AOL's visions of the future look even scarier than MS's current monopoly - FAR worse. Or am I just being paranoid? It seems like AOL wants to completely replace the Internet with their own network, and control of the network is FAR worse than control of the endpoints. Look at why AOL doesn't want to get involved with cable companies - That's some scary stuff.
Still, I hope that AOL/Netscape/Sun is moderately successful in their plans - I don't think they'll achieve the plans they have, but they probably WILL shake MS up quite a bit. This is going to leave a perfect opportunity for Linus's joking comments about world domination to become true. After MS's marketing stranglehold is broken, technically superior solutions will finally rise.
You might say that AOL/NS/Sun will try to FUD us to nonexistence like MS has. Well, we've got a headstart on them by around 10 million users, and we're already growing rapidly.
As far as if you can't see the problem, no one else will - I have to agree with you on that.
But if there is a problem, it can possibly occur house-wide. The only thing I can think of is that RF is leaking through my AC mains and into our TV preamp. Whenenver any machine in my house is running, Channel 11 gets funky. Putting ferrit on the PS cable and a few others helped a lot, but it's still pretty bad.
You should see the ground systems some hams have. But this is a lot more than what someone needs to install just for an "adequate" ground.
It also depends on the conductivity of your dirt. A swamp is a lot better than a desert.:) The ARRL Handbook (Basically one of the bibles of amateur radio) has a LOT of information on this.
You can't overestimate the importance of beads. All the machines in my house have full metal cases, and kill TV reception, unless you put inductors on every single lead. (Especially the power cable, as I think RF goes down that and up into our TV amp.)
That sounds right... Even 10 GHz has a wavelength of a few mm, from what I can remember... Unless you're using that.25-inch or so mesh, you should be safe.
Check out www.openh323.org for a project to create an open-source h.323 protocol stack. The apparently have bidirectional voice working now, and support from two different companies. They seem to be making pretty good progress.
They are relatively open. And they're supported by just about every conferencing package out there. (Yes, even MS NetBeating is standards compliant. Bloated, slow, and crash-prone, but at least standards compliant.)
Check out www.openh323.org (I think) for a free software effort. Not too much there yet, it's an awfully big project, but making progress.
I believe (As of a year ago), Lucent Elemedia has/had a free (Free beer, not free speech) h.323 stack/SDK. Unfortunately, I believe it was VERY restricted.
AC, You probably haven't tried Linux, which means that you don't know about Linux's stability. 2.2 is rock-solid stable compared to NT, it's just not quite as stable as the late 2.0.x series yet, and there are people who are real sticklers for stability.
2.2.x runs GREAT on my machine, with the exception of stock RedHat kernels not liking my APM BIOS - They kernel panic on system halt. (Not serious, since the machine is down anyway, but weird.) RedHat's tech support says it's buggy BIOS - I'm inclined to believe them, because APM is generally screwy on my machine, Linux or Windows.
I used to run NT4 Workstation, it crashed all the time. Now I use Linux for reliability and Win95 for games. (No Win98, because it sucks and doesn't even boot on my machine. That's right, MS boy, your precious Windows 98 doesn't even BOOT on some machines that run Linux like a charm.) Given the release of CivCTP and Nvidia GL drivers, Win9x's days on my machine are very numbered. Now Cornell just has to convert Just The Facts from VB to Java. (They intend to.)
a) VA is a hardware company, RH is software. 2 different markets.
b) VA is a customer of RedHat - All of their systems that I've looked at so far come with RH 5.2 (What happened to the SuSE partnership that VA touts in some of their LJ ads? And what about RH6?)
There's one reason I have Unix experience - The low cost of experimenting with Linux.
A long time ago, some author wrote, "You can't throw an apple out of a window without hitting a college student that has Linux experience." They're right. There's a crop of budding sysadmins out there. While most of us are still stuck in college, just watch out in 2-3 years. I have a feeling a lot of us could blow away any MSCE. (Or at least I hope I have that ability, and I've only finished my freshman year.)
Somewhere there are patches floating around to enhance Linux support for ACPI power management... I guess you can try looking for ACPI in the Linux portion of Google. Although the driver I saw was specific to VIA-chipset mobos.
This will only work with newer ATX mobos, that have the funky power button. (The action performed is BIOS configurable, but on mine, a single hit is supposed to tell the OS to suspend, while holding it for 4 seconds kills the machine.)
In the listing of features from Winamp 2.23 (latest ver.)
Nitrane 1.60 MPEG audio decoder with MMX and 3DNow! acceleration
Nope. You might be thinking of encoders - Many people consider the Fraunhofer encoder to have the best quality for 160kbps compression. Many people also don't give a damn and use another encoder because they hate Fraunhofer. (The 160k figure comes from the BladeEnc page, I think - the author of BladeEnce optimizes for higher bitrates, and states that the quality crossover occurs around ~160k.
I believe some of the MP3 decoders use various threading techniques that fool top. I remember hearing about this when x11amp was first GPLed - Apparently one of the first things to change was that x11amp began reporting CPU usage correctly. Although I think this has ended... x11amp fools top again.
