Like others have said, it is an upgrade, not a new OS. They have improved AD a good bit. It is more stable than 2000, it's a bit quicker network wise (new BSD stack), handles memory a bit better, and is generally snappier than its predecessor. If you're going to use it for any Terminal Services, you also have the bonus of doing more than 256 color in a terminal session and can easily map all of your drives, printers, sound, etc to the local terminal. 2003 is a good chunk of what 2000, actually, NT4 was supposed to be. Now, if they could get WinFS in there they would have most all of their pre-NT4 technologies in place.:)
CliffH
Definately not a computer or technology related book, but it is a book that has shaped me into the man I am today. Even if it has absolutely nothing to do with your background (I'm African-American so it does have a bit to do with mine) it may spark some interest in wanting to delve into your family tree, may open your eyes to some things you take for granted day to day, or may just be a good read. The only thing I have to say is, do NOT take this book and feel that you may have to apologize for everything your possible ancestors MAY have done. It isn't about that, it is about family history and what we used to pass down from generation to generation. I'm waiting for the day my son can actually digest what I have to tell him about both sides of my family and hopefully he'll pass it down to his children. I think more talking and less typing on these things (computers) can be an excellent thing at times.
.. use marketting material for their hold music. At the very least, customers are reminded whom they are on hold with and what specials and products/services you offer. I thought it was a good idea...
OS/2s Win16 support (and Win32 lest we forget) was not the reason that platform went by the wayside. There were a TON of reasons that went by the wayside including marketting (IBM is starting to get better at this), amount of knowledge needed to administrate OS/2 boxes (was more than Windows 3.x and 9x boxes), cost (OS/2, for the most part, cost more), and did I mention marketting?:) I was a TeamOS/2 member at one time and I tried to do my part to spread OS/2 around (got about 15 people to switch in the end) but damn IBM didn't help matters one little bit. On top of everything else, we had the lovely lovely FixPacks? Anyone remember those? Nothing like 20+ floppies, get 18 disks in, one bad floppy, start from Step 1 sort of thing.
Ok, I'm done ranting because even I see I'm not making too much sense. In short, Win16 compatibility wasn't the downfall of OS/2, IBM and OS/2 were the downfall of OS/2. Still an excellent system even today with some excellent concepts, but buried by no marketting effort. No mindshare equals no market penetration equals no apps (I know, there were a lot of shareware and a good bit of commercial stuff out) equals no mainstream users equals dead product.
... for the registry services. This is a very simple way of getting more money out of current customers who truly care about their name. It's very simple economics really. Do you think all of the registrars are out there for the good the people? Internet? Corporations? No, they're out there for their shareholders. They are businesses and need to make money.
As for not buying from the new TLDs, there will be an uneasy settling in period for sure but people will start trusting sites and email from these domains. Blindly trusting a.net,.com, or.org site is asking for trouble anyways. We're long gone from the days of blind trust and faith on the web for practically anything. I think if I keep going down this route, I'll need to find my tin foil hat.:)
2) Buy some Axis cameras, spool the captures to your Linux box (preferably with time stamping turned on in the Axis camera), make some mpeg or DiVX videos from the captured images, timestamp as you save them (setup a cron job to do this), and then backup to a secure place.
I've done a few of these installs now and either one of those ways will work. You will ALWAYS have trade-offs (easy route is going to be an XP solution, the more involved route but negligibly cheaper is going to be the Axis solution) so choose wisely. If anyone comes up with another way, I would love to hear it.
You're forgetting one simple word, apathy. Consumers as a whole will take what they are given, not what they need or want (I'm talking on a particular market, the US market, it is different in other places). Slap Microsoft's sticker on it and say it's secure, and an awful lot of people will flock to it. If that fails, well, every new cheap Dell PC you buy will be "more secure for the web" or some other gibberish like that. People not in the know WILL scoop that up and will prove market demand, irregardless of the fact that Dell will be selling only DRM enabled systems. Once one distributor gets some money in from it, everyone will be doing it. The question is, who's going to give the option of enabling and disabling said features? I think you can disable the features in the new Phoenix BIOSes but I could be mistaken. Wonder if the likes of Dell, HP, Gateway, or IBM will do the same? I can definately see a time when the cheap consumer PC will be fully locked down with DRM while the hobbiest or professional that needs to get something done will have to buy relatively high-end parts to get anything done. Then again, there is always MRBIOS (if they're still around). Anyways, enough ranting. I've got to get some work done today.:)
CliffH
Re:we should see how business friendly these OSes
on
Gentoo Linux Musings
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I think we should level the playing field just a tad. First of all, if you're taking that broad of a selection of people (well, it's not THAT broad but broad enough for testing), you have to consider that a decently high percentage of said people have trouble installing a program on their computer and that's with propmting, so, I would personally ditch the OS installation idea right off the bat.
