I don't mean to bag on Steve Oulline. Maybe in person he's a great guy and gets tons of chicks...
But I happen to have his "Practical C Programming", and i discovered after the fact that it gets lots of thumbs down from both comp.lang.c and #c on freenode.
I've also got some personal beefs with it, in that there are many places where it is either implied or specifically stated that C is merely a stepping stone to C++.
"Get into the habit of pre-fixing your increments and decrements (i.e. ++i, --i, as opposed to i++ and i--) because it will make your transition easier to C++"
"A lot of the concepts that are involved with structures in C will become relevant when you move up to Object Oriented Programming C++"
"The next logical step for C programmers is to learn C++"
Maybe some of these statements can be benign or true for most, but me personally, i don't want to learn C++. I think the same end result could be sought with C than with C++.
How much longer until governments and businesses decide "This will no longer happen", and start turning thier backs to Microsoft Windows.
This is costing them untold time and money.
I'm not expecting an immediate embrace of linux from end to end, but if they would start looking at all the alternatives, be it linux, bsd, apple, sun, ibm....
Surely the money they spend on *any* migration would be made up in a year or two of lesser IT infrastructure woes.
Disclaimer: Yes i understand that they'll still get lambasted and thier bandwidth clogged by crap from the outside, but at least they won't have to worry about it hurting them as much.
Absolutely... At the release of windows ME, the UI of Windows was equivalent to a bicycle, where as other UIs (such as KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment) were equivalent to that of a luxury car.
In just three short years, Windows has mysteriously been able to catch up in what took UNIX 25 years.
I'm just concerned that someday AOL/TIMEWARNER/NETSCAPE will be the hegemonous Content Provider For Everything.
Just the same as M$ has done to OS's on the x86. The difference being is that it's several orders of magnitude more diffcult and expensive to try to start up an ISP, verses pooling together ppl on the inet to write OS's and software.
I've read a few articles describing certain features that it has (ease of use and gee-whiz stuff) that sounded to me like a potential vulnerability.
It seemed that a lot of these things were enabled by default and wide open.
I seriously hope this isn't the case. Apple's better than that, right?
I'm not trolling, i'm asking sincerely. With all the "OS X IS UNIX(tm)!!!" fanfare loudly touted in the press, i'd hate to see a major outbreak of compromised OSX machines to blacken the name of all things *nix.
Bottom line: If you're on the internet, paying attention to security is mandatory. Regardless of platform.
C'mon, it can't be that much different, now can it? We've already got Power Over Ethernet, and Wireless Networking.... it's just waiting for some geek to marry the two together!!
No seriously. There are situations where you know what you're doing, and then are situations where you must be wise enough to tell yourself,
"Self, I am going to kill myself doing this."
As many have pointed out, it is time to call in a professional. This needs to get fixed, and fixed right, probably *before* you put any kind of electrical load on it, too.
Either call in a competent electrician, or walk away and write it off as a loss. Those are your only two sane solutions.
Short term the traffic is worse, but in the long term less overall bandwidth is used.
Naw... unfortunately, something else will take its place. As mentioned before, now there are all these assholes who know about the RPC hole, and even though a lot of machines are patched (either by the owner or by the anti-worm worm) there are still plenty that are going to stay wide open.
I wonder how long it is before the bandwidth of the entire internet as a whole is swamped by worm, spam, and parasite popup traffic.
It is easy for all us folks who use *nix or Apple machines to point and laugh, but eventually it will start to affect us too- by robbing bandwidth, overloading our connections with failed attempts, and the trickle-down effect making internet access much costlier than it needs to be.
This has ceased to be a "Microsoft Windows Problem". It's now everyone's problem, like it or not.
Yet another reason to hate soccer moms that sit at home all day on cablemodem sending "fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:HAHA!! FUNNY!"
Something that i've seen a hot debate over before..
Many people have mentioned something along the lines of "X-lite"...
Bascially an X server that has been stripped of all the features that the "average" person doesn't use, such as running remote desktops over networks and things.
I hear so much complaints about how "X is so slow, buggy and internally is a total mess", etc. I've never personally had a problem with X, nor have i looked at the code myself, but it would be interesting.
Of course, the full-on XFree86 would still be available to all those who *do* want/need the extra features.
I keep seeing "cost" argued back and forth, and people are constantly comparing x86 and Apple.
We seem to be forgetting that at least in the Server Space, you are competing with SUN, IBM, SGI and the likes. Go price some of that stuff and come back to the cost issue.
