The worst I've seen is one at a 24-hour restaurant I used to work at. The POS machines were linked to an NT server in the back office, and queried it for data about the tickets so we could scan a bar code on the ticket to have the POS machine automatically register the payment due and such as well as to verify that the bill was paid.
Too bad the NT server had to be rebooted and its software restarted once a day. The whole process took about 10 minutes, and the cash drawers wouldn't open so we could ring anyone up manually and scan the tickets later during that time. Customers had to stand at the counter and wait if they decided to leave at the wrong time.
Granted, I imagine part of the time delay is bad system set-up (Why can't the server software start up automagically when the computer boots, eh?), but still, you can't open the cash drawers if the server is down!?!?
So what sort of legal suits can I bring against them for telling me that I need to buy a new subscription-based license for a copy of Caldera OpenLinux that they sold me mostly under the GPL several years ago? There's gotta be some sort of law against a bait-and-switch of that type.
Agreed. At this point I think even SCO would have to know that they only people stupi^H^H^H^H^Hethic^H^H^H^H^Hnaive enough to purchase these licenses are PHBs.
Bluetooth is designed the way it is to help with this problem. With about 10 yards of range, you don't need to have nearly as much spectrum to accomodate a given number of devices spread over a given area as you would with one of the 802.11 protocols.
BT is meant to be more of a wireless USB cable than a wireless cat5 cable. It's designed for syncing cell phones and PDAs and such wirelessly, as a standard for wireless peripherals, wireless printers, etc. It's a good replacement for the IR port on a PalmPilot since it doesn't require line of sight. It's also very short range - somewhere around 30'. This is a very big reason why WiFi should not be used to do the things Bluetooth is meant for - with an order of magnitude greater range, having several people using lots of WiFi keyboards, mice, speakers, what have you in the same general area (like in an office) is going to result in lots of interference. Plus, this greater range requires much greater power consumption, so you're going to be getting MUCH worse battery life out of wireless desktop devices that use WiFi.
From what I can tell, the biggest problem a lot of consumers seem to have with BT boils down to the image that it has - a lot of people seem to think that it's sort of a short-range 802.11b. I've seen it pop up in everything from people's comments about Bluetooth's devices to Palm's webpage on wireless technologies in its devices - it groups BT with 802.11b and WAN technologies, without really making it clear that the only real similarity that BT has with the other two is that it operates over radio frequencies. The attitude seems to be that Bluetooth is just a wimpy version of WiFi without the internet connectivity.
Personally, I'm not sure I'll agree with that attitude until CompUSA starts selling keboards and mice with MAC addresses.
If the dealer has to pay, you can be sure it will be more than a $200 increase to the price if that's what it costs to install (wich I doubt. I'm thinking a whole lot more money than that). It would be more like a $400 increase in price because the dealers could get away with it.
Because nowadays it's vitally important to make sure that we don't discriminate against the stewheads by unfairly singling them out. In 21st century America everyone is so very equal that DUI offenders can't possibly be any more likely to drink and drive than, say, the leader of your local Prohibition league.
I work on a couple x86 linux boxen, a Sun workstation, and my Powerbook running OS X. I frequently write programs that will run on the big-endian machines but not the others and vice-versa. Sometimes it's just a pain in the ass to handle endianness issues, especially if you don't personally plan on running your software in Lilliput or whatever.
I'm wondering if maybe it would be possible to write some functionality into gcc or maybe libc for handling general endianness issues. I would be a happy boy if I could set a flag and have all the byte-flipping handled for me. That said, I wouldn't want to be the poor sap who has to try writing a hack like that and at the same time designing it to be usable.
I've run into the same problem on Mac OS X. Usually you're fine, but when you aren't, you're in a world of pain. I think this is a lot of why fink just creates a separate file tree rather than trying to merge itself in with the main one.
I've actually been considering dual-booting GNU/Linux on my mac for just this reason.
Solaris came out in 1972. There's been plenty of time for 9 sequels in 30-odd years. Actually, the crappy Solaris that just made the theatres in the USA is Solaris 9, but was released in the USA as Solaris 1. (It's kind of a Final Fantasy 3/6 thing) Solaris 11 is already in the process of being shot, just like Darl.
I want to make for absolute sure my body burns up in the sun. Billions of years is a lot of time for some wacko scientists to figure out how to move the whole planet to a new star before the sun consumes it.