Next up, creating the users. I can count on my hands how many people on their home based computers actually have more than one user created on their systems (and this is regardless of OS), let alone 5 users. If we're going to keep this real world, we have to look at real world situations.
Third. The setting up of email is a good one. Everyone basically has to do that at some point and time (except people using AOL basically) so that is a good test. Another good one would be setting up the internet connection, and I am talking about making the people setup a dialup connection. Broadband is cheating in some respects and a bit more difficult in others.
Fourth, navigation of the OS/GUI. Make them find various programs and give the location. Nothing really obscure, but make them have to use the search functions of the OS/GUI. This will test how well the various OSs handle searches and how intuitive they are to people (if you're wondering, I'm looking thoroughly and only at usability here).
Fifth, ask the users to create a folder in a given location, create a document to put into it, save this document to the removable media of your choice, and hand it to another person to open. This will test interoperability between platforms/programs. It is cheating to put the same Office Suite (hell, leave out the office suite, just use supplied text editors) on every system, regardless of availability.
I can go on and on with this and I am seriously going to try and carry out these tests in the not too distant future. Some of these things I would use to gauge how well students were comprehending what I was teaching during Linux and MCSE courses. Others are jujst ramblings off the top of my head. hehehe Anyways, it's time to eat and I'm hungry...
... what the reality of pricing is going to be on these things as opposed to the probable $10 premium quoted in the article. If they really stick to that, these things are going to take off liek crazy. The one big problem with the Yamaha was the price (at least here in NZ). If this thing truly has a negligible (???) price increase, I can see them selling like mad and being put into every branded system and whitebox known to man. Can you think of an easier way of labeling small DVD backups of your data than to write it directly to the DVD through a script. No more forgetting labeling of important data.
The flipside of this is, how long will the drive actually last with the extra etching duties of the laser? Will these have a shorter warranty period than their non-ethcing counterparts? Through the first run, will we see unusually high failure rates? I haven't heard of anything like that with the Yamaha's but, then again, I haven't looked. I haven't had to. I haven't sold one yet and I think that's mainly because I haven't bought one (if you don't know the product or the brand intimately, or are unwilling to learn it, don't sell it).
Anyways, I'm done with my rant now. You can get back to reading truly thoughtful comments.:)
Wow, deja vu. Just as good as the last time this response was used. If you're going to copy something, at least make sure you change it around just a little bit. Outright copying of comments is just lame at best.
... you should program on the platform you feel most comfortable with. Handhelds still are a niche thing and, to be honest, most people won't buy them for their gaming abilities. The people who own them for other tasks though will more than likely buy games to play while on a long commute (plain, train, carpool, etc), waiting at the doctor's office, etc. You'll want to make a game that is fun yet not so engrossing that the player gets frustrated when they are interrupted. Also, make sure you use the hardware for the platform wisely. My only PDA at the moment (Casio BE-300, waiting to purchase a Zaurus SL-6000L) is absolutely pathetic for certain games (Doom for one due to use of the pathetic thumbpad) but is great for others (mahjong, card games, anything that the stylus is the preferred input method). So, whatever you decide to program too, try to put feelers out and get user input as to what to d, and what not to do.
They are here now if you go out and buy a GPRS sleeve. One of my clients uses his a good bit. It does the job but, honestly, a cellphone should stick to making calls and a PDA should stick to doing the other stuff.
The wireless question is simple. If your equipment is not secured and someone else uses it for their own activities (illegal or not), it is still your responsibility. If you haven't learned how to lock down your wireless router (and this goes for typical John and Jane Doe users as well) or had it locked down for you (by your ISP when they installed it), you get what you deserve. The whole ignorance thing does not work well in court or else certain companies would use that as an easy out (which they will still probably try).
