I guess I should be using it... There are SOOO many posts that say that Mozilla/NS6 suck and IE5 is a GOD... I mean, if it's THAT good, why wouldn't I want it?
I have no idea how many mailboxes they have, but # of mailboxes and simultaneous logins are two TOTALLY different things. I have no doubt that NT could STORE 40 million mailboxes.. but I bet even their free-bsd farm would collapse if all 40 million tried to log in at the same time!
Does anyone else get annoyed with people user the terms 'Web' and 'Internet' interchangably? I'm reading that summary trying to figure out how removing the top 4% of the busiest web sites will take down the Internet, and it's not until I substitute 'Internet' for 'Web' that it starts to make sense...
Last time I looked, Mozilla was being developed as an open-source project. If V3C is whining about how long it's taking, I'm sure that all the W3C people are help to code this puppy, right? I mean, in open/free software development, since you can't contribute MONEY, surely you can contribute TIME....
When companies started registering every variant/misspelling/commone use of their name, the idea of using domains as an addressing scheme went straight to hell...
I say each corporage entity should get ONE entry in each TLD and then be done with it.
Yup. It's flame bait for Linux (although I'm not sure I see why it's flame-bait for micro$oft)
In your item 1, you state "it's very difficut to configure". That, of course, depends on what you want it to do. My experience with Linux has been basically that, if you can follow directions, you can install software. I'll admit it's not as easy as clicking 'Next' in a nice Wizard, but there's been nothing I couldn't get working with the right directions. As for 'make install', there are several package managers out there (from RH, Debian, primarily). My personal experience is with RPM, and I find it every bit as easy as the "Add-Remove software" in the Control Panel.
Your second point is that micro$oft is more commonly 'pre-installed'. I won't deny that, but as for the vendors that DO support Linux (such as Dell), when you're configuring a Dell Server, be sure to look at the 'OS' section item. Linux is there with all the other NT and Novell options.
From your comments, it seems as though you don't distinguish between End-User computing and Server computing. Personnally, I feel that Microsoft has done their job well in you, because that's exactly what they try to do. They try to convince people that GUI is more important to them then the functionality/stability of an OS. They want people to feel that wizards, icons, menus, and pointers are more important than having a robust server. They want feature-rich clients talking over proprietary protocols to proprietary servers to drive a companies infrastructure, and let's face it.. they're EXPERTS at achieving that.
I, on the other hand, still can't understand why I want the overhead of running a graphics interface on a system that, in an ideal world, sits in a room, in the dark, by itself, hopefully, untouched. It bothers me to even INSTALL an X-server on a UNIX Server, let alone run the server @ Run Level 5 (that's the typical level that brings up the XDM login window, for those who don't delve that deeply into the OS.. An IBM S390 is an OUTSTANDING hardware platform that is scaleable, robust, and fault-tolerant. It has been for YEARS. And yet I'd never put one on a users desk (or should I say I'd never put a users desk on one...)
Linux/Unix's strong point has never been it's desktops. It's the stability reliability, and effeciency of the OS that makes it good.
UNIX GUI's have come a long way, and I can't WAIT for the day when I can enjoy UNIX stability in a desktop platform, with all the software and peripherials that the Micro$soft users enjoy today.
I disagree. It might not be happening as fast as you might think, but using Microsoft products in an Enterprise environment is happening, although probably not as fast as MS would like.
For example, MS Exchange is already the mail system of many of the Fortune-500 companies (Ford, EDS, Boeing, to name a few). Most companies have also deployed an IIS web farm, for both internal and external use, and many are starting to deploy SQL*Server DB farms as well..
The most interesting thing to notice is that it's being driven from the desktop. Microsoft is the predominent desktop operating system, and Microsoft Applications (read: Office/FrontPage/Project/etc.) are the predominent applications. To get the most out of your Microsoft Applications, you will want to use the corresponding Microsoft Server Application (read: Exchange, IIS, SQL*Server)
Try using Outook in an SMTP/IMAP/LDAP environment, and then try using it it MS RPC/Exchange Server environment. With MS RPC, you get scheduling, journaling, task assignment/management, directory services that are NOTICABLY better than their LDAP implementation, public folders, forms, routing.... the list goes on.
