I say rule in his favor and protect his privacy! What goes around comes around -- if this guy's privacy is violated then no one will fight on behalf of anyone else's privacy. On the other hand, this is just the legal precedent the world needs to fight back against spam. If this case is ruled in the favor of privacy, future cases relating to spam will be able to reference a solid legal ruling about personal demographics and information.
This article left out a very important test -- never once was any version of Windows tested. Did the author just assume that Windows installations always go smoothly (they don't.)? I would guess that if the author had problems installing Mandrake 9.0 (a distro I have installed on all 3 of my computers just by clicking 'next' 'next' 'next' 'yes' etc...) there would also be problems installing Windows.
I'd like to see Windows install a dual-boot bootloader for you. I'd like to see Windows refrain from overwriting your linux partition during installation. By far one of the most time-consuming parts as my former job as a Windows network administrator was assisting end-users with configuration issues.
Businesses should have legal software
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There are a lot of posts refuting this study, although to me it seems perfectly logical. If people are pirating software, they are not paying for it. In places where people buy more software instead of pirating it, it is only logical that more money would be made off of the software -- you don't need a study to prove that.
In my humble opinion, the big issue is piracy in businesses. Businesses should be paying for their software, as they have the capital to do so. Some kid pirating Visual Studio to play with the development environments is not hurting the software industry -- they wouldn't buy it anyway if they couldn't pirate it, and they are actually helping by increasing dependancy on proprietary products. If the government starts cracking down on piracy due to studies like this, its going to be the fault of irresponsible business, not piracy in general.
As has already been noted, tariffs would do more harm than good in the tech industry. Perhaps what IT workers need to do is rally support for products built by American labor. For example, I haven't heard of Microsoft outsourcing its labor to other countries, and it continues to hire many people even in the middle of this recession in the tech economy. Perhaps our (as in tech geeks) disapproval of Microsoft software and support of companies like Sun, who is planning to do massive foreign outsourcing, is/will hurt the American tech job market in rebounding. Some food for thought, at least.
STL-provided classes in C++ makes buffers and string format bugs almost obsolete. Why use a buffer when you can use a dynamically allocated string/vector/stringbuf or something similar? There are some portability issues, but any platform that gcc has been ported to will compile STL code fine. In most of the code I put out, there aren't any buffers, effectively eliminating any buffer overflow and string format vulnerabilities. The STL is the 'alternative library' that the article so much desires. If only programmers would USE it!
The advantage of a blue laser is that it has a smaller wavelength, and therefore can write data far more densely. It isn't faster or anything, so any speed increases would only be due to speed increases on DVD-writing in general. I would definately be interested to hear what kind of write-speed that this new system has, as a 2 hour write time could seriously impact its usage as a general storage medium. It could still be used quite well for backups, though.
Heh. In my first basic 3000 level CIS course, we went over how to install an IDE for over two weeks. How to *install* one -- it came with a freaking InstallShield setup wizard. Whats even more horrifying was that people were confused about it, and were having trouble. Higher level courses such as OS design and stuff like that were decent, but from my experience in college they don't teach nearly the skills required to be a successful IT employee. One of the problems is the people that really know their stuff are out there making big money working in the industry, not teaching. A lot of CIS professors don't even have a degree in CIS, but in Computer Business Management (most college accreditation boards only require a PhD in a related field to teach undergrad courses). Likewise, people that know mainframes aren't teaching mainframes at college -- I'd say most of them, if not all, don't have a PhD so they even could. Unfortunately, collges are too focused on loading up students with the hot new things (it appears to be Java now) and passing out easy degrees rather than having a comprehensive CIS program.
True, but Office Depot really isn't a place most people go to to get computer hardware either (at least for me). A lot of the major OEMs sell computers directly to the public (Dell, Gateway), and it is doubtful they would impose these restrictions on themselves -- although who knows, if Microsoft starts throwing its weight around. Especially with many OEMs starting to distribute Linux preinstalled on their computers, it wouldn't seem to go along with their business plans. As for small things like video cards and such, I wouldn't be too concerned about this unless the huge tech retailers such as Best Buy and CompUSA start to go "Windows certfied only."
