Section 1: No personnel capable of dealing with Linux - fault of company here and not the software; Database issues - fault of company from not doing a good research - MySQL would probably have worked for them.
Section 2: Sounds like poor software programming and design - not the fault of Linux. That is a company issue, not a Linux issue. An item limit per transaction --- what a hoot!!!
Article was manufactured with the spin that it was Linux that did it. Nice try but too easily seen. Writer needs to go back to spinmeister school.
We have not-so-punched punch cards, Diebold computers that can't get tic-tac-toe right, and all of these other high-tech "can't make a mistake or fix a vote" machinery that can't get it right. Other countries have just a paper ballot and really now, how hard is it to mark an "X"? Here we use paper ballots that you have to mark a line to complete an arrow using a black marker to register your vote. Just about as easy as the "X". I can't blame them for wanting to come over here and really watch and learn from the mistakes we regularly make here. Maybe they have approved a generic drug that they want to try that is supposed to cure "Electile Dysfunction"?
Real simple...if your job is too stressful for you, then you are there by your own choice and no one elses. Don't like the stress, you have options: Find a different job, learn to deal with it or, in my case, make hay out of it. I put in my eight hours at full tilt when the office has me but come M1ll3r T1m3, I forget the office. I do that so well that I forget who I talked to the previous day. The stress present is a useful tool and learning how to use it without getting to you is the key. Yes, the Europeans love their long vacations - you can't ever get your european business partner because they are always on Holiday. But we can fix issues far faster than they can because they are never around to do the honest work. They just ride on the laurels of others.
...during operating hours... I have to agree that it is the responsibility of the library to enforce its policies. But I can agree that the library was deficient in managing their policies from interlopers. Easy fix - a cron job that enables and disables the AP. Problem solved involving the time-of-use issue. The changing WEP key could be done using a cron job as well. Instead of using a rotating cycle, use a random generator to generate a new key everyday. If you want to use the AP, then you have to come to the desk and get the day's key. At the end of the business day, the software bangs out a new key to lock out all until the next morning. Implementing both would be better for all concerned.
Cellphones work on the assumption that the radio frequencies used are to have the same operative security from snooping as wireline communications. This is one of the reasons that radio scanners have the cellphone frequencies blocked out. Computer networking relies on wireline transport. Wi-Fi transport is relatively new. Even though the signal passes through the walls and outside, if the operational policy of the library (run by the city or county), who runs and maintains the AP, states that you have to be within the physical building to use the services, they are within their right to ask the local gendarme to ask the errant user to quit. Since they would have the ability to control who plugs in a ethernet cable into a public router, the same idea here should apply here to the wireless side. AFAIK, the FCC has not transported the cellular telephone privacy idea to Wi-Fi. It would be interesting to see if some deep-pockets spread some dead-president lubricant on the FCC to enact the philosophy or worse yet, having Wi-Fi ports be licensed with the usual outrageous wallet tapping. If those thieves do that, then I drop my Part 15 operation and switch over to Part 97 operation using VPN.
This issue applies to way beyond the computer support issue. IMHO, the operational technologies that this society are using are experiencing exponential rates of increasing abilities and intelligence demands to operate and maintain effectively. When you mix this with the declining or stagnant knowledge base present in the users of the equipment at hand and the increasing use of "script kiddies" who suffer from the same issue (tech support centers staffed with low-cost script readers and people found at bargain basement prices just to read books and CAN'T INDEPENDENTLY THINK), this issue just magnifies. People and companies are unwilling to pay for well-trained and knowlegable people because their abilities can and will command a high wage and companies only worry about profit. I do not see this issue going away any time soon and will just get worse. I work as a support engineer and the vast majority of the people I have to work with I wouldn't trust plugging a lamp into a wall socket because they are of the mindset to put their tongue across the wallsocket to see if it is powered or not. It appears that as long as companies are not willing to pay the $$$$$ necessary to get competent, thinking support personnel and the users of the equipement are not willing to learn to maintain and operate the equipment they purchase, this issue will just keep inflaming. Where is the "X on the wall" when I need it!!!!