These chipsets nowadays have a lot of stuff in them. Most importantly, the IDE controller. The basic interface is the same, but to use DMA IDE, you need a chipset-specific driver. (My biggest gripe with my VIA-based mobo is that the driver's don't like single-channel IDE, they expect both channels on the controller to be enabled. To save interrupts, I do not.)
Apple is primarily a hardware company. Hence, they've been quite supportive of Linux on Mac hardware because it sells Mac boxes to people who want good hardware and don't care about certain x86-only Linux features. (Namely, apps only ported to x86 and gamers.) If LinPPC boxes ever got decent hardware and games, I'd buy one for my next box. Unfortunately, almost all Linux games are x86 only, and Apple's love affair with bottom-of-the-barrel chipset vendor ATI doesn't help.
From what I've heard, for GTK+ itself (Dunno about GTK--), whenever the documentation doesn't suffice for advanced purposes, the source is so well-commented that it's a manual in itself.
And if you wind up developing against 1.3 whenever it branches, the source will be the only guaranteed up-to-date docs.
Yeah. I read the article, and I've read the entire thing before. Although it may not have been linked to as an actual/. article, but as a link in the comments somewhere.
Also, the version I saw was vastly cleaned up compared to this. I wonder if this is just a ripoff of that page...
AFAIK Netscape and Eudora use the standard Unix mailbox format, in addition to just about every non-MS maler on the planet. (Zmail is an exception, it needs a simple conversion util to "massage" the mailbox format.) The only thing you have to watch out for is CR CR/LF conversion if you're using Eudora. I'm not sure how Netscape handles CR/LF stuff. It might handle it in the default method for its platform, or it might do it the same way across all platforms.
An ill-timed Slashdot effect on their tech support team might annoy them rather than help... As the email said, they have no further information now, so bugging them would most likely be unproductive.
Of course, you can look at the "Company info" page and/. their snailmail address. I know snailmail is more effective at swaying politicians, it would probably also be effective at swaying PHBs. (They are after all a politician variant.)
Slashdot Mirror
AOL's visions of the future look even scarier than MS's current monopoly - FAR worse. Or am I just being paranoid? It seems like AOL wants to completely replace the Internet with their own network, and control of the network is FAR worse than control of the endpoints. Look at why AOL doesn't want to get involved with cable companies - That's some scary stuff.
Still, I hope that AOL/Netscape/Sun is moderately successful in their plans - I don't think they'll achieve the plans they have, but they probably WILL shake MS up quite a bit. This is going to leave a perfect opportunity for Linus's joking comments about world domination to become true. After MS's marketing stranglehold is broken, technically superior solutions will finally rise.
You might say that AOL/NS/Sun will try to FUD us to nonexistence like MS has. Well, we've got a headstart on them by around 10 million users, and we're already growing rapidly.
As far as if you can't see the problem, no one else will - I have to agree with you on that.
But if there is a problem, it can possibly occur house-wide. The only thing I can think of is that RF is leaking through my AC mains and into our TV preamp. Whenenver any machine in my house is running, Channel 11 gets funky. Putting ferrit on the PS cable and a few others helped a lot, but it's still pretty bad.
You should see the ground systems some hams have. But this is a lot more than what someone needs to install just for an "adequate" ground.
:) The ARRL Handbook (Basically one of the bibles of amateur radio) has a LOT of information on this.
It also depends on the conductivity of your dirt. A swamp is a lot better than a desert.
You can't overestimate the importance of beads. All the machines in my house have full metal cases, and kill TV reception, unless you put inductors on every single lead. (Especially the power cable, as I think RF goes down that and up into our TV amp.)
That sounds right... Even 10 GHz has a wavelength of a few mm, from what I can remember... Unless you're using that .25-inch or so mesh, you should be safe.
As far as not decrypting the contents of your HD, I believe the 5th amendment (?) covers the right to avoid self-incrimination.
(I've never understood how that amendment works, though, as invoking it would basically be a confession of guilt.)
And there's also the "right to remain silent" whenever someone's arrested.
Check out www.openh323.org for a project to create an open-source h.323 protocol stack. The apparently have bidirectional voice working now, and support from two different companies. They seem to be making pretty good progress.
They are relatively open. And they're supported by just about every conferencing package out there. (Yes, even MS NetBeating is standards compliant. Bloated, slow, and crash-prone, but at least standards compliant.)
Check out www.openh323.org (I think) for a free software effort. Not too much there yet, it's an awfully big project, but making progress.
I believe (As of a year ago), Lucent Elemedia has/had a free (Free beer, not free speech) h.323 stack/SDK. Unfortunately, I believe it was VERY restricted.
AC,
You probably haven't tried Linux, which means that you don't know about Linux's stability. 2.2 is rock-solid stable compared to NT, it's just not quite as stable as the late 2.0.x series yet, and there are people who are real sticklers for stability.