I'm lucky enough that my fax machine hasn't and doesn't get spammed. I could see where fax spam becomes a serious problem -- there are times where a certain fax coming through is important for me to meet a deadline for a project proposal. The last thing I would need is to be waiting urgently for a very important fax only to receive the latest rollback specials at Wall-mart.
I'm not sure that this will have many implications on the legal side of the war on spam. With faxes, you can hold up a bottle of ink and a sheet of paper to a judge, and say "this is what these faxes are costing me." With spam, the costs are intangible, and given that the average judge probably does not know a whole lot about networking and bandwidth, it would be difficult to show a judge exactly what spam costs people and ISPs. You can't show them bandwidth and you can't show them time.
I have noticed the technology industry getting better over the past few months, but I wouldn't go as far as that article did. Unfortunately, technology is not only being hit by the recession, but by a job market correction -- there were too many people with too few skills working in technology. Face it, those HTML Programmer/Analyst jobs aren't coming back;).
The trend I've seen throughout the responses to this article has been that anyone can work in technology, and anyone can write software. That's just not true. 'Anyone' can be a good software developer just like 'anyone' can play professional football. Studies by IBM show that in their employment, there are some programmers that are between 10 and 100 times more productive than the rest -- yes, thats 1 0 0. Having a 10,000% divide in working efficiency is unheard of in most industries -- most companies are eccentric to get 140% efficiency! The people that are high-quality software engineers will get and keep jobs. Those that thought it would be great to fast-talk their way on to the booming technology bandwagon will probably have to find another industry. This is not to say that quality software developers have not been affected by this recession, as they have been and are being. When things start to get better, however (like to the point that this article is saying, whenever that may be) the good people will get jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
I say rule in his favor and protect his privacy! What goes around comes around -- if this guy's privacy is violated then no one will fight on behalf of anyone else's privacy. On the other hand, this is just the legal precedent the world needs to fight back against spam. If this case is ruled in the favor of privacy, future cases relating to spam will be able to reference a solid legal ruling about personal demographics and information.
This article left out a very important test -- never once was any version of Windows tested. Did the author just assume that Windows installations always go smoothly (they don't.)? I would guess that if the author had problems installing Mandrake 9.0 (a distro I have installed on all 3 of my computers just by clicking 'next' 'next' 'next' 'yes' etc...) there would also be problems installing Windows.
I'd like to see Windows install a dual-boot bootloader for you. I'd like to see Windows refrain from overwriting your linux partition during installation. By far one of the most time-consuming parts as my former job as a Windows network administrator was assisting end-users with configuration issues.
There are a lot of posts refuting this study, although to me it seems perfectly logical. If people are pirating software, they are not paying for it. In places where people buy more software instead of pirating it, it is only logical that more money would be made off of the software -- you don't need a study to prove that.
In my humble opinion, the big issue is piracy in businesses. Businesses should be paying for their software, as they have the capital to do so. Some kid pirating Visual Studio to play with the development environments is not hurting the software industry -- they wouldn't buy it anyway if they couldn't pirate it, and they are actually helping by increasing dependancy on proprietary products. If the government starts cracking down on piracy due to studies like this, its going to be the fault of irresponsible business, not piracy in general.
As has already been noted, tariffs would do more harm than good in the tech industry. Perhaps what IT workers need to do is rally support for products built by American labor. For example, I haven't heard of Microsoft outsourcing its labor to other countries, and it continues to hire many people even in the middle of this recession in the tech economy. Perhaps our (as in tech geeks) disapproval of Microsoft software and support of companies like Sun, who is planning to do massive foreign outsourcing, is/will hurt the American tech job market in rebounding. Some food for thought, at least.