I do not think that this is an issue of conservatism but one of realism. The decision enforces the idea that it is not the software that causes the infringement but the user of the software creates the infringement. I have to say that with the 9th Circuit of Appeals, the vast majority of opinions that it pens are whacked out but sometime they have to get it right once and this must have been that case for them to get it right.
My department lost ten man-hours today because several of my people opened up an email attachment - let loose the new Bagle variant. Even a self-styled geek opened the payload. Yes, their software is a cost center. We have to pay for such lousy software up front (It COSTS) and keep paying in the back for lost man-hours (It COSTS).
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I have a suggestion for all the purchasing managers/planners/engineers/designers who rely on purchased assemblies - do your back-end homework. This scheme of selling cheap on the front end and screwing you in the back-end has been going on for years. The standard manufacturing mantra has been to sell cheap to get the customer hooked then suck them dry maintaining it. Now the DMCA is being used to secure this business model. Nothing new. If you are going to purchase something, do your homework. How fast does a company obsolete equipment? What is the cost of non-warranty replacement parts? Factory-only service or third-party independents or both? If you want to make a dent, don't buy products from manufacturers that perform back-end gouging. The word will get out, but then the US Congress is the best government that special interests can buy and somehow the special interests will whine that free choice is ruining their business and congress will ban that too to keep the money coming in and their jobs preserved. "A little revolution now and then is a good thing..."
Methinks that Windoze has been declared a security risk already. M$ claims that IE can't be separated out of the OS because it is an integrated section of the OS. They keep spouting this mantra in all of the anti-trust/competition lawsuits. Well, lets take M$ at their word. If DHS/CERT is saying that the IE component is a security risk and not use it and you CAN'T remove it from the OS without breaking it, then by extension that would make the OS just as culpable (as we all know that it is) and a security risk. I hear a penguin a'callin.....
Ben Frankin and lightning - prior art.
Anyone who touched the input of an audio amp and heard a buzz or an AM radio station - prior art.
Anyone who walked across a carpet and shocked someone on the ear - prior art.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
I was running SuSE 9.1 Pro (Base with Develop install) and I could not play a DVD without XINE complaining about dropping too many frames, probably because of a lack of processor power. Machine is 500MHz PII with 256 MB RAM and 2x80 MB HD's, ATI Radeon 7500 LE video and SB16 audio (may be a dinosaur but it still rocks!). Reinstalled Slack 9.1 (full install) and after fixing permissions for the drives, I can run a full compile and watch a DVD in full screen with no hiccup or complaint from XINE as where with SuSE it was XINE only in a small screen.
I wonder if this may be a possible sign of F/OSS software bloat trying to be all for all and trying to be better than M$ configurations. When I change the mobo to Athlon64, I may consider using the 64-bit version of SuSE 9.1 but I am really worried that SuSE will be a resource hog. Both installs were stock with no tweaking or trimming. I realize that this was not a scientific test whatsoever but first impressions count greatly, especially for the newbie starting to investigate using F/OSS. The answer to 64-bit question will have to wait for the fall.
I was looking at getting the iHP-120 until I found out that iRiver's brains was missing the exact same piece that Apple brains were missing with their IPod - non user-replacable battery. A replacable battery now. That is a good thing but it probably will some propriatory design that will cost 60% of the player new. I guess I will wait this one out again and see how bad they price the replacement and decide from there.
I have SuSE 9.1. Yes, many packages are out there on the distro disks that I use but I have upgraded many just by using YaST to remove the SuSE package and then installed the updated package. No big deal. It is just as easy as doing an uninstall/install package in Whinedo$e. The process is just as easy as you want to make it. I can think of worse things that this...fixing a messed-up registry.
Don't run wireless anymore. As a test, ran a video feed to one laptop using 128-bit WEP and another laptop doing the sniffing. Two hours later, I had the key cracked. Needless to say I run wireless when I have to for a guest but for the rest of the time, the wireless is off. I use it as a tool but keep it locked up when not needed.
Our federal government, irregardless of who sits in the Oval Office, can't logically think themselves out of a wet paper bag and this is wonderful example of it. They stuck their wet finger up in the air, found that the wind is blowing toward cell phones, and came up with this technological boondoggle. A doctor who happens to be near an event that one of these blockers is running is being paged because of an emergency with a patient. Patient dies - estate sues physician - "...but they tried to call me on my cellphone and pager and they were both on..." - cell service shows logs "no service to phone" (read turned off or out of range) - oh, he was near a cellphone blocker run by the fed's -> deep pockets - either bury it deep or risk a public relations fiasco. Problem here is that they would have to block the whole EM spectrum and good!