I just did a random few. I'd love to see the RIAA sue people in France, Germany, and all of the other countries IPs who are in that list. I saw a couple of 212 addresses and figured, no, they aren't from the states so I did a lookup on them. Low and behold, European address blocks. Have fun RIAA. Something tells me your tactics won't fly as well outside of the US as it does within...
... and boy does someone sound bitter. Been hit one too many times by snipers have we? Some running into wide open areas in a straight line? Someone standing in one strategic place with a straight shot from anywhere in the battlefield (and usually up high to supposedly get position on everyone else)? When you're playing these games, and you're really into not getting killed every 5 seconds, you learn things you should do, and shouldn't do. You have a very accute awareness of where a sniper is most likely to hide. You learn not to go in those areas without backup and a scout hunting for them. That's what teams are all about. Merely storming your objective isn't the name of the game if you want to win. And the sniper battles, yeah, those can be real too. Let's take Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. That's an excellent want to start at for sniping. Certain levels lend themselves to having one sniper on one side of the battlefield (North African beach level comes to mind). Being an allie in that level really lends to having one sniper. You need to get position on the bunker and gun turrets or, the allies can't storm the beach, get up the rock face (by building the stairs) and eventually get into the bunker. That scenario I guarantee was custom made for one sniper to clear the bunker.
I'll agree that having 5 or more snipers on your side is a pain in the butt when you're in a game of 20 people, but, that is realism for ya. If you have 5 snipers at 5 key positions, you've just given your team one hellacious edge. It's the other sides job to sniff out the snipers and eliminate them, secure the position, report back to your teammates, and get a sniper there in the fallen one's place. Simple strategy.
Do I think snipers and their weapons are given too much weight in these games? HELL NO!!! It's a real part of warfare and a real danger. If you're looking for pure fantasy, play Jedi Knight, Mario Racing, what have you. If you're playing these FPS games in period settings with real weapons, get used to it and shut up. You look like a damn ranting lunatic that can't hack it so you blame everyone else but yourself....
I'm sure they didn't mention those repositories for legal reasons (ie. We don't mention it, we're not responsible for anything that happens if you use them). In any event, the word should get out a little better about those repositories. Myself, I've got clients on everything that has been dumped (7.3-8.0) and what will soon be dumped (9.0) and am getting even more clients wanting to make the switch. None of them are duanted by the decision of one distributor of one distribution. It's about the level support they get directly from their supplier (me) as opposed to the company putting it out.This can't be said for large installations, that I know, but a school of all places (primary, secondary, high schools, etc) shouldn't have a problem with it. Hell, that gives and computer studies courses a serious project throughout the year as far as I can see it. Let me throw a little situation at you:
1) Walla Walla High School decides to convert all internal student systems to Linux (including student servers, library systems, etc)
2) Once the framework is in place, students are picked out of each computer class whom have a level of skill and competency (and trustworthiness) to let administer the student network.
3) Students suggest upgrades or changes that the school admin never thought of or didn't have the time to implement
4) Students implement changes. Some work, some don't
5) Everyone learns
6) School offers "innovative learning environment using the latest software to enrich your childs knowledge of computing in the digital age" (why couldn't I come up with lines of BS like this when I had to)
In any event, now that I'm thoroughly off topic, I'll end with this. RedHat doesn't mention the repositories because, if they did, they can be held liable for anyting that happens to systems using said repositories. A recommendation can and would be construed as an endorsement.
Well, like it or not, MS formats are what the higher ups (managers, head tutors, headmasters, etc) use and understand how to open. Over here (in NZ) you have what is called the NZQA which releases frameworks for testing purposes. The schools then turn around and either write their own NZQA units based off of these frameworks or buy them from other companies. If these frameworks state that Document A has to be in a given format, it has to be in that given format. If it is not, that student has failed that exam, plain and simple. Unfortunately, I never really got a chance to rewrite any of the assessments that the school was using when I was a tutor there but, needless to say, there is a heck of a lot more to it than using open standards. In an ideal world, everyone could open anything in any format and it would be accepted by all. This isn't that world and getting people in the mindset that there are other things out there, as we all know, can be difficult at best.
