Requiring formal agreements could be a sly way to keep open source software out.
It's not a "sly way to keep open source software out"*, it's a not-so-sly way to counter OTHER people getting ad revenue/sales off YOUR network service, among other things.
MSN messenger only really makes money off:
ads
way to get people to use MSN instead of AOL- after all, if all your buddies are on MSN messenger, you're not going to sign up for AOL no matter how many free hours, right?
Way to let MSN users stay in touch with MSN buddies, without running the full MSN client(say, at work)
(last two being market-share 'enhancers')...which is pretty much why AOL offers AIM independently too. When a client like Trillian is a)letting people use your service without showing you ads and b)letting users talk to anyone on any network...well, now, you've just shot 2 out of 3 reasons for MSN messenger's free-ness, haven't you?
Not to mention, someone at MSN's sales deparment finally realized "Hmm,, people are making money SELLING a client for our network! Hey! I bet WE can get a piece of that money!" They probably approached Trillian, Trillian probably told them to go screw, and MSN said "hah, watch us pull the plug". So, basically, Trillian etc will be forced to sign an agreement forking over xx% of their [gross/net/whatever] sales, the business world will perhaps do a little more than yawn, and the sun will rise tomorrow...meanwhile, Instant Messaging Planet will generate a dozen news stories and at least one conference over the whole thing;-)
* let's drop the persecution complex, for crissakes- companies do things for one reason, and one reason only- to MAKE MONEY, not join The Man in fucking open source over.
You know, I just remembered why we don't launch nuclear waste out into space. It would -really- suck if it blew up before it cleared orbit, wouldn't it?
Satellites don't contain much at all in the way of nuclear power because their needs are so low. How much material are they sending up, and how do they plan on keeping us safe if the launch vehicle has, uh, 'issues'? You'd think even with a creatively planned trajectory, you'd end up spreading material over a massive area...
I already have a home biomass generator. Oh, you mean a home biomass power generator....
Yeah, but who wants power, when you can get screaming, shrieking, temper tantrums, insane financial draining capabilities, scary girl/boyfriends, rebellion...?
Considering his inventions (AC power, 3 phase power, the transformer, modern radio,electromagnetic motors, fluorescent lighting etc etc etc), I think he was a pretty smart guy. I wouldnt dismiss out of hand the things that he's talked about just because you dont understand how it works.
Except that Tesla also thought we should 'beam' electrical power through the air by generating masive RF fields; you'd have a big RF generator in the center of town, and everyone would have magical antennas that harvested this magnetic energy. Instead of, say, just laying down some wire underground or on poles. It's a good thing he isn't around today, because the tin-foil-hat wearing anti-cell-phone-tower freaks would tear him apart.
If anything, some of the 'greatest' minds of our time have also had some of the 'greatest' moments of stupidity. For example, Edison(who strongly believed DC was much safer, outweighing transmission problems) was mostly responsible for death by electrocution; he figured the public would be shocked by how easily a man was killed by AC, and would fear it as a result...putting an end to Tesla, who was quickly taking Edison Electric to the cleaners, with more efficient generation and transmission.
It backfired, massively- it amounted to torture and the man was electrocuted repeatedly and at length before finally dying; it literally cooked him alive and at times they had to stop and put out the fires on his body. Those who witnessed it were indeed horrified beyond belief. Common view was that AC was NOT lethal, and Edison was responsible for the slow death, rather than the quick painless instant killer he had promised.
The trouble with country folk is they've lost touch with nature.
No. The problem is that WE have lost touch with nature. We eat other living things(and other living things, although admittedly very rarely, eat us). It's called "the food chain". If you want to be a '5th level vegan' who doesn't eat anything that 'casts a shadow', be my fuckin' guest. I don't bother you about being a vegitarian, don't fucking bother me about having a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and (gasp) a glass of milk.
That said- huge industrial farms are disgusting, yes. Don't like how Tyson treats their chickens?(chances are you can find plenty of 'dirt' online). Buy local farm chickens. Vote with your wallet, folks.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why don't you enter the categories when you enter the transactions?
Sorry- should have been more specific. This is after I've imported(via QIF file from my bank) all the transactions. They've got names(comments?), but no expense categories. I'd like to quickly select multiple items to assign to one expense category, otherwise, there's not a huge time savings from importing the QIF in the first place, but the time i get the file downloaded, transferred over to the linux box(Mozilla doesn't handle their download wizard quite right, Safari does it), and imported.
(And why are you waiting 6 months to reconcile?)
