That's very much competitive IF you are interested in an entire album. There are very few bands/artists that release albums filled with quality songs all the way through anymore. I think the biggest advantage to iTunes and similar systems is the ability to legally buy a hodge podge of songs for a reasonable price.
Interestingly, Dell offers a non-MS product (WordPerfect) as its "default" choice when purchasing a new system, so that's an extremely large retailer that's offering an Office alternative. Granted, I would imagine this just generates more money for them as most consumers that are actually paying attention will opt to "upgrade" to an MS based product.
I'd like to think this is a sign of room for alternatives in the market place, but it's hard to give a lot of credit for offering a Corel product as that alternative.
Ya know it would be interesting to setup a spam "community" site like this and utilize the proceeds from it to fund OSS projects working on spam filtering. I'm sure some OSS developers would find a free membership handy for furthering their knowledge of how spammers think and operate.
Was this type of protest ever attempted in the USA? I can't remember if there has even been a major patent law change in discussion in quite sometime in the US, other than perhaps some Supreme Court votes.
I wonder if this same broad type of protest would have some effect on US congressman and the like, if it was coupled with a massive email/mail movement informing congressmen of the reasons behind the protest and the problems with current patent law. With sites that have a very wide range of users they effect such as Apache participating, I can't help but think that it would make some people take notice and listen.
Of course, all this may have been tried before, and failed before. I just can't remember ever seeing so many open source web sites shut down in protest like they have been over this issue.
I figured it was probably Opera. It seems like I've heard of multiple sites making an effort to specifically block Opera.
It's sad that a lot of sites use javascript agent strings to determine if the browser is compatible with a site.
Another curiousity thing, does it work if you change the browser ID for Opera? I realize you shouldn't have to change that, just another point of curiousity.
Out of curiousity, what browsers are you referring to that cannot access hotmail? I've accessed it with Firebird, Mozilla, Konqueror, and IE. Do they have a block on Opera or Safari or something?
"if a program is compiled, it's no longer writing"
Even compiled it is still writing. I can't read German and make any sense of it. Does that mean it is not writing? Comprehension is not required for something to be considered writing.
"So isn't this whole "software patents" thing actually good for OSS, in that it will only make it harder to distribute proprietary software in its compiled form?"
Perhaps if that was all that software patents were being applied to, then one could make an argument that it is positive for OSS. I wouldn't agree with said argument, but that really doesn't matter. The problem lies in software patents being extended to cover the ideas behind software. Patenting things like "a process to do X" is a bad idea because it squelches competition, and in some cases, prevents a product that actually implements the idea from ever being produced thanks to firms that collect patents with no intention of implementing them.
Lawyers/patent agents are at the very least part of the problem.
Yes, the people in the system that create the laws, interpret the laws, and perpetuate the patent system in its current state all share a large portion of the blame for the problem, but lawyers also play a part in the perpetuation of the system.
If lawyers/agents started saying no to filing ridiculous patent lawsuits and representing clients in the pursuit of said lawsuits, it would send a message not only to the corporations, but to the law makers and decisions makers that this needs to be changed. As long as lawyers are gaining from these lawsuits and helping to facilitate them, they can not be considered innocent middle men.
I've had pretty much a similar experience with speed gains being negligible when I'm on my laptop at home, but when I am at work where I'm saddled with an old P Pro with very little memory I can notice a significant difference between the two. So I guess if you're only interested is speed gains between the two and you're on a fast machine, it doesn't seem to matter.
The more I use Firebird the more I like it. The options dialog took some getting used to, but now find it to be a more intelligent layout. Grouping things like cache, cookies, history, etc. in one area with a clear all button available just makes sense. For me, Firebird just feels better than Mozilla interface wise.
Most of my friends that have bought Macs have bought them because of the pretty colors and the educational discounts. That's not to say they weren't intelligent people, but obviously their purchase decisions were based on flawed criteria.