That's how Microsoft is getting into the Enterprise. By making client software that people want to use, and from there, they 'expand' the functionality to include other services. One prime example is with our favorite security hole....er... I mean.. web browser, IE.
With Outlook98, you had to install IE, and just in case you didn't need Outlook98, Office2000 requires IE. Now, everyone has IE, whether they want it or not, just because they wanted Office2000, or Outlook98.
Remember, most end users don't care about what the back-end service is. They just want all the features they can get. So IT departments are FORCED to deploy critical applications on MS products just to satisfy the end users. So MS is working their way up from the desktop, bringing all their proprietary features with them.
I agree. I have no issue with having advertisments (popup, banner, or etc.) used to pay for things. My issue is with AOL, in that AOL is one of the highest priced services ($21.95/month) to start with, and having to THEN see ads on top of that is like getting taxed twice. You shouldn't have to pay for the service, as well as see for the ads.
The banner ads on Yahoo,/. , and etc. don't bother me, because I use the service and it doesn't cost me a monthly fee. But, if I had to pay to access/. as WELL as see the banner ads? Uh-uh.
Remember the days when a company just announced a new product. They didn't announce that they'll be announcing a product in 18-24 months (a la X-box). They waited until the box was ready, and they announed it.
Now, it seems, we have to have an announcement announcing the date of the actual announcement. Wasn't Transmeta the same company that had to announce the date that they'd announce the date that they'd have a presentation announcing their new product?
Gone are the good old days of being able to judge a software product by the 'Heft Factor' and other totally-subjective tests. The 'Heft Factor' was one test in a series of tests designed to be a software rating system. The following is a comprehensive list of tests that could be used to evaluate software:
1) The shake-shake test: The more floppies the software had, the better the game must have been... 2) The 'heave-ho' test: If it had a manual in it, it must've been good! 3) The DOJ test: a software package in each hand, trying to figure out which is heaver. 4) The $$ test: obviously, a $40 game was better than a $30 game...
All of these tests were designed to be easily conducted inside of your local Babbages/Egghead/Software Boutique. The rating scale was a simple 1-5 with the following weighting:
3xSHAKE-TEST + 2xHEFT-TEST + 1.5x$$-TEST = rating
Lastly, the DOJ-TEST was used to break any two ratings that were within 10 points of one another.
Help me out with something. Say I spend the money to develop and put up a 'free' service, and I plan on funding that service by advertising in the a custom client I developed for that service.
Now, someone else comes up with a client that is advertising-free, but it still connects to my service, and uses my capacity. If that client is more popular than my own client (because of the no-advertising thing), I will need more capacity. But I can't justify an increased cost to advertisers because my client usage is decreasing, and their advertising dollars are LESS affective.
So, at what point am I allowed to BLOCK people from using my service with other clients? If the service is no longer cost-effective for me to run, I'd have to shut down the entire service, and then no one can use it.
So, where is the sweet spot in this? Somewhere, there has to be a balance between a monopoly, the 'free service through advertising' funding model, and open protocols.
Think about it... Two monopolisticly-oriented companies fighting over 'standards' for the same components, when they are not allowed have any kind of joint venture with each other.
What they do would HAVE to be at least open spec, if not open source... wouldn't anything else be considered a 'joint veture'?
I like to draw 'physical' world parallels to what goes on over the 'net, and in this case, I don't understand what the big hub-bub is. For YEARS, there has been no sales tax on Catalog (a/k/a telephone) sales when they are out of state. Why, all of a sudden, is the Internet to be subject to such a tax?
(and yes, I realizes that by putting a tax on out-of-state purchases, it resolves the inconsistancy. It still doesn't answer why it wasn't important until the Internet came about... Surely catalog sales are still higher than internet sales....!)
I wish governments were more driven by logic... rather than by hype and opportunity..
Before the release of NT5 (a/k/a Win2k now), Microsoft actually toyed with the idea of 'leasing' their OS's to you. You would have to pay a monthly fee to run NT5.
<shiver>
Can you imagine paying for that crappy-assed piece of software REPEATEDLY, every month you have it installed?
