where the user actually creates/edits the data himself.
* Scripts to determine when an image backup should be made.
* Automated recovery procedures that restore the latest image backup and merge the incremental backups.
An external harddrive the same size as the user's main drive will hold two (compressed) image backups plus one year's incrementals. All the basic software exists. The issue is that the support is not well integrated into existing operating systems: thus setup requires skills that the average user does not have.
The total cost of such a backup system is about US$150 (and falling). This is enough that the need must be sold to the user, but I assume will be seen as reasonable by most here on/.
On balance, I think you are probably correct. There is, however, one possible counter argument. When there is no possibility of profit from suing someone, there is no incentive. A fund like this might result in certain actions being initiated because of the possibility of collecting at the end.
Right now, there is a very important PR battle going on around whether 'free' software is developed by responsible organisations and individuals or a bunch of left wing anti capitalists. 'Free' software's long term commercial success depends to a significant extent on the result of this battle.
Saying that we are going to waste time removing support that already exists because we do not like what SCO has done would look childish to many observers. The message seems like 'you cannot play with us any more'. It would not disturb SCO in the slightest, as any customer crazy enough to buy a SCO license (or SCO maintenance contract) now would not be deterred by the fact that they cannot use leading edge features of the GCC compiler. All it would do is make FSF look unprofessional.
I cannot find any references with details of this vaccine. Based on the Norway Post, it is impossible to see if this is significant. Does anyone have more information? Is there a patent application, for instance?
If your country supports terrorists or invades a neighboring country without just cause, then you bet your ass you should attempt violent revolution
OK, the US has (in the last few years) invaded Granada, Panama and Iraq (of course, other countries too: but in those cases I believe they could claim legitimate international support). You will claim that these invasions were with just cause of course. But who is to judge what is just cause other than the body setup to arbitrate such matters after the mayhem of WWII? Have you taken up arms against your government yet?
Ansar al Islam
I am familiar with the organisation. Please use some objective sources before linking them with one group or another. To quote part of a Human Rights Watch Press Release
Human Rights Watch has not investigated the alleged links between the Iraqi government and Ansar al-Islam, and is not aware of any convincing evidence supporting this contention. On the other hand, the location of the group's bases very close to the Iranian border, taken together with credible reports of the return of some Ansar al-Islam fighters to Iraqi Kurdistan through Iran, suggest that these fighters have received at least limited support from some Iranian sources
The fact is that Ansar al Islam, in common with Al Qaeda itself, is a highly unlikey ally of a secular dictatorship such as the ex Iraqi government. The attempt to convince people that such links exist is a perfect illustration of the kind of misinformation with which the US has tried to justify its invasion of Iraq.
It was not dealt with by the UN... has no army
The whole point of the UN is that it provides for unified action by its member countries when there is a consensus that such action is necessary. After the invasion of Kuwait, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed that a military response was needed. Many countries, including Syria, participated. Yes, the US provided the most important component as befits the world's military superpower. But this was supported by the world community as a whole
Iraq failed to live up to its commitments to the UN following the 1991 cease fire
It is up to the UN to judge whether Iraq was in breach of agreements made with the UN.
No lies
You should get together with the ex Iraqi information minister.
The whole of the US case for invading Iraq was based on a still active and extensive WMD program combined with Iraqi support for radical Islamic terrorism. Please quote which parts of this case were true: the use of chemical weapons back in the 1980s when Iraq was a US ally does not qualify.
"international law" is a myth
There are many forms of international law. What I was mostly referring to here was the agreements that the US entered into under the UN charter. This clearly lays out when use of military force against another nation is allowed: to briefly paraphrase, (i) self defense, or (ii) when authorised by the Security Council.
Are you suggesting that the larger proportion of whatever people you're a part of have some more noble motivation?
I do not identify, in such matters, with any specific ethnic, religious or political group. Happily, there are many in the world today (even including some Americans) who place appropriate value on human life.