"there is a lot less common sense in the Windows community than there is for other less widely distributed OSes"
Of course there is as a whole, when your user base dwarfs that of your competitor you've got so many more users that there are going to be more idiots using your systems. Hell, there are probably more idiots using Windows systems than the total number of Mac users. Of course, the same could be said for competent users also. If you don't talk in terms of per capita then you can say a lot of things just based on the sheer number of Windows users. I also doubt that most people would correllate common sense with being able to operate a computer. Anything that people train to do probably doesn't fit into the category of common sense.
"they were at least smart enough to not use Windows for something they can do easily on another OS"
You should have just said on a Mac. It's the only OS with a desktop environment that can even begin to claim the same level of usability as Windows. I'm not really sure that it can be considered inherently smart just choosing something other than Windows. Macs and Windows are both very good choices for people who want a user friendly desktop experience and/or just want things to work.
The author lists open ports, the firewall not being on by default, the patch system, and user privileges in his article as insecure "design" choices. The only one of these that qualifies as a DESIGN flaw is the user privileges. I don't think any of the others qualify as a design matter.
It is certainly a bad decision to leave unnecessary ports open, and they should be left closed unless the user specifically requests that they be turned on. Given the general target audience for Windows, I would go farther and say that it should give some kind of warning about possible security issues when opening up ports.
The firewall not being turns on by default is not necessarily a bad decision, and I BELIEVE it has a question regarding utilizing the firewall when setting up any network connections. So it gives a choice at an appropriate time. There's not much reason to run a firewall without a network connection. If memory serves the option is not really stressed, and I can't remember if it defaults to on for network setups, which would probably be a good choice along with stressing the need for it when going through the setup. So some improvements could be made in this area, but I don't think Windows' current behavior is horribly flawed in this case.
I think he's critisizing the Windows Update facilities for the wrong reasons. I can see criticism for not releasing updates in a timely fashion, but critisizing it because it comes in the midst of some other configuration choices is just silly. I mean from your average users standpoint Windows is providing an EXTREMELY easy to use update facility that even provides options to setup automatic updating of the system for critical updates. The update facilities for most other platforms falls well short of Windows Update in general ease of use.
The only really strong point the arthor makes is regarding the way Windows' handles user priviledges which is certainly one of it's weak points, and the only point he makes that is truly a design flaw.
I'm sure Windows has plenty of insecure areas in its design, but all but one of the ones mentioned in the article are configuration insecurities, and even then some of them are questionably valid points.
"Also, SpamAssassin has a Bayesian classifier built in, but it wasn't used in these tests, since having five was enough."
While I'm sure the recommendations set forth in Spam Assassin's man page are probably a good idea for all Bayesian training sets, he wasn't using the Bayesian filtering included in Spam Assassin, so you can't really fault him for not reading a section of the man page for a feature he was choosing to leave out.
It would have been nice to see him turn on Spam Assassin's Bayesian filtering at least in some of the tests. I don't think test results with a feature I would imagine the vast majority of users would used turned off is a very good comparison of the different packages abilities.
Consumers may switch brands based on differences in prices between comprable products though. I know if someone else offered the same type razor I use with refills costing a few dollars less per a pack, I'd definitely consider a switch. So the profit gain may not be from your current customers buying more razors, but from a gain in market share.
"users IP, a timestamp, the product in question, the users PC name, username, and MAC address"
However, all of the information listed can be likened to the book publisher acquiring the person's name, address, phone number, which book was copied, and when it was copied. I think the publisher would be perfectly within his rights to collect that information which should all be attainable without break in.
Of course, the software has an added complication in that it is reporting itself. If that action is not mentioned in the user agreement that the user agreed to when installing the software, then it is problematic as it is sending information from the users computer without the consent or knowledge of the user. In this case, I'd say that the software/vendor is in the wrong for doing so. If the action was mentioned in the agreement, then I think it is perfectly acceptable for the software to do what the user was informed it would.
I'm not much of a TT fan myself, but Audi's sedan line, the A4 in particular, are beautiful cars. Not to mention Audi has arguably the nicest interiors in the industry.
Cadillacs unfortunately still have the typical American design philosophy. Take box. Add wheels.
Their sports coupe is a nice step away from the usual bus sized cars they produce, but the interior is so god awful that it's just hard to sit in.