A while back, a friend and I went through the effort of recording all of the episodes to the CGI Animation Show REBOOT off of the Cartoon Network. We digitized them, and now I have all 39 episodes in MPEG format. Happy Happy day...
In the process of doing this, I posted a request to the 'Un-Official Reboot' website asking if anyone had the original show opening(s) on video tape, because Cartoon Network wasn't running them. I got SEVERAL requests for people who wanted a copy of the shows when I was done... Many offered to pay me upwards of $250 for the 39 episodes. This made me a little nervous, since I was flirting with the 'copyright' territory, so I figured I be above board, and just ask them.
So I send a message to info@mainframe.ca, and asked them if they had a problem with me making a copy of the shows for someone. Within 2 days, they sent a reply back stating that, as long as I wasn't making money off of my copies, they said I could do it. So, I charged the guy $20 plus shipping (figure a buck-a-disc is OK), and everyone was happy.
</anecdote>
Bottom line: More companies should be this cool. I think that, as long as you're not PROFITING off of their stuff, or hindering their profits, you should be able to use it (and I mean no add banners, no nuthin'!).
I think the problem is that there are really two types of links. The first type links to another site, ie, people that post a href="http://www.slashdot.org". The second type posts a link DIRECTLY to a piece of content, ie href="http://download.sourceforge.net/slashcode/sl ash-1.0.4.tar.gz"
Hmmm.. I checked my HTML book, and there is only one type of 'Hypertext Link'. The difference you're talking about is what the server returns when there is no file specification vs. what it returns when it is. There is an implied file type in "http://slashdot.org/".. typically, it's index.html (or index.htm, or default.htm). The difference you are defining is at strictly a the level of 'perception'. The web is a collection of files, served by a computer over a network/protocol to a computer running software that 'knows' what to do with those files.
Now, what MP3Board.com DOES do is provide a nice list of people that ARE posting illegal content for download. I'd think the lawyers would like this. They can go right to the source to have the illegal content removed... of course, it'd cost a fortune to go after the individual offenders, so they're just following the 'security by obsecurity' logic. If they can't find it, it's not there...:^D
Is is just me, or have the days of the 'really cleaver' viruses gone away. When was it that you last saw a new virus that infects the boot sector? How 'bout a virus that infects executables? How about a virus that was actually a BINARY, and not just a script? Viruses that infected binaries, but still allowed the binary to run... Remember the ones that used to corrupt the FAT table? Now THOSE were VIRUSES.
Everything these days seems to focus on MS Office (Macro Viruses), VB Script, and Black Plagues' Flea of the 90's: Outlook/Outlook Express.
Looking Glass was definately one of my favorite companies for games. Thief was one of the most innovative 1st person games I'd seen. With it's attention to sound, light (You gotta love the idea of a 'water arrow'!) and my favorite of all first-person game moves: The lean.
For YEARS I had been sitting in my chair leaning forward to 'peek' around a corner in games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, et. al. (and NO, it didn't work, but it never stopped me from tryint!) Then came Thief, a game where I could actually do that digitally!! Seriously cool!
I'm sorry to see a company with such an innovative perspective close up so quickly.. (I mean, Thief II just came out just a few months ago!)
I agree. ZD-Net has become a text-book example of what is WORST about much of the news media today. They go where their ad-dollars take them. Part of it I attribute to the overall population, supply and demand only works if there is demand.
It's sorry to see the Internet News go the way of the (local) TV-News...
In the immortal words of Glenn Frey: "...get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry."...
(I'd post the audio clip, but, well, that'd be wrong!
It seems to me that the RIAA wants it all with no liability as to what they sell... Take a gander at some of my idle thoughts:
1) They say I buy the 'rights' to an album, but those rights aren't transferrable, nor does it cover rights in other (alternate) mediums (like MP3's from the net).
2) They say I get 're-entertainment value' from CDs. So, If I'm done with a CD, can I ship it back for a rebate? Amoritize the price over the 'life' of the CD, and refund me my money... Remember, CD's have a LOT longer life than albums or Tapes. Of course, you'd have to factor in the popularity of the artist... A Stones CD would probably be worth more than a Haircut 100 CD...
