You are totally right. Also think about the long-term direction. This box will get smaller and smaller as parts shrink, whereas desktop PCs stay roughly the same size because of the need to add cards and expansion devices. This box will also get cheaper and cheaper over time as the establish some volume.
Aren't Pascal and Ada mmune to buffer exploits? I'm not saying it is a great language but it shows that you don't have to make a huge leap in abstraction to get safety. I can imagine an alternate universe where from day 1, C had safe and unsafe string types and you would choose which to use based on whether you prioritized safety/security or performance. Why can't we transition to this alternate universe 30 years later?
The software and service on this thing may be worth the difference in price if it allows you to totally transparently backup and web serve everything from your hard drive. Okay, not worth the difference to me, but to someone who doesn't want to build it themselves for reasons of cost or competence.
Portals store data. Applications that run on an application server store data. Web services store data. You don't have to store all of this data in an Oracle database but that's where most corporations would prefer to store it. So this package isn't complete without a database which means that you must be both a Sun customer and an Oracle customer. Or you could go to Oracle and they will give you a lot of this stuff for free or cheap on top of the database you are going to buy anyhow. Of course then you need an operating system to run it on so the whole deal comes down to whether you really believe that Solaris is so much better than Linux that you need Sun in the picture. I haven't priced this stuff out so maybe Sun's suite is a lot cheaper than Oracle's (perhaps even including the fact that every enterprise is going to buy an Oracle DB anyhow), but if a CTO was going to cut one of the two vendors out of the loop, it seems a lot more likely to be Sun than Oracle (or Microsoft). So Sun is in a very vulnerable position.
That governments encourage the use of the net will be their downfall - they can never control it as well as they can control traditional media sources.
And how would that lead to the downfall of government? Once everybody is on the Internet do you figure they will no longer want their garbage taken our or their pensions or defense from terrorists or negotiated trade pacts or prisons?
expect to take 10 percent of the market in the first year. Ten percent of a $30 billion a year desktop market is huge. So, is it going to be more than 10 percent? I hope so, but in the next year I'd like to get a million users. There's a hundred million computers sold every year, I want to be in front of a million of those and two-million the next year.
How is 1 or 2 million out of 100 million "10 percent of the market?" Anyhow, 1% of the desktop market in one year is an aggressive goal. 10% is ludicrous. Enterprises are not going to switch desktop operating systems that quickly.
"...dramatically less expensive in purchase price. How much is the nearest competitor's cheapest enterprise offering? And it doesn't come with a portal server, application server, Web server messaging, calendaring, clustering, high availability services and directory services provisioning. Give me a break."
Of course he is probably discounting open source versions of all of those things. But if he does that, what is he going to say about Sun's database strategy? I can only assume that all of these things run (by default) on an open source database because I don't think that Sun has the right to re-license Oracle at $100.00/head. Any real enterprise is going to want to run these things on a commercial database which makes it hard for Sun to compete with Oracle's application suite.
You said: "Why should they be interested in Linux? Because it is not mainstream." If an operating system is better because it is not mainstream, then GEOS or IRIX must be the best! You did go on to say a bunch of other stuff that was wrong but at least based in some kind of logic, but I think that your true emotions showed up in the first line. Linux is not what the plebes use therefore it is better. You did, after all, use the term "unwashed masses" which is a catchword for elitists.
Thanks for the explanation of causality and the description of how historians use it. Most people don't understand very well that time moves only forward but your description made it clearer.;)
You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with losing weight. It has nothing to do with exercising. It isn't even about improving your health.
It is about slowing the aging process using a currently unexplained side effect of low-calorie diets. There is a huge difference between eating well (which reduces your chances of life-threatening illnesses) and slowing down the body clock that causes aging.
According to these scientists, you could start this low-calorie diet late in life and still slow the aging process. This is totally different than deciding to stop eating fatty foods late in life when the damange has perhaps already been done. Obviously the two techniques need to go together for maximum results. It makes no sense to slow your aging process down if your arteries are full of fat.
