In Australia, another member of 'the coalition of the willing', "it's all about the economy, stupid!"
Effectively the government has been able to get away with anything and in fact was returned with a majority of both houses of parliament. So long as voters are distracted by paying off mortgages and feeling safe from terror an impotent opposition is no threat. Hence issues such as civil liberties, human rights, the environment etc are swept under the carpet.
Opposition to government policy is branded as 'loony left' and 'un-Australian'.
We never should have landed a man on the moon. It's a mistake. Now everything is compared to that one accomplishment. I can't believe they could land a man on the moon . . . and taste my coffee! I think we all would have been a lot happier if they hadn't landed a man on the moon. Then we'd go, They can't make a prescription bottle top that's easy to open? I'm not surprised they couldn't land a man on the moon. Things make perfect sense to me now. Neil Armstrong should have said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for every, complaining, sob on the face of the earth. "
Using JPA, perhaps. Hibernate has a specific implementation of JPA, as does TopLink.
Gavin King, Hibernate visionary, had a hand in designing the JPA through his role on the EJB3 committee.
Using an implementation-neutral API for ORM enables flexibility. One can choose from multiple J2EE servers, servlet engines, databases and now JPA implementations.
Hibernate can now be a deployment option, of several JPA implementations; it doesn't have to be coupled to one's code.
I used to work for the Aussie provider of yellow pages. They were very afraid of losing market share to google.
In addition to making a search engine that integrated with white/yellow pages and general web they bought one of the local street directory companies for maps.
Their pitch was that they had all the directory information for homes and businesses through their print media and could provide Australia specific content all from the one web address.
But if Google employ slick marketing and use smart salespeople then such giants of printed phone books are definitely in trouble, even in the online space.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck
on
Define - /etc?
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· Score: 1
It depends. One 1000+ employee company I worked at supplied desktops for the chained-to-the-desk drones (myself included) and ThinkPads for others. They would buy the same model in bulk so as to only have to support one or two disk images.
The sales reps ran the same disk image as everyone else in the company.
Every version of software had to be tested thoroughly before deployment. They switched from NT4 to XP only for USB peripheral support and that newer revisions of laptops did have some problems under NT4.
Getting new software installed was a pain as it required updating the disk image. You want Java 1.4 installed on these machines? They already have 1.2! Fill in a form.
Someone else mentioned the possibility of upgrading, for security purposes, from Win98 and MS Office to that same version of Office under ubuntu & wine. Problem is most of the sysadmins and support personnel would only know Windows and Novell networks - let alone the users.
It's an issue of browsers not implementing the current standards fully nor correctly.
Browsers are still playing catchup to full XHTML/CSS compliance.
'Javascript' is a moving target, with incompatible dialects in each browser. ECMA standardized the language some years back but vendors keep adding new features that aren't available in other browsers yet.
It would be nice if web designers could at least use a baseline of available web standards of 2006 and know that all the major browsers would support them correctly. i.e. CSS2.x, ECMA-262 v3 and E4X.
Sadly, today's web applications tend to implement workarounds specific to IE and firefox (gmail for example), leaving other browsers as unsupported.
So it's not about designing websites to run with any browser that will ever exist in the future but a battle creating ones that run using the standards of today.:( IE 6 is 5 1/2 years old and should be regarded as a legacy platform.
The typical Slashdot user is something of a power user.
I replaced my parents' machine with a 2nd hand PC of this vintage (1999?) about 18 months ago. It's adequate for their needs.
But for me, the hard disk is too slow, it doesn't have USB 2, the on board intel graphics don't draw terribly quickly. 256MB is adequate for Word 97 and basic browsing in Firefox. Just don't swap on this machine or the virtual memory becomes painful.
I'm not a gamer but would quickly become frustrated with a machine of these specs. My main machine at less than half that age, 3 1/2 years old, is fast by comparison.
The truly useful stuff, the class libraries, will be available later this year.
Rome wasn't built in a day...
In the meantime, you can install java with apt, even if it isn't 'free' yet:
Installing Sun Java on Debian. Note that this page may be a little out of date. I'm running JDK 6 under Ubuntu Feisty. The relevant Java packages are sun-java6-*
Before you switch, ask yourself about the current environment. Is the office an agreeable environment? Do you find the work challenging? Are you motivated? Are there experienced wise older folk to learn from? Does the company treat people well and have sound finances?
