Why not have something similar to RFP postings on the net?
Somebody who believes that they deserve a patent should be able to approach the USPTO who will then post the patent application on the net for comment. This will be useful for exposing prior art issues.
Use SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics) which is a W3C proposed standard. The format is completely XML based. You can generate complex reports dynamically without juggling around with images.
The font support is great.
The images scale well and printouts are good. This is particularly useful when the reports span multiple pages horizontally or vertically.
Loads quickly
Easy to learn (atleast in my opinion)
Great support for dynamic scripting (use the languages that you are already familiar with - Javascript). Stuff like hiding/showing some details can therefore be easily scripted into the report. This is useful when the reports contain a lot of data and you would like to give the user the option of removing some screen clutter.
The data for the images is stored completely in XML and therefore exporting data from whatever database into XML format for display in reports should be easy.
Different reports can be generated by using different SVG files getting data from the very same set of XML files.
What most people here seem to be missing is that India has one of the largest middle class populations in the world.
Here what needs to be understood clearly is that the definition "middle class" varies significantly between nations: an average "middle class" person in India earns roughly around Rs.4500/month (US$ 100/month). This is enough to maintain a decent standard of living in India but it is still very low when it comes to purchasing equipment such as computers. For these people, a computer which costs as little as the simputer is a God send.
Would it be a good idea to start a publishing house that works on the lines of sites such as www.lsl.com, www.cheapbytes.com etc where musicians can place their music for download or for sale as CDs.. the system could perhaps make use of a micropayment architecture for music available online or users can select a list of songs and then pay to have these songs cut on CDs and sent to them.
The musicians can also provide premium services by selling CDs with bonus tracks, software, posters, stickers, t-shirts etc... perhaps autographed stuff and so on..
Don't want to throw cold water on anything but let me just as you a question.. what can you do about it?
you are quite obviously not in a position where you can tell the company what work to allot to you. A company will trust those who are more experienced.. you will need to accept that. In the mean time, keep your eyes open, ears open...observe and learn.. Do whatever you can to make the best of what you have.
In my college in India, part of the system is managed by the students - the college provides the hardware, the networks etc but students can put in requests for specific configurations and so on. Once the machines and the networks are in place, the students install the servers, write the scripts, optimize the network and put things in place but specific personnel in the college will still hold the reins.
The administration of the network will be carried out by the students for a small window period and then completely handed over to personnel employed by the college.
This allows the students to learn the ropes without having the college losing out on administrative control. It works quite well.
My former company had clauses relating to work once I left the company.
Some of the clauses were
1. The employees are forbidden from working with any clients, competitors etc when they leave the company.
2. The employees are forbidden from joining any other company employing an ex-employee..
Clause 1 obviously meant that I could not work in IT consulting firms once I left the company as any IT consulting company can be seen as a competitor.
I did not agree to these terms and asked for a seperate agreement with these clauses deleted.
Besides this, there was the standard clause which did not allow me to be involved in any job other than with the company..this essentially meant that I could not involve in work during my spare time or after office hours.
Are you complaining that SSH didn't jump down OpenSSH's throat the moment they saw the name SSH being used? SSH has shown commendable respect to the open source community in trying to resolve the patent infringement dispute amicably.. this shouldn't be confused for weakness.
The mail indicates that they have tried to get the trademark infringement corrected by contacting the main developers.. Apparently his efforts were in vain because many of the people concerned weren't listening.
Regarding the patent infringement stuff about Coca Cola, don't count on Coca Cola losing the trademark. More corporations have succeeded in keeping their trademarks even when their trademarks have been infringed over long periods of time.
Also, why does it always come to the question of what we can get away with? Even if we could get away with this patent infringement, I think the open source community should be courteous and comply with the demands for a change of name. Anyone who is doing anything in the security business should be expected to keep themselves updated enough to realize that OpenSSH has changed their name to Open+Whatever.
We lose nothing but a change in name. But for SSH, they stand the risk of having their shareholders confused,the suits in the industry confused etc. They stand the risk of losing a large part of his business.
For the uninitiated, Delphi is based around Object Pascal and Kylix makes use of the
same language. Dismissing Kylix as being just pascal is like dismissing a space
shuttle as being just another plane. The technology that is involved in Kylix or
Delphi is way more advanced than one might hope to find in your garden variety pascal text book.
The danger in looking at Kylix as just another "new" language for Linux is to miss the whole point. Kylix is an entire development environment and comes with a very advanced
component model, which allows developers to create components that can be easily reused across projects. The CORBA support that is part of Kylix also allows these components to be reused across machine and language boundaries.