I think you just argued against the mac and then in support of it. All-in-all, the.dmg file system on Macs gives you that - get the.dmg file, open it, and run the application in there. If you want to keep the application, copy it to wherever you want to have it.
You just installed the program by putting the application file on your hard drive. Feel free to get rid of the archive you got it from. Doing this on a PC can be nearly identical - you get a compressed archive. You get the file out of the compressed archive. You do whatever you want with the archive - delete it, put it somewhere for safe keeping, whatever. (The installer is there because lots of Windows software needs to install DLLs, set some registry keys, etc - things which would be a PITA for people who know what to do. I think that software that doesn't need an installer uses it just because Windows users are so used to installers that they frequently don't even know how to edit the start menu.)
I'm really not sure why this process would seem more complicated on a Mac than a PC.
Let's assume I'm as computer savvy as your average Windows or Mac user.
Let's also say that this application I want isn't in the ports tree, so I can't get to it with apt-get. What do I do then?
Or maybe let's say that I heard a program's name, but I don't know the package's exact name. Or maybe I want version 2.x, but there are packages for version 1.x and 2.x. I don't really want to have to bother with finding out that I only get 1.x when I $apt-get install foo, and to get version 2.x I need to $apt-get install foo2.
We're talking barriers to use for people who are used to completely GUI oriented operating systems, not people who are comfortable with command-line tools like apt-get.
Besides, PalmOne is probably aware that the Linux community is full of hackers and the Linux community will get sync software working with any PDA released with any version of PalmOS within a few months as long as they publish some tech info. So far it's worked great for hardware manufacturers, why not a PDA manufacturer.
Under no conditions is iSync anywhere near the type of application where Palm can just give Apple the ability to make it work out of the box with PalmOS. It does not do the actual synchronization with the PalmPilot, it gets data from your PalmPilot to iCal and your Address Book through a conduit. It doesn't even support syncing the note pad. Nor does it allow you to back up your PDA or install applications and files to it. It contains no code for performing the HotSync itself. iSync is just some glue between a Hotsync conduit and a couple of applications.
iSync is a Palm Desktop conduit, not a standalone sync program.
With no Palm Desktop for MacOS, iSync is useless. I submit as evidence the Sony Clie, which does not come with support for the Mac. iSync is useless until you buy a $30 third-party program called The Missing Sync.
I doubt Apple is going to completely re-write a program to change it from being software to allow you to update your Address Book and iCal from any number of devices including but not limited to PDAs to being a Palm Desktop clone.
Why not create an installer packaging program like the ones used on Windows and MacOS? This seems like something that would be good for KDE and Gnome to work on together. This packaging system would be great for beginning and desktop users, while not necessarily attempting to replace the myriad packaging systems already out there. I think that this is an important caveat - a lot of the packaging systems that linux distros use have a lot of features that are great for unix manglers, but from a desktop OS standpoint they qualify as creeping featurism and add excessive complication to the whole installation process. Also, using an InstallShield type system means that different packages can have slightly different install processes, depending on what needs to be done to get the package working.
The directory structure is also something that doesn't necessarily need to be scrapped - I personally think it's a Very Good layout from a server/workstation administration standpoint, although I agree that it's terrible for a desktop computer. Again, I think OS X has hit on a very good solution - keep two separate file structures. One would be aimed at a desktop user and would be visible through the desktop environment. Applications that a desktop user needs can be placed here. Keep the old file tree, but make it invisible to the desktop environment (by default, anyway).
This system isn't without its faults, but I've found it to be an excellent comrpomise on OS X.
When my only option for broadband in a hotel is WiFi, I choose the WiFi. If I can get ethernet, I always choose the copper.
I've discovered that far too many hotels with WiFi have only a single access point, usually somewhere in the region of the front desk. All too frequently, I end up in a room somewhere near the other end of the hotel. In those cases, if I can even get a signal it's so weak I get a better connection dialing in to GlobalCrossing.
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The worst I've seen is one at a 24-hour restaurant I used to work at. The POS machines were linked to an NT server in the back office, and queried it for data about the tickets so we could scan a bar code on the ticket to have the POS machine automatically register the payment due and such as well as to verify that the bill was paid.