For as much adoration as Apple's GUIs get, I've always found Windows GUIs from Win 95 on to be much easier to use. Aqua is the first Apple GUI where I've sat down to use it and actually had an enjoyable experience with it, and where I can appreciate what people are praising.
Pre Aqua GUIs always seemed clunky to me. Although, they were definitely more usable than Windows 3.x GUIs.
I'm pretty much at the opposite end of this one. I can't wait for ROTK to come out, and while I'll go see Matrix Revolutions, Reloaded killed any excitement I had regarding the movies.
LOTR and TTT were both beautifully done, and at the end of each, I just wanted to see more.
The Matrix by contrast was beautifully done, but left me wondering what the hell they'd do with a sequel to it more than wanting more. While I was looking forward to Reloaded, it failed to live up to my expectations. Most of the effects were nicely done, but the story was much less interesting than the original. I'll give some leeway here since it's hard to provide more suprises once the original subject has been breeched, but needless to say, it just didn't do it for me. I hope I will be pleasantly suprised by Revolutions, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Perhaps lower expectations will help Revolutions to be a better experience for me.
I've also found that The Matrix is much less rewatchable than Lord of the Rings. After the first few viewings, The Matrix started to become quite boring. I have yet to tire of watching Lord of the Rings, and I can't wait for TTT to be released on DVD, while I really could care less when Reloaded is released.
If it's a fake, it's a really well done fake. The images included seem to be genuine. I stopped reading just in case, but if you're into spoilers there might be something to this.
That's an explanation I hadn't thought about, but I'm not sure it's one that I like either. Most of the things I've thought of I didn't like as explanations for it. I really hope they do at least try to explain the graphics. I'd be really disappointed if they leave the graphics like that and don't give any reason for them looking so horrible.
I hope the DVD has an option to cut out the first 20 mins of the movie. Could they have made the opening Zion sequence any longer and more useless than it was?
I realize they wanted to show Zion, but did they have to make it so hard to sit through?
The rest of the movie was ok, and I'll grant you could look a lot better if Revolutions comes out and has a lot of good tie ins to things that happened in Reloaded.
The fight scene was spoiled for me because the graphics were atrocious. Most of the movies graphics were extremely well done, so I tried my best to come up with some viable reason for the graphics in that particular scene to have been so bad, but I really couldn't come up with anything that satisfied me. It looked almost like they got lazy during that scene.
Unless those computers are running Windows 3.1, the interfaces with anything newer than that are very much relatable to the newest versions of Windows. Given what i perceive as a rather huge gap between Mac OS versions previous to 10, your argument might be accurate. But I am by no means an experienced Mac user, so my perception of the differences might be inaccurate.
If a school can't afford systems that can run above Windows 3.1, then I'd say they have much larger problems to deal with than considering which platform to run.
As far as I can tell we're in agreement, and colleges generally don't have to make the same financial choices that high schools and elementary schools have to make. I may not have read the article correctly, but it as least seemed to be mostly referring to those schools and not colleges/universities. Most university labs I've been in have had both Macs and Windows machines along with some including a few Unix systems.
This unfortunately comes down to responsibility having two branches. There is a responbility to your students to expose them to as broad an educational base as possible and a responsibility to fit that education within a budget. If those two don't meet, then you have to find a compromise, which depending on the costs of running mixed platform networks, may point to a single platform solution. In that case, the most prevalent platform in the market place becomes to the most responsible choice to make.
Standardizing on Apple's in schools is not really a responsible decision regardless of a lower TCO. If your going to be sending someone into a market where probably in excess of 80% of the computers they'll come in contact with are Microsoft based, you owe it to them to at least include some of those computers in their educational experience.
The best solution would be to expose children to multiple platforms during their schooling, so they will have experience to work with any system they might encounter in the work place or in college as the case may be. If supporting a multiple platform network is indeed more expensive, then it might not be economically feasible for schools to offer multiple platforms, in which case, standardizing on the least common platform doesn't make a lot of sense.