There are some things XP does from a usability point of view that is better than OS X and vice versa. For instance, in Windows I can rotate pictures from Explorer (i.e. Windows' equivalent of the finder). In OS X I have to launch some app to do it. Windows offers a user interface for customizing the interplay between file extensions, file types and MIME types. After a year of using it, I can't find such an interface for OS X. Windows XP can navigate directly into archives. OS X requires you to expand them into folders using Stuffit. XP allows me to directly write multisession disks. It is insanely complex on OS X.
That all said, I could make an equally long list of things OS X does better than XP. In my opinion they are roughly equal in usability. If you prefer the Unix infrastructure to the Windows one (as I do) then you'll prefer OS X. And you could make a case for better security (or at least fewer well-known exploits). But I certainly wouldn't sell anybody on OS X on the basis that it is much easier to use than XP. It isn't.
By the way, it takes 0 steps to see your files in either XP or OS X. The default view of both operating systems is of your desktop with your files on it.
The idea that something is better because it is not mainstream is simple elitism and it is as thoughtless a bias as any other. "Men are better than women because they are men." "Ford cars are better than GM cars because they are from Ford."
It's also the closest thing to an objective OS you can get. If results are called into question, you're out of luck with Windows: "Oh, it must have been a glitch. Let me reboot this...." With Linux you can figure out what's going on behind the scenes.
I'm sorry, that doesn't match my experiences at all. Scientists write their programs in some language. That language is compiled to native code for the CPU. The native code uses the CPU's floating point processor directly. In the vast majority of cases, the code will give the same result no matter what operating system it is running under. This stuff about a reboot is just FUD, pure and simple.
The Java desktop is not written in Java and has almost nothing to do with java. It is Gnome. It will run on Windows when Gnome does. The Java name is just marketing. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology. The more accurate name for the "Java Desktop" is "Sun Linux". More information
Here's what I found on Sun's site: "The software consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components and industry standards, including a GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice Office Productivity Suite, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, Java 2 Standard Edition and a Linux operating system."
Translation: in no way, shape or form is this desktop written in Java. It is merely branding, the same way Microsoft brands a version of Windows "Windows.NET Server" and Visual Studio ".NET" in order to tie together their.NET brand.
The Java Desktop system is as compatible with C/C++ applications as any other desktop. "Java Desktop" is a marketing name. It says nothing about technology. The desktop is not even written in Java. It is Gnome.
"Sun Java Desktop System is an affordable, comprehensive, simple to use, and secure enterprise-grade desktop solution. The software consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components and industry standards, including a GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice Office Productivity Suite, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, Java 2 Standard Edition and a Linux operating system. Key features include a well-defined, integrated look and feel, familiar desktop themes, as well as file, folder, and print interoperability with Microsoft Windows and Linux/UNIX environments."
Re:document support is only half the problem
on
Review: Sun StarOffice 7
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't think it's fair to expect product developers to implement something like "MS plugins and VBA" compatibility.
What does fair have to do with it? Does StarOffice want this guy's business or not? If not, that's fine. But what does it have to do with fairness?
It is not their fault you have effectively vendor-locked yourselves into Microsoft to the point where migration to other products is impossible or extremely prohibitive in terms of cost.
What does fault have to do with it?
Anyhow, your same argument applies to file formats. The StarOffice team could have taken the position that anyone who depends on proprietary file formats must be stupid and therefore it isn't StarOffice's job to try and win their business. But fairness, fault and farsightedness aren't the issue. Winning business is the issue.
If they do this, Google should set the robot to ignore that particular robots.txt. It isn't as if robots.txt is a legally binding contract! Microsoft could cry foul and perhaps sue but in the meantime they would make themselves look really stupid because so many people would point out that their search engine is lousy compared to Google's.
According to your logic, there is no way to make sense of HTML or RSS because only a tiny fraction of it conforms to any documented schema. And then there is LaTeX without any formal schema at all...I guess there is no way to make sense of it!
My ISP had already sold me out to "buydomains.com" before Verisign pulled this stunt. It seems they've already set up a filter to re-establish themselves in case of domain typo because I'm seeing buydomains.com, not Verisgn.