Too bad the NT server had to be rebooted and its software restarted once a day. The whole process took about 10 minutes, and the cash drawers wouldn't open so we could ring anyone up manually and scan the tickets later during that time. Customers had to stand at the counter and wait if they decided to leave at the wrong time.
Granted, I imagine part of the time delay is bad system set-up (Why can't the server software start up automagically when the computer boots, eh?), but still, you can't open the cash drawers if the server is down!?!?
Last I heard, SCO is trying to get everyone who runs linux to buy a license, regardless of kernel version.
So what sort of legal suits can I bring against them for telling me that I need to buy a new subscription-based license for a copy of Caldera OpenLinux that they sold me mostly under the GPL several years ago? There's gotta be some sort of law against a bait-and-switch of that type.
Agreed. At this point I think even SCO would have to know that they only people stupi^H^H^H^H^Hethic^H^H^H^H^Hnaive enough to purchase these licenses are PHBs.
Bluetooth is designed the way it is to help with this problem. With about 10 yards of range, you don't need to have nearly as much spectrum to accomodate a given number of devices spread over a given area as you would with one of the 802.11 protocols.
BT is meant to be more of a wireless USB cable than a wireless cat5 cable. It's designed for syncing cell phones and PDAs and such wirelessly, as a standard for wireless peripherals, wireless printers, etc. It's a good replacement for the IR port on a PalmPilot since it doesn't require line of sight. It's also very short range - somewhere around 30'. This is a very big reason why WiFi should not be used to do the things Bluetooth is meant for - with an order of magnitude greater range, having several people using lots of WiFi keyboards, mice, speakers, what have you in the same general area (like in an office) is going to result in lots of interference. Plus, this greater range requires much greater power consumption, so you're going to be getting MUCH worse battery life out of wireless desktop devices that use WiFi.
From what I can tell, the biggest problem a lot of consumers seem to have with BT boils down to the image that it has - a lot of people seem to think that it's sort of a short-range 802.11b. I've seen it pop up in everything from people's comments about Bluetooth's devices to Palm's webpage on wireless technologies in its devices - it groups BT with 802.11b and WAN technologies, without really making it clear that the only real similarity that BT has with the other two is that it operates over radio frequencies. The attitude seems to be that Bluetooth is just a wimpy version of WiFi without the internet connectivity.
Personally, I'm not sure I'll agree with that attitude until CompUSA starts selling keboards and mice with MAC addresses.
Occam's Razor gets a lot of help from the observation that the most-pirated movies are generally the large grossing ones.
If the dealer has to pay, you can be sure it will be more than a $200 increase to the price if that's what it costs to install (wich I doubt. I'm thinking a whole lot more money than that). It would be more like a $400 increase in price because the dealers could get away with it.
Because nowadays it's vitally important to make sure that we don't discriminate against the stewheads by unfairly singling them out. In 21st century America everyone is so very equal that DUI offenders can't possibly be any more likely to drink and drive than, say, the leader of your local Prohibition league.
I work on a couple x86 linux boxen, a Sun workstation, and my Powerbook running OS X. I frequently write programs that will run on the big-endian machines but not the others and vice-versa. Sometimes it's just a pain in the ass to handle endianness issues, especially if you don't personally plan on running your software in Lilliput or whatever.
I'm wondering if maybe it would be possible to write some functionality into gcc or maybe libc for handling general endianness issues. I would be a happy boy if I could set a flag and have all the byte-flipping handled for me. That said, I wouldn't want to be the poor sap who has to try writing a hack like that and at the same time designing it to be usable.
I've run into the same problem on Mac OS X. Usually you're fine, but when you aren't, you're in a world of pain. I think this is a lot of why fink just creates a separate file tree rather than trying to merge itself in with the main one.
I've actually been considering dual-booting GNU/Linux on my mac for just this reason.
$su /dev/sound
#chmod 600
#exit
$mpg123 xxx.mp3
Solaris came out in 1972. There's been plenty of time for 9 sequels in 30-odd years. Actually, the crappy Solaris that just made the theatres in the USA is Solaris 9, but was released in the USA as Solaris 1. (It's kind of a Final Fantasy 3/6 thing) Solaris 11 is already in the process of being shot, just like Darl.
I want to make for absolute sure my body burns up in the sun. Billions of years is a lot of time for some wacko scientists to figure out how to move the whole planet to a new star before the sun consumes it.