Also, I have a friend that runs some webhosting stuff. Not a real big firm, but he's been a UNIX guy since the early 80s or so. He checked out an Xserve from Apple, was very objective in his observation. He says that it was a decent machine, but unfortunately inadequate for what apple is touting it for. Things such as the case-insensitive commandline, some SERIOUS security issues such as hash files being wide open, various daemons running unfettered and invisble about the system, and more. He said that he eventually spent untold hours reconfiguring it and adding 3rd party software to do the things that say, a Cobalt or Netra would do out of the box. He never did get it all ironed out, and yet he said by time he gave up on it, he had just about wrung all the "Apple" out of it, coincidentally. His conclusion was that it was a nice start for apple, and would probably work good as a non-net connected central db server in a small business or something, but apple is really not ready for Real World Enterprise Computing. Maybe they will get some experience and be able to compete in the near future.
But there are already plenty of options that are affordable, flexible, well-tailored for specific tasks that will pass right by Apple's current offerings. Ready-to-run within an hour or less, and dependable.
He ended up putting NetBSD on it and it acts as a backup nameserver, mailserver and a few other things, and he's happy with it now. But the point is a $300 PC or a low-end rackmount server from any other vendor would have sufficed, with much less hassle.
Disclaimer: This Guy is a friend on IRC, and this was about a year ago or whenever the first Xserve became available for purchase. And no, i did not spray paint your cat.
I'm glad to see that apple is doing this. Good for them.
However,
I'm still skeptical for some of their other things, involving Warranty Return items. Example: Boss has brand new Powerbook. Within 3 weeks the LCD dies. Apple is still trying to collect $700-something dollars for the repair, when IMHO it should be a warranty item. FWIW the guy has been a super-loyal Apple Fanatic since the Apple ][
This eMac i'm typing on was purchased with 1Gb of ram, but arrived with 512 only. Also, the OS was completely b0rked when it arrived, which required a reinstall of OS X. It's got a few dead pixels on the screen but Apple refuses to listen.
I'm not trying to bash apple, andi know there are other, worse companies, but i guess i expected them to be a little better after the sale. They've been worse than a used-car dealer by my experience at the Mac-centric ISP i work for.
Probably off-topic, but when might we start seeing IBM-branded computers with the 970 available? Before the Apple Party Line gets going, please understand that i'm not looking for a cheap box to run OS X on.
I'm more interested in a decent, low-power-using (iirc) 64-bit package for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.
I will admit right up front that there are many people more clueful about this than me, but from what i understand, AMDs new chips (and mobo designs) are great and all, but they are continuing the legacy of "kludge on top of kludge on top of kludge" in hardware design that goes back to the 8088. I thought that Intel was trying to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch, to "clean up" the PC hardware architecture, so to speak.
I dig AMD and all, but they are sure to undermine this effort with their "64-bit Kludge" processors.
And as for performance, yes i understand that 64-bit hardware does you no benefit if you run all 32-bit apps. But the apps will come. And also, my entire post here is completely beside all the "Performance and Benchmark" debates going on between AMD, Intel and Apple's benchmark announcements. Performance-wise, my 1533Mhz Athlon is quite sufficient for all the things i do (hell, my 300hp K6-II is still 100% useable every day).
I guess i just want better engineered hardware that puts out less heat, noise and has fewer internal performance mismatches and bottlenecks.
Disclaimer: I have all AMD systems, I dislike OS X, I hate Windows, I'm not trolling and i wasn't the one that spray-painted your cat.
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I don't mean to bag on Steve Oulline. Maybe in person he's a great guy and gets tons of chicks...
But I happen to have his "Practical C Programming", and i discovered after the fact that it gets lots of thumbs down from both comp.lang.c and #c on freenode.
I've also got some personal beefs with it, in that there are many places where it is either implied or specifically stated that C is merely a stepping stone to C++.
"Get into the habit of pre-fixing your increments and decrements (i.e. ++i, --i, as opposed to i++ and i--) because it will make your transition easier to C++"
"A lot of the concepts that are involved with structures in C will become relevant when you move up to Object Oriented Programming C++"
"The next logical step for C programmers is to learn C++"
Maybe some of these statements can be benign or true for most, but me personally, i don't want to learn C++. I think the same end result could be sought with C than with C++.
Just MHO.
Karma be damned.
Once again, i will ask..
How much longer until governments and businesses decide "This will no longer happen", and start turning thier backs to Microsoft Windows.
This is costing them untold time and money.
I'm not expecting an immediate embrace of linux from end to end, but if they would start looking at all the alternatives, be it linux, bsd, apple, sun, ibm....