I am not a pacifist: I recognise the occasional need for defense against aggression. However, the termination of the lives of real human beings is something that ought to disturb any right thinking person.
I think I understand you: preventing the death of injury of non combatants is only worthwhile if it results in some PR benefit. You confirm what I already suspected about the attitude of a large proportion of Americans.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazing, and BillG fell for it too. Look at all the money Microsoft gave SCO. Goes to show how gullible some people can be!
Isn't he worried about someone else commercialising this?
... by their network: delivering up 18MB movie files and no discernable slashdot effect.
I agree. Having all the configuration information, for all applications, bundled up with lots of other stuff in that registry makes editing so much simpler snd safer.
This is amusing (and further embarrassment for MS) but should not take much to fix. There is a configuration option in SUS that allows setting of the synchronization server.
I had not heard this. Do you have any references? On the face of it, this could lay MS open to legal action by the ISPs for damages that could and should have been prevented.
He was probably using MS Word and could not work out how to switch off autocorrect: DOS and Dos will be allowed, but DoS will be 'corrected' for you.
Probably true, but the authorities could be in denial. Remember the shuttle disaster. For the first few days, they said it definitely was not caused by the foam issue.
What I find very difficult to understand is how, with the amount of money MS has thrown at the problem, they can currently have such poorly designed implementations (multiple) for product updates.
LOL ... I never thought of that.
Come to think of it, SCO's source code agreements with everyone else (including Sun and MS) are probably invalid also. This is hilarious.
I am now waiting for SCO's explanation on how code in Linux can still be a secret in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of people regularly look at it. Next, we can learn how patent law does not permit Novell to retain Unix patents when relinguishing the source code and why SCO really does have the right to keep talking about its right to the 'Unix' IP (when it is supposed to have no such right because it does not even own the Unix trademark).
... China had enough people already, without creating humans that breed like rabbits!
Actually, eventually there will be a fix for this. Consider nanomachines that can take a complete molecular scan of your body and store it somewhere. This scan would be run each night. Further, consider technologies able to reconstruct you from your backup, in the event of some kind of catastrophic failure. This may come within the next 100 years.
A business opportunity? Perhaps, but something like this would need heavy marketing. It would be interesting to build something like this into a Linux distribution if, say, Red Hat, IBM or Sun would support it.
Many years ago, when I was working for IBM, I spent an evening talking with a Systems Engineer from Turkey. Back in the 1960s, he had been one of a team involved in selling the first computer in Turkey, a 2K (!!) 1401. On the strength of this sale, the whole team went out on the town to celebrate. Yes, computers have come a long way.
At the risk of showing my age, the original (mainframe, text based) Adventure game of the 1970s appealed to me in terms of general concept to a greater degree than anything since (with the possible exception of The Sims). Much imitated since, of course, but the graphics versions are no more addictive than the original.
On method of interaction, games consoles have a slight advantage over PCs and PCs have a big advantage over mainframe/mini based systems owing to the availablity of peripherals appropriate to game play (even the mouse is far better than a keyboard). For the most part, though, progress in enhancing this part of the gamers' experience has been diappointing in recent years. Some multi user shoot-up type games have resulted in incremental improvements in interaction, but we are really no nearer to true virtual reality than we were ten years ago.
Why is eye candy of limited importance? Mainly because the effect is transitory. You are no more likely to watch the same movie many times than to repeatedly read the same book. In both cases, if well crafted with an engaging story line, you may. But dramatic visual effects alone will not draw you back again and again to the same movie.
The hardware and software to do highly appopriate backup of consumer level PCs already exists. The main problem is that Joe User has no idea of how to do it. For a typical user, what is needed is:
* Large external hard drive (USB2 or IEEE1394)
* Image backup utility such as Acronis
* Realtime incremental backup utility for the small number of directories where the user actually creates/edits the data himself.
* Scripts to determine when an image backup should be made.