In my Linux course it was simple. Have the students throw out documentation and course materials in RTF, HTML, Star Office, PDF, TXT, or any other format they decided to put it in, as long as I could read it, I could care less. It was about conveying the message, not the message carrier. In the MCSE courses though (along with the A+, Net+, etc), you had to conform not only on the student side, but the tutor side as well.
In closing, when teaching courses based on Microsoft products, you best to hell keep to the Microsoft formats or face the consequences of your work being denied, immeditaely failed, or anything else that the frameworks sets up for you.
Disclaimer: I do NOT have a CS degree in any way, shape, or form.
Of the many things noted in that curricullum that is lacking is a fundamental understanding of the HARDWARE you will be writing to or working with. It's all well and good to know the software, but I don't know how many CS students I've seen that could write these nice little programs that do great little things, but couldn't fix a basic problem on their system (hardware or software wise)if their lives depended on it. This is by no means the rule, just the observations of a lot of graduating CS students that have come my way. I think if more schools focussed more on the underlying hardware theory, the software theory would fall into place much easier and the students would have a much fuller grasp of what they are doing.
Now, in stating what I have in the above paragraph, if you're looking at just doing a training course on specific tools, you HAVE to include hardware knowledge. I guarantee you any school will get a bad name if someone fres out of college with high marks is thrown into a Net Admin job or head of IT and can't troubleshoot a basic problem like a faulty power supply, memory, corrupt drivers, file system corruption, etc. Do paper MCSE's ring a bell???
... as stupid as this sounds, if the project were to be done using Word and Powerpoint about your hobbies, you should have at least made the attempt to make it look like you did it on Word and Powerpoint, regardless of your personal viewpoints. The easiest would have been to put it in an MS compatible format when you were doing it so that you could display and turn in what you had to in a form that the teacher would have liked. Being an ex-tutor, there were some stupid things I had to adhere by and one of them was that all electronic documents had to be in an MS readable format for some of the courses (they were A+, Net+, and MCSE courses). Now, being the Linux tutor also, when it came time for things to be done at home (research, projects, etc) the only thing my students had to adhere to was keeping the documents in MS readable formats so that other tutors could review if necessary. This kept everyone happy as they got to work in what they wanted (Linux, BSD, OS/2, Winwhatever, etc) and still kept with course guidelines.
I think the niche is entirely denpdant on industry or area. At the right price point, I could sell these things like hotcakes (ok, maybe not hotcakes, I remember that Letterman show) because most people over here are hesitant of buying a PDA because it will NOT do what a laptop will do for them. If they have something PDA'ish in size that for all intent and purposes is a full standard system, people will buy them up like crazy. Now, if they try to push this off at ~$2000, they'll sell a few to people that must absolutely have the latest greatest gadget around, but they won't get too many more. They have to push it to the medium sized market, take the price hit to sell more units, bring down manufacturing costs, etc. IANAMBA (I am not an MBA), but this sounds like pretty basic stuff. Put it at between $350-$500 less then that ~$2000 mark, and they will sell quite a few pretty quickly I would imagine.
Ok, enough being silly.:) Personally, I've been waiting on any kind of info for these as both a probable customer and reseller. It's a hell of a thing to want to tell your customers what's on the horizon only to have to bite your lip at every friggin turn due to said product being vapourware. I'm hoping against hope that they actually do get this out the door the second half of 2004 because I will buy one for myself (business expense, of course) and hopefully start selling them over here to the gadget lovers or the people that truly need something reasonably small that is a full blown PC. Now, if they can confirm that (insert distro here) runs on this thing with no problems, you have one hell of a nice little network analyzer and right about the same price as what Fluke offers (from memory), and it can be used for many other things (as opposed to what Fluke offers). Ruggedize the thing (there are people over here in NZ that specialize in that) and it would be a great tool on construction sites for conveying new building plans, emails, etc. Ok, enough rambling. I just want to see a beow...:)
Slashdot Mirror
Like others have said, it is an upgrade, not a new OS. They have improved AD a good bit. It is more stable than 2000, it's a bit quicker network wise (new BSD stack), handles memory a bit better, and is generally snappier than its predecessor. If you're going to use it for any Terminal Services, you also have the bonus of doing more than 256 color in a terminal session and can easily map all of your drives, printers, sound, etc to the local terminal. 2003 is a good chunk of what 2000, actually, NT4 was supposed to be. Now, if they could get WinFS in there they would have most all of their pre-NT4 technologies in place. :)
CliffH
Definately not a computer or technology related book, but it is a book that has shaped me into the man I am today. Even if it has absolutely nothing to do with your background (I'm African-American so it does have a bit to do with mine) it may spark some interest in wanting to delve into your family tree, may open your eyes to some things you take for granted day to day, or may just be a good read. The only thing I have to say is, do NOT take this book and feel that you may have to apologize for everything your possible ancestors MAY have done. It isn't about that, it is about family history and what we used to pass down from generation to generation. I'm waiting for the day my son can actually digest what I have to tell him about both sides of my family and hopefully he'll pass it down to his children. I think more talking and less typing on these things (computers) can be an excellent thing at times.