These are questions that should stimulate you to think about whether you are happy working there. The grass isn't always greener. The money might be better but this is only one consideration. Working with quality people, learning new skills and technologies, knowing a project has a good chance of success, knowing the company will be around in 6 months are other factors.
Not every project will be a success. Have backup plans for when your team do all get shafted. Perhaps you could say to the boss at the other company "I'm content in my current job but if the situation changes..."
As you're just starting out and earning good money (relative to the rest of the population, perhaps not in your industry just yet) don't be afraid to spend it. Serious stuff like a spouse, mortgage and kids can wait. Travel, see the world. Many contractors enjoy the freedom of working for 6-12 months and then taking a break. 4 weeks annual leave in a permanent job? Once you get over to the other side of the world, 4 weeks is gone in an instant.
Some perspective on what motivates you is more important than worrying about whether you should have taken a 'dream job' or not. My advice, unless you are really offered a huge wad of extra cash, stay in a job while you enjoy it. Patience...
The best thing going for MS is that Gnome, and shortly KDE, run on MS.
Well embracing 'free' software is a double edged sword for MS. In the short term people stay with Windows but ultimately provides a migration path:
It helps the portability of GTK+ (gnome) and Qt4 (KDE) by exposing dependencies on X11, glibc and various Linuxisms that have crept into the codebase. (Porting to other Unix variants and architectures helps no doubt, too).
It increases adoption of free software. If KOffice runs seamlessly on Windows then the underlying operation system becomes largely irrelevant
A majority of participants on this forum may be in the minority of general users in having chosen to install an OS other than Windows on one of their machines. But for the rest of the population they generally run Windows for some of the following reasons:
An OEM version came with the computer
It runs all the software they can get their hands on from the net or friends. [next door neighbours were complaining about viruses this week! ]
Corporate policy
If they end up running non-MS/non commercial free software alternatives such as Mozilla/OpenOffice/KOffice under Windows because they're free($), their next PC mightn't use Windows. Certainly this could be a migration strategy for corporate departments wanting to switch to free platforms.
I haven't visited the Arabic world but my encounters with Moorish craftsmanship in Spain have been awe-inspiring.
Don't miss Granada's Alhambra, a breath-taking treasure and not just for the intricate artwork.
There are a number of books, I'll let you browse Amazon at your leisure, on the beauty of Islamic art. One I purchased explores the mathematics behind the designs, Keith Critchlow's "Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach". It explains how patterns emerge from arcs and intersections of polygons. Further, Critchlow argues that for the Muslim these patterns displayed a spiritual aspect, that the wonder experienced at looking at these patterns pales in comparison to the complex thoughts behind their creation.
Alas, if only there were more hours in the day I'd try reproducing them via Java2D or OpenGL. Fascinating stuff.
I don't see why if properly done it wouldn't scale if outsourced to one of bigger players such as google.
Much of the US doesn't vote or wouldn't be comfortable with new technology anyway...
But make it an option. Postal votes, or absentee votes are a nuisance when traveling with no fixed address. As a citizen of a continent in the southern hemisphere, my experience was only certain embassies/consulates offered voting on the day. e.g. why in Switzerland but not Europe's third biggest city, Madrid?
You raise valid points about needing to test before deployment. Though remind me why Al Gore isn't President? I seem to remember the paper voting system stuffed up.
You could be right. I do know that Labor governments under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating were keen to project Australia as a progressive independent nation. I remember in the early '80s we stopped from singing 'God save the Queen' at primary school assembly as an example of this.
I think, from memory, Viv Richards was knighted by Antigua and not Buckingham Palace. But be careful what you wish for, otherwise you might get "Sir Eddie, media mogul"!
Where I'm from, they award the Order of Australia instead of knighthoods.
A concession to 'republicans' that, while we're still a constitutional monarchy, like Canada we don't need to bother her majesty with bestowing national awards.
Slashdot Mirror
In Australia, another member of 'the coalition of the willing', "it's all about the economy, stupid!"