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That's very much competitive IF you are interested in an entire album. There are very few bands/artists that release albums filled with quality songs all the way through anymore. I think the biggest advantage to iTunes and similar systems is the ability to legally buy a hodge podge of songs for a reasonable price.
Interestingly, Dell offers a non-MS product (WordPerfect) as its "default" choice when purchasing a new system, so that's an extremely large retailer that's offering an Office alternative. Granted, I would imagine this just generates more money for them as most consumers that are actually paying attention will opt to "upgrade" to an MS based product.
I'd like to think this is a sign of room for alternatives in the market place, but it's hard to give a lot of credit for offering a Corel product as that alternative.
Ya know it would be interesting to setup a spam "community" site like this and utilize the proceeds from it to fund OSS projects working on spam filtering. I'm sure some OSS developers would find a free membership handy for furthering their knowledge of how spammers think and operate.
Was this type of protest ever attempted in the USA? I can't remember if there has even been a major patent law change in discussion in quite sometime in the US, other than perhaps some Supreme Court votes.
I wonder if this same broad type of protest would have some effect on US congressman and the like, if it was coupled with a massive email/mail movement informing congressmen of the reasons behind the protest and the problems with current patent law. With sites that have a very wide range of users they effect such as Apache participating, I can't help but think that it would make some people take notice and listen.
Of course, all this may have been tried before, and failed before. I just can't remember ever seeing so many open source web sites shut down in protest like they have been over this issue.
I figured it was probably Opera. It seems like I've heard of multiple sites making an effort to specifically block Opera.
It's sad that a lot of sites use javascript agent strings to determine if the browser is compatible with a site.
Another curiousity thing, does it work if you change the browser ID for Opera? I realize you shouldn't have to change that, just another point of curiousity.
Out of curiousity, what browsers are you referring to that cannot access hotmail? I've accessed it with Firebird, Mozilla, Konqueror, and IE. Do they have a block on Opera or Safari or something?
"if a program is compiled, it's no longer writing"
Even compiled it is still writing. I can't read German and make any sense of it. Does that mean it is not writing? Comprehension is not required for something to be considered writing.
"So isn't this whole "software patents" thing actually good for OSS, in that it will only make it harder to distribute proprietary software in its compiled form?"
Perhaps if that was all that software patents were being applied to, then one could make an argument that it is positive for OSS. I wouldn't agree with said argument, but that really doesn't matter. The problem lies in software patents being extended to cover the ideas behind software. Patenting things like "a process to do X" is a bad idea because it squelches competition, and in some cases, prevents a product that actually implements the idea from ever being produced thanks to firms that collect patents with no intention of implementing them.
Lawyers/patent agents are at the very least part of the problem.
Yes, the people in the system that create the laws, interpret the laws, and perpetuate the patent system in its current state all share a large portion of the blame for the problem, but lawyers also play a part in the perpetuation of the system.
If lawyers/agents started saying no to filing ridiculous patent lawsuits and representing clients in the pursuit of said lawsuits, it would send a message not only to the corporations, but to the law makers and decisions makers that this needs to be changed. As long as lawyers are gaining from these lawsuits and helping to facilitate them, they can not be considered innocent middle men.
I've had pretty much a similar experience with speed gains being negligible when I'm on my laptop at home, but when I am at work where I'm saddled with an old P Pro with very little memory I can notice a significant difference between the two. So I guess if you're only interested is speed gains between the two and you're on a fast machine, it doesn't seem to matter.
The more I use Firebird the more I like it. The options dialog took some getting used to, but now find it to be a more intelligent layout. Grouping things like cache, cookies, history, etc. in one area with a clear all button available just makes sense. For me, Firebird just feels better than Mozilla interface wise.
Most of my friends that have bought Macs have bought them because of the pretty colors and the educational discounts. That's not to say they weren't intelligent people, but obviously their purchase decisions were based on flawed criteria.