Now I can get my ass kicked in Enemy Territory under Fedora Core 2. I was missing that but for some reason, I got so much more work done. :)
Sure you can
.. use marketting material for their hold music. At the very least, customers are reminded whom they are on hold with and what specials and products/services you offer. I thought it was a good idea...
No,
OS/2s Win16 support (and Win32 lest we forget) was not the reason that platform went by the wayside. There were a TON of reasons that went by the wayside including marketting (IBM is starting to get better at this), amount of knowledge needed to administrate OS/2 boxes (was more than Windows 3.x and 9x boxes), cost (OS/2, for the most part, cost more), and did I mention marketting? :) I was a TeamOS/2 member at one time and I tried to do my part to spread OS/2 around (got about 15 people to switch in the end) but damn IBM didn't help matters one little bit. On top of everything else, we had the lovely lovely FixPacks? Anyone remember those? Nothing like 20+ floppies, get 18 disks in, one bad floppy, start from Step 1 sort of thing.
Ok, I'm done ranting because even I see I'm not making too much sense. In short, Win16 compatibility wasn't the downfall of OS/2, IBM and OS/2 were the downfall of OS/2. Still an excellent system even today with some excellent concepts, but buried by no marketting effort. No mindshare equals no market penetration equals no apps (I know, there were a lot of shareware and a good bit of commercial stuff out) equals no mainstream users equals dead product.
CliffH
... for the registry services. This is a very simple way of getting more money out of current customers who truly care about their name. It's very simple economics really. Do you think all of the registrars are out there for the good the people? Internet? Corporations? No, they're out there for their shareholders. They are businesses and need to make money.
As for not buying from the new TLDs, there will be an uneasy settling in period for sure but people will start trusting sites and email from these domains. Blindly trusting a .net, .com, or .org site is asking for trouble anyways. We're long gone from the days of blind trust and faith on the web for practically anything. I think if I keep going down this route, I'll need to find my tin foil hat. :)
CliffH
... and either:
1) Use XP because that does do the job
or
2) Buy some Axis cameras, spool the captures to your Linux box (preferably with time stamping turned on in the Axis camera), make some mpeg or DiVX videos from the captured images, timestamp as you save them (setup a cron job to do this), and then backup to a secure place.
I've done a few of these installs now and either one of those ways will work. You will ALWAYS have trade-offs (easy route is going to be an XP solution, the more involved route but negligibly cheaper is going to be the Axis solution) so choose wisely. If anyone comes up with another way, I would love to hear it.
CliffH
You're forgetting one simple word, apathy. Consumers as a whole will take what they are given, not what they need or want (I'm talking on a particular market, the US market, it is different in other places). Slap Microsoft's sticker on it and say it's secure, and an awful lot of people will flock to it. If that fails, well, every new cheap Dell PC you buy will be "more secure for the web" or some other gibberish like that. People not in the know WILL scoop that up and will prove market demand, irregardless of the fact that Dell will be selling only DRM enabled systems. Once one distributor gets some money in from it, everyone will be doing it. The question is, who's going to give the option of enabling and disabling said features? I think you can disable the features in the new Phoenix BIOSes but I could be mistaken. Wonder if the likes of Dell, HP, Gateway, or IBM will do the same? I can definately see a time when the cheap consumer PC will be fully locked down with DRM while the hobbiest or professional that needs to get something done will have to buy relatively high-end parts to get anything done. Then again, there is always MRBIOS (if they're still around). Anyways, enough ranting. I've got to get some work done today. :)
CliffH
I think we should level the playing field just a tad. First of all, if you're taking that broad of a selection of people (well, it's not THAT broad but broad enough for testing), you have to consider that a decently high percentage of said people have trouble installing a program on their computer and that's with propmting, so, I would personally ditch the OS installation idea right off the bat.