Effectively the government has been able to get away with anything and in fact was returned with a majority of both houses of parliament. So long as voters are distracted by paying off mortgages and feeling safe from terror an impotent opposition is no threat. Hence issues such as civil liberties, human rights, the environment etc are swept under the carpet.
Opposition to government policy is branded as 'loony left' and 'un-Australian'.
However, there's election soon.
Ah Queen Liz, that nice old lady who wishes us a Merry Christmas on TV each year...
Give me hard statistics of significant legislation she's vetoed during the Blair regime and I'll concede she wields any real power.
To clarify, EJB3 uses the Java Persistence API. Hibernate's creator had a hand in designing these.
JPA is used as a layer above ORM implementations such as TopLink and Hibernate.
Using JPA, perhaps. Hibernate has a specific implementation of JPA, as does TopLink.
Gavin King, Hibernate visionary, had a hand in designing the JPA through his role on the EJB3 committee.
Using an implementation-neutral API for ORM enables flexibility. One can choose from multiple J2EE servers, servlet engines, databases and now JPA implementations.
Hibernate can now be a deployment option, of several JPA implementations; it doesn't have to be coupled to one's code.
Apple once embedded System 6.0.3 in the Macintosh Classic ROM. This was in 512K and allowed the user to boot when their boot media was corrupted.
So fitting Linux into 2 meg is hardly surprising. Being flash it can be updated, obviously, highlighting the limited usefulness of the Mac solution.
I used to work for the Aussie provider of yellow pages. They were very afraid of losing market share to google.
In addition to making a search engine that integrated with white/yellow pages and general web they bought one of the local street directory companies for maps.
Their pitch was that they had all the directory information for homes and businesses through their print media and could provide Australia specific content all from the one web address.
But if Google employ slick marketing and use smart salespeople then such giants of printed phone books are definitely in trouble, even in the online space.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
It depends. One 1000+ employee company I worked at supplied desktops for the chained-to-the-desk drones (myself included) and ThinkPads for others. They would buy the same model in bulk so as to only have to support one or two disk images.
The sales reps ran the same disk image as everyone else in the company.
Every version of software had to be tested thoroughly before deployment. They switched from NT4 to XP only for USB peripheral support and that newer revisions of laptops did have some problems under NT4.
Getting new software installed was a pain as it required updating the disk image. You want Java 1.4 installed on these machines? They already have 1.2! Fill in a form.
Someone else mentioned the possibility of upgrading, for security purposes, from Win98 and MS Office to that same version of Office under ubuntu & wine. Problem is most of the sysadmins and support personnel would only know Windows and Novell networks - let alone the users.
Browsers are still playing catchup to full XHTML/CSS compliance.
'Javascript' is a moving target, with incompatible dialects in each browser. ECMA standardized the language some years back but vendors keep adding new features that aren't available in other browsers yet.
It would be nice if web designers could at least use a baseline of available web standards of 2006 and know that all the major browsers would support them correctly. i.e. CSS2.x, ECMA-262 v3 and E4X.
Sadly, today's web applications tend to implement workarounds specific to IE and firefox (gmail for example), leaving other browsers as unsupported.
So it's not about designing websites to run with any browser that will ever exist in the future but a battle creating ones that run using the standards of today. :( IE 6 is 5 1/2 years old and should be regarded as a legacy platform.
The typical Slashdot user is something of a power user.
I replaced my parents' machine with a 2nd hand PC of this vintage (1999?) about 18 months ago. It's adequate for their needs.
But for me, the hard disk is too slow, it doesn't have USB 2, the on board intel graphics don't draw terribly quickly. 256MB is adequate for Word 97 and basic browsing in Firefox. Just don't swap on this machine or the virtual memory becomes painful.
I'm not a gamer but would quickly become frustrated with a machine of these specs. My main machine at less than half that age, 3 1/2 years old, is fast by comparison.
The truly useful stuff, the class libraries, will be available later this year.
Rome wasn't built in a day...
In the meantime, you can install java with apt, even if it isn't 'free' yet:
Installing Sun Java on Debian. Note that this page may be a little out of date. I'm running JDK 6 under Ubuntu Feisty. The relevant Java packages are sun-java6-*
Before you switch, ask yourself about the current environment. Is the office an agreeable environment? Do you find the work challenging? Are you motivated? Are there experienced wise older folk to learn from? Does the company treat people well and have sound finances?