Because I don't write checks, and I constantly monitor my account online(balance and history) so I know if something's wrong pretty fast. I use GnuCash to see where it all goes category-wise, what my spending habits are like, etc...and keep a nice electronic record for long term. Gnucash is not a necessity for me- it's a fun toy to help me get better at managing spending etc. Now that I'm consulting more, it'll help me keep track of where income is -coming from- better, not just where it's going:-)
Oh, and I was unemployed until recently, so activity on my account was practically nothing for the last 6 months:-)
I thought the idea was to give you more free time to do fun things. It's pretty sad these people are using that time to sit around in front of the computer and participate in some...pointless...foru...
[marblehead moment]
Ahhhh nuts.
PS:Obligatory slashdotting joke! That community site clogged up faster than a roomba in the wrong part of Dustbunnyville.
Do you have faith in the justice system (or IBM's Lawyers) to draw the right conclusions?
No- but that's irrelevant. SCO could pull a legal rabbit out of its hat, and win, and it could all end up being 100% kosher. MAYBE there is some blatantly copied code.
The HUGE problem is that this would set a case precedence of sorts. Ie, everyone would think "the GPL is worthless." WORSE, people will violate it even more freely than they do now- and we know, from Linksys and others, that they do, wholesale. Imagine how much cut+pasting happens, or how many derivative works there are, etc...
Copyright holders have had many, many years to establish case history in far better cases than this- ones where people have violated the GPL, there's plenty of evidence, etc. It's a failing of the open-source model; because no SINGLE individual feels the need(or has the resources, perhaps) to challenge a violation, we ALL loose. This is sorta why the FSF exists.
Notice I said "copyright holders" at the start of the last paragraph, and not "The FSF". If you read their mission statement, you'll notice that they very clearly point out that they can't do JACK on their own if they don't own the copyright; the ball is in the court of those whose IP SCO is laying claim to. If you approach the FSF and ask for help, they'll help- but they can't just charge into court and yell "WE ARE HERE TO DEFEND THE PENGUIN'S HONOR!"
This is one of the best programs I've come across in the Linux world, and I think it's superior to similar commercial packages.
I agree it's a great package, and I love it- but there are several things which REALLY irk me.
You CANNOT select multiple entries and sort them into one category at once. I could reconcile 6 months of activity in a few minutes if I could quickly slip down the list, clicking on all the gas station entries, and then on the last one, select "Auto:Gas". Navigating the expense listing is REALLY tedious, so there should be ways to reduce the # of times you have to use it!
No support for auto-sorting items into categories. Quicken sorta 'fuzzy matches' imported QIF entries and the like. Ie, "Mobil station 1325325", if you've picked "Auto:Gas", will default in the import to, well, Auto:Gas:-) This is an ENORMOUS timesaver- and should at least be an option.
No balance forecasting.
Moronic defaults for the graphs(like the size, etc. Nothing displays right.) Should default to the size of the window, or a global pref. Not just "300x300" or whatever it is.
Building it from source is virtually impossible, like most Gnome apps- it's a maze of dependencies that makes your head spin trying to get them all satisified. It has the most dependencies of any program I've ever seen, save Request Tracker(but at least RT's dependencies are perl modules, and MOST of that can be handled by CPAN- thank god, because you can end up needing over FIFTY perl modules for RT!) I REALLY want to be using the latest Gnucash, but there are no Mandrake packages, and I don't want to waste 5 hours of my life trying to compile it:-)
Don't get me wrong- I DO love the program, but sometimes(mostly when reconciling), I want to scream after modifying 100+ entries into various categories...arrrrg:-)
Often times packages like these develop cool little "better than the commercial package" features. Gnucash, unfortunately, don't really surpass(or even come close) to quicken's functionality set.
Now, what I DO like:
Customization of the graphs is great. As is the HTML-like nature of them, where you can click on a wedge of a pie, and 'dive into' that section. Cool beans. The graphs are simple, but just look really nice- very clean appearance thanks to the gnome antialiasing libs. They're certainly presentation/executive material.
Mandatory full backups. Every time you save, it writes a new copy of the file, dated, by default. This is actually a godsend- disk space is cheap, and even with 3 years worth of records the file isn't very big. But having snapshots is great in case I find out I was fucking things up for the last two weeks.
It handles QIF, OBEX, etc with no sweat. Two bank's QIFs have imported with no troubles.
Free!:)
No update bullshit. No "won't read your files from last year's program" bullshit. No "we sold it to you, now you can go screw" tech support. Sorry, Quicken has some of the worst release engineering and support policies, not to mention worst QA, I've ever seen. Banks are always having to help their customers through quicken problems- which is NOT where the responsibility lies. My bank actually had a "if you are trying to use quicken with your Bank Boston account..." option...
At this point, it is very stable and easy to use, and so far as I know it is the only XM radio software that integrates with the iTunes music store (click a button and iTunes pops up with a search for the current song title and artist).
