As Microsoft knows very well, developers, developers, developers are you best asset in this fight.
Nowadays I have to grin sarcastically about that, since I know what hoops you have to jump through to develop for Windows Mobile 6. Not a simple compiler and be done, noooo just download an 8 CD monster and several APIs. Makes me happy that I'm primarily a Linux developer.
I'm not sure I understand you. I was talking about a PC that's used in a business. Of course the graphics are onboard, it's a PC that will only run office, mail, browser and specific business applications.
Also, I'd leave off a CD/DVD writer, why not use USB thumbdrives? Actually I'd probably leave off a drive altogether. Installation can be done via the network. For transfer of data outside of the network, as a business I'd prefer people to use VPN or else issue thumbdrives.
I'd trust an ASUS Motherboard far more than whatever the hell is inside a HP or Dell this week.
I'm not sure whether this is really necessary any more. Taking a look at a Dell Dimension E521, which goes for $309, then who cares whether it's reliable or not. For that price you can have one or two spares. Properly configured desktops with not too much bullshit locally installed can just be swapped out and in. Call support and they can pick it up whenever they feel like it.
Recently I have been wondering whether it is worth the expensive support for business desktop PCs. Dell sells a business PC for 250 not including tax. For that amount you just keep a spare and let support take the time they need. What is your take as the local shop?
And I want an electronic device, too, that has my cell phone, my garage door opener, my car remote, my mp3 player, and any other little bullshit electronic device on it.
And I want your remote control so I can turn you off.
If you buy a machine from dell, and it comes pre-loaded with software
I don't understand the fuss with the preinstalled crap. You buy the machine, boot it, menu -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Install Firefox, remove the IE icon.
Don't feel bad about it. You can't avoid other people's mistakes, they have to make their own. That girl will probably remember your advice for the rest of her life.
Trust me, tis nothing like cutting edge. Far from it. I laugh when Bangalore is called the silicon valley of the East!
Yeah well, that's your experience and it's a very narrow one, if I may say so. I'm a European and I've worked with very technical, very skilledand not-so-skilled colleagues from B'lore. Maybe it's because we're all people and noone's alike.
Testosterone deficiency in aging men is a widespread but lamentably misunderstood and denied problem
I think it's not so much misunderstood/denied, but rather, that it's so hard to diagnose. Symptoms can be misunderstood for those general problems coming with age.
I have found Xen to be pretty primitive compared to VMWare.. setup is a pain
That's what I thought, too. Until I installed CentOS (*the* RedHat Advanced Server clone). Start virt-manager, click Create, click next-next-finish and voila, you have a window showing an installation.
I'm not that impressed with the free VMWare Server. While it works in most things, it has very bad disk IO performance
Same goes for Xen, if you use simple files as a backend. I suggest you create separate partitions for VMs. If that's not flexible enough, create a huge LVM partition and slice it in pieces for VMs.
It's not always about performance; Xen gets each their separate kernel. This means that special adjustments can be made for a virtual machine. Also, with Xen you could easily experiment with an upgraded kernel for the virtual machines, without rebooting the main (host) machine. Finally, I for myself like the fact that you have your 'own' kernel. It feels much more like a real machine. Especially with a bootloader like pygrub, which is employed in RedHat AS and CentOS, the kernel inside the virtual machine can even be upgraded by yum running inside the VM.
Note that I'm not a Xen apologist, I'm not denying a performance hit here.
Now there's something to do if you had a million dollars.
This was a discussion last week at work. "What to do with a million or more".
One of the guys would like a gold plated, diamond encrusted laptop.
The second would like said laptop, with the innards upgraded every 6 months to the latest technologies.
The third would like said laptop plus upgrades, together with a cabal of female Linux kernel developers ready to code up a driver when owner buys some crazy piece of unsupported hardware.
Yeah well if you start talking that way.... I'm using the version control utility subversion at work which doesn't have much of an interface by default (except a commandline one).
Now I've heard about the graphical client SvnTortoise or something, but my point is: I'd rather stab my eyes out that going back to that slow piece of shit Perforce.
So I ask you: please, UI is important, but it's only one of many features.
Nowadays, the sysadmins have installed Trac for us. Works very good, with integrated Wiki and all that jazz. I don't know how it stands up featurewise against Bugzilla, but Trac has a very flat learning curve. For instance, searching is one box. One search box. Compare that to the humongous Bugzilla search screen.