These are questions that should stimulate you to think about whether you are happy working there. The grass isn't always greener. The money might be better but this is only one consideration. Working with quality people, learning new skills and technologies, knowing a project has a good chance of success, knowing the company will be around in 6 months are other factors.
Not every project will be a success. Have backup plans for when your team do all get shafted. Perhaps you could say to the boss at the other company "I'm content in my current job but if the situation changes..."
As you're just starting out and earning good money (relative to the rest of the population, perhaps not in your industry just yet) don't be afraid to spend it. Serious stuff like a spouse, mortgage and kids can wait. Travel, see the world. Many contractors enjoy the freedom of working for 6-12 months and then taking a break. 4 weeks annual leave in a permanent job? Once you get over to the other side of the world, 4 weeks is gone in an instant.
Some perspective on what motivates you is more important than worrying about whether you should have taken a 'dream job' or not. My advice, unless you are really offered a huge wad of extra cash, stay in a job while you enjoy it. Patience...
Well embracing 'free' software is a double edged sword for MS. In the short term people stay with Windows but ultimately provides a migration path:
-
It helps the portability of GTK+ (gnome) and Qt4 (KDE) by exposing dependencies on X11, glibc and various Linuxisms that have crept into the codebase. (Porting to other Unix variants and architectures helps no doubt, too).
- It increases adoption of free software. If KOffice runs seamlessly on Windows then the underlying operation system becomes largely irrelevant
A majority of participants on this forum may be in the minority of general users in having chosen to install an OS other than Windows on one of their machines. But for the rest of the population they generally run Windows for some of the following reasons:If they end up running non-MS/non commercial free software alternatives such as Mozilla/OpenOffice/KOffice under Windows because they're free($), their next PC mightn't use Windows. Certainly this could be a migration strategy for corporate departments wanting to switch to free platforms.
P.P.S. What is an appropriate collective term to substitute for 'Yanks'?
'US Citizen' is cumbersome. 'American' can describe residents of North, Central or South America.
cf. Canadians are 'Canucks', English are 'Poms', Australians are 'Aussies' and New Zealanders are 'Kiwis'.
I haven't visited the Arabic world but my encounters with Moorish craftsmanship in Spain have been awe-inspiring.
Don't miss Granada's Alhambra, a breath-taking treasure and not just for the intricate artwork.
There are a number of books, I'll let you browse Amazon at your leisure, on the beauty of Islamic art. One I purchased explores the mathematics behind the designs, Keith Critchlow's "Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach". It explains how patterns emerge from arcs and intersections of polygons. Further, Critchlow argues that for the Muslim these patterns displayed a spiritual aspect, that the wonder experienced at looking at these patterns pales in comparison to the complex thoughts behind their creation.
Alas, if only there were more hours in the day I'd try reproducing them via Java2D or OpenGL. Fascinating stuff.
I know you're an alien mole but I thought my user name would be a clue.
There I was thinking Beowulf was from Dark Ages Scandinavia.
Never mind, perhaps I'm new here.
I don't see why if properly done it wouldn't scale if outsourced to one of bigger players such as google.
Much of the US doesn't vote or wouldn't be comfortable with new technology anyway...
But make it an option. Postal votes, or absentee votes are a nuisance when traveling with no fixed address. As a citizen of a continent in the southern hemisphere, my experience was only certain embassies/consulates offered voting on the day. e.g. why in Switzerland but not Europe's third biggest city, Madrid?
Vote 1 Robin Williams, I say. :-)
You could be right. I do know that Labor governments under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating were keen to project Australia as a progressive independent nation. I remember in the early '80s we stopped from singing 'God save the Queen' at primary school assembly as an example of this.
I think, from memory, Viv Richards was knighted by Antigua and not Buckingham Palace. But be careful what you wish for, otherwise you might get "Sir Eddie, media mogul"!
As for the JDK, sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk should cover it.
Where I'm from, they award the Order of Australia instead of knighthoods.
A concession to 'republicans' that, while we're still a constitutional monarchy, like Canada we don't need to bother her majesty with bestowing national awards.
Well... the Wikipedia page you link to mentions Steele was born in Missouri, USA.
So unless he changes citizenship, he's most likely ineligible for this particular award.