Next up, creating the users. I can count on my hands how many people on their home based computers actually have more than one user created on their systems (and this is regardless of OS), let alone 5 users. If we're going to keep this real world, we have to look at real world situations.
Third. The setting up of email is a good one. Everyone basically has to do that at some point and time (except people using AOL basically) so that is a good test. Another good one would be setting up the internet connection, and I am talking about making the people setup a dialup connection. Broadband is cheating in some respects and a bit more difficult in others.
Fourth, navigation of the OS/GUI. Make them find various programs and give the location. Nothing really obscure, but make them have to use the search functions of the OS/GUI. This will test how well the various OSs handle searches and how intuitive they are to people (if you're wondering, I'm looking thoroughly and only at usability here).
Fifth, ask the users to create a folder in a given location, create a document to put into it, save this document to the removable media of your choice, and hand it to another person to open. This will test interoperability between platforms/programs. It is cheating to put the same Office Suite (hell, leave out the office suite, just use supplied text editors) on every system, regardless of availability.
I can go on and on with this and I am seriously going to try and carry out these tests in the not too distant future. Some of these things I would use to gauge how well students were comprehending what I was teaching during Linux and MCSE courses. Others are jujst ramblings off the top of my head. hehehe Anyways, it's time to eat and I'm hungry...
CliffH
... what the reality of pricing is going to be on these things as opposed to the probable $10 premium quoted in the article. If they really stick to that, these things are going to take off liek crazy. The one big problem with the Yamaha was the price (at least here in NZ). If this thing truly has a negligible (???) price increase, I can see them selling like mad and being put into every branded system and whitebox known to man. Can you think of an easier way of labeling small DVD backups of your data than to write it directly to the DVD through a script. No more forgetting labeling of important data.
The flipside of this is, how long will the drive actually last with the extra etching duties of the laser? Will these have a shorter warranty period than their non-ethcing counterparts? Through the first run, will we see unusually high failure rates? I haven't heard of anything like that with the Yamaha's but, then again, I haven't looked. I haven't had to. I haven't sold one yet and I think that's mainly because I haven't bought one (if you don't know the product or the brand intimately, or are unwilling to learn it, don't sell it).
Anyways, I'm done with my rant now. You can get back to reading truly thoughtful comments. :)
CliffH
Wow, deja vu. Just as good as the last time this response was used. If you're going to copy something, at least make sure you change it around just a little bit. Outright copying of comments is just lame at best.
... you should program on the platform you feel most comfortable with. Handhelds still are a niche thing and, to be honest, most people won't buy them for their gaming abilities. The people who own them for other tasks though will more than likely buy games to play while on a long commute (plain, train, carpool, etc), waiting at the doctor's office, etc. You'll want to make a game that is fun yet not so engrossing that the player gets frustrated when they are interrupted. Also, make sure you use the hardware for the platform wisely. My only PDA at the moment (Casio BE-300, waiting to purchase a Zaurus SL-6000L) is absolutely pathetic for certain games (Doom for one due to use of the pathetic thumbpad) but is great for others (mahjong, card games, anything that the stylus is the preferred input method). So, whatever you decide to program too, try to put feelers out and get user input as to what to d, and what not to do.
CliffH
They are here now if you go out and buy a GPRS sleeve. One of my clients uses his a good bit. It does the job but, honestly, a cellphone should stick to making calls and a PDA should stick to doing the other stuff.
money
The wireless question is simple. If your equipment is not secured and someone else uses it for their own activities (illegal or not), it is still your responsibility. If you haven't learned how to lock down your wireless router (and this goes for typical John and Jane Doe users as well) or had it locked down for you (by your ISP when they installed it), you get what you deserve. The whole ignorance thing does not work well in court or else certain companies would use that as an easy out (which they will still probably try).