"there is a lot less common sense in the Windows community than there is for other less widely distributed OSes"
Of course there is as a whole, when your user base dwarfs that of your competitor you've got so many more users that there are going to be more idiots using your systems. Hell, there are probably more idiots using Windows systems than the total number of Mac users. Of course, the same could be said for competent users also. If you don't talk in terms of per capita then you can say a lot of things just based on the sheer number of Windows users. I also doubt that most people would correllate common sense with being able to operate a computer. Anything that people train to do probably doesn't fit into the category of common sense.
"they were at least smart enough to not use Windows for something they can do easily on another OS"
You should have just said on a Mac. It's the only OS with a desktop environment that can even begin to claim the same level of usability as Windows. I'm not really sure that it can be considered inherently smart just choosing something other than Windows. Macs and Windows are both very good choices for people who want a user friendly desktop experience and/or just want things to work.
The author lists open ports, the firewall not being on by default, the patch system, and user privileges in his article as insecure "design" choices. The only one of these that qualifies as a DESIGN flaw is the user privileges. I don't think any of the others qualify as a design matter.
It is certainly a bad decision to leave unnecessary ports open, and they should be left closed unless the user specifically requests that they be turned on. Given the general target audience for Windows, I would go farther and say that it should give some kind of warning about possible security issues when opening up ports.
The firewall not being turns on by default is not necessarily a bad decision, and I BELIEVE it has a question regarding utilizing the firewall when setting up any network connections. So it gives a choice at an appropriate time. There's not much reason to run a firewall without a network connection. If memory serves the option is not really stressed, and I can't remember if it defaults to on for network setups, which would probably be a good choice along with stressing the need for it when going through the setup. So some improvements could be made in this area, but I don't think Windows' current behavior is horribly flawed in this case.
I think he's critisizing the Windows Update facilities for the wrong reasons. I can see criticism for not releasing updates in a timely fashion, but critisizing it because it comes in the midst of some other configuration choices is just silly. I mean from your average users standpoint Windows is providing an EXTREMELY easy to use update facility that even provides options to setup automatic updating of the system for critical updates. The update facilities for most other platforms falls well short of Windows Update in general ease of use.
The only really strong point the arthor makes is regarding the way Windows' handles user priviledges which is certainly one of it's weak points, and the only point he makes that is truly a design flaw.
I'm sure Windows has plenty of insecure areas in its design, but all but one of the ones mentioned in the article are configuration insecurities, and even then some of them are questionably valid points.
"Also, SpamAssassin has a Bayesian classifier built in, but it wasn't used in these tests, since having five was enough."
While I'm sure the recommendations set forth in Spam Assassin's man page are probably a good idea for all Bayesian training sets, he wasn't using the Bayesian filtering included in Spam Assassin, so you can't really fault him for not reading a section of the man page for a feature he was choosing to leave out.
It would have been nice to see him turn on Spam Assassin's Bayesian filtering at least in some of the tests. I don't think test results with a feature I would imagine the vast majority of users would used turned off is a very good comparison of the different packages abilities.
The difference being, I actually WANTED to leave Titanic. =P
Consumers may switch brands based on differences in prices between comprable products though. I know if someone else offered the same type razor I use with refills costing a few dollars less per a pack, I'd definitely consider a switch. So the profit gain may not be from your current customers buying more razors, but from a gain in market share.
No it wouldn't be.
"users IP, a timestamp, the product in question, the users PC name, username, and MAC address"
However, all of the information listed can be likened to the book publisher acquiring the person's name, address, phone number, which book was copied, and when it was copied. I think the publisher would be perfectly within his rights to collect that information which should all be attainable without break in.
Of course, the software has an added complication in that it is reporting itself. If that action is not mentioned in the user agreement that the user agreed to when installing the software, then it is problematic as it is sending information from the users computer without the consent or knowledge of the user. In this case, I'd say that the software/vendor is in the wrong for doing so. If the action was mentioned in the agreement, then I think it is perfectly acceptable for the software to do what the user was informed it would.
I'm not much of a TT fan myself, but Audi's sedan line, the A4 in particular, are beautiful cars. Not to mention Audi has arguably the nicest interiors in the industry.
Cadillacs unfortunately still have the typical American design philosophy. Take box. Add wheels.