I love it. $50 says Apple and XM spent weeks having their Little People negotiate over it all...and this guy's just gone and done it:-)
Conflict of interest, not that users are confused
on
Zero Blaster Reviewed
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· Score: 4, Insightful
New category needed ads.slashdot.org
Agreed. What's particularly bad is that the editorial staff clearly recognizes the problem:
Thinkgeek and Slashdot are both owned by VA Software.
The issue I have is that they don't realize what the problem is. It's like they think the issue is readership not realizing thinkgeek is associated with slashdot. We don't have that problem when there's a blinking thinkgeek ad right above the story.
Rather, the problem is that it's a plain and simple conflict of interest. OSDN trumpets slashdot as an "award winning news site", but slashdot editors continuously display zero journalistic integrities. Fact checking, not "reporting" about companies you accept advertising from, etc.
If it were news about thinkgeek, the disclaimer would not only be appropriate, it would be necessary. This however, was entirely a product suck-up....complete with the linkage. All that was missing was a [add this to your cart and check out] link. The disclaimer is for when you think you need to disclaim to readers that there's a potential conflict of interest. The disclaimer does NOT justify posting blatant ads as legitimate news stories.
An article over at infoworld discusses that buying that used router on ebay may not be a good deal if Cisco can find its way to screwing you.
How about Nortel? Their systems all require software, and the licenses are entirely, 100% NON-TRANSFERABLE.
They've actually got a page on their website warning people that they should ONLY buy new equipment from authorized resellers, lest they be guilty of license violations. Ie, call us when you've got a question about that used Nortel phone switch, and not only will we not help you, we'll fucking SUE you too.
How about camera gear? Nikon warrantees aren't transferrable. Even better, almost all camera companies enforce different pricing across different regions by not honoring warranties in any country/region except where the camera was bought...which is why that great deal on a grey-market Nikon D100 on ebay might not be such a hot idea- show up at a Canon USA service center with it, and you'll be politely told to go screw yourself, because they won't service it(or if they do, it won't be under warranty, if it's brand new.) Simply because you bought it outside the US(or someone else did, and you bought it from them.)
If anyone is still using plaintext to send passwords over their lan they are insane.
Did it occur to anyone that maybe those passwords were bait? No better way to catch a scriptkiddie than to make him think he's hit a goldmine. He runs home, logs into that honeypot, and the cops are on his doorstep the next day. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, 'd00d'.
I know there are a lot of stupid admins out there, but getting ssl and ssh installed should be a priority. Before you try and secure your wireless network segment you need to begin using secure protocols.
Just a sidenote, but POP itself isn't insecure auth-wise, and neither is telnet. POP3 supports APOP, which uses CRAM-MD5 to encode the password, and is rather secure. Telnet is installed on most linux systems now with kerberos support.
There's nothing particularly secure about SSL or SSH either- unless you've spent several hundred dollars on a cert(for SSL) signed by one of the major CAs, or you have your system with you, and you trust that cert. Walking up to a workstation and logging in to your webmail over https from your home box, when you see that "is this cert ok?" you really have no idea.
It's a little better for SSH- smart SSH users have a printout of their system's fingerprint so they can quickly compare the two, before clicking "yes"...but too many people just blindly click "Yes", and that's your greatest risk right there. Not to mention, that copy of putty on that innocent looking windows box could be trojaned by the last conference guest to use it...etc. etc.
Ultimately, the most secure method is having your own hardware that by mere physical availability can't be tampered with very easily. Your system already knows what SSH fingerprints to trust, it already knows what SSL certs are cool, there's no real danger of keylogging...oh, and you can set up a full-blown VPN connection so nobody can even tell what you're doing.
It's also part of IT's job to make sure backups are running, services are secure, servers are healthy, desktop systems have antivirus software and have regular maintenace done on them...
...but there is little time for that when every wmployee just picks up the phone when an icon is an inch to the left. So you say "oh, you need more staff, hire more people". Justifying more staff because your userbase is chronically lazy and undertrained(not necessarily stupid!) isn't very easy- you're talking well over 50k in expense to the company. WELL over. Just for one additional staffer. Thats a lot of training, isn't it?
If suddenly the air conditioning at stops working, I'm not going to go looking through the ducts
No, but you ARE going to check the thermostat, and make sure it's set right, yes? If you're moderately clued in, you might think "hmm, the motor's not working, maybe the fuse blew like it did the last 3 times." But users don't do that. They don't recognize patterns, they don't even make the slightest effort to self-diagnose.
In 3 jobs over 10 years, 95% of non-engineering staff will simply pick up the phone any time there is a problem after making ZERO efforts to collect information or troubleshoot the problem.
I'm going to call the repair people.
And the first thing they're going to ask is "what have you checked so far?" They're going to be mighty pissed if they find the thermostat is set high.
If the Xerox machine starts jamming every time, I'm not going to start turning adjusting screws, I'll call the Xerox guy.