Also, Kylix is based around a technology that has already been around for a long time and there is already a large, loyal community around it. If one looks around the web, one will find extensive, well organized component resources and many of these will be reusable on Linux with some changes or no changes. Most of these components are available with source
and many of them are licensed under the GPL.Also, in building Kylix, Borland has tried to make it as easy as possible to make use of the excellent G++ resources already available on the web. Most of the native components are found either as source code or as compiled
object code.
All or most of these components will plug in directly into the IDE and make it as easy
as a drag and drop to a form to use them within applications. Kylix is coming from the same chaps who made JBuilder (considered one of the best development environments for Java),
C++Builder (perhaps the easiest and most feature rich C++ development environments around).
The Kylix IDE is very similar to the Delphi IDE (again considered one of the best IDEs
around).
The primary difference between the different editions of Kylix is in the number of components shipped with each editions. But since many of the components found in more expensive editions of Kylix have equivalents that can be downloaded from the various component sites in the Internet, one can manage surprisingly well with a low priced
edition of Kylix.
Kylix comes with an excellent debugger and Borland took so long to bring out Kylix primarily because they were working on getting the debugger right considering the fact that the Linux has very different view of debugger support as compared to Windows.
Kylix includes support (via the webbroker) for interaction with enterprise class application
servers such as the inprise appservers which are used by some big banks such as the Bank of
America. Kylix will allow the creation of enterprise class applications much faster and with far less effort and heart-burn than was possible before.
I have previewed Kylix before and it is an excellent product and will give developers an
advantage in speed of development of complex apps which will be way faster than anything else out there. And that is for both platforms - Windows and Linux. Kylix includes an
advanced two-way type of visual development, which makes it a real snap to develop
apps.
Borland has a had a decent record of supporting the community except for the occassional screw-ups such as with the release of the Interbase database code(some licensing problems and generally a lot of confusion). But overall, Borland has succeeded in developing a loyal community even from the time when the Internet was non-existent or in its infancy.
As for concerns about the licensing issues, the source code for the applications
that are developed by anyone can be given under whatever license that the creator will
opt to use. Ofcourse, Kylix will still be required to compile them.
If you have any doubts regarding Kylix, download the freeware edition of Kylix and see for
yourselves.
A lot of people who leave 3rd world countries to come to the US, would have come on student visa's to complete their M.S in Computer Science and so on.. After they finish their studies many of them will decide to stick on in the US because they would have become over qualified for taking on most jobs in their parent country.
When these people then leave the US, they will take with them their vast experiences and highly developed skills which the US companies would have spent millions to provide. The only viable option available to these people when they return to their parent country would be to start firms there and for this they will utilize the funds which they saved up while working in the US.
So the US will loose not just highly trained and highly skilled professionals but will also be weakening the economy by having the funds transferred out into possibly unfriendly destinations.
US is doing nobody but itself a favour by retaining these people. These people have contributed immensely to the US economy - for any information on these contributions - check to see how many silicon valley companies are manned/owned by foriegners. Don't shoot yourself in your feet by sending these people away.
It is difficult to say whether a particular device is good for a disabled person or not. Your friend Pete will need to have something that goes with what he can do. Is his speech clear? then I guess a voice recognition software might help. Otherwise you will need to consider options such as making use of mice-like devices such as the logitech cyberman or trackball mouse which don't need to be dragged on a table but can nonetheless be used by fixing it firmly on a table/desk. It is advisable not to go in for any of the IR/wireless mice as if the mice were to fall down or remain at a position reasonably far from where the person is sitting, he/she will find it difficult to get to it. The cable on the mouse can come of use for pulling the mouse up. It might be good to go in for a combination of both a fixed mouse as well as a voice recognition software and then to train the software to perform actions based on simple monosyllabic sounds.
I think a whole lot of fuss is being made about the women in IT here on Slashdot. There seems to be a feeling that the women are grossly under-represented in IT. However, that is not the case in India where I come from. All the IT firms that I worked for in India had a representation of about 50-50 for both the sexes and having associated with a large number of female programmers, I must honestly say that there hasn't been any noticeable difference in the way women and men code and neither is there a difference in the percentage of morons vs the accomomplished in either sex. But there is one difference in the attitude of the women vs the men. That is the fact that most women see programming as a job while a far greater percentage of men see programming as a means of accomplishing something greater and not just as a job. As for whether having seperate distros for women - I think the idea stinks and I find it very sexist and very exclusivist..like in the old days where they had the mens only hunting clubs. I can see where this might lead to - what about a distro for teenage boys, another for teenage girls.. and a another for geriatric folks... Come on!