3) How to 'used' cd stores work (legally speaking)? Is the physical CD my 'license'? If so, then as long as I have proof of license.... I could buy a second copy of a CD at CD production costs, right? Why can't I buy just a license to MP3's on the net?
4) Why are these 'liquid audio' (sites that let you buy and download songs, and then burn them to CD one) every bit as expensive as brick-and-mortar stores? Surely their Net connection can't be NEARLY has expensive as a TRUCK + all the middlemen...!
From my comparisons, Gnome, while very nice in it's visually appealling, tool rich, comfortable style, has a 'mismatch' is its use of Enlightenment as it's window manager. Now, before you start lobbing grenades, let me explain. Enlightenment (which I do like VERY much) is more than just a window manager. It is also a session manager. It has many of the same features as Gnome (pager support, launcher 'tool bars', styles, themes support, and etc.). The problem is that the two packages are TOTALLY unaware of each other.
Example, if you change the background with E!, Eterm works, but gnome Terminal crashes. If you set it with Gnome, then Eterm isn't aware of backgrounds (or it displays a transparency that is not based on the background).
I actually found that I like E! more than Gnome, but I miss the 'ease' of customization.
KDE, for all of it's short comings (qt libraries, very 'windows-like' style, lack of KDE-aware apps, slim documentation (at least on line) and etc.) It provides a total, consistant, integrated environment for someone to use.
What can I say, I want it all..!
Re:Don't worry about it, Napster's a different iss
on
MP3.com Loses In Court
·
· Score: 1
I would imagine that this case and the DeCSS case are somewhat similiar, in that the MPAA is trying to block sites from 'linking' to the illegal software. If the MPAA loses that battle, isn't that basically saying it's OK for napster? Is there a difference?
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I should be using it... There are SOOO many posts that say that Mozilla/NS6 suck and IE5 is a GOD... I mean, if it's THAT good, why wouldn't I want it?
Where can I get a copy?
Oh, by the way, I'm running RedHat 6.2
I have no idea how many mailboxes they have, but # of mailboxes and simultaneous logins are two TOTALLY different things. I have no doubt that NT could STORE 40 million mailboxes.. but I bet even their free-bsd farm would collapse if all 40 million tried to log in at the same time!
Does anyone else get annoyed with people user the terms 'Web' and 'Internet' interchangably? I'm reading that summary trying to figure out how removing the top 4% of the busiest web sites will take down the Internet, and it's not until I substitute 'Internet' for 'Web' that it starts to make sense...
Last time I looked, Mozilla was being developed as an open-source project. If V3C is whining about how long it's taking, I'm sure that all the W3C people are help to code this puppy, right? I mean, in open/free software development, since you can't contribute MONEY, surely you can contribute TIME....
When companies started registering every variant/misspelling/commone use of their name, the idea of using domains as an addressing scheme went straight to hell...
I say each corporage entity should get ONE entry in each TLD and then be done with it.
Yup. It's flame bait for Linux (although I'm not sure I see why it's flame-bait for micro$oft)
In your item 1, you state "it's very difficut to configure". That, of course, depends on what you want it to do. My experience with Linux has been basically that, if you can follow directions, you can install software. I'll admit it's not as easy as clicking 'Next' in a nice Wizard, but there's been nothing I couldn't get working with the right directions. As for 'make install', there are several package managers out there (from RH, Debian, primarily). My personal experience is with RPM, and I find it every bit as easy as the "Add-Remove software" in the Control Panel.
Your second point is that micro$oft is more commonly 'pre-installed'. I won't deny that, but as for the vendors that DO support Linux (such as Dell), when you're configuring a Dell Server, be sure to look at the 'OS' section item. Linux is there with all the other NT and Novell options.
From your comments, it seems as though you don't distinguish between End-User computing and Server computing. Personnally, I feel that Microsoft has done their job well in you, because that's exactly what they try to do. They try to convince people that GUI is more important to them then the functionality/stability of an OS. They want people to feel that wizards, icons, menus, and pointers are more important than having a robust server. They want feature-rich clients talking over proprietary protocols to proprietary servers to drive a companies infrastructure, and let's face it.. they're EXPERTS at achieving that.