Most eds won't talk to the advertising department period to ensure whatever they print is the truth
I'm a developer. I, too, make it a point not to talk to either Testing, QA or System Administration. I can't accept even the merest hint of influence of these departments. They tried, but I stare them out of my cubicle.
Wine as a Windows replacement is hard to set up, largely incompatible and the wrong solution for more than one or two applications.
I'm a very happy CodeWeavers customer. They're the number one commercial contributor to Wine. They packaged Wine into a binary tarball,.deb and.rpm and called it Crossover Office. This works perfectly for me, I can use MS Office now on my Linux desktop. It's stable and fast. It costs $50.
If attaching to a process to debug it doesn't require admin privileges, Vista has a lot more wrong with it than the annoying UAC giving false positives...
I only code on Linux, however, I don't think you need admin priv to debug a process that runs with your own user's privileges??
This is because as a group, we [IT professionals] are the LEAST professional of the professional vocations
That's what I used to think as well. Then I found out that most vocations have their share of nerds. Take lawyers, auditors, econometrists -- I've met some that were so totally focused on their job that they couldn't talk about anything else.
Nerds are everywhere.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
Goliath does not negotiate with David.
You're thinking the wrong way. Think as it of mighty Samson and you're that bitch Delilah.
Slashdot Mirror
*laughs out loud*
Good one
I'm not sure I understand you. I was talking about a PC that's used in a business. Of course the graphics are onboard, it's a PC that will only run office, mail, browser and specific business applications.
Also, I'd leave off a CD/DVD writer, why not use USB thumbdrives? Actually I'd probably leave off a drive altogether. Installation can be done via the network. For transfer of data outside of the network, as a business I'd prefer people to use VPN or else issue thumbdrives.
Recently I have been wondering whether it is worth the expensive support for business desktop PCs. Dell sells a business PC for 250 not including tax. For that amount you just keep a spare and let support take the time they need. What is your take as the local shop?
If you buy a machine from dell, and it comes pre-loaded with software
I don't understand the fuss with the preinstalled crap. You buy the machine, boot it, menu -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Install Firefox, remove the IE icon.
Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the requirements the customer gave us for that big software project last week.
Don't feel bad about it. You can't avoid other people's mistakes, they have to make their own. That girl will probably remember your advice for the rest of her life.
Well, he said that his mother could hack these sites ;-)
I have found Xen to be pretty primitive compared to VMWare.. setup is a pain
That's what I thought, too. Until I installed CentOS (*the* RedHat Advanced Server clone). Start virt-manager, click Create, click next-next-finish and voila, you have a window showing an installation.
I'm not that impressed with the free VMWare Server. While it works in most things, it has very bad disk IO performance Same goes for Xen, if you use simple files as a backend. I suggest you create separate partitions for VMs. If that's not flexible enough, create a huge LVM partition and slice it in pieces for VMs.
It's not always about performance; Xen gets each their separate kernel. This means that special adjustments can be made for a virtual machine. Also, with Xen you could easily experiment with an upgraded kernel for the virtual machines, without rebooting the main (host) machine. Finally, I for myself like the fact that you have your 'own' kernel. It feels much more like a real machine. Especially with a bootloader like pygrub, which is employed in RedHat AS and CentOS, the kernel inside the virtual machine can even be upgraded by yum running inside the VM.
Note that I'm not a Xen apologist, I'm not denying a performance hit here.
One of the guys would like a gold plated, diamond encrusted laptop.
The second would like said laptop, with the innards upgraded every 6 months to the latest technologies.
The third would like said laptop plus upgrades, together with a cabal of female Linux kernel developers ready to code up a driver when owner buys some crazy piece of unsupported hardware.
*sigh*
Yeah well if you start talking that way.... I'm using the version control utility subversion at work which doesn't have much of an interface by default (except a commandline one).
Now I've heard about the graphical client SvnTortoise or something, but my point is: I'd rather stab my eyes out that going back to that slow piece of shit Perforce.
So I ask you: please, UI is important, but it's only one of many features.
Nowadays, the sysadmins have installed Trac for us. Works very good, with integrated Wiki and all that jazz. I don't know how it stands up featurewise against Bugzilla, but Trac has a very flat learning curve. For instance, searching is one box. One search box. Compare that to the humongous Bugzilla search screen.
NO ROUTE TO HOST
Nerds are everywhere.