2.2.x runs GREAT on my machine, with the exception of stock RedHat kernels not liking my APM BIOS - They kernel panic on system halt. (Not serious, since the machine is down anyway, but weird.) RedHat's tech support says it's buggy BIOS - I'm inclined to believe them, because APM is generally screwy on my machine, Linux or Windows.
I used to run NT4 Workstation, it crashed all the time. Now I use Linux for reliability and Win95 for games. (No Win98, because it sucks and doesn't even boot on my machine. That's right, MS boy, your precious Windows 98 doesn't even BOOT on some machines that run Linux like a charm.) Given the release of CivCTP and Nvidia GL drivers, Win9x's days on my machine are very numbered. Now Cornell just has to convert Just The Facts from VB to Java. (They intend to.)
OK, that sounds good.
I wonder why they don't put up such an explanation on their site...
The author should have looked at VA's website.
a) VA is a hardware company, RH is software. 2 different markets.
b) VA is a customer of RedHat - All of their systems that I've looked at so far come with RH 5.2 (What happened to the SuSE partnership that VA touts in some of their LJ ads? And what about RH6?)
That machine had LOTS of chess-specific hardware acceleration.
There's one reason I have Unix experience - The low cost of experimenting with Linux.
A long time ago, some author wrote, "You can't throw an apple out of a window without hitting a college student that has Linux experience." They're right. There's a crop of budding sysadmins out there. While most of us are still stuck in college, just watch out in 2-3 years. I have a feeling a lot of us could blow away any MSCE. (Or at least I hope I have that ability, and I've only finished my freshman year.)
Somewhere there are patches floating around to enhance Linux support for ACPI power management... I guess you can try looking for ACPI in the Linux portion of Google. Although the driver I saw was specific to VIA-chipset mobos.
This will only work with newer ATX mobos, that have the funky power button. (The action performed is BIOS configurable, but on mine, a single hit is supposed to tell the OS to suspend, while holding it for 4 seconds kills the machine.)
In the listing of features from Winamp 2.23 (latest ver.)
Nitrane 1.60 MPEG audio decoder with MMX and 3DNow! acceleration
Nope. You might be thinking of encoders - Many people consider the Fraunhofer encoder to have the best quality for 160kbps compression. Many people also don't give a damn and use another encoder because they hate Fraunhofer. (The 160k figure comes from the BladeEnc page, I think - the author of BladeEnce optimizes for higher bitrates, and states that the quality crossover occurs around ~160k.
I believe some of the MP3 decoders use various threading techniques that fool top. I remember hearing about this when x11amp was first GPLed - Apparently one of the first things to change was that x11amp began reporting CPU usage correctly. Although I think this has ended... x11amp fools top again.
These chipsets nowadays have a lot of stuff in them. Most importantly, the IDE controller. The basic interface is the same, but to use DMA IDE, you need a chipset-specific driver. (My biggest gripe with my VIA-based mobo is that the driver's don't like single-channel IDE, they expect both channels on the controller to be enabled. To save interrupts, I do not.)
USB is usually handled by the core logic, too.
Apple is primarily a hardware company. Hence, they've been quite supportive of Linux on Mac hardware because it sells Mac boxes to people who want good hardware and don't care about certain x86-only Linux features. (Namely, apps only ported to x86 and gamers.) If LinPPC boxes ever got decent hardware and games, I'd buy one for my next box. Unfortunately, almost all Linux games are x86 only, and Apple's love affair with bottom-of-the-barrel chipset vendor ATI doesn't help.
It's a Linux Advisory Council, not a Open-Source Advisory Council.
Go away, troll.
From what I've heard, for GTK+ itself (Dunno about GTK--), whenever the documentation doesn't suffice for advanced purposes, the source is so well-commented that it's a manual in itself.
And if you wind up developing against 1.3 whenever it branches, the source will be the only guaranteed up-to-date docs.
Yeah. I read the article, and I've read the entire thing before. Although it may not have been linked to as an actual /. article, but as a link in the comments somewhere.
Also, the version I saw was vastly cleaned up compared to this. I wonder if this is just a ripoff of that page...
AFAIK Netscape and Eudora use the standard Unix mailbox format, in addition to just about every non-MS maler on the planet. (Zmail is an exception, it needs a simple conversion util to "massage" the mailbox format.) The only thing you have to watch out for is CR CR/LF conversion if you're using Eudora. I'm not sure how Netscape handles CR/LF stuff. It might handle it in the default method for its platform, or it might do it the same way across all platforms.
Honestly, I wish they'd picked that... That is one sweet logo. Sharp, snazzy, possibly even better than RH's logo.
As I said in my earlier post, it'll most likely just annoy them. Here's a better address to /.
355 Fairview Way Milpitas, CA
95035-3024
Tel.: (408) 262-9003
Fax: (408) 957-9740
An ill-timed Slashdot effect on their tech support team might annoy them rather than help... As the email said, they have no further information now, so bugging them would most likely be unproductive.
/. their snailmail address. I know snailmail is more effective at swaying politicians, it would probably also be effective at swaying PHBs. (They are after all a politician variant.)
Of course, you can look at the "Company info" page and