My Fiancee has the misfortune of doing advertisements and other publishing work on a PC using Quark. It is hell for her every couple of weeks when she has to send the file to the printer, because usually the printer has to redo nearly everything on their macintosh systems in order to prepare the work for printing. She has been begging her boss for a macintosh so that the hassles and days of lost time can be stopped.
Undoubtedly, you are not going to be able to get the Quark Users to switch without first getting support for Scribus and Linux into the print shops and publishing houses. It would be nice to know if any print shops existed that supported Linux and Scribus.
I tried some very large data sets > 20,000 rows (>10 MB) files in MS Office, Open Office and Gnumeric and found that only MS Office handled the very large data sets with any speed. I also find myself going back to office when I need to do any scripting work. Otherwise, I am quite content to use Open Office. (Actually, run MS Office using CrossOver Office, so at least I am not having to run Windows)
As other posters have pointed out, secrecy is not going to help with security especially since it would be just as easy for an adversary to use the same sources to reconstruct the work.
Instead, the work should be used to increase our knowledge of our infrastructure so that we can know our own weaknesses. If we are aware of our weaknesses, we can then do something to protect them.
There are probably many legitimate applications that can be built using this knowledge. For instance, my company is launching a Web service which may someday have millions of users worldwide. It would be very nice to be able to analyze our nation's infrastructure for the most secure and reliable places to co-lo our servers.
But I would rather stick with the PC hardware, which is commoditized and at a fraction of the price with much more choice.
I am definitely interested in buying a Powerbook for my next laptop though. I really like what Apple has done with their laptops and it is great having such a solid unix-based desktop on the laptop which will also let me run Linux. If I am able to buy a laptop, I will most likely install a PPC version of linux and run the Mac OS through Mac On Linux.
I think Flash will be around for quite a while as it will be very difficult to get the graphic designers away from their beloved macs and the software they have been using. They tend to be very loyal. How many professional graphic designers use gimp? I would imagine the majority of them continue to use Photoshop. Another thing that is missing with SVG is that the applications for constructing cool SVG animations are still very new and are a long way from having the user interface and maturity of Flash.
I have been keeping an eye on SVG as I really do hope it gains traction and becomes an open standard.
Not only are they probably storing all of the user information, there are also numerous marketing and business reasons one could think of for doing so. The dishonesty and lack of ethics aren't going to get in the way of making a few dollars from advertisers based on the information. Besides advertising, there are probably a lot of other ways to make money off of that data.
The interesting thing is that scientists have found that chimps (I believe what I saw was about the Bonobos) have two different types of sperm. Half the sperm actually serve the purpose of forming a sperm "wall" or barrier to keep other monkey's sperm from reaching the females egg.
A lady died in NYC recently when police mistakenly raided her apartment and threw a flash grenade into it after knocking down the door. If police had not been given such broad powers and if there were more checks and balances in place that lady wouldn't have died from a heart attack induced by fright.
When the government takes away someone else's rights they take away all of our rights.
I met a girl online once who was a wiz at the rubik's cube. When we met in real life she had her rubiks cube with her and she could solve it in less than a minute. Her hands were a blur. I was very impressed, but this 4D rubik's cube blows my mind! Being red-green color blind would make this a difficult if not impossible task for me to complete. Good luck to anyone else with enough free time to try it though.
The only major problem I have ever had is with very large data sets in Open Office spreadsheet program as well as gnumeric. When you get 30,000 rows of data, they don't perform nearly as well as Microsoft Excel.
I have been using the Codeweaver Crossover Office for the last several months and it has worked like a charm! I don't mind using it since I might as well use the MS Office that I have had a copy of for the last several years. But I am fairly certain I will never buy another MS product again.
Re:The articles your boss is reading...
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The article at Business Week that you linked to had some fundamental flaws and was much too alarmist. What I liked least about the article was the author's insistence that code could be quietly slipped into Open Source software and that nobody might notice that it was a trojan horse or that it violated patents. His suggestion is simply outrageous. All companies and individuals all over the world are free to look at the source code for any of the products and check to see that there is/is not anything wrong with the code. The hiding of patented and copied code is probably more common than one might think in Proprietary Code.
I think that if a company really cares about their IP then they should be willing to keep an eye on what is happening in the world and work with the larger community to protect their IP before things like this happen.
An earlier poster mentioned how Open Source is for the greater good of all humanity and I have felt that way since 1998 when I first started dabbling with Linux when I was fresh out of school.
All great science throughout history has built upon science that was done before. If the scientists of the last 1,000 years were not able to build off of each other's work the world would be a much different place -- and that is not a good thing.
With so many conflicting opinions about this whole issue I don't know what to think anymore. But I do know one thing, I am going to continue to support Open Source software 100% and nothing will stop me as I would rather move to another country than give up contributing to Open Source software.