No, but you WILL follow the instructions on the screen and open the machine up where the display says it's jamming, and pull out the piece of paper, and try again, right? Most users will just walk away, without even calling IT to let them know of the problem(which is even worse than calling, because now we get a NASTY call from someone else, who thinks we're incompetent, because they found the system broken, like we're supposed to be psychic).
I suspect, however, that the people who call because the printer is out of paper CAN replace it by themselves - they just don't think it is their job
...and this is one reason why some companies are now internally tracking(billing) departments for their IT support. It's amazing how fast it becomes a priority in Marketing to get staff to take care of simple things themselves(and learn to use their systems) when calling support takes money out of the ad budget(or the off-site party, er, meeting, budget).
He correctly points out that much of the trouble end users have with their PCs can be traced to their skillset
Ding ding, thank you! And why is that? Because companies just expect people to know how to use computers. So, every time someone's printer "doesn't print", does the user stop and think/look around/check anything? No. They pick up the phone and pester IT.
Users a)get set in certain ways and become highly resistant to change because they are too lazy to try and learn, and b)don't know how to do anything except type in their login password in the morning, reply to emails, etc.
If only companies would sit their employees down for honest-to-go "here is how to use ____" training, productivity would be so much better(because they'd be able to take advantage of all the features their software offers, and they'd know how to handle little bumps in the road), and IT departments would get more infrastructure work done, instead of constantly answering "my printer won't print because it's out of paper" problems.
Oh, and did I mention that in internet/sofware/etc companies, you should be given a basic computer skills proficiency test?
What's that you say? Backbones don't police spam across their networks, spam that sucks up huge amounts of bandwidth, which they can charge people for? Whoa!
Next at 11, employees who are responsible for self-policing timecard policies are ripping off employers!
(seriously though- it's time we started taking major networks to task, like refusing to route packets coming from them, or refusing to send traffic to them. Watch how fast UUnet takes care of spammers, when customers find they suddenly can't get to sites. Pretty much the ONLY thing these days that separates backbones is how reliable they are- even a slight decrease in reliability, even just perceived or threatened, could have an astounding effect. Think of all the fuss SCO is causing to see the possibilities.)
Comparing MySQL to Oracle is like comparing a leaking dinghy to the Queen Elizabeth II. MySQL may be used by a lot of companies, but it's still a joke compared to even other open source SQL databases like PostgreSQL. Not to mention it seems like they're always having licensing issues(to the extent that MySQL support has been pulled from the PHP 5.0 development branch).
You want a serious, professional, stable database? Oracle, DB2, Sybase, etc. No money? Try PostgreSQL. MySQL substitutes some crazy locking in place of real transaction support. PostgreSQL not only doesn't need to lock tables for most operations, but it also supports very sophisticated locking. Oh, and did I mention PostgreSQL is object-oriented? The only two thing PostgreSQL is lacking is good replication support in the main release(it's still in development, I believe). That and full text searching is kinda funky(although very sophisticated).
I've seen so many "performance problems" that were due almost entirely to lack of proper database functionality in MySQL.
I can hear the scriptkiddies(PHP scriptkiddies) now chanting "it's lighter weight, it's faster". Guess what? You can make PostgreSQL just as fast if you turn off various sanity checks(these checks are better than what MySQL does) AND the more complete implementation of SQL actually lets you do more powerful(or perhaps efficient) queries. Who finishes a house first, the guy with a hammer and saw, or the guy with a truck full of tools?
Remember when the Feds snatching this guy from Intel was a big deal here at/.? When we all thought that the FBI was overstepping their bounds? When we all thought that they were wrong; that an Intel engineer couldn't possibly be guilty?
They still DID overstep their bounds. We have some laws in this country which provide protection to citizens from potential abuse of power by law enforcement. Such as locking someone up for weeks without pressing charges, denying them access to a lawyer, etc. There's also unreasonable punishment- I'd say spiriting someone off and denying you've done so to their family etc certainly qualifies.
Police are required to file charges within a certain, rather short period of time(24 hours? I forget), or let you go- one or the other. You can't just lock someone up, and THEN go looking for evidence of a crime; you have to FIRST find the evidence, THEN arrest them and THEN charge them with a crime.
I don't care if he was guilty- their actions are improper, unjust, and remind me more of, say, dictatorships and communist governments than the country that supposedly leads the "free world". Inefficiency in law enforcement is the price we pay for our freedom, rights, and protections. When we throw any of the three out the window, what's left to protect? One only need to look as far as 1980's eastern germany to see what road we are headed towards.
While I don't suggest a head-in-the-sand mentality, I'd strongly suggest we simply let the whole thing play out. It's going to be at a long time before anything actually happens in the lawsuits- and until something happens we are only helping SCO by publicizing who they are going after. The more the industry hears about SCO going after people, the more they will fear SCO.
