Well first off the judge didn't do his homework. Its not like there's some switch that can be flipped and all of a sudden the memory where a file was stored is filled with zeros when its deleted. The idea of just altering the record that points to where the file was in memory is engrained into almost every filesystem on the planet. We would need to change code in the filesystem to do a "real" delete and that would take time and effort. I kinda doubt this judge wants to do it. Also, even though its been brought up before in parts...people who really want to delete things permanently know how to do it. If you don't know how...then don't keep anything incriminating on your hard drive.
To everyone stating that they will NOT pay for Napster: "Its $4.95 a month! I'd be more than willing to pay that for Napster services. Have we all become such freeloaders that we can't even shell out five bucks a month to use software someone else wrote, requires servers someone else paid for and maintains to give us access to music someone else wrote, played and produced. I think $4.95 would be quite a bargin considering the time and energy that went into your download of an mp3."
To everyone who said they would pay $4.95 a month for Napster: "I agree with you as if you couldn't tell from the above rant"
It also could be a scary thing. Love or hate copyrights many of us who read/. regularly depend on our employer's "trade secrets" to keep our employers competitive and checks in our bank accounts. If this goes too far no product will be safe.
Copyright regulations exist for other purposes than preventing you from listing to MP3's and decoding DVD's ya know.
Sorry as I am not a fan of his OS I still must defend Bill Gate's position on the list. I've read the article and it's titled: "The 10 Most Important People of the Decade", not "Top 10 Most Important Tech People of the Decade" as/. has it listed. If it were the argument could be made that since Bill is a CEO and not really a "tech" person he shouldn't be there but as the article is titled he should be. So many readers are quick to gun on the M$ OS's but they are so quick to forget and deny that they probably got their start on PCs running a M$ OS. Do we still run them, no most likely not but as poor as we may think his product is, Mr. Gates did get most of us started on the path we're on.
As an everyday computer user: "I thank Mr. Gates for giving me a fairly easy to use operating system to cut my teeth on"
As an educated software engineer: "Mr. Gates we need to talk about that pile you call an OS...."
Yes Bill did something....he didn't really make anything personally but he did put market an OS that put a PC in over 75% of the homes in America. Like it or not technology NEEDS marketing and deployment to live.
And I challange any/. reader between 18 and 25 to prove to me that they didn't get their start on PC's using one of Bill's OS's. I kinda doubt at age 19 many of the readers gunning on Bill now were compiling and hand bootstraping thier linux boxes.
And to futher torpedo your argument...Linus did do something......he ripped off Andrew Tannebaum.
I'm sorry to sound so cynical but I've had it with the glorification of the hacker. What everyone, including Mr. Goldstein, keeps forgetting is that it is ILLEGAL. Irregardless of what you do when you "hack", tell the sysadmin, report the hole, whatever you committed a crime by gaining that entry. If you're such a concerned citizen, setup servers in your own home and hack those...leave everyone else alone. White hat hackers think they are doing a great service, and yes their results are useful but thier methods are questionable in my mind. I like to think of myself as an ethical person and "hacking" however you define it is not really an ethical behavior. If I'm wrong, tell me and defend your answer but remember this....its not illegal for no good reason.
There are a ton of people out there who care, but don't care enough to write a letter so if you are planning to write one do this: write a petition and find everyone who won't write a letter and have them sign it. Congressional leaders react mildly to piles of mail, they react with attitude when there's a HUGE list of names they've got to deal with. This way those who won't write a letter still influnce the vote and it has an almost identical impact.
Ok I guess we've all decided to give up the 'right tool for the right job' idea and ram linux down the throat of every system and every problem:
Ok guys, we bought this company that seems to be doing ok and we want to drive it into the ground as fast as possible. Suggestions?
So if they don't use Linux, its bound to fail is that what you're trying to say? Solaris is a great operating system and for some things its better, yes I said better, than Linux. Is Linux better than Solaris at other things, yes it is. But I've yet to read a post in the comments that has any insightful revelations as to why Linux is better than Solaris on the Cobalt machines. Just a lot of Linux hype. I'll back up the fact that maybe they should go to Solaris with some facts:
1. Sun will stand behind and support their OS with one of the worlds largest software engineering force. If a customer had a problem with the Linux OS what would their options have been? Post to a newsgroup? 'Ask Slashdot'?