Surely the money they spend on *any* migration would be made up in a year or two of lesser IT infrastructure woes.
Disclaimer: Yes i understand that they'll still get lambasted and thier bandwidth clogged by crap from the outside, but at least they won't have to worry about it hurting them as much.
In a word...
Buttfugly..
In several words...
Appears to suffer from panelitis.
Just MHO.
(Disclaimer: I used blackbox and wmaker for 5 years until recently. I'm now giving xfce4 a go-round).
(Secondary Disclaimer: I also don't like XP nor Aqua. Maybe i'm just a bitterly angry young man or something).
Absolutely... At the release of windows ME, the UI of Windows was equivalent to a bicycle, where as other UIs (such as KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment) were equivalent to that of a luxury car.
In just three short years, Windows has mysteriously been able to catch up in what took UNIX 25 years.
(ok, just kidding)
I remember when screenshots of WindowsXP was released (codenamed Whistler?)...
I *specifically* recall seeing a very Windows XP looking screenshot, but with a GNOME foot in the bottom left corner
Does anyone else remember this? Do they? I've been bringing this up since and people just look at me like i'm nuts.
My Niece has been trying for months to get me to sit down and watch SpongeBob SquarePants.
She says Spongies RULE....
Maybe she's been onto something all along...
ultimately have to fragment their identities, keeping multiple IDs and e-mail addresses.
This is why i sign up for anonymous Hotmail email accounts!
I'm just concerned that someday AOL/TIMEWARNER/NETSCAPE will be the hegemonous Content Provider For Everything.
Just the same as M$ has done to OS's on the x86. The difference being is that it's several orders of magnitude more diffcult and expensive to try to start up an ISP, verses pooling together ppl on the inet to write OS's and software.
This doesn't say or prove a damn thing.
Any UNIX admins messed around wit OS X?
How secure is it, how secure can it be?
I've read a few articles describing certain features that it has (ease of use and gee-whiz stuff) that sounded to me like a potential vulnerability.
It seemed that a lot of these things were enabled by default and wide open.
I seriously hope this isn't the case. Apple's better than that, right?
I'm not trolling, i'm asking sincerely. With all the "OS X IS UNIX(tm)!!!" fanfare loudly touted in the press, i'd hate to see a major outbreak of compromised OSX machines to blacken the name of all things *nix.
Bottom line: If you're on the internet, paying attention to security is mandatory. Regardless of platform.
Hell, just invent some wireless power solution!!
C'mon, it can't be that much different, now can it? We've already got Power Over Ethernet, and Wireless Networking.... it's just waiting for some geek to marry the two together!!
No seriously. There are situations where you know what you're doing, and then are situations where you must be wise enough to tell yourself,
"Self, I am going to kill myself doing this."
As many have pointed out, it is time to call in a professional. This needs to get fixed, and fixed right, probably *before* you put any kind of electrical load on it, too.
Either call in a competent electrician, or walk away and write it off as a loss. Those are your only two sane solutions.
This weekend I celebrated my birthday, and i had a white-frosted carrot cake with a red Debian Swirl on it.
39 candles.
29 for me, 10 for Debian.
w00h00!!
Short term the traffic is worse, but in the long term less overall bandwidth is used.
Naw... unfortunately, something else will take its place. As mentioned before, now there are all these assholes who know about the RPC hole, and even though a lot of machines are patched (either by the owner or by the anti-worm worm) there are still plenty that are going to stay wide open.
I wonder how long it is before the bandwidth of the entire internet as a whole is swamped by worm, spam, and parasite popup traffic.
It is easy for all us folks who use *nix or Apple machines to point and laugh, but eventually it will start to affect us too- by robbing bandwidth, overloading our connections with failed attempts, and the trickle-down effect making internet access much costlier than it needs to be.
This has ceased to be a "Microsoft Windows Problem". It's now everyone's problem, like it or not.
Yet another reason to hate soccer moms that sit at home all day on cablemodem sending "fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:fw:HAHA!! FUNNY!"
In Soviet Russia, the virus patches YOU!!
Something that i've seen a hot debate over before..
Many people have mentioned something along the lines of "X-lite"...
Bascially an X server that has been stripped of all the features that the "average" person doesn't use, such as running remote desktops over networks and things.
I hear so much complaints about how "X is so slow, buggy and internally is a total mess", etc. I've never personally had a problem with X, nor have i looked at the code myself, but it would be interesting.