The diversity that the Open Source environment breeds is a very good thing as far as limiting the effect of exploits. As the parent stated "nothing is as bad as the Microsoft monoculture." Kind of works like genetics. A species is more likely to survive a change in its environment if there is some variability within the species. If all animals in a species were exact clones, then a single deadly virus could wipe out the whole species.
Many of the hardware issues that Linux users come across would not be issues if companies like Dell started pre-installing Linux on their systems. It should be entirely possible for the customer to plug it in and have everything working pretty much out of the box. And since Dell would control both the hardware and have very precise control over customizations to their distro of choice, they should be able to reduce (but probably not eliminate) their support costs.
There has been a lot of speculation on just how Windows is involved with all of this.
So I found it interesting that there is a "Windows Services for UNIX 3.0" CD included with the June issue of Sys Admin (the journal for UNIX systems administrators.)
If this doesn't end soon
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$0 is going to have their own section in Slashdot.
One year I worked from home full time and I ended up knowing the United Parcel Service delivery guy on a first name basis. (I was buying a lot of books from fatbrain.com, which was a very good online technical bookstore until they were assimilated into Barnes and Noble.com and nothing has been as good since.) Bit of a tangent there. sorry.
The thing I find annoying about working from home is that on days when I am home my girlfriend thinks that the house should be cleaner and various chores should be done before she gets home from her job.
Fortunately, this is an extra motivation to actually do my office work and try to limit the interruptions of doing "house work" just because I am home.
I moved to NYC seven years ago and decided at that time that I would take my time here to set myself for the possibility of telecommuting on a full time basis, once I decided to move to a cheaper, less urban location.
I am working for a Marketing Consulting firm in more or less of a support role, but as time has gone on, I have selectively chosen projects that could be done remotely and tried to not take any projects that relied on me being physically tied to any one place.
The end result is that if I wanted to move now, I could move and keep my job in NYC. I find this especially attractive because wages in NYC are very high to compensate for a high cost of living, but when I move, my cost of living should be much lower.
Working from home is also attractive to me because of all of the airborne allergies I have. I run air purifiers at home and they make a huge difference in how good I feel. Unfortunately, I am actually allergic to my employer's offices. But since I am there a couple days a week I just have to take my meds and deal with it.
My concern is that this will make the suits a bit "skittish" about using Open Source code in the long term, especially if it is settled without going to court.
I'd hate for this to drug out for two years or however long it would take to get through the court system, yet at the same time, it is important to prove that Linux is not going to be a legal liability to companies in the future. Kind of like how BSD had to deal with all of its legal issues and is now pretty much certified to be free of any entanglements.
Has there been any mention of integrating Bit Torrent into Apt-Get so that Debian Installs and Upgrades can be completed faster and with less required bandwidth for the servers.
Also, I would love to have a Bit Torrent client embedded in a Web browser like Mozilla.
A Next Generation e-mail infrastructure is unlikely to have much of an effect on spam as long as there is still motivation for spammers to take the time to figure out how to beat the system. For instance, there are tens of thousands of zombie machines on the Internet which could be used as launching points for spam. Unfortunately, this means that spam will be traced back to innocent people and not the real spammers.
There are solutions worth pursuing, and others that aren't. IMHO solutions that are totalitarian, or that move us closer to a police state either through code or through legislation should not even be considered. Giving up our privacy and our rights in an attempt to stop spam is not worth it, especially if there is the possibility that it won't work. I may be mistaken as I am not an Historian, but it seems that once we give up rights, it is unlikely that we will ever get them back.
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Undoubtedly, you are not going to be able to get the Quark Users to switch without first getting support for Scribus and Linux into the print shops and publishing houses. It would be nice to know if any print shops existed that supported Linux and Scribus.
I tried some very large data sets > 20,000 rows (>10 MB) files in MS Office, Open Office and Gnumeric and found that only MS Office handled the very large data sets with any speed. I also find myself going back to office when I need to do any scripting work. Otherwise, I am quite content to use Open Office. (Actually, run MS Office using CrossOver Office, so at least I am not having to run Windows)
Instead, the work should be used to increase our knowledge of our infrastructure so that we can know our own weaknesses. If we are aware of our weaknesses, we can then do something to protect them.
There are probably many legitimate applications that can be built using this knowledge. For instance, my company is launching a Web service which may someday have millions of users worldwide. It would be very nice to be able to analyze our nation's infrastructure for the most secure and reliable places to co-lo our servers.
The only hack they seem to be missing is XBox Hacks
I am definitely interested in buying a Powerbook for my next laptop though. I really like what Apple has done with their laptops and it is great having such a solid unix-based desktop on the laptop which will also let me run Linux. If I am able to buy a laptop, I will most likely install a PPC version of linux and run the Mac OS through Mac On Linux.