I, on the other hand, still can't understand why I want the overhead of running a graphics interface on a system that, in an ideal world, sits in a room, in the dark, by itself, hopefully, untouched. It bothers me to even INSTALL an X-server on a UNIX Server, let alone run the server @ Run Level 5 (that's the typical level that brings up the XDM login window, for those who don't delve that deeply into the OS.. An IBM S390 is an OUTSTANDING hardware platform that is scaleable, robust, and fault-tolerant. It has been for YEARS. And yet I'd never put one on a users desk (or should I say I'd never put a users desk on one...)
Linux/Unix's strong point has never been it's desktops. It's the stability reliability, and effeciency of the OS that makes it good.
UNIX GUI's have come a long way, and I can't WAIT for the day when I can enjoy UNIX stability in a desktop platform, with all the software and peripherials that the Micro$soft users enjoy today.
I disagree. It might not be happening as fast as you might think, but using Microsoft products in an Enterprise environment is happening, although probably not as fast as MS would like.
....er... I mean.. web browser, IE.
For example, MS Exchange is already the mail system of many of the Fortune-500 companies (Ford, EDS, Boeing, to name a few). Most companies have also deployed an IIS web farm, for both internal and external use, and many are starting to deploy SQL*Server DB farms as well..
The most interesting thing to notice is that it's being driven from the desktop. Microsoft is the predominent desktop operating system, and Microsoft Applications (read: Office/FrontPage/Project/etc.) are the predominent applications. To get the most out of your Microsoft Applications, you will want to use the corresponding Microsoft Server Application (read: Exchange, IIS, SQL*Server)
Try using Outook in an SMTP/IMAP/LDAP environment, and then try using it it MS RPC/Exchange Server environment. With MS RPC, you get scheduling, journaling, task assignment/management, directory services that are NOTICABLY better than their LDAP implementation, public folders, forms, routing.... the list goes on.
That's how Microsoft is getting into the Enterprise. By making client software that people want to use, and from there, they 'expand' the functionality to include other services. One prime example is with our favorite security hole
With Outlook98, you had to install IE, and just in case you didn't need Outlook98, Office2000 requires IE. Now, everyone has IE, whether they want it or not, just because they wanted Office2000, or Outlook98.
Remember, most end users don't care about what the back-end service is. They just want all the features they can get. So IT departments are FORCED to deploy critical applications on MS products just to satisfy the end users. So MS is working their way up from the desktop, bringing all their proprietary features with them.
I agree. I have no issue with having advertisments (popup, banner, or etc.) used to pay for things. My issue is with AOL, in that AOL is one of the highest priced services ($21.95/month) to start with, and having to THEN see ads on top of that is like getting taxed twice. You shouldn't have to pay for the service, as well as see for the ads.
/. , and etc. don't bother me, because I use the service and it doesn't cost me a monthly fee. But, if I had to pay to access /. as WELL as see the banner ads? Uh-uh.
The banner ads on Yahoo,
Remember the days when a company just announced a new product. They didn't announce that they'll be announcing a product in 18-24 months (a la X-box). They waited until the box was ready, and they announed it.
Now, it seems, we have to have an announcement announcing the date of the actual announcement. Wasn't Transmeta the same company that had to announce the date that they'd announce the date that they'd have a presentation announcing their new product?
Can't we just go back to acutal ANNOUNEMENTS?
Aye Carumba!
Gone are the good old days of being able to judge a software product by the 'Heft Factor' and other totally-subjective tests. The 'Heft Factor' was one test in a series of tests designed to be a software rating system. The following is a comprehensive list of tests that could be used to evaluate software:
1) The shake-shake test: The more floppies the software had, the better the game must have been...
2) The 'heave-ho' test: If it had a manual in it, it must've been good!
3) The DOJ test: a software package in each hand, trying to figure out which is heaver.
4) The $$ test: obviously, a $40 game was better than a $30 game...
All of these tests were designed to be easily conducted inside of your local Babbages/Egghead/Software Boutique. The rating scale was a simple 1-5 with the following weighting:
3xSHAKE-TEST + 2xHEFT-TEST + 1.5x$$-TEST = rating
Lastly, the DOJ-TEST was used to break any two ratings that were within 10 points of one another.
sigh Those were the days...