2. Solaris has tools that make developing operating system level software for a new platform that Linux can only dream of right now...ie the Solaris Kernel level debugger.
3. Solaris is proven. While this is some fact and some opinion the truth remains Solaris/SunOS were running stable and secure servers when 99.995% of the world had yet to hear of Linus Torvalds.
It just really disheartens me when I hear everyone screaming how monopolistic Microsoft is and how blindly people follow them and then I read comments as I did here. For those of you who made comments like the one I quoted above without fact to back it up, you're no better than the M$ fools you make fun of on these very pages. Blind advocacy does nothing to support the OS you're so fond of. For those of you who did use reason and facts to back up your comment/opinion on the subject, I apologize for the rant.
And for the record, I do use Linux at home and encourage Solaris usage for the servers at work.
A customer premise router isn't really all that necessary with ADSL service. Thanks to the line sharing ruling set down by the FCC a few months ago the ILEC controlling your line has to allow a CLEC to use portions of the frequency band that isn't necessary for voice service, 0 ~ 3 kHz or so. So a CLEC uses 10kHz and up for ADSL and the only equipment you need on the customer side is a filter that can plug into the wall to elimate the high frequency ADSL on a phone line and the low frequency voice on a ADSL line. Then a DSL "modem" to do the DSP on the customer end can be installed right into a computer or set next to one and you're online. The provider has their choice of equipment for testing the physical line and for testing from the DSLAM outwards towards the internet. If both of these check out then a problem is localized to the customer's computer already. The difference between these tests and giving everyone a router is first the router is something else the customer can screw up, they require configuration which can get fowled up and they require power which the customer can terminate and second DSL providers normally do routining tests on the lines, checking them nightly or weekly for faults, you can't do this with a ping test as you cannot assume that the customer's router is even powered on when the test is run. And being that no matter the CP equipment networking and/or hardware configurations are going to need to be setup on the customer's computer, you're always going to have the Microsoft users' pleas for help.....that cost is built into your subscription.
First off if you're in Verizon's (formerly GTE and Bell Atlantic) territory you can expect a delay. They are still recovering from a nasty worker strike that popped up after the merger. As I recall they were shuffling techs from all around the country to the points most hit by the strike and they are now trying to get that whole mess cleaned up. Also as for one provider saying 'yes' to DSL while another says 'no' the only difference is how optimistic the provider is. The sad fact is that the ILECs' (Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier) records on the copper plant are on average 50% accurate. Most providers are using these records to estimate based on the recorded line length the possibilities of DSL service. The problem with this is that the line may have deterioriated, have a minor metalic fault on it or they may have placed a load coil on the line and not recorded it in thier database. Any of these things will impair, or block in the case of a load coil, DSL service. The only way to be sure is to ask the provider where they are getting the information they are using to qualify your line for DSL. If they say they are using the ILEC's records, be wary. If they are using a loop qualifier, ie a product from TollGrade or Teradyne, to properly qualify and provision a line you can be a little more sure of their estimate. Best bet: have them run a new line. It'll take longer, probably be more expensive but in the long run its the best option.
I have to agree with what they are doing to a point. I can understand blocking email, nearly anonymous message sources can be a dangerous thing. They are perfect for people making threats or harassing statements without much fear of being caught. There is also the risk of some spammer catching the address the email is coming from and then the library has to deal with that increased bandwidth, admittedly this is not a top concern but more of a notable. I also understand filtering some content. Put the flames away and let me explain. There are definitely sites on the internet I don't want some perv at a library viewing while someone wanting to use the computer for school based work or research should wait...persiankitty.com comes to mind. I'd also hate to have a child of mine be strolling the library and be exposed to adult content because captain hard-on walked away from his terminal to refill his coffee. The library is still a public place after all. I've heard all the arguments about the filters not being perfect and yadda yadda but I'd rather they used what's available rather than "trusting" people to use the computers in an acceptable manner. There's good reason we have rules and laws rather than saying "we trust people" and that's because not all people can be trusted.
