You can install TrueCrypt as an admin, and then you can use it without admin rights on that machine.
or
You can also not install anything, and just start it ("traveler mode"), but it must then be able to add it's driver when starting. And that needs admin rights.
So unless the OS already knows about that driver, you do need admin rights.
It made me wonder too. The only name which appears in Cringely's column is Tomas Svitek, whose LinkedIn profile doesn't mention anything about the X-Prize.
This is the spacefellowship.com version from 2006:
Beginning with a PhD from Caltech, he was a systems engineer on the NASA Mars Scout, Mars Surveyor, Mars Sample Return and various Discovery Missions. [...] He was the Principal Scientist for Orbital Sciences Corporation, Project Leader for the BlastOff Lunar Lander project with Jim Cameron and AeroAstro's miniature spacecraft project. He has managed and completed projects for NASA, the US Air Force Research Lab, Microcosm Incorporated, and SpaceX Corporation. Until recently, he held the position of lead engineer for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origins Crew Capsule.
Our Program Manager is Tomas Svitek, who has a PhD from Caltech, was a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the NASA Mars Scout, Mars Surveyor, Mars Sample Return and various Discovery Missions. He was the Principal Scientist for Orbital Sciences Corp., Project Leader for the BlastOff Lunar Lander project and AeroAstro's miniature spacecraft project. He has managed and completed projects for NASA, the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, Microcosm Inc., and SpaceX Corp.. He was lead engineer for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origins crew capsule and has long run his own space consulting company in California.
This week, there is not a word about the X-Prize in his column. I have some doubts now, but hope that that project is still alive and was not just some thin air.
As a former Eudora user, I don't care for graphics that would make Thunderbird look like Eudora. What I miss is a lot of Eudora functionality, not it's (rather ugly) looks.
- Powerful and easy search - Powerful and easy filtering - Automatic "detachment" of attachments - Mailbox windows kept inside the program window - Primitive (but good for me) multi-language spell check (it just aggregates the installed dictionaries, so there is no annoying need to change the language, and you can mix languages in a single email)
And as an IT person:
- No install (you can copy the program folder to anywhere and just double-click the.exe; add a folder argument, and the mails and settings are in that folder)
- The x-eudora-option:... system: clickable configuration changes which I can send to people and keep a collection of for new installs. (see http://www.geocities.com/x_eudora_options/)
I have no mod points today, so someone please mod the parent up from 0 points. His example is perfect, and people who know Perl can think of hundreds like this one.
I totally agree that the linguist's design made Perl much more readable than many other languages. Provided the author actually knows Perl, and cares to write in a readable way. And also much less boring and more creative, as a side-effect.
What/who are these "online sexual predators" anyway? What is this thing that we should protect the children from? Has there ever been some serious research into this, which would confirm that it is a problem.
In a few years, I may be afraid that my daughter, when going out, may get into trouble and at worst even be raped if she happens to cross the path of some drunken assholes. Unfortunately, rapes do happen. Whether in big cities or in small towns.
But even that may be (statistically) less of a danger than a car accident.
But this "online sexual predators" hysteria seems to me to be just that. Some completely hysterical fantasy. Of course, there are a few weird people among us. Some (very few) of them even dangerous. But these are dangerous in real life. If children are educated to deal with possible real life problems (which they hopefully are), and understand not to trust strangers and take some elementary precaution in dealing with unknown people, then there is nothing special about online communities.
Aren't there any journalists who report these initiatives as the idiocy they seem to be?
This looks like a great device, and it being open source is definitely a huge advantage. Unfortunately, it lacks AVC (H264) support. I wonder why. Is this related to it's open source nature (are there specific problems with including H264 in an open source device)? And/or may it be hacked on independently?
Also, they only mention NTSC resolution (720x480). That would be a problem in PAL countries (720x576).
look at Lotus Approach. IT should be the envy of Open Source developers who are designing for END-USER accession, not developing for geeks or nerds or power-user-going-programmer. The database application needs to have WOW factor for end-users.
Sorry but I disagree. I don't know Approach, but I have seen many times what happens when "end users" are given an easy to use database (it was always Filemaker). The result is much worse than what the other users do in Excel (because they don't have an easy DB). In Excel, they realize much faster that it doesn't really work and that they need to ask someone for help. With Filemaker, they do not realize it for years. They just keep adding fields and layouts, until nobody can make any sense of it.
Normal "end users" cannot develop databases. The only way to help them is to let them know early enough that they need the help of someone who understands databases. I mean at a very basic level. The problem is that the way humans normally think is completely incompatible with the mechanical rigidity of computer databases.
Yes, Access is for "power users". It's the minimum requirement to build a half decent version of very simple database. They can then do the forms which the end users will see. And they will (hopefully) see quickly enough when they need someone else.
I'm currently running Debian stable on all my servers. Why would I want to get the next with Ubuntu? Would it be just as stable?
The install with netinst is very fast. What takes a long time is all the configuration of the needed services, and customization (backup scripts, various checks and email alerts, etc. In short everything one adds to/etc/cron*). So I wouldn't really gain any time.
Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware. I had to use backports a few times, and that was a hassle. Any other advantage I'm overlooking?
I actually knew someone who definitely needed "print selection". He had never heard of the concept of files, much less folders. He had ONE Word document on his Mac desktop, and only ever typed into that. Then he would select the part he needed and print that. I'm not kidding! Luckily, I was in a hurry and was able to refrain from getting into helping him. Anyway, he didn't want or need help. I have no idea how it ended, and whether eventually someone showed him the light. But maybe he wouldn't have been interested. It worked for him, with all his writings in a single huge Word file...
That's precisely why Access is great. Once you realize the database is still there after a few years and has become important, you keep the Access GUI and move the data out into a "real database".
I can't think of a single good reason to use Access (or Access-like databases). Can somebody tell me what sort of applications would actually call for a wretchedly limited application like that?
I cannot quite understand how you cannot see what Access is used for. When you need a databse application with a GUI, what do you build the GUI with? HTML? That's fine for many tings, as the web demonstrates. But for a real desktop GUI application, what do you suggest instead of Access? Perl/Tk? C++? Visual Basic?
Despite it's horrible VBA scripting, Access is a great tool to build GUI frontend applications. In fact, I think Access is the main reason why many people cannot move from Windows to Mac or Linux. They have a vital Access application, and there is no easy way to replace it. I have several clients with such applications. In