I have been keeping an eye on SVG as I really do hope it gains traction and becomes an open standard.
Not only are they probably storing all of the user information, there are also numerous marketing and business reasons one could think of for doing so. The dishonesty and lack of ethics aren't going to get in the way of making a few dollars from advertisers based on the information. Besides advertising, there are probably a lot of other ways to make money off of that data.
I guess it pays to be first.
When the government takes away someone else's rights they take away all of our rights.
I met a girl online once who was a wiz at the rubik's cube. When we met in real life she had her rubiks cube with her and she could solve it in less than a minute. Her hands were a blur. I was very impressed, but this 4D rubik's cube blows my mind! Being red-green color blind would make this a difficult if not impossible task for me to complete. Good luck to anyone else with enough free time to try it though.
I have been using the Codeweaver Crossover Office for the last several months and it has worked like a charm! I don't mind using it since I might as well use the MS Office that I have had a copy of for the last several years. But I am fairly certain I will never buy another MS product again.
I think that if a company really cares about their IP then they should be willing to keep an eye on what is happening in the world and work with the larger community to protect their IP before things like this happen.
An earlier poster mentioned how Open Source is for the greater good of all humanity and I have felt that way since 1998 when I first started dabbling with Linux when I was fresh out of school.
All great science throughout history has built upon science that was done before. If the scientists of the last 1,000 years were not able to build off of each other's work the world would be a much different place -- and that is not a good thing.
Actually there are a number of farmers who know how to fly planes because they crop dust their own fields.
With so many conflicting opinions about this whole issue I don't know what to think anymore. But I do know one thing, I am going to continue to support Open Source software 100% and nothing will stop me as I would rather move to another country than give up contributing to Open Source software.
The diversity that the Open Source environment breeds is a very good thing as far as limiting the effect of exploits. As the parent stated "nothing is as bad as the Microsoft monoculture." Kind of works like genetics. A species is more likely to survive a change in its environment if there is some variability within the species. If all animals in a species were exact clones, then a single deadly virus could wipe out the whole species.
Many of the hardware issues that Linux users come across would not be issues if companies like Dell started pre-installing Linux on their systems. It should be entirely possible for the customer to plug it in and have everything working pretty much out of the box. And since Dell would control both the hardware and have very precise control over customizations to their distro of choice, they should be able to reduce (but probably not eliminate) their support costs.
All I am finding is other Slashdot readers.
So I found it interesting that there is a "Windows Services for UNIX 3.0" CD included with the June issue of Sys Admin (the journal for UNIX systems administrators.)
$0 is going to have their own section in Slashdot.
One year I worked from home full time and I ended up knowing the United Parcel Service delivery guy on a first name basis. (I was buying a lot of books from fatbrain.com, which was a very good online technical bookstore until they were assimilated into Barnes and Noble.com and nothing has been as good since.) Bit of a tangent there. sorry.
Fortunately, this is an extra motivation to actually do my office work and try to limit the interruptions of doing "house work" just because I am home.
I am working for a Marketing Consulting firm in more or less of a support role, but as time has gone on, I have selectively chosen projects that could be done remotely and tried to not take any projects that relied on me being physically tied to any one place.
The end result is that if I wanted to move now, I could move and keep my job in NYC. I find this especially attractive because wages in NYC are very high to compensate for a high cost of living, but when I move, my cost of living should be much lower.
Working from home is also attractive to me because of all of the airborne allergies I have. I run air purifiers at home and they make a huge difference in how good I feel. Unfortunately, I am actually allergic to my employer's offices. But since I am there a couple days a week I just have to take my meds and deal with it.
I'd hate for this to drug out for two years or however long it would take to get through the court system, yet at the same time, it is important to prove that Linux is not going to be a legal liability to companies in the future. Kind of like how BSD had to deal with all of its legal issues and is now pretty much certified to be free of any entanglements.
I sure hope $0 goes away soon!
Also, I would love to have a Bit Torrent client embedded in a Web browser like Mozilla.
A Next Generation e-mail infrastructure is unlikely to have much of an effect on spam as long as there is still motivation for spammers to take the time to figure out how to beat the system. For instance, there are tens of thousands of zombie machines on the Internet which could be used as launching points for spam. Unfortunately, this means that spam will be traced back to innocent people and not the real spammers. There are solutions worth pursuing, and others that aren't. IMHO solutions that are totalitarian, or that move us closer to a police state either through code or through legislation should not even be considered. Giving up our privacy and our rights in an attempt to stop spam is not worth it, especially if there is the possibility that it won't work. I may be mistaken as I am not an Historian, but it seems that once we give up rights, it is unlikely that we will ever get them back.