So let's please just calm down, realize there's little any of US can do about it(unless SCO has claims to OUR intellectual property) except encourage linux IP holders to fight back and contribute to organizations like the FSF which, while they cannot directly act on the behalf of others, can help them fight the legal battle, but only if they actually decide to protect their intellectual property. Read the FSF's mission statement some time- they specifically say they can't fight a legal battle just because a piece of software has the GPL- they don't own the IP. However, if you ASK for help, THEN they can try and help.
In the meantime, it doesn't affect the vast majority of us, it's not news- it's just plain and simple bullying for press(attention), and we're giving them exactly what they want. Anyone remember the whole Raelean(sp?) thing with the 'vaporware' cloned baby? The "church" leaders openly admitted it was a publicity stunt and they did it only to increase membership. One of them was quoted as saying they had received hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising from one bogus claim.
The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces.
Math time, kids!
128/1.5 = 85 MB per oz
10240/5.6 = 1826 MB per oz
Oh, but it's cheaper, you say?
128/129 = ~ 1MB/$1
10240/299 = ~ 34MB/$1
Thanks for playing. The Gateway player is just Yet Another Mp3 Player; the non-hard-drive players are all pretty damn small and light. Some are cheaper than this, too. And no DRM.
I agree with the other posters- it's completely yawn-inspiring, and reminds me of all the other suspcious stories we've been seeing recently...like that Tivo-like unit that randomly got three paragraph's worth on the front page for no apparent reason. When are slashdot editors going to realize they're being taken advantage of?(I'm politely assuming they're not doing product placements).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a "sly way to keep open source software out"*, it's a not-so-sly way to counter OTHER people getting ad revenue/sales off YOUR network service, among other things.
MSN messenger only really makes money off:
(last two being market-share 'enhancers')...which is pretty much why AOL offers AIM independently too. When a client like Trillian is a)letting people use your service without showing you ads and b)letting users talk to anyone on any network...well, now, you've just shot 2 out of 3 reasons for MSN messenger's free-ness, haven't you?
Not to mention, someone at MSN's sales deparment finally realized "Hmm,, people are making money SELLING a client for our network! Hey! I bet WE can get a piece of that money!" They probably approached Trillian, Trillian probably told them to go screw, and MSN said "hah, watch us pull the plug". So, basically, Trillian etc will be forced to sign an agreement forking over xx% of their [gross/net/whatever] sales, the business world will perhaps do a little more than yawn, and the sun will rise tomorrow...meanwhile, Instant Messaging Planet will generate a dozen news stories and at least one conference over the whole thing ;-)
* let's drop the persecution complex, for crissakes- companies do things for one reason, and one reason only- to MAKE MONEY, not join The Man in fucking open source over.
You know, I just remembered why we don't launch nuclear waste out into space. It would -really- suck if it blew up before it cleared orbit, wouldn't it?
Satellites don't contain much at all in the way of nuclear power because their needs are so low. How much material are they sending up, and how do they plan on keeping us safe if the launch vehicle has, uh, 'issues'? You'd think even with a creatively planned trajectory, you'd end up spreading material over a massive area...
On the bright side, after Red Planet and Mission to Mars, they can 'Pull A Chernobyl' and it'll still be only the third worst Mars disaster ever.
Yeah, but who wants power, when you can get screaming, shrieking, temper tantrums, insane financial draining capabilities, scary girl/boyfriends, rebellion...?
Most of the world has been, uh, "boycotting"(not buying) SCO products for years. Hence the publicity/money/attention grab :-)
Programmer Analyst
Davenport, FL
Man, couldn't he find a better place to live?
securitas submits this painfully well-linked piece:
Try painfully long. It was almost 3/4 of a page long, and I'm running at 1280x1024.
Are we going to see adver..cough, sorry, stories, every time Sony comes out with a new Clie too? Oops, sorry, I forget, we already get that :-)
Except that Tesla also thought we should 'beam' electrical power through the air by generating masive RF fields; you'd have a big RF generator in the center of town, and everyone would have magical antennas that harvested this magnetic energy. Instead of, say, just laying down some wire underground or on poles. It's a good thing he isn't around today, because the tin-foil-hat wearing anti-cell-phone-tower freaks would tear him apart.
If anything, some of the 'greatest' minds of our time have also had some of the 'greatest' moments of stupidity. For example, Edison(who strongly believed DC was much safer, outweighing transmission problems) was mostly responsible for death by electrocution; he figured the public would be shocked by how easily a man was killed by AC, and would fear it as a result...putting an end to Tesla, who was quickly taking Edison Electric to the cleaners, with more efficient generation and transmission.