Of course, the full-on XFree86 would still be available to all those who *do* want/need the extra features.
haven't we been doing the "Apple is dying" thing since the days before /.? Before teh Intarweb even? :oP
I keep seeing "cost" argued back and forth, and people are constantly comparing x86 and Apple.
We seem to be forgetting that at least in the Server Space, you are competing with SUN, IBM, SGI and the likes. Go price some of that stuff and come back to the cost issue.
Also, I have a friend that runs some webhosting stuff. Not a real big firm, but he's been a UNIX guy since the early 80s or so. He checked out an Xserve from Apple, was very objective in his observation. He says that it was a decent machine, but unfortunately inadequate for what apple is touting it for. Things such as the case-insensitive commandline, some SERIOUS security issues such as hash files being wide open, various daemons running unfettered and invisble about the system, and more. He said that he eventually spent untold hours reconfiguring it and adding 3rd party software to do the things that say, a Cobalt or Netra would do out of the box. He never did get it all ironed out, and yet he said by time he gave up on it, he had just about wrung all the "Apple" out of it, coincidentally. His conclusion was that it was a nice start for apple, and would probably work good as a non-net connected central db server in a small business or something, but apple is really not ready for Real World Enterprise Computing. Maybe they will get some experience and be able to compete in the near future.
But there are already plenty of options that are affordable, flexible, well-tailored for specific tasks that will pass right by Apple's current offerings. Ready-to-run within an hour or less, and dependable.
He ended up putting NetBSD on it and it acts as a backup nameserver, mailserver and a few other things, and he's happy with it now. But the point is a $300 PC or a low-end rackmount server from any other vendor would have sufficed, with much less hassle.
Disclaimer: This Guy is a friend on IRC, and this was about a year ago or whenever the first Xserve became available for purchase. And no, i did not spray paint your cat.
That's a real strong word. We all know that PERMANENTLY is an impossibility.
You don't believe me, see if you can find an RFC for it!
It does. CRT Display it be. But there are some definite "black holes" in the display, that can't be cleaned off, aren't fixed by restarts, etc.
Fwiw the display does other funky stuff too.
I'm glad to see that apple is doing this. Good for them.
However,
I'm still skeptical for some of their other things, involving Warranty Return items. Example: Boss has brand new Powerbook. Within 3 weeks the LCD dies. Apple is still trying to collect $700-something dollars for the repair, when IMHO it should be a warranty item. FWIW the guy has been a super-loyal Apple Fanatic since the Apple ][
This eMac i'm typing on was purchased with 1Gb of ram, but arrived with 512 only. Also, the OS was completely b0rked when it arrived, which required a reinstall of OS X. It's got a few dead pixels on the screen but Apple refuses to listen.
I'm not trying to bash apple, andi know there are other, worse companies, but i guess i expected them to be a little better after the sale. They've been worse than a used-car dealer by my experience at the Mac-centric ISP i work for.
....It just works!
Probably off-topic, but when might we start seeing IBM-branded computers with the 970 available? Before the Apple Party Line gets going, please understand that i'm not looking for a cheap box to run OS X on.
I'm more interested in a decent, low-power-using (iirc) 64-bit package for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.
I will admit right up front that there are many people more clueful about this than me, but from what i understand, AMDs new chips (and mobo designs) are great and all, but they are continuing the legacy of "kludge on top of kludge on top of kludge" in hardware design that goes back to the 8088. I thought that Intel was trying to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch, to "clean up" the PC hardware architecture, so to speak.
I dig AMD and all, but they are sure to undermine this effort with their "64-bit Kludge" processors.
And as for performance, yes i understand that 64-bit hardware does you no benefit if you run all 32-bit apps. But the apps will come. And also, my entire post here is completely beside all the "Performance and Benchmark" debates going on between AMD, Intel and Apple's benchmark announcements. Performance-wise, my 1533Mhz Athlon is quite sufficient for all the things i do (hell, my 300hp K6-II is still 100% useable every day).
I guess i just want better engineered hardware that puts out less heat, noise and has fewer internal performance mismatches and bottlenecks.
Disclaimer: I have all AMD systems, I dislike OS X, I hate Windows, I'm not trolling and i wasn't the one that spray-painted your cat.
Wooohoo!! That's a helluva Internet Worm!
Last i heard google still doesn't accept bribes for page ranking.
inobtrusive adverts on the right hand column nonwithstanding.
Now that everyone can create 3-D pr0n in the comfort of thier own home, (the cellophane doubles as a great um... contaminant guard)
...when do we get the Scratch N Sniff feature?