Their sports coupe is a nice step away from the usual bus sized cars they produce, but the interior is so god awful that it's just hard to sit in.
For as much adoration as Apple's GUIs get, I've always found Windows GUIs from Win 95 on to be much easier to use. Aqua is the first Apple GUI where I've sat down to use it and actually had an enjoyable experience with it, and where I can appreciate what people are praising.
Pre Aqua GUIs always seemed clunky to me. Although, they were definitely more usable than Windows 3.x GUIs.
I'm pretty much at the opposite end of this one. I can't wait for ROTK to come out, and while I'll go see Matrix Revolutions, Reloaded killed any excitement I had regarding the movies.
LOTR and TTT were both beautifully done, and at the end of each, I just wanted to see more.
The Matrix by contrast was beautifully done, but left me wondering what the hell they'd do with a sequel to it more than wanting more. While I was looking forward to Reloaded, it failed to live up to my expectations. Most of the effects were nicely done, but the story was much less interesting than the original. I'll give some leeway here since it's hard to provide more suprises once the original subject has been breeched, but needless to say, it just didn't do it for me. I hope I will be pleasantly suprised by Revolutions, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Perhaps lower expectations will help Revolutions to be a better experience for me.
I've also found that The Matrix is much less rewatchable than Lord of the Rings. After the first few viewings, The Matrix started to become quite boring. I have yet to tire of watching Lord of the Rings, and I can't wait for TTT to be released on DVD, while I really could care less when Reloaded is released.
I guess to each their own though. =)
If it's a fake, it's a really well done fake. The images included seem to be genuine. I stopped reading just in case, but if you're into spoilers there might be something to this.
That's an explanation I hadn't thought about, but I'm not sure it's one that I like either. Most of the things I've thought of I didn't like as explanations for it. I really hope they do at least try to explain the graphics. I'd be really disappointed if they leave the graphics like that and don't give any reason for them looking so horrible.
I hope the DVD has an option to cut out the first 20 mins of the movie. Could they have made the opening Zion sequence any longer and more useless than it was? I realize they wanted to show Zion, but did they have to make it so hard to sit through? The rest of the movie was ok, and I'll grant you could look a lot better if Revolutions comes out and has a lot of good tie ins to things that happened in Reloaded.
The fight scene was spoiled for me because the graphics were atrocious. Most of the movies graphics were extremely well done, so I tried my best to come up with some viable reason for the graphics in that particular scene to have been so bad, but I really couldn't come up with anything that satisfied me. It looked almost like they got lazy during that scene.
Unless those computers are running Windows 3.1, the interfaces with anything newer than that are very much relatable to the newest versions of Windows. Given what i perceive as a rather huge gap between Mac OS versions previous to 10, your argument might be accurate. But I am by no means an experienced Mac user, so my perception of the differences might be inaccurate.
If a school can't afford systems that can run above Windows 3.1, then I'd say they have much larger problems to deal with than considering which platform to run.
As far as I can tell we're in agreement, and colleges generally don't have to make the same financial choices that high schools and elementary schools have to make. I may not have read the article correctly, but it as least seemed to be mostly referring to those schools and not colleges/universities. Most university labs I've been in have had both Macs and Windows machines along with some including a few Unix systems.
This unfortunately comes down to responsibility having two branches. There is a responbility to your students to expose them to as broad an educational base as possible and a responsibility to fit that education within a budget. If those two don't meet, then you have to find a compromise, which depending on the costs of running mixed platform networks, may point to a single platform solution. In that case, the most prevalent platform in the market place becomes to the most responsible choice to make.
Standardizing on Apple's in schools is not really a responsible decision regardless of a lower TCO. If your going to be sending someone into a market where probably in excess of 80% of the computers they'll come in contact with are Microsoft based, you owe it to them to at least include some of those computers in their educational experience.
The best solution would be to expose children to multiple platforms during their schooling, so they will have experience to work with any system they might encounter in the work place or in college as the case may be. If supporting a multiple platform network is indeed more expensive, then it might not be economically feasible for schools to offer multiple platforms, in which case, standardizing on the least common platform doesn't make a lot of sense.