But then of course, there are all sorts of openly available technology that can get around jammers. Ah yes, the best government that money can buy...The US Government. If they are indeed the best that money can buy, I WANT A REFUND!!!
The network guys were fiddling with the wiring and one of them left a cable undone and, uh, I think, the token fell out. We can't find it and the network is dead. Please, I didn't do it---not that---not the dreaded line terminator.....
I warned my daughter about the Same Stuff on Different Days. Even had to reinstall Windoze on her system because it was so trashed. I read her the riot act about adding "the goodies" and tied in the third degree with it on top. The next week all of the garbage was back. So, I cleaned the drive again and pulled the network drivers. She has no email, internet, NOTHING. Yes I get the occasional whine and sob about not talking to her friends but I told her, you mess up - you pay. Best fix possible - pull the plug. It also works at the office. Install spyware after a cleaning and warning, your computer loses internet access. It is just ToughNetworkLove.
The vast majority can't RTFM. My day job is spent telling people how to understand a simple wiring diagram. These people claim to know wiring and electronics yet they have a very hard time understanding how to hook up 12 connections to make the product work for 95% of the applications. I have found that if I am writing technical documentation to be understood by the "great unwashed", that I have to write it in words that are understandable by a fifth grader (US education standards here). If I go any higher than that, the end result is "huh???". Heaven help them if the documentation is at the college level. The vast majority of Linux docs are written by geeks for geeks. This, by default, puts the level far above the fifth grade level here in the US. Mind you, I find that European users are far more knowledgeable on technical aspects, as a whole, than the US people. The point here is to get the documentation down to a level that is understandable by all. Ah yes...the standard dumbing of documentation rather than upgrading the education of the people. "Give a man a fish - he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish - he eats for life."
At work, I can tell when a user is on a Nextel phone by the noises, dropouts, co-channel crosstalk. But that is their issue.
Nextel, as well as all the other cellphone providers, have to work on a cellular concept of spectrum reuse. They have a fixed amount of channels to use and as users increase, they have to get more cellsites to reuse the allotment. If my mind is working, most Public Service equipment in the 800 MHz band is using trunking and if the radio can't hear the controlling information because the radio's front end is swamped by the broadbanded, higher signal strength local cellsite, the radio usually refuses to transmit because it does not know where to go. As another feature, the people using the radio can't hear to other end of the conversation. Usually, the public services have one or a few transmit/receive sites for their coverage area of many square miles as where the cell services can have many cell sites per square mile depending on their conditions.
I would say that the blame is square on the FCC's spectrum management group for this one and they are buying into what may end up being a spectrum grab by Nextel. I just keep being reminded of Jeffrey Pelt's line in "Hunt for Red October".... "I am a politician. While I am kissing the babies, I am stealing their candy." This feels like the FCC is arranging this to get this monkey off their backs, they profit, and Nextel does a little "charity" and profits more. Just follow the money, the money,....
In reading the M$ FAQ on this, I see that it is Windoze98 SPECIAL EDITION and not SECOND EDITION, whatever the difference is. Plus I did not see in the FAQ that all of the virus patches (current and future) are to be applied. It just looks like the base system and no install CD's are to be provided. Just think...MAR systems being used in 419 scams and virus hacked to spam to boot...woo hoo!!!
I have virgin vinyl LP's (yes, played with a cartridge and needle) that were recorded on the Command Records label back in the 60's. Their analog audio quality is far better and more sonically accurate than the poorly recorded and mixed digital stuff that is out there now. Telarc back in the 80's was putting out some real good sounds but even their stuff is slipping. There is nothing out there that is, IMNSHO, worth buying currently on CD. Long live Enoch Light and the Light Brigade.