STL-provided classes in C++ makes buffers and string format bugs almost obsolete. Why use a buffer when you can use a dynamically allocated string/vector/stringbuf or something similar? There are some portability issues, but any platform that gcc has been ported to will compile STL code fine. In most of the code I put out, there aren't any buffers, effectively eliminating any buffer overflow and string format vulnerabilities. The STL is the 'alternative library' that the article so much desires. If only programmers would USE it!
The advantage of a blue laser is that it has a smaller wavelength, and therefore can write data far more densely. It isn't faster or anything, so any speed increases would only be due to speed increases on DVD-writing in general. I would definately be interested to hear what kind of write-speed that this new system has, as a 2 hour write time could seriously impact its usage as a general storage medium. It could still be used quite well for backups, though.
Heh. In my first basic 3000 level CIS course, we went over how to install an IDE for over two weeks. How to *install* one -- it came with a freaking InstallShield setup wizard. Whats even more horrifying was that people were confused about it, and were having trouble. Higher level courses such as OS design and stuff like that were decent, but from my experience in college they don't teach nearly the skills required to be a successful IT employee. One of the problems is the people that really know their stuff are out there making big money working in the industry, not teaching. A lot of CIS professors don't even have a degree in CIS, but in Computer Business Management (most college accreditation boards only require a PhD in a related field to teach undergrad courses). Likewise, people that know mainframes aren't teaching mainframes at college -- I'd say most of them, if not all, don't have a PhD so they even could. Unfortunately, collges are too focused on loading up students with the hot new things (it appears to be Java now) and passing out easy degrees rather than having a comprehensive CIS program.
True, but Office Depot really isn't a place most people go to to get computer hardware either (at least for me). A lot of the major OEMs sell computers directly to the public (Dell, Gateway), and it is doubtful they would impose these restrictions on themselves -- although who knows, if Microsoft starts throwing its weight around. Especially with many OEMs starting to distribute Linux preinstalled on their computers, it wouldn't seem to go along with their business plans. As for small things like video cards and such, I wouldn't be too concerned about this unless the huge tech retailers such as Best Buy and CompUSA start to go "Windows certfied only."
I'm lucky enough that my fax machine hasn't and doesn't get spammed. I could see where fax spam becomes a serious problem -- there are times where a certain fax coming through is important for me to meet a deadline for a project proposal. The last thing I would need is to be waiting urgently for a very important fax only to receive the latest rollback specials at Wall-mart. I'm not sure that this will have many implications on the legal side of the war on spam. With faxes, you can hold up a bottle of ink and a sheet of paper to a judge, and say "this is what these faxes are costing me." With spam, the costs are intangible, and given that the average judge probably does not know a whole lot about networking and bandwidth, it would be difficult to show a judge exactly what spam costs people and ISPs. You can't show them bandwidth and you can't show them time.
I have noticed the technology industry getting better over the past few months, but I wouldn't go as far as that article did. Unfortunately, technology is not only being hit by the recession, but by a job market correction -- there were too many people with too few skills working in technology. Face it, those HTML Programmer/Analyst jobs aren't coming back ;).
The trend I've seen throughout the responses to this article has been that anyone can work in technology, and anyone can write software. That's just not true. 'Anyone' can be a good software developer just like 'anyone' can play professional football. Studies by IBM show that in their employment, there are some programmers that are between 10 and 100 times more productive than the rest -- yes, thats 1 0 0. Having a 10,000% divide in working efficiency is unheard of in most industries -- most companies are eccentric to get 140% efficiency! The people that are high-quality software engineers will get and keep jobs. Those that thought it would be great to fast-talk their way on to the booming technology bandwagon will probably have to find another industry. This is not to say that quality software developers have not been affected by this recession, as they have been and are being. When things start to get better, however (like to the point that this article is saying, whenever that may be) the good people will get jobs.