This is the same group of people which applaud China's attempt for manned space missions. Then, the same people criticize the US and NASA for doing it.
What makes you think that it is the same group of people?
All life is genetically designed to move forward, and if we deny this fundamental core of biology, in the name of being cheapskates, the consequence is inevitable.
The consequence IS inevitable. Humanity will die out when the universe ends. Maybe there is some currently invisible escape hatch in the universe but if so, it will be found out through discoveries in physics, not through rocket engineering.
Furthermore, if we are biologically programmed to spread beyond earth then there is no need for the American tax payer to foot the bill. It will happen. Someone else will pay for it. Let them. Even better, let the public stand to the side and let capitalists figure it out in the interests of space tourism, satellite launches and space mining.
That's the devil's advocate position. I am in favur of the (public) space program for precisely the reasons outlined in the article. Living on a raft is dangerous. You can be knocked off by passing debris at any moment.
If space-interested geeks want to convince people we should put away the quasi-mystical, "this is our destiny" crap and be straight-up: "this could save our species from demise in the short term."
Boss thinks, "gee, I can hire a guest worker for 50K a year instead". So. Boss gets 30K more a year, guest workter gets $50K a year.
It is illogical to think that the boss pockets the difference. That could only happen if there were no competition who would bludgen the company to death by passing those savings along to the consumer. The boss pockets the difference only for a few months until he gets canned for having a department (or company!) that is more expensive than the competitor's.
The hot shots exist. If they don't want to work for them you either have a poor working environment or you aren't paying enough. Are you really going to argue that the laws of economics do not apply to computer programmers? Not that I'm against visas but I don't buy the argument that they do not reduce salaries. It is simple supply and demand. When you reduce the demand for hotshots by importing them, salaries drop. What grandparent misses is that the real winner is not the boss but the consumer who gets a product at a better price.
Slashdot Mirror
You are totally right. Also think about the long-term direction. This box will get smaller and smaller as parts shrink, whereas desktop PCs stay roughly the same size because of the need to add cards and expansion devices. This box will also get cheaper and cheaper over time as the establish some volume.
Aren't Pascal and Ada mmune to buffer exploits? I'm not saying it is a great language but it shows that you don't have to make a huge leap in abstraction to get safety. I can imagine an alternate universe where from day 1, C had safe and unsafe string types and you would choose which to use based on whether you prioritized safety/security or performance. Why can't we transition to this alternate universe 30 years later?
The software and service on this thing may be worth the difference in price if it allows you to totally transparently backup and web serve everything from your hard drive. Okay, not worth the difference to me, but to someone who doesn't want to build it themselves for reasons of cost or competence.
Portals store data. Applications that run on an application server store data. Web services store data. You don't have to store all of this data in an Oracle database but that's where most corporations would prefer to store it. So this package isn't complete without a database which means that you must be both a Sun customer and an Oracle customer. Or you could go to Oracle and they will give you a lot of this stuff for free or cheap on top of the database you are going to buy anyhow. Of course then you need an operating system to run it on so the whole deal comes down to whether you really believe that Solaris is so much better than Linux that you need Sun in the picture. I haven't priced this stuff out so maybe Sun's suite is a lot cheaper than Oracle's (perhaps even including the fact that every enterprise is going to buy an Oracle DB anyhow), but if a CTO was going to cut one of the two vendors out of the loop, it seems a lot more likely to be Sun than Oracle (or Microsoft). So Sun is in a very vulnerable position.
That governments encourage the use of the net will be their downfall - they can never control it as well as they can control traditional media sources.
And how would that lead to the downfall of government? Once everybody is on the Internet do you figure they will no longer want their garbage taken our or their pensions or defense from terrorists or negotiated trade pacts or prisons?
Am I misunderstanding something about his math?
expect to take 10 percent of the market in the first year. Ten percent of a $30 billion a year desktop market is huge. So, is it going to be more than 10 percent? I hope so, but in the next year I'd like to get a million users. There's a hundred million computers sold every year, I want to be in front of a million of those and two-million the next year.