* Automated recovery procedures that restore the latest image backup and merge the incremental backups.
An external harddrive the same size as the user's main drive will hold two (compressed) image backups plus one year's incrementals. All the basic software exists. The issue is that the support is not well integrated into existing operating systems: thus setup requires skills that the average user does not have.
The total cost of such a backup system is about US$150 (and falling). This is enough that the need must be sold to the user, but I assume will be seen as reasonable by most here on /.
On balance, I think you are probably correct. There is, however, one possible counter argument. When there is no possibility of profit from suing someone, there is no incentive. A fund like this might result in certain actions being initiated because of the possibility of collecting at the end.
Saying that we are going to waste time removing support that already exists because we do not like what SCO has done would look childish to many observers. The message seems like 'you cannot play with us any more'. It would not disturb SCO in the slightest, as any customer crazy enough to buy a SCO license (or SCO maintenance contract) now would not be deterred by the fact that they cannot use leading edge features of the GCC compiler. All it would do is make FSF look unprofessional.
I cannot find any references with details of this vaccine. Based on the Norway Post, it is impossible to see if this is significant. Does anyone have more information? Is there a patent application, for instance?
If your country supports terrorists or invades a neighboring country without just cause, then you bet your ass you should attempt violent revolution
OK, the US has (in the last few years) invaded Granada, Panama and Iraq (of course, other countries too: but in those cases I believe they could claim legitimate international support). You will claim that these invasions were with just cause of course. But who is to judge what is just cause other than the body setup to arbitrate such matters after the mayhem of WWII? Have you taken up arms against your government yet?
Ansar al Islam
I am familiar with the organisation. Please use some objective sources before linking them with one group or another. To quote part of a Human Rights Watch Press Release
Human Rights Watch has not investigated the alleged links between the Iraqi government and Ansar al-Islam, and is not aware of any convincing evidence supporting this contention. On the other hand, the location of the group's bases very close to the Iranian border, taken together with credible reports of the return of some Ansar al-Islam fighters to Iraqi Kurdistan through Iran, suggest that these fighters have received at least limited support from some Iranian sources
The fact is that Ansar al Islam, in common with Al Qaeda itself, is a highly unlikey ally of a secular dictatorship such as the ex Iraqi government. The attempt to convince people that such links exist is a perfect illustration of the kind of misinformation with which the US has tried to justify its invasion of Iraq.
It was not dealt with by the UN ... has no army
The whole point of the UN is that it provides for unified action by its member countries when there is a consensus that such action is necessary. After the invasion of Kuwait, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed that a military response was needed. Many countries, including Syria, participated. Yes, the US provided the most important component as befits the world's military superpower. But this was supported by the world community as a whole
Iraq failed to live up to its commitments to the UN following the 1991 cease fire
It is up to the UN to judge whether Iraq was in breach of agreements made with the UN.
No lies
You should get together with the ex Iraqi information minister.
The whole of the US case for invading Iraq was based on a still active and extensive WMD program combined with Iraqi support for radical Islamic terrorism. Please quote which parts of this case were true: the use of chemical weapons back in the 1980s when Iraq was a US ally does not qualify.
"international law" is a myth
There are many forms of international law. What I was mostly referring to here was the agreements that the US entered into under the UN charter. This clearly lays out when use of military force against another nation is allowed: to briefly paraphrase, (i) self defense, or (ii) when authorised by the Security Council.
I do not identify, in such matters, with any specific ethnic, religious or political group. Happily, there are many in the world today (even including some Americans) who place appropriate value on human life.
I am not a pacifist: I recognise the occasional need for defense against aggression. However, the termination of the lives of real human beings is something that ought to disturb any right thinking person.
I guess he was joking. It is not a good idea to publish evidence of one's guilt on the Internet before attempting warranty fraud.
I think I understand you: preventing the death of injury of non combatants is only worthwhile if it results in some PR benefit. You confirm what I already suspected about the attitude of a large proportion of Americans.