Is there a chance they applied for the patent after the entire planet figured out how DVDs work?
It's also kind of hard to have something be a trade secret when it's being printed on T-shirts.
. . .I tried telling my wife pretty much same thing on our wedding night. She still wasn't consoled.
I think you just argued against the mac and then in support of it. All-in-all, the .dmg file system on Macs gives you that - get the .dmg file, open it, and run the application in there. If you want to keep the application, copy it to wherever you want to have it.
You just installed the program by putting the application file on your hard drive. Feel free to get rid of the archive you got it from.
Doing this on a PC can be nearly identical - you get a compressed archive. You get the file out of the compressed archive. You do whatever you want with the archive - delete it, put it somewhere for safe keeping, whatever. (The installer is there because lots of Windows software needs to install DLLs, set some registry keys, etc - things which would be a PITA for people who know what to do. I think that software that doesn't need an installer uses it just because Windows users are so used to installers that they frequently don't even know how to edit the start menu.)
I'm really not sure why this process would seem more complicated on a Mac than a PC.
Let's assume I'm as computer savvy as your average Windows or Mac user.
Let's also say that this application I want isn't in the ports tree, so I can't get to it with apt-get. What do I do then?
Or maybe let's say that I heard a program's name, but I don't know the package's exact name. Or maybe I want version 2.x, but there are packages for version 1.x and 2.x. I don't really want to have to bother with finding out that I only get 1.x when I $apt-get install foo, and to get version 2.x I need to $apt-get install foo2.
We're talking barriers to use for people who are used to completely GUI oriented operating systems, not people who are comfortable with command-line tools like apt-get.
. . . what other peripherals do you need for your laptop? What other peripherals do you think you would find useful for your laptop?
Apple doesn't produce PalmOS, PalmOne does.
Besides, PalmOne is probably aware that the Linux community is full of hackers and the Linux community will get sync software working with any PDA released with any version of PalmOS within a few months as long as they publish some tech info. So far it's worked great for hardware manufacturers, why not a PDA manufacturer.
Under no conditions is iSync anywhere near the type of application where Palm can just give Apple the ability to make it work out of the box with PalmOS. It does not do the actual synchronization with the PalmPilot, it gets data from your PalmPilot to iCal and your Address Book through a conduit. It doesn't even support syncing the note pad. Nor does it allow you to back up your PDA or install applications and files to it. It contains no code for performing the HotSync itself. iSync is just some glue between a Hotsync conduit and a couple of applications.
iSync is a Palm Desktop conduit, not a standalone sync program.
With no Palm Desktop for MacOS, iSync is useless. I submit as evidence the Sony Clie, which does not come with support for the Mac. iSync is useless until you buy a $30 third-party program called The Missing Sync.
I doubt Apple is going to completely re-write a program to change it from being software to allow you to update your Address Book and iCal from any number of devices including but not limited to PDAs to being a Palm Desktop clone.
Why not create an installer packaging program like the ones used on Windows and MacOS? This seems like something that would be good for KDE and Gnome to work on together. This packaging system would be great for beginning and desktop users, while not necessarily attempting to replace the myriad packaging systems already out there. I think that this is an important caveat - a lot of the packaging systems that linux distros use have a lot of features that are great for unix manglers, but from a desktop OS standpoint they qualify as creeping featurism and add excessive complication to the whole installation process. Also, using an InstallShield type system means that different packages can have slightly different install processes, depending on what needs to be done to get the package working.
The directory structure is also something that doesn't necessarily need to be scrapped - I personally think it's a Very Good layout from a server/workstation administration standpoint, although I agree that it's terrible for a desktop computer. Again, I think OS X has hit on a very good solution - keep two separate file structures. One would be aimed at a desktop user and would be visible through the desktop environment. Applications that a desktop user needs can be placed here. Keep the old file tree, but make it invisible to the desktop environment (by default, anyway).
This system isn't without its faults, but I've found it to be an excellent comrpomise on OS X.
When my only option for broadband in a hotel is WiFi, I choose the WiFi. If I can get ethernet, I always choose the copper.
I've discovered that far too many hotels with WiFi have only a single access point, usually somewhere in the region of the front desk. All too frequently, I end up in a room somewhere near the other end of the hotel. In those cases, if I can even get a signal it's so weak I get a better connection dialing in to GlobalCrossing.