Yeah it must be great to be 20 years old and making $70K....but in two years when that 20 year old is 22 and looking for a raise, guess what? They'll get replaced by another 20 year old happy to make $70K. The goal of a formal, collegiate education is not to fill you with bleeding edge technology information. Its to provide a base for those students to learn those bleeding edge skills faster and apply them better than the 20 year old who took the webmaster position. Those with a formal education are desired in workplace, put the flames away I'm talking overall, because they have fundamental knowledge not just a single usefull skill. Sure I paid a lot to get my education and it irks me when someone younger than me is making more money than me doing CGI or Sysadmin work but if I get fed up with my job, I can take my education, go elsewhere and do whatever I want. The 20 year old webmaster could leave his job and go.......be a webmaster somewhere else.
many of whom assumed that if the music was available, it was OK to download it
Point: ignorance of the law is not / was not / can not be justification for breaking the law, and that is the law. If some "kid" downloaded a Metallica mp3 and did not know it was wrong to do so, then maybe the parents should be held responsible for not keeping tabs on their child.
The internet was not meant to be annonymous so users could do as they please without recourse. If I break the law on the internet I fully expect to be tracked down and punished appropriately and if your interests ever get violated on the internet I can assure you that you would want the same to happen.
I am finishing up my undergrad at an engineering school that instituted a "Laptop Requirement" for all incoming freshmen this year. The result was the lowest fall and winter GPA's the school has seen in a a freshmen class in over 10 years!! A large percentage of the freshmen class use the laptops for IRC/AIM chat or web browsing during lecture when they should be paying attention. I'm not in any way against manditory laptop requirements....just limit the network connectivity in lecture halls.
Its been my experience that employers want you in the office for the first few weeks of your employment so they know the time it takes you to get things done. Also they usually would like you in the office one or two full days a week if you have meetings and the like, not just coming in for the meeting and leaving.
From what I have found, writing a serial driver from scratch is about the easiest device driver to write. It also can be written using a polling or interrupt based method so you'll get experience with both. Anything more complex would probably take more time to write from scratch than it would be worth in a class.
Slashdot Mirror
Well first off the judge didn't do his homework. Its not like there's some switch that can be flipped and all of a sudden the memory where a file was stored is filled with zeros when its deleted. The idea of just altering the record that points to where the file was in memory is engrained into almost every filesystem on the planet. We would need to change code in the filesystem to do a "real" delete and that would take time and effort. I kinda doubt this judge wants to do it. Also, even though its been brought up before in parts...people who really want to delete things permanently know how to do it. If you don't know how...then don't keep anything incriminating on your hard drive.
To everyone stating that they will NOT pay for Napster: "Its $4.95 a month! I'd be more than willing to pay that for Napster services. Have we all become such freeloaders that we can't even shell out five bucks a month to use software someone else wrote, requires servers someone else paid for and maintains to give us access to music someone else wrote, played and produced. I think $4.95 would be quite a bargin considering the time and energy that went into your download of an mp3."
To everyone who said they would pay $4.95 a month for Napster: "I agree with you as if you couldn't tell from the above rant"
It also could be a scary thing. Love or hate copyrights many of us who read /. regularly depend on our employer's "trade secrets" to keep our employers competitive and checks in our bank accounts. If this goes too far no product will be safe.
Copyright regulations exist for other purposes than preventing you from listing to MP3's and decoding DVD's ya know.
Sorry as I am not a fan of his OS I still must defend Bill Gate's position on the list. I've read the article and it's titled: "The 10 Most Important People of the Decade", not "Top 10 Most Important Tech People of the Decade" as /. has it listed. If it were the argument could be made that since Bill is a CEO and not really a "tech" person he shouldn't be there but as the article is titled he should be. So many readers are quick to gun on the M$ OS's but they are so quick to forget and deny that they probably got their start on PCs running a M$ OS. Do we still run them, no most likely not but as poor as we may think his product is, Mr. Gates did get most of us started on the path we're on.
As an everyday computer user: "I thank Mr. Gates for giving me a fairly easy to use operating system to cut my teeth on"
As an educated software engineer: "Mr. Gates we need to talk about that pile you call an OS...."
Yes Bill did something....he didn't really make anything personally but he did put market an OS that put a PC in over 75% of the homes in America. Like it or not technology NEEDS marketing and deployment to live.