I know it's bad replying to your own posting, but, I just tried the very first IP on that list. Are they going to sue Argentinians too?
I just did a random few. I'd love to see the RIAA sue people in France, Germany, and all of the other countries IPs who are in that list. I saw a couple of 212 addresses and figured, no, they aren't from the states so I did a lookup on them. Low and behold, European address blocks. Have fun RIAA. Something tells me your tactics won't fly as well outside of the US as it does within...
... and boy does someone sound bitter. Been hit one too many times by snipers have we? Some running into wide open areas in a straight line? Someone standing in one strategic place with a straight shot from anywhere in the battlefield (and usually up high to supposedly get position on everyone else)? When you're playing these games, and you're really into not getting killed every 5 seconds, you learn things you should do, and shouldn't do. You have a very accute awareness of where a sniper is most likely to hide. You learn not to go in those areas without backup and a scout hunting for them. That's what teams are all about. Merely storming your objective isn't the name of the game if you want to win. And the sniper battles, yeah, those can be real too. Let's take Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. That's an excellent want to start at for sniping. Certain levels lend themselves to having one sniper on one side of the battlefield (North African beach level comes to mind). Being an allie in that level really lends to having one sniper. You need to get position on the bunker and gun turrets or, the allies can't storm the beach, get up the rock face (by building the stairs) and eventually get into the bunker. That scenario I guarantee was custom made for one sniper to clear the bunker.
I'll agree that having 5 or more snipers on your side is a pain in the butt when you're in a game of 20 people, but, that is realism for ya. If you have 5 snipers at 5 key positions, you've just given your team one hellacious edge. It's the other sides job to sniff out the snipers and eliminate them, secure the position, report back to your teammates, and get a sniper there in the fallen one's place. Simple strategy.
Do I think snipers and their weapons are given too much weight in these games? HELL NO!!! It's a real part of warfare and a real danger. If you're looking for pure fantasy, play Jedi Knight, Mario Racing, what have you. If you're playing these FPS games in period settings with real weapons, get used to it and shut up. You look like a damn ranting lunatic that can't hack it so you blame everyone else but yourself....
CliffH - Proud sniper
I'm sure they didn't mention those repositories for legal reasons (ie. We don't mention it, we're not responsible for anything that happens if you use them). In any event, the word should get out a little better about those repositories. Myself, I've got clients on everything that has been dumped (7.3-8.0) and what will soon be dumped (9.0) and am getting even more clients wanting to make the switch. None of them are duanted by the decision of one distributor of one distribution. It's about the level support they get directly from their supplier (me) as opposed to the company putting it out.This can't be said for large installations, that I know, but a school of all places (primary, secondary, high schools, etc) shouldn't have a problem with it. Hell, that gives and computer studies courses a serious project throughout the year as far as I can see it. Let me throw a little situation at you:
1) Walla Walla High School decides to convert all internal student systems to Linux (including student servers, library systems, etc)
2) Once the framework is in place, students are picked out of each computer class whom have a level of skill and competency (and trustworthiness) to let administer the student network.
3) Students suggest upgrades or changes that the school admin never thought of or didn't have the time to implement
4) Students implement changes. Some work, some don't
5) Everyone learns
6) School offers "innovative learning environment using the latest software to enrich your childs knowledge of computing in the digital age" (why couldn't I come up with lines of BS like this when I had to)
In any event, now that I'm thoroughly off topic, I'll end with this. RedHat doesn't mention the repositories because, if they did, they can be held liable for anyting that happens to systems using said repositories. A recommendation can and would be construed as an endorsement.
CliffH
Well, like it or not, MS formats are what the higher ups (managers, head tutors, headmasters, etc) use and understand how to open. Over here (in NZ) you have what is called the NZQA which releases frameworks for testing purposes. The schools then turn around and either write their own NZQA units based off of these frameworks or buy them from other companies. If these frameworks state that Document A has to be in a given format, it has to be in that given format. If it is not, that student has failed that exam, plain and simple. Unfortunately, I never really got a chance to rewrite any of the assessments that the school was using when I was a tutor there but, needless to say, there is a heck of a lot more to it than using open standards. In an ideal world, everyone could open anything in any format and it would be accepted by all. This isn't that world and getting people in the mindset that there are other things out there, as we all know, can be difficult at best.