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Section 1: No personnel capable of dealing with Linux - fault of company here and not the software; Database issues - fault of company from not doing a good research - MySQL would probably have worked for them. Section 2: Sounds like poor software programming and design - not the fault of Linux. That is a company issue, not a Linux issue. An item limit per transaction --- what a hoot!!! Article was manufactured with the spin that it was Linux that did it. Nice try but too easily seen. Writer needs to go back to spinmeister school.
We have not-so-punched punch cards, Diebold computers that can't get tic-tac-toe right, and all of these other high-tech "can't make a mistake or fix a vote" machinery that can't get it right. Other countries have just a paper ballot and really now, how hard is it to mark an "X"? Here we use paper ballots that you have to mark a line to complete an arrow using a black marker to register your vote. Just about as easy as the "X". I can't blame them for wanting to come over here and really watch and learn from the mistakes we regularly make here. Maybe they have approved a generic drug that they want to try that is supposed to cure "Electile Dysfunction"?
This is the best way to be a frog...If the output bugs you, just eat it! Also, it beats a shredder for disposing of the output.
Real simple...if your job is too stressful for you, then you are there by your own choice and no one elses. Don't like the stress, you have options: Find a different job, learn to deal with it or, in my case, make hay out of it. I put in my eight hours at full tilt when the office has me but come M1ll3r T1m3, I forget the office. I do that so well that I forget who I talked to the previous day. The stress present is a useful tool and learning how to use it without getting to you is the key. Yes, the Europeans love their long vacations - you can't ever get your european business partner because they are always on Holiday. But we can fix issues far faster than they can because they are never around to do the honest work. They just ride on the laurels of others.
...during operating hours... I have to agree that it is the responsibility of the library to enforce its policies. But I can agree that the library was deficient in managing their policies from interlopers. Easy fix - a cron job that enables and disables the AP. Problem solved involving the time-of-use issue. The changing WEP key could be done using a cron job as well. Instead of using a rotating cycle, use a random generator to generate a new key everyday. If you want to use the AP, then you have to come to the desk and get the day's key. At the end of the business day, the software bangs out a new key to lock out all until the next morning. Implementing both would be better for all concerned.
Cellphones work on the assumption that the radio frequencies used are to have the same operative security from snooping as wireline communications. This is one of the reasons that radio scanners have the cellphone frequencies blocked out. Computer networking relies on wireline transport. Wi-Fi transport is relatively new. Even though the signal passes through the walls and outside, if the operational policy of the library (run by the city or county), who runs and maintains the AP, states that you have to be within the physical building to use the services, they are within their right to ask the local gendarme to ask the errant user to quit. Since they would have the ability to control who plugs in a ethernet cable into a public router, the same idea here should apply here to the wireless side. AFAIK, the FCC has not transported the cellular telephone privacy idea to Wi-Fi. It would be interesting to see if some deep-pockets spread some dead-president lubricant on the FCC to enact the philosophy or worse yet, having Wi-Fi ports be licensed with the usual outrageous wallet tapping. If those thieves do that, then I drop my Part 15 operation and switch over to Part 97 operation using VPN.
This issue applies to way beyond the computer support issue. IMHO, the operational technologies that this society are using are experiencing exponential rates of increasing abilities and intelligence demands to operate and maintain effectively. When you mix this with the declining or stagnant knowledge base present in the users of the equipment at hand and the increasing use of "script kiddies" who suffer from the same issue (tech support centers staffed with low-cost script readers and people found at bargain basement prices just to read books and CAN'T INDEPENDENTLY THINK), this issue just magnifies. People and companies are unwilling to pay for well-trained and knowlegable people because their abilities can and will command a high wage and companies only worry about profit. I do not see this issue going away any time soon and will just get worse. I work as a support engineer and the vast majority of the people I have to work with I wouldn't trust plugging a lamp into a wall socket because they are of the mindset to put their tongue across the wallsocket to see if it is powered or not. It appears that as long as companies are not willing to pay the $$$$$ necessary to get competent, thinking support personnel and the users of the equipement are not willing to learn to maintain and operate the equipment they purchase, this issue will just keep inflaming. Where is the "X on the wall" when I need it!!!!
I do not think that this is an issue of conservatism but one of realism. The decision enforces the idea that it is not the software that causes the infringement but the user of the software creates the infringement. I have to say that with the 9th Circuit of Appeals, the vast majority of opinions that it pens are whacked out but sometime they have to get it right once and this must have been that case for them to get it right.