I can't say for certain, but I bet one reason is that Exchange 2000 isn't out yet.
Move along. Nuthin' to see here...
Help me out with something. Say I spend the money to develop and put up a 'free' service, and I plan on funding that service by advertising in the a custom client I developed for that service.
Now, someone else comes up with a client that is advertising-free, but it still connects to my service, and uses my capacity. If that client is more popular than my own client (because of the no-advertising thing), I will need more capacity. But I can't justify an increased cost to advertisers because my client usage is decreasing, and their advertising dollars are LESS affective.
So, at what point am I allowed to BLOCK people from using my service with other clients? If the service is no longer cost-effective for me to run, I'd have to shut down the entire service, and then no one can use it.
So, where is the sweet spot in this? Somewhere, there has to be a balance between a monopoly, the 'free service through advertising' funding model, and open protocols.
It'd be cool to build a 20 to 30 foot Tux to put in front of TransMeta's Headquarters.. (For Linus, of course)...
They should both have it.
Think about it... Two monopolisticly-oriented companies fighting over 'standards' for the same components, when they are not allowed have any kind of joint venture with each other.
What they do would HAVE to be at least open spec, if not open source... wouldn't anything else be considered a 'joint veture'?
I like to draw 'physical' world parallels to what goes on over the 'net, and in this case, I don't understand what the big hub-bub is. For YEARS, there has been no sales tax on Catalog (a/k/a telephone) sales when they are out of state. Why, all of a sudden, is the Internet to be subject to such a tax?
(and yes, I realizes that by putting a tax on out-of-state purchases, it resolves the inconsistancy. It still doesn't answer why it wasn't important until the Internet came about... Surely catalog sales are still higher than internet sales....!)
I wish governments were more driven by logic... rather than by hype and opportunity..
Two Words:
DriveImage Professional.
(or one word: Ghost)
I WILL have a disaster-recovery-copy of my OS, whether MS likes it or not...
(BTW, Disasters, by MS standards, should include installing applications, and powering off at the 'Waiting for Windows to Shutdown' screen!)
Before the release of NT5 (a/k/a Win2k now), Microsoft actually toyed with the idea of 'leasing' their OS's to you. You would have to pay a monthly fee to run NT5.
<shiver>
Can you imagine paying for that crappy-assed piece of software REPEATEDLY, every month you have it installed?
Oh, the HORROR!
A while back, a friend and I went through the effort of recording all of the episodes to the CGI Animation Show REBOOT off of the Cartoon Network. We digitized them, and now I have all 39 episodes in MPEG format. Happy Happy day...
In the process of doing this, I posted a request to the 'Un-Official Reboot' website asking if anyone had the original show opening(s) on video tape, because Cartoon Network wasn't running them. I got SEVERAL requests for people who wanted a copy of the shows when I was done... Many offered to pay me upwards of $250 for the 39 episodes. This made me a little nervous, since I was flirting with the 'copyright' territory, so I figured I be above board, and just ask them.
So I send a message to info@mainframe.ca, and asked them if they had a problem with me making a copy of the shows for someone. Within 2 days, they sent a reply back stating that, as long as I wasn't making money off of my copies, they said I could do it. So, I charged the guy $20 plus shipping (figure a buck-a-disc is OK), and everyone was happy.
</anecdote>
Bottom line: More companies should be this cool. I think that, as long as you're not PROFITING off of their stuff, or hindering their profits, you should be able to use it (and I mean no add banners, no nuthin'!).
Isn't that what being a fan is all about?
I think the problem is that there are really two types of links. The first type links to another site, ie, people that post a href="http://www.slashdot.org". The second type posts a link DIRECTLY to a piece of content, ie href="http://download.sourceforge.net/slashcode/sl ash-1.0.4.tar.gz"
:^D
Hmmm.. I checked my HTML book, and there is only one type of 'Hypertext Link'. The difference you're talking about is what the server returns when there is no file specification vs. what it returns when it is. There is an implied file type in "http://slashdot.org/".. typically, it's index.html (or index.htm, or default.htm). The difference you are defining is at strictly a the level of 'perception'. The web is a collection of files, served by a computer over a network/protocol to a computer running software that 'knows' what to do with those files.