It backfired, massively- it amounted to torture and the man was electrocuted repeatedly and at length before finally dying; it literally cooked him alive and at times they had to stop and put out the fires on his body. Those who witnessed it were indeed horrified beyond belief. Common view was that AC was NOT lethal, and Edison was responsible for the slow death, rather than the quick painless instant killer he had promised.
Um...Yeah...he's just a regular poster boy for how successful you can be with the right shredder...
No. The problem is that WE have lost touch with nature. We eat other living things(and other living things, although admittedly very rarely, eat us). It's called "the food chain". If you want to be a '5th level vegan' who doesn't eat anything that 'casts a shadow', be my fuckin' guest. I don't bother you about being a vegitarian, don't fucking bother me about having a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and (gasp) a glass of milk.
That said- huge industrial farms are disgusting, yes. Don't like how Tyson treats their chickens?(chances are you can find plenty of 'dirt' online). Buy local farm chickens. Vote with your wallet, folks.
Sorry- should have been more specific. This is after I've imported(via QIF file from my bank) all the transactions. They've got names(comments?), but no expense categories. I'd like to quickly select multiple items to assign to one expense category, otherwise, there's not a huge time savings from importing the QIF in the first place, but the time i get the file downloaded, transferred over to the linux box(Mozilla doesn't handle their download wizard quite right, Safari does it), and imported.
(And why are you waiting 6 months to reconcile?)
Because I don't write checks, and I constantly monitor my account online(balance and history) so I know if something's wrong pretty fast. I use GnuCash to see where it all goes category-wise, what my spending habits are like, etc...and keep a nice electronic record for long term. Gnucash is not a necessity for me- it's a fun toy to help me get better at managing spending etc. Now that I'm consulting more, it'll help me keep track of where income is -coming from- better, not just where it's going :-)
Oh, and I was unemployed until recently, so activity on my account was practically nothing for the last 6 months :-)
Wait a sec...roomba "community"?
I thought the idea was to give you more free time to do fun things. It's pretty sad these people are using that time to sit around in front of the computer and participate in some...pointless...foru...
[marblehead moment]
Ahhhh nuts.
PS:Obligatory slashdotting joke! That community site clogged up faster than a roomba in the wrong part of Dustbunnyville.
No- but that's irrelevant. SCO could pull a legal rabbit out of its hat, and win, and it could all end up being 100% kosher. MAYBE there is some blatantly copied code.
The HUGE problem is that this would set a case precedence of sorts. Ie, everyone would think "the GPL is worthless." WORSE, people will violate it even more freely than they do now- and we know, from Linksys and others, that they do, wholesale. Imagine how much cut+pasting happens, or how many derivative works there are, etc...
Copyright holders have had many, many years to establish case history in far better cases than this- ones where people have violated the GPL, there's plenty of evidence, etc. It's a failing of the open-source model; because no SINGLE individual feels the need(or has the resources, perhaps) to challenge a violation, we ALL loose. This is sorta why the FSF exists.
Notice I said "copyright holders" at the start of the last paragraph, and not "The FSF". If you read their mission statement, you'll notice that they very clearly point out that they can't do JACK on their own if they don't own the copyright; the ball is in the court of those whose IP SCO is laying claim to. If you approach the FSF and ask for help, they'll help- but they can't just charge into court and yell "WE ARE HERE TO DEFEND THE PENGUIN'S HONOR!"
I agree it's a great package, and I love it- but there are several things which REALLY irk me.
Don't get me wrong- I DO love the program, but sometimes(mostly when reconciling), I want to scream after modifying 100+ entries into various categories...arrrrg :-)
Often times packages like these develop cool little "better than the commercial package" features. Gnucash, unfortunately, don't really surpass(or even come close) to quicken's functionality set.
Now, what I DO like:
I love it. $50 says Apple and XM spent weeks having their Little People negotiate over it all...and this guy's just gone and done it :-)
Agreed. What's particularly bad is that the editorial staff clearly recognizes the problem:
Thinkgeek and Slashdot are both owned by VA Software.
The issue I have is that they don't realize what the problem is. It's like they think the issue is readership not realizing thinkgeek is associated with slashdot. We don't have that problem when there's a blinking thinkgeek ad right above the story.
Rather, the problem is that it's a plain and simple conflict of interest. OSDN trumpets slashdot as an "award winning news site", but slashdot editors continuously display zero journalistic integrities. Fact checking, not "reporting" about companies you accept advertising from, etc.
If it were news about thinkgeek, the disclaimer would not only be appropriate, it would be necessary. This however, was entirely a product suck-up....complete with the linkage. All that was missing was a [add this to your cart and check out] link. The disclaimer is for when you think you need to disclaim to readers that there's a potential conflict of interest. The disclaimer does NOT justify posting blatant ads as legitimate news stories.
How about Nortel? Their systems all require software, and the licenses are entirely, 100% NON-TRANSFERABLE.