There they go again!! People just don't get it, do they ?!... STANDARDS!!! why don't people just stick to them... whats this about ? racial superiority ?!! Couldn't give a rats ass for that.
What are they trying to imply ?! that the rest of the world is stupid and that they are too good to stick to standards ?!
Slashdot Mirror
Why not have something similar to RFP postings on the net?
Somebody who believes that they deserve a patent should be able to approach the USPTO who will then post the patent application on the net for comment. This will be useful for exposing prior art issues.
What most people here seem to be missing is that India has one of the largest middle class populations in the world. Here what needs to be understood clearly is that the definition "middle class" varies significantly between nations: an average "middle class" person in India earns roughly around Rs.4500/month (US$ 100/month). This is enough to maintain a decent standard of living in India but it is still very low when it comes to purchasing equipment such as computers. For these people, a computer which costs as little as the simputer is a God send.
Would it be a good idea to start a publishing house that works on the lines of sites such as www.lsl.com, www.cheapbytes.com etc where musicians can place their music for download or for sale as CDs.. the system could perhaps make use of a micropayment architecture for music available online or users can select a list of songs and then pay to have these songs cut on CDs and sent to them.
The musicians can also provide premium services by selling CDs with bonus tracks, software, posters, stickers, t-shirts etc... perhaps autographed stuff and so on..
Don't want to throw cold water on anything but let me just as you a question.. what can you do about it?
you are quite obviously not in a position where you can tell the company what work to allot to you. A company will trust those who are more experienced.. you will need to accept that. In the mean time, keep your eyes open, ears open...observe and learn.. Do whatever you can to make the best of what you have.
Can somebody start a company which will provide publishing and distribution services for artists and still opt to ignore the RIAA and DMCA?
In my college in India, part of the system is managed by the students - the college provides the hardware, the networks etc but students can put in requests for specific configurations and so on. Once the machines and the networks are in place, the students install the servers, write the scripts, optimize the network and put things in place but specific personnel in the college will still hold the reins.
The administration of the network will be carried out by the students for a small window period and then completely handed over to personnel employed by the college.
This allows the students to learn the ropes without having the college losing out on administrative control. It works quite well.
My former company had clauses relating to work once I left the company.
Some of the clauses were
1. The employees are forbidden from working with any clients, competitors etc when they leave the company.
2. The employees are forbidden from joining any other company employing an ex-employee..
Clause 1 obviously meant that I could not work in IT consulting firms once I left the company as any IT consulting company can be seen as a competitor.
I did not agree to these terms and asked for a seperate agreement with these clauses deleted.
Besides this, there was the standard clause which did not allow me to be involved in any job other than with the company..this essentially meant that I could not involve in work during my spare time or after office hours.
tis probably why I paid so much for that candle the other day. They must have figured I could also use it for... you know..
Are you complaining that SSH didn't jump down OpenSSH's throat the moment they saw the name SSH being used? SSH has shown commendable respect to the open source community in trying to resolve the patent infringement dispute amicably.. this shouldn't be confused for weakness.
The mail indicates that they have tried to get the trademark infringement corrected by contacting the main developers.. Apparently his efforts were in vain because many of the people concerned weren't listening.
Regarding the patent infringement stuff about Coca Cola, don't count on Coca Cola losing the trademark. More corporations have succeeded in keeping their trademarks even when their trademarks have been infringed over long periods of time.
Also, why does it always come to the question of what we can get away with? Even if we could get away with this patent infringement, I think the open source community should be courteous and comply with the demands for a change of name. Anyone who is doing anything in the security business should be expected to keep themselves updated enough to realize that OpenSSH has changed their name to Open+Whatever.
We lose nothing but a change in name. But for SSH, they stand the risk of having their shareholders confused,the suits in the industry confused etc. They stand the risk of losing a large part of his business.
For the uninitiated, Delphi is based around Object Pascal and Kylix makes use of the same language. Dismissing Kylix as being just pascal is like dismissing a space shuttle as being just another plane. The technology that is involved in Kylix or Delphi is way more advanced than one might hope to find in your garden variety pascal text book.
The danger in looking at Kylix as just another "new" language for Linux is to miss the whole point. Kylix is an entire development environment and comes with a very advanced component model, which allows developers to create components that can be easily reused across projects. The CORBA support that is part of Kylix also allows these components to be reused across machine and language boundaries.
Also, Kylix is based around a technology that has already been around for a long time and there is already a large, loyal community around it. If one looks around the web, one will find extensive, well organized component resources and many of these will be reusable on Linux with some changes or no changes. Most of these components are available with source and many of them are licensed under the GPL.Also, in building Kylix, Borland has tried to make it as easy as possible to make use of the excellent G++ resources already available on the web. Most of the native components are found either as source code or as compiled object code.