How is 1 or 2 million out of 100 million "10 percent of the market?" Anyhow, 1% of the desktop market in one year is an aggressive goal. 10% is ludicrous. Enterprises are not going to switch desktop operating systems that quickly.
He's talking about a total package.
"...dramatically less expensive in purchase price. How much is the nearest competitor's cheapest enterprise offering? And it doesn't come with a portal server, application server, Web server messaging, calendaring, clustering, high availability services and directory services provisioning. Give me a break."
Of course he is probably discounting open source versions of all of those things. But if he does that, what is he going to say about Sun's database strategy? I can only assume that all of these things run (by default) on an open source database because I don't think that Sun has the right to re-license Oracle at $100.00/head. Any real enterprise is going to want to run these things on a commercial database which makes it hard for Sun to compete with Oracle's application suite.
What if there were a standard whereby applications inside the NAT could request statically mapped ports?
You said: "Why should they be interested in Linux? Because it is not mainstream." If an operating system is better because it is not mainstream, then GEOS or IRIX must be the best! You did go on to say a bunch of other stuff that was wrong but at least based in some kind of logic, but I think that your true emotions showed up in the first line. Linux is not what the plebes use therefore it is better. You did, after all, use the term "unwashed masses" which is a catchword for elitists.
Thanks for the explanation of causality and the description of how historians use it. Most people don't understand very well that time moves only forward but your description made it clearer. ;)
You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with losing weight. It has nothing to do with exercising. It isn't even about improving your health.
It is about slowing the aging process using a currently unexplained side effect of low-calorie diets. There is a huge difference between eating well (which reduces your chances of life-threatening illnesses) and slowing down the body clock that causes aging.
According to these scientists, you could start this low-calorie diet late in life and still slow the aging process. This is totally different than deciding to stop eating fatty foods late in life when the damange has perhaps already been done. Obviously the two techniques need to go together for maximum results. It makes no sense to slow your aging process down if your arteries are full of fat.
There are some things XP does from a usability point of view that is better than OS X and vice versa. For instance, in Windows I can rotate pictures from Explorer (i.e. Windows' equivalent of the finder). In OS X I have to launch some app to do it. Windows offers a user interface for customizing the interplay between file extensions, file types and MIME types. After a year of using it, I can't find such an interface for OS X. Windows XP can navigate directly into archives. OS X requires you to expand them into folders using Stuffit. XP allows me to directly write multisession disks. It is insanely complex on OS X.
That all said, I could make an equally long list of things OS X does better than XP. In my opinion they are roughly equal in usability. If you prefer the Unix infrastructure to the Windows one (as I do) then you'll prefer OS X. And you could make a case for better security (or at least fewer well-known exploits). But I certainly wouldn't sell anybody on OS X on the basis that it is much easier to use than XP. It isn't.
By the way, it takes 0 steps to see your files in either XP or OS X. The default view of both operating systems is of your desktop with your files on it.
Sun doesn't sell to the average user. They sell to the CTO. And they sell based on TCO.
The idea that something is better because it is not mainstream is simple elitism and it is as thoughtless a bias as any other. "Men are better than women because they are men." "Ford cars are better than GM cars because they are from Ford."
It's also the closest thing to an objective OS you can get. If results are called into question, you're out of luck with Windows: "Oh, it must have been a glitch. Let me reboot this...." With Linux you can figure out what's going on behind the scenes.
I'm sorry, that doesn't match my experiences at all. Scientists write their programs in some language. That language is compiled to native code for the CPU. The native code uses the CPU's floating point processor directly. In the vast majority of cases, the code will give the same result no matter what operating system it is running under. This stuff about a reboot is just FUD, pure and simple.
The Java desktop is not written in Java and has almost nothing to do with java. It is Gnome. It will run on Windows when Gnome does. The Java name is just marketing. It has nothing to do with the underlying technology. The more accurate name for the "Java Desktop" is "Sun Linux". More information
Here's what I found on Sun's site: "The software consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components and industry standards, including a GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice Office Productivity Suite, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, Java 2 Standard Edition and a Linux operating system."