My department lost ten man-hours today because several of my people opened up an email attachment - let loose the new Bagle variant. Even a self-styled geek opened the payload. Yes, their software is a cost center. We have to pay for such lousy software up front (It COSTS) and keep paying in the back for lost man-hours (It COSTS).
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I have a suggestion for all the purchasing managers/planners/engineers/designers who rely on purchased assemblies - do your back-end homework. This scheme of selling cheap on the front end and screwing you in the back-end has been going on for years. The standard manufacturing mantra has been to sell cheap to get the customer hooked then suck them dry maintaining it. Now the DMCA is being used to secure this business model. Nothing new. If you are going to purchase something, do your homework. How fast does a company obsolete equipment? What is the cost of non-warranty replacement parts? Factory-only service or third-party independents or both? If you want to make a dent, don't buy products from manufacturers that perform back-end gouging. The word will get out, but then the US Congress is the best government that special interests can buy and somehow the special interests will whine that free choice is ruining their business and congress will ban that too to keep the money coming in and their jobs preserved. "A little revolution now and then is a good thing..."
Methinks that Windoze has been declared a security risk already. M$ claims that IE can't be separated out of the OS because it is an integrated section of the OS. They keep spouting this mantra in all of the anti-trust/competition lawsuits. Well, lets take M$ at their word. If DHS/CERT is saying that the IE component is a security risk and not use it and you CAN'T remove it from the OS without breaking it, then by extension that would make the OS just as culpable (as we all know that it is) and a security risk. I hear a penguin a'callin.....
Ben Frankin and lightning - prior art. Anyone who touched the input of an audio amp and heard a buzz or an AM radio station - prior art. Anyone who walked across a carpet and shocked someone on the ear - prior art. ROTFLMAO!!!!
Thanks for the point-of-error. Must have been a error in the keyboard translating what the fingers were typing :-) The correct amount is 2 x 80 GB.
I was running SuSE 9.1 Pro (Base with Develop install) and I could not play a DVD without XINE complaining about dropping too many frames, probably because of a lack of processor power. Machine is 500MHz PII with 256 MB RAM and 2x80 MB HD's, ATI Radeon 7500 LE video and SB16 audio (may be a dinosaur but it still rocks!). Reinstalled Slack 9.1 (full install) and after fixing permissions for the drives, I can run a full compile and watch a DVD in full screen with no hiccup or complaint from XINE as where with SuSE it was XINE only in a small screen. I wonder if this may be a possible sign of F/OSS software bloat trying to be all for all and trying to be better than M$ configurations. When I change the mobo to Athlon64, I may consider using the 64-bit version of SuSE 9.1 but I am really worried that SuSE will be a resource hog. Both installs were stock with no tweaking or trimming. I realize that this was not a scientific test whatsoever but first impressions count greatly, especially for the newbie starting to investigate using F/OSS. The answer to 64-bit question will have to wait for the fall.
I was looking at getting the iHP-120 until I found out that iRiver's brains was missing the exact same piece that Apple brains were missing with their IPod - non user-replacable battery. A replacable battery now. That is a good thing but it probably will some propriatory design that will cost 60% of the player new. I guess I will wait this one out again and see how bad they price the replacement and decide from there.
I have SuSE 9.1. Yes, many packages are out there on the distro disks that I use but I have upgraded many just by using YaST to remove the SuSE package and then installed the updated package. No big deal. It is just as easy as doing an uninstall/install package in Whinedo$e. The process is just as easy as you want to make it. I can think of worse things that this...fixing a messed-up registry.
Don't run wireless anymore. As a test, ran a video feed to one laptop using 128-bit WEP and another laptop doing the sniffing. Two hours later, I had the key cracked. Needless to say I run wireless when I have to for a guest but for the rest of the time, the wireless is off. I use it as a tool but keep it locked up when not needed.