/. reader between 18 and 25 to prove to me that they didn't get their start on PC's using one of Bill's OS's. I kinda doubt at age 19 many of the readers gunning on Bill now were compiling and hand bootstraping thier linux boxes.
And I challange any
And to futher torpedo your argument...Linus did do something......he ripped off Andrew Tannebaum.
I'm sorry to sound so cynical but I've had it with the glorification of the hacker. What everyone, including Mr. Goldstein, keeps forgetting is that it is ILLEGAL. Irregardless of what you do when you "hack", tell the sysadmin, report the hole, whatever you committed a crime by gaining that entry. If you're such a concerned citizen, setup servers in your own home and hack those...leave everyone else alone. White hat hackers think they are doing a great service, and yes their results are useful but thier methods are questionable in my mind. I like to think of myself as an ethical person and "hacking" however you define it is not really an ethical behavior. If I'm wrong, tell me and defend your answer but remember this....its not illegal for no good reason.
There are a ton of people out there who care, but don't care enough to write a letter so if you are planning to write one do this: write a petition and find everyone who won't write a letter and have them sign it. Congressional leaders react mildly to piles of mail, they react with attitude when there's a HUGE list of names they've got to deal with. This way those who won't write a letter still influnce the vote and it has an almost identical impact.
Ok I guess we've all decided to give up the 'right tool for the right job' idea and ram linux down the throat of every system and every problem:
Ok guys, we bought this company that seems to be doing ok and we want to drive it into the ground as fast as possible. Suggestions?
So if they don't use Linux, its bound to fail is that what you're trying to say? Solaris is a great operating system and for some things its better, yes I said better, than Linux. Is Linux better than Solaris at other things, yes it is. But I've yet to read a post in the comments that has any insightful revelations as to why Linux is better than Solaris on the Cobalt machines. Just a lot of Linux hype. I'll back up the fact that maybe they should go to Solaris with some facts:
1. Sun will stand behind and support their OS with one of the worlds largest software engineering force. If a customer had a problem with the Linux OS what would their options have been? Post to a newsgroup? 'Ask Slashdot'?
2. Solaris has tools that make developing operating system level software for a new platform that Linux can only dream of right now...ie the Solaris Kernel level debugger.
3. Solaris is proven. While this is some fact and some opinion the truth remains Solaris/SunOS were running stable and secure servers when 99.995% of the world had yet to hear of Linus Torvalds.
It just really disheartens me when I hear everyone screaming how monopolistic Microsoft is and how blindly people follow them and then I read comments as I did here. For those of you who made comments like the one I quoted above without fact to back it up, you're no better than the M$ fools you make fun of on these very pages. Blind advocacy does nothing to support the OS you're so fond of. For those of you who did use reason and facts to back up your comment/opinion on the subject, I apologize for the rant.
And for the record, I do use Linux at home and encourage Solaris usage for the servers at work.
A customer premise router isn't really all that necessary with ADSL service. Thanks to the line sharing ruling set down by the FCC a few months ago the ILEC controlling your line has to allow a CLEC to use portions of the frequency band that isn't necessary for voice service, 0 ~ 3 kHz or so. So a CLEC uses 10kHz and up for ADSL and the only equipment you need on the customer side is a filter that can plug into the wall to elimate the high frequency ADSL on a phone line and the low frequency voice on a ADSL line. Then a DSL "modem" to do the DSP on the customer end can be installed right into a computer or set next to one and you're online. The provider has their choice of equipment for testing the physical line and for testing from the DSLAM outwards towards the internet. If both of these check out then a problem is localized to the customer's computer already. The difference between these tests and giving everyone a router is first the router is something else the customer can screw up, they require configuration which can get fowled up and they require power which the customer can terminate and second DSL providers normally do routining tests on the lines, checking them nightly or weekly for faults, you can't do this with a ping test as you cannot assume that the customer's router is even powered on when the test is run. And being that no matter the CP equipment networking and/or hardware configurations are going to need to be setup on the customer's computer, you're always going to have the Microsoft users' pleas for help.....that cost is built into your subscription.