In my Linux course it was simple. Have the students throw out documentation and course materials in RTF, HTML, Star Office, PDF, TXT, or any other format they decided to put it in, as long as I could read it, I could care less. It was about conveying the message, not the message carrier. In the MCSE courses though (along with the A+, Net+, etc), you had to conform not only on the student side, but the tutor side as well.
In closing, when teaching courses based on Microsoft products, you best to hell keep to the Microsoft formats or face the consequences of your work being denied, immeditaely failed, or anything else that the frameworks sets up for you.
Disclaimer: I do NOT have a CS degree in any way, shape, or form.
Of the many things noted in that curricullum that is lacking is a fundamental understanding of the HARDWARE you will be writing to or working with. It's all well and good to know the software, but I don't know how many CS students I've seen that could write these nice little programs that do great little things, but couldn't fix a basic problem on their system (hardware or software wise)if their lives depended on it. This is by no means the rule, just the observations of a lot of graduating CS students that have come my way. I think if more schools focussed more on the underlying hardware theory, the software theory would fall into place much easier and the students would have a much fuller grasp of what they are doing.
Now, in stating what I have in the above paragraph, if you're looking at just doing a training course on specific tools, you HAVE to include hardware knowledge. I guarantee you any school will get a bad name if someone fres out of college with high marks is thrown into a Net Admin job or head of IT and can't troubleshoot a basic problem like a faulty power supply, memory, corrupt drivers, file system corruption, etc. Do paper MCSE's ring a bell???
... as stupid as this sounds, if the project were to be done using Word and Powerpoint about your hobbies, you should have at least made the attempt to make it look like you did it on Word and Powerpoint, regardless of your personal viewpoints. The easiest would have been to put it in an MS compatible format when you were doing it so that you could display and turn in what you had to in a form that the teacher would have liked. Being an ex-tutor, there were some stupid things I had to adhere by and one of them was that all electronic documents had to be in an MS readable format for some of the courses (they were A+, Net+, and MCSE courses). Now, being the Linux tutor also, when it came time for things to be done at home (research, projects, etc) the only thing my students had to adhere to was keeping the documents in MS readable formats so that other tutors could review if necessary. This kept everyone happy as they got to work in what they wanted (Linux, BSD, OS/2, Winwhatever, etc) and still kept with course guidelines.
CliffH
I think the niche is entirely denpdant on industry or area. At the right price point, I could sell these things like hotcakes (ok, maybe not hotcakes, I remember that Letterman show) because most people over here are hesitant of buying a PDA because it will NOT do what a laptop will do for them. If they have something PDA'ish in size that for all intent and purposes is a full standard system, people will buy them up like crazy. Now, if they try to push this off at ~$2000, they'll sell a few to people that must absolutely have the latest greatest gadget around, but they won't get too many more. They have to push it to the medium sized market, take the price hit to sell more units, bring down manufacturing costs, etc. IANAMBA (I am not an MBA), but this sounds like pretty basic stuff. Put it at between $350-$500 less then that ~$2000 mark, and they will sell quite a few pretty quickly I would imagine.
Ok, enough being silly. :) Personally, I've been waiting on any kind of info for these as both a probable customer and reseller. It's a hell of a thing to want to tell your customers what's on the horizon only to have to bite your lip at every friggin turn due to said product being vapourware. I'm hoping against hope that they actually do get this out the door the second half of 2004 because I will buy one for myself (business expense, of course) and hopefully start selling them over here to the gadget lovers or the people that truly need something reasonably small that is a full blown PC. Now, if they can confirm that (insert distro here) runs on this thing with no problems, you have one hell of a nice little network analyzer and right about the same price as what Fluke offers (from memory), and it can be used for many other things (as opposed to what Fluke offers). Ruggedize the thing (there are people over here in NZ that specialize in that) and it would be a great tool on construction sites for conveying new building plans, emails, etc. Ok, enough rambling. I just want to see a beow... :)