Our federal government, irregardless of who sits in the Oval Office, can't logically think themselves out of a wet paper bag and this is wonderful example of it. They stuck their wet finger up in the air, found that the wind is blowing toward cell phones, and came up with this technological boondoggle. A doctor who happens to be near an event that one of these blockers is running is being paged because of an emergency with a patient. Patient dies - estate sues physician - "...but they tried to call me on my cellphone and pager and they were both on..." - cell service shows logs "no service to phone" (read turned off or out of range) - oh, he was near a cellphone blocker run by the fed's -> deep pockets - either bury it deep or risk a public relations fiasco. Problem here is that they would have to block the whole EM spectrum and good! But then of course, there are all sorts of openly available technology that can get around jammers. Ah yes, the best government that money can buy...The US Government. If they are indeed the best that money can buy, I WANT A REFUND!!!
The network guys were fiddling with the wiring and one of them left a cable undone and, uh, I think, the token fell out. We can't find it and the network is dead. Please, I didn't do it---not that---not the dreaded line terminator.....
I warned my daughter about the Same Stuff on Different Days. Even had to reinstall Windoze on her system because it was so trashed. I read her the riot act about adding "the goodies" and tied in the third degree with it on top. The next week all of the garbage was back. So, I cleaned the drive again and pulled the network drivers. She has no email, internet, NOTHING. Yes I get the occasional whine and sob about not talking to her friends but I told her, you mess up - you pay. Best fix possible - pull the plug. It also works at the office. Install spyware after a cleaning and warning, your computer loses internet access. It is just ToughNetworkLove.
The vast majority can't RTFM. My day job is spent telling people how to understand a simple wiring diagram. These people claim to know wiring and electronics yet they have a very hard time understanding how to hook up 12 connections to make the product work for 95% of the applications. I have found that if I am writing technical documentation to be understood by the "great unwashed", that I have to write it in words that are understandable by a fifth grader (US education standards here). If I go any higher than that, the end result is "huh???". Heaven help them if the documentation is at the college level. The vast majority of Linux docs are written by geeks for geeks. This, by default, puts the level far above the fifth grade level here in the US. Mind you, I find that European users are far more knowledgeable on technical aspects, as a whole, than the US people. The point here is to get the documentation down to a level that is understandable by all. Ah yes...the standard dumbing of documentation rather than upgrading the education of the people. "Give a man a fish - he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish - he eats for life."
At work, I can tell when a user is on a Nextel phone by the noises, dropouts, co-channel crosstalk. But that is their issue. Nextel, as well as all the other cellphone providers, have to work on a cellular concept of spectrum reuse. They have a fixed amount of channels to use and as users increase, they have to get more cellsites to reuse the allotment. If my mind is working, most Public Service equipment in the 800 MHz band is using trunking and if the radio can't hear the controlling information because the radio's front end is swamped by the broadbanded, higher signal strength local cellsite, the radio usually refuses to transmit because it does not know where to go. As another feature, the people using the radio can't hear to other end of the conversation. Usually, the public services have one or a few transmit/receive sites for their coverage area of many square miles as where the cell services can have many cell sites per square mile depending on their conditions. I would say that the blame is square on the FCC's spectrum management group for this one and they are buying into what may end up being a spectrum grab by Nextel. I just keep being reminded of Jeffrey Pelt's line in "Hunt for Red October" .... "I am a politician. While I am kissing the babies, I am stealing their candy." This feels like the FCC is arranging this to get this monkey off their backs, they profit, and Nextel does a little "charity" and profits more. Just follow the money, the money,....
In reading the M$ FAQ on this, I see that it is Windoze98 SPECIAL EDITION and not SECOND EDITION, whatever the difference is. Plus I did not see in the FAQ that all of the virus patches (current and future) are to be applied. It just looks like the base system and no install CD's are to be provided. Just think...MAR systems being used in 419 scams and virus hacked to spam to boot...woo hoo!!!
I have virgin vinyl LP's (yes, played with a cartridge and needle) that were recorded on the Command Records label back in the 60's. Their analog audio quality is far better and more sonically accurate than the poorly recorded and mixed digital stuff that is out there now. Telarc back in the 80's was putting out some real good sounds but even their stuff is slipping. There is nothing out there that is, IMNSHO, worth buying currently on CD. Long live Enoch Light and the Light Brigade.
Now I know where all the old 5 MB IBM full-size 5 1/4" HD's went when the 3 1/2" size came out.