All or most of these components will plug in directly into the IDE and make it as easy as a drag and drop to a form to use them within applications. Kylix is coming from the same chaps who made JBuilder (considered one of the best development environments for Java), C++Builder (perhaps the easiest and most feature rich C++ development environments around). The Kylix IDE is very similar to the Delphi IDE (again considered one of the best IDEs around).
The primary difference between the different editions of Kylix is in the number of components shipped with each editions. But since many of the components found in more expensive editions of Kylix have equivalents that can be downloaded from the various component sites in the Internet, one can manage surprisingly well with a low priced edition of Kylix.
Kylix comes with an excellent debugger and Borland took so long to bring out Kylix primarily because they were working on getting the debugger right considering the fact that the Linux has very different view of debugger support as compared to Windows.
Kylix includes support (via the webbroker) for interaction with enterprise class application servers such as the inprise appservers which are used by some big banks such as the Bank of America. Kylix will allow the creation of enterprise class applications much faster and with far less effort and heart-burn than was possible before.
I have previewed Kylix before and it is an excellent product and will give developers an advantage in speed of development of complex apps which will be way faster than anything else out there. And that is for both platforms - Windows and Linux. Kylix includes an advanced two-way type of visual development, which makes it a real snap to develop apps.
Borland has a had a decent record of supporting the community except for the occassional screw-ups such as with the release of the Interbase database code(some licensing problems and generally a lot of confusion). But overall, Borland has succeeded in developing a loyal community even from the time when the Internet was non-existent or in its infancy.
As for concerns about the licensing issues, the source code for the applications that are developed by anyone can be given under whatever license that the creator will opt to use. Ofcourse, Kylix will still be required to compile them.
If you have any doubts regarding Kylix, download the freeware edition of Kylix and see for yourselves.
A lot of people who leave 3rd world countries to come to the US, would have come on student visa's to complete their M.S in Computer Science and so on.. After they finish their studies many of them will decide to stick on in the US because they would have become over qualified for taking on most jobs in their parent country.
When these people then leave the US, they will take with them their vast experiences and highly developed skills which the US companies would have spent millions to provide. The only viable option available to these people when they return to their parent country would be to start firms there and for this they will utilize the funds which they saved up while working in the US.
So the US will loose not just highly trained and highly skilled professionals but will also be weakening the economy by having the funds transferred out into possibly unfriendly destinations.
US is doing nobody but itself a favour by retaining these people. These people have contributed immensely to the US economy - for any information on these contributions - check to see how many silicon valley companies are manned/owned by foriegners. Don't shoot yourself in your feet by sending these people away.
It is difficult to say whether a particular device
is good for a disabled person or not. Your friend
Pete will need to have something that goes with
what he can do. Is his speech clear? then I guess
a voice recognition software might help. Otherwise
you will need to consider options such as making
use of mice-like devices such as the logitech
cyberman or trackball mouse which don't need to
be dragged on a table but can nonetheless be used
by fixing it firmly on a table/desk. It is
advisable not to go in for any of the IR/wireless
mice as if the mice were to fall down or remain
at a position reasonably far from where the
person is sitting, he/she will find it difficult
to get to it. The cable on the mouse can come of
use for pulling the mouse up. It might be good
to go in for a combination of both a fixed mouse
as well as a voice recognition software and then
to train the software to perform actions based
on simple monosyllabic sounds.
I think a whole lot of fuss is being made about the women in IT here on Slashdot. There seems to be a feeling that the women are grossly under-represented in IT. However, that is not the case in India where I come from. All the IT firms that I worked for in India had a representation of about 50-50 for both the sexes and having associated with a large number of female programmers, I must honestly say that there hasn't been any noticeable difference in the way women and men code and neither is there a difference in the percentage of morons vs the accomomplished in either sex.
But there is one difference in the attitude of the women vs the men. That is the fact that most women see programming as a job while a far greater percentage of men see programming as a means of accomplishing something greater and not just as a job. As for whether having seperate distros for women - I think the idea stinks and I find it very sexist and very exclusivist..like in the old days where they had the mens only hunting clubs. I can see where this might lead to - what about a distro for teenage boys, another for teenage girls.. and a another for geriatric folks... Come on!
There they go again!! People just don't get it,
do they ?!... STANDARDS!!! why don't people just stick to them... whats this about ? racial
superiority ?!! Couldn't give a rats ass for that.
What are they trying to imply ?! that the rest of
the world is stupid and that they are too good
to stick to standards ?!