First off if you're in Verizon's (formerly GTE and Bell Atlantic) territory you can expect a delay. They are still recovering from a nasty worker strike that popped up after the merger. As I recall they were shuffling techs from all around the country to the points most hit by the strike and they are now trying to get that whole mess cleaned up. Also as for one provider saying 'yes' to DSL while another says 'no' the only difference is how optimistic the provider is. The sad fact is that the ILECs' (Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier) records on the copper plant are on average 50% accurate. Most providers are using these records to estimate based on the recorded line length the possibilities of DSL service. The problem with this is that the line may have deterioriated, have a minor metalic fault on it or they may have placed a load coil on the line and not recorded it in thier database. Any of these things will impair, or block in the case of a load coil, DSL service. The only way to be sure is to ask the provider where they are getting the information they are using to qualify your line for DSL. If they say they are using the ILEC's records, be wary. If they are using a loop qualifier, ie a product from TollGrade or Teradyne, to properly qualify and provision a line you can be a little more sure of their estimate. Best bet: have them run a new line. It'll take longer, probably be more expensive but in the long run its the best option.
I have to agree with what they are doing to a point. I can understand blocking email, nearly anonymous message sources can be a dangerous thing. They are perfect for people making threats or harassing statements without much fear of being caught. There is also the risk of some spammer catching the address the email is coming from and then the library has to deal with that increased bandwidth, admittedly this is not a top concern but more of a notable. I also understand filtering some content. Put the flames away and let me explain. There are definitely sites on the internet I don't want some perv at a library viewing while someone wanting to use the computer for school based work or research should wait...persiankitty.com comes to mind. I'd also hate to have a child of mine be strolling the library and be exposed to adult content because captain hard-on walked away from his terminal to refill his coffee. The library is still a public place after all. I've heard all the arguments about the filters not being perfect and yadda yadda but I'd rather they used what's available rather than "trusting" people to use the computers in an acceptable manner. There's good reason we have rules and laws rather than saying "we trust people" and that's because not all people can be trusted.
Yeah it must be great to be 20 years old and making $70K....but in two years when that 20 year old is 22 and looking for a raise, guess what? They'll get replaced by another 20 year old happy to make $70K. The goal of a formal, collegiate education is not to fill you with bleeding edge technology information. Its to provide a base for those students to learn those bleeding edge skills faster and apply them better than the 20 year old who took the webmaster position. Those with a formal education are desired in workplace, put the flames away I'm talking overall, because they have fundamental knowledge not just a single usefull skill. Sure I paid a lot to get my education and it irks me when someone younger than me is making more money than me doing CGI or Sysadmin work but if I get fed up with my job, I can take my education, go elsewhere and do whatever I want. The 20 year old webmaster could leave his job and go.......be a webmaster somewhere else.
I still haven't met an O'Reilly book I didn't like.
:)
You obviously never read UML in a Nutshell
If the link in the story doesn't work for you, ie you don't see anything about R2D2, try this instead.
many of whom assumed that if the music was available, it was OK to download it
Point: ignorance of the law is not / was not / can not be justification for breaking the law, and that is the law. If some "kid" downloaded a Metallica mp3 and did not know it was wrong to do so, then maybe the parents should be held responsible for not keeping tabs on their child.
The internet was not meant to be annonymous so users could do as they please without recourse. If I break the law on the internet I fully expect to be tracked down and punished appropriately and if your interests ever get violated on the internet I can assure you that you would want the same to happen.
I am finishing up my undergrad at an engineering school that instituted a "Laptop Requirement" for all incoming freshmen this year. The result was the lowest fall and winter GPA's the school has seen in a a freshmen class in over 10 years!! A large percentage of the freshmen class use the laptops for IRC/AIM chat or web browsing during lecture when they should be paying attention. I'm not in any way against manditory laptop requirements....just limit the network connectivity in lecture halls.
Its been my experience that employers want you in the office for the first few weeks of your employment so they know the time it takes you to get things done. Also they usually would like you in the office one or two full days a week if you have meetings and the like, not just coming in for the meeting and leaving.
From what I have found, writing a serial driver from scratch is about the easiest device driver to write. It also can be written using a polling or interrupt based method so you'll get experience with both. Anything more complex would probably take more time to write from scratch than it would be worth in a class.