Translation: in no way, shape or form is this desktop written in Java. It is merely branding, the same way Microsoft brands a version of Windows "Windows .NET Server" and Visual Studio ".NET" in order to tie together their .NET brand.
The Java Desktop system is as compatible with C/C++ applications as any other desktop. "Java Desktop" is a marketing name. It says nothing about technology. The desktop is not even written in Java. It is Gnome.
"Sun Java Desktop System is an affordable, comprehensive, simple to use, and secure enterprise-grade desktop solution. The software consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components and industry standards, including a GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice Office Productivity Suite, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, Java 2 Standard Edition and a Linux operating system. Key features include a well-defined, integrated look and feel, familiar desktop themes, as well as file, folder, and print interoperability with Microsoft Windows and Linux/UNIX environments."
http://wwws.sun.com/software/learnabout/desktopsys tem/
I don't think it's fair to expect product developers to implement something like "MS plugins and VBA" compatibility.
What does fair have to do with it? Does StarOffice want this guy's business or not? If not, that's fine. But what does it have to do with fairness?
It is not their fault you have effectively vendor-locked yourselves into Microsoft to the point where migration to other products is impossible or extremely prohibitive in terms of cost.
What does fault have to do with it?
Anyhow, your same argument applies to file formats. The StarOffice team could have taken the position that anyone who depends on proprietary file formats must be stupid and therefore it isn't StarOffice's job to try and win their business. But fairness, fault and farsightedness aren't the issue. Winning business is the issue.
If they do this, Google should set the robot to ignore that particular robots.txt. It isn't as if robots.txt is a legally binding contract! Microsoft could cry foul and perhaps sue but in the meantime they would make themselves look really stupid because so many people would point out that their search engine is lousy compared to Google's.
According to your logic, there is no way to make sense of HTML or RSS because only a tiny fraction of it conforms to any documented schema. And then there is LaTeX without any formal schema at all...I guess there is no way to make sense of it!
My ISP had already sold me out to "buydomains.com" before Verisign pulled this stunt. It seems they've already set up a filter to re-establish themselves in case of domain typo because I'm seeing buydomains.com, not Verisgn.
This is the same group of people which applaud China's attempt for manned space missions. Then, the same people criticize the US and NASA for doing it.
What makes you think that it is the same group of people?
All life is genetically designed to move forward, and if we deny this fundamental core of biology, in the name of being cheapskates, the consequence is inevitable.
The consequence IS inevitable. Humanity will die out when the universe ends. Maybe there is some currently invisible escape hatch in the universe but if so, it will be found out through discoveries in physics, not through rocket engineering.
Furthermore, if we are biologically programmed to spread beyond earth then there is no need for the American tax payer to foot the bill. It will happen. Someone else will pay for it. Let them. Even better, let the public stand to the side and let capitalists figure it out in the interests of space tourism, satellite launches and space mining.
That's the devil's advocate position. I am in favur of the (public) space program for precisely the reasons outlined in the article. Living on a raft is dangerous. You can be knocked off by passing debris at any moment.
If space-interested geeks want to convince people we should put away the quasi-mystical, "this is our destiny" crap and be straight-up: "this could save our species from demise in the short term."
Boss thinks, "gee, I can hire a guest worker for 50K a year instead". So. Boss gets 30K more a year, guest workter gets $50K a year.
It is illogical to think that the boss pockets the difference. That could only happen if there were no competition who would bludgen the company to death by passing those savings along to the consumer. The boss pockets the difference only for a few months until he gets canned for having a department (or company!) that is more expensive than the competitor's.
The hot shots exist. If they don't want to work for them you either have a poor working environment or you aren't paying enough. Are you really going to argue that the laws of economics do not apply to computer programmers? Not that I'm against visas but I don't buy the argument that they do not reduce salaries. It is simple supply and demand. When you reduce the demand for hotshots by importing them, salaries drop. What grandparent misses is that the real winner is not the boss but the consumer who gets a product at a better price.