They've actually got a page on their website warning people that they should ONLY buy new equipment from authorized resellers, lest they be guilty of license violations. Ie, call us when you've got a question about that used Nortel phone switch, and not only will we not help you, we'll fucking SUE you too.
How about camera gear? Nikon warrantees aren't transferrable. Even better, almost all camera companies enforce different pricing across different regions by not honoring warranties in any country/region except where the camera was bought...which is why that great deal on a grey-market Nikon D100 on ebay might not be such a hot idea- show up at a Canon USA service center with it, and you'll be politely told to go screw yourself, because they won't service it(or if they do, it won't be under warranty, if it's brand new.) Simply because you bought it outside the US(or someone else did, and you bought it from them.)
Did it occur to anyone that maybe those passwords were bait? No better way to catch a scriptkiddie than to make him think he's hit a goldmine. He runs home, logs into that honeypot, and the cops are on his doorstep the next day. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, 'd00d'.
I know there are a lot of stupid admins out there, but getting ssl and ssh installed should be a priority. Before you try and secure your wireless network segment you need to begin using secure protocols.
Just a sidenote, but POP itself isn't insecure auth-wise, and neither is telnet. POP3 supports APOP, which uses CRAM-MD5 to encode the password, and is rather secure. Telnet is installed on most linux systems now with kerberos support.
There's nothing particularly secure about SSL or SSH either- unless you've spent several hundred dollars on a cert(for SSL) signed by one of the major CAs, or you have your system with you, and you trust that cert. Walking up to a workstation and logging in to your webmail over https from your home box, when you see that "is this cert ok?" you really have no idea.
It's a little better for SSH- smart SSH users have a printout of their system's fingerprint so they can quickly compare the two, before clicking "yes"...but too many people just blindly click "Yes", and that's your greatest risk right there. Not to mention, that copy of putty on that innocent looking windows box could be trojaned by the last conference guest to use it...etc. etc.
Ultimately, the most secure method is having your own hardware that by mere physical availability can't be tampered with very easily. Your system already knows what SSH fingerprints to trust, it already knows what SSL certs are cool, there's no real danger of keylogging...oh, and you can set up a full-blown VPN connection so nobody can even tell what you're doing.
It's also part of IT's job to make sure backups are running, services are secure, servers are healthy, desktop systems have antivirus software and have regular maintenace done on them...
...but there is little time for that when every wmployee just picks up the phone when an icon is an inch to the left. So you say "oh, you need more staff, hire more people". Justifying more staff because your userbase is chronically lazy and undertrained(not necessarily stupid!) isn't very easy- you're talking well over 50k in expense to the company. WELL over. Just for one additional staffer. Thats a lot of training, isn't it?
If suddenly the air conditioning at stops working, I'm not going to go looking through the ducts
No, but you ARE going to check the thermostat, and make sure it's set right, yes? If you're moderately clued in, you might think "hmm, the motor's not working, maybe the fuse blew like it did the last 3 times." But users don't do that. They don't recognize patterns, they don't even make the slightest effort to self-diagnose.
In 3 jobs over 10 years, 95% of non-engineering staff will simply pick up the phone any time there is a problem after making ZERO efforts to collect information or troubleshoot the problem.
I'm going to call the repair people.
And the first thing they're going to ask is "what have you checked so far?" They're going to be mighty pissed if they find the thermostat is set high.
If the Xerox machine starts jamming every time, I'm not going to start turning adjusting screws, I'll call the Xerox guy.
No, but you WILL follow the instructions on the screen and open the machine up where the display says it's jamming, and pull out the piece of paper, and try again, right? Most users will just walk away, without even calling IT to let them know of the problem(which is even worse than calling, because now we get a NASTY call from someone else, who thinks we're incompetent, because they found the system broken, like we're supposed to be psychic).
I suspect, however, that the people who call because the printer is out of paper CAN replace it by themselves - they just don't think it is their job
...and this is one reason why some companies are now internally tracking(billing) departments for their IT support. It's amazing how fast it becomes a priority in Marketing to get staff to take care of simple things themselves(and learn to use their systems) when calling support takes money out of the ad budget(or the off-site party, er, meeting, budget).
Ding ding, thank you! And why is that? Because companies just expect people to know how to use computers. So, every time someone's printer "doesn't print", does the user stop and think/look around/check anything? No. They pick up the phone and pester IT.
Users a)get set in certain ways and become highly resistant to change because they are too lazy to try and learn, and b)don't know how to do anything except type in their login password in the morning, reply to emails, etc.
If only companies would sit their employees down for honest-to-go "here is how to use ____" training, productivity would be so much better(because they'd be able to take advantage of all the features their software offers, and they'd know how to handle little bumps in the road), and IT departments would get more infrastructure work done, instead of constantly answering "my printer won't print because it's out of paper" problems.