Now, what MP3Board.com DOES do is provide a nice list of people that ARE posting illegal content for download. I'd think the lawyers would like this. They can go right to the source to have the illegal content removed... of course, it'd cost a fortune to go after the individual offenders, so they're just following the 'security by obsecurity' logic. If they can't find it, it's not there...
Is is just me, or have the days of the 'really cleaver' viruses gone away. When was it that you last saw a new virus that infects the boot sector? How 'bout a virus that infects executables? How about a virus that was actually a BINARY, and not just a script? Viruses that infected binaries, but still allowed the binary to run... Remember the ones that used to corrupt the FAT table? Now THOSE were VIRUSES.
:^D
Everything these days seems to focus on MS Office (Macro Viruses), VB Script, and Black Plagues' Flea of the 90's: Outlook/Outlook Express.
Those were the days...
Looking Glass was definately one of my favorite companies for games. Thief was one of the most innovative 1st person games I'd seen. With it's attention to sound, light (You gotta love the idea of a 'water arrow'!) and my favorite of all first-person game moves: The lean.
For YEARS I had been sitting in my chair leaning forward to 'peek' around a corner in games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, et. al. (and NO, it didn't work, but it never stopped me from tryint!) Then came Thief, a game where I could actually do that digitally!! Seriously cool!
I'm sorry to see a company with such an innovative perspective close up so quickly.. (I mean, Thief II just came out just a few months ago!)
Back to the search for new and innovative games!
I agree. ZD-Net has become a text-book example of what is WORST about much of the news media today. They go where their ad-dollars take them. Part of it I attribute to the overall population, supply and demand only works if there is demand.
It's sorry to see the Internet News go the way of the (local) TV-News...
In the immortal words of Glenn Frey: "...get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry."...
(I'd post the audio clip, but, well, that'd be wrong!
It seems to me that the RIAA wants it all with no liability as to what they sell... Take a gander at some of my idle thoughts:
1) They say I buy the 'rights' to an album, but those rights aren't transferrable, nor does it cover rights in other (alternate) mediums (like MP3's from the net).
2) They say I get 're-entertainment value' from CDs. So, If I'm done with a CD, can I ship it back for a rebate? Amoritize the price over the 'life' of the CD, and refund me my money... Remember, CD's have a LOT longer life than albums or Tapes. Of course, you'd have to factor in the popularity of the artist... A Stones CD would probably be worth more than a Haircut 100 CD...
3) How to 'used' cd stores work (legally speaking)? Is the physical CD my 'license'? If so, then as long as I have proof of license.... I could buy a second copy of a CD at CD production costs, right? Why can't I buy just a license to MP3's on the net?
4) Why are these 'liquid audio' (sites that let you buy and download songs, and then burn them to CD one) every bit as expensive as brick-and-mortar stores? Surely their Net connection can't be NEARLY has expensive as a TRUCK + all the middlemen...!
Anyway...
From my comparisons, Gnome, while very nice in it's visually appealling, tool rich, comfortable style, has a 'mismatch' is its use of Enlightenment as it's window manager. Now, before you start lobbing grenades, let me explain. Enlightenment (which I do like VERY much) is more than just a window manager. It is also a session manager. It has many of the same features as Gnome (pager support, launcher 'tool bars', styles, themes support, and etc.). The problem is that the two packages are TOTALLY unaware of each other.
Example, if you change the background with E!, Eterm works, but gnome Terminal crashes. If you set it with Gnome, then Eterm isn't aware of backgrounds (or it displays a transparency that is not based on the background).
I actually found that I like E! more than Gnome, but I miss the 'ease' of customization.
KDE, for all of it's short comings (qt libraries, very 'windows-like' style, lack of KDE-aware apps, slim documentation (at least on line) and etc.) It provides a total, consistant, integrated environment for someone to use.
What can I say, I want it all..!
I would imagine that this case and the DeCSS case are somewhat similiar, in that the MPAA is trying to block sites from 'linking' to the illegal software. If the MPAA loses that battle, isn't that basically saying it's OK for napster? Is there a difference?