Oh, and did I mention that in internet/sofware/etc companies, you should be given a basic computer skills proficiency test?
What's that you say? Backbones don't police spam across their networks, spam that sucks up huge amounts of bandwidth, which they can charge people for? Whoa!
Next at 11, employees who are responsible for self-policing timecard policies are ripping off employers!
(seriously though- it's time we started taking major networks to task, like refusing to route packets coming from them, or refusing to send traffic to them. Watch how fast UUnet takes care of spammers, when customers find they suddenly can't get to sites. Pretty much the ONLY thing these days that separates backbones is how reliable they are- even a slight decrease in reliability, even just perceived or threatened, could have an astounding effect. Think of all the fuss SCO is causing to see the possibilities.)
Comparing MySQL to Oracle is like comparing a leaking dinghy to the Queen Elizabeth II. MySQL may be used by a lot of companies, but it's still a joke compared to even other open source SQL databases like PostgreSQL. Not to mention it seems like they're always having licensing issues(to the extent that MySQL support has been pulled from the PHP 5.0 development branch).
You want a serious, professional, stable database? Oracle, DB2, Sybase, etc. No money? Try PostgreSQL. MySQL substitutes some crazy locking in place of real transaction support. PostgreSQL not only doesn't need to lock tables for most operations, but it also supports very sophisticated locking. Oh, and did I mention PostgreSQL is object-oriented? The only two thing PostgreSQL is lacking is good replication support in the main release(it's still in development, I believe). That and full text searching is kinda funky(although very sophisticated).
I've seen so many "performance problems" that were due almost entirely to lack of proper database functionality in MySQL.
I can hear the scriptkiddies(PHP scriptkiddies) now chanting "it's lighter weight, it's faster". Guess what? You can make PostgreSQL just as fast if you turn off various sanity checks(these checks are better than what MySQL does) AND the more complete implementation of SQL actually lets you do more powerful(or perhaps efficient) queries. Who finishes a house first, the guy with a hammer and saw, or the guy with a truck full of tools?
They still DID overstep their bounds. We have some laws in this country which provide protection to citizens from potential abuse of power by law enforcement. Such as locking someone up for weeks without pressing charges, denying them access to a lawyer, etc. There's also unreasonable punishment- I'd say spiriting someone off and denying you've done so to their family etc certainly qualifies.
Police are required to file charges within a certain, rather short period of time(24 hours? I forget), or let you go- one or the other. You can't just lock someone up, and THEN go looking for evidence of a crime; you have to FIRST find the evidence, THEN arrest them and THEN charge them with a crime.
I don't care if he was guilty- their actions are improper, unjust, and remind me more of, say, dictatorships and communist governments than the country that supposedly leads the "free world". Inefficiency in law enforcement is the price we pay for our freedom, rights, and protections. When we throw any of the three out the window, what's left to protect? One only need to look as far as 1980's eastern germany to see what road we are headed towards.
While I don't suggest a head-in-the-sand mentality, I'd strongly suggest we simply let the whole thing play out. It's going to be at a long time before anything actually happens in the lawsuits- and until something happens we are only helping SCO by publicizing who they are going after. The more the industry hears about SCO going after people, the more they will fear SCO.
So let's please just calm down, realize there's little any of US can do about it(unless SCO has claims to OUR intellectual property) except encourage linux IP holders to fight back and contribute to organizations like the FSF which, while they cannot directly act on the behalf of others, can help them fight the legal battle, but only if they actually decide to protect their intellectual property. Read the FSF's mission statement some time- they specifically say they can't fight a legal battle just because a piece of software has the GPL- they don't own the IP. However, if you ASK for help, THEN they can try and help.
In the meantime, it doesn't affect the vast majority of us, it's not news- it's just plain and simple bullying for press(attention), and we're giving them exactly what they want. Anyone remember the whole Raelean(sp?) thing with the 'vaporware' cloned baby? The "church" leaders openly admitted it was a publicity stunt and they did it only to increase membership. One of them was quoted as saying they had received hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising from one bogus claim.
Math time, kids!
128/1.5 = 85 MB per oz
10240/5.6 = 1826 MB per oz
Oh, but it's cheaper, you say?
128/129 = ~ 1MB/$1
10240/299 = ~ 34MB/$1
Thanks for playing. The Gateway player is just Yet Another Mp3 Player; the non-hard-drive players are all pretty damn small and light. Some are cheaper than this, too. And no DRM.
I agree with the other posters- it's completely yawn-inspiring, and reminds me of all the other suspcious stories we've been seeing recently...like that Tivo-like unit that randomly got three paragraph's worth on the front page for no apparent reason. When are slashdot editors going to realize they're being taken advantage of?(I'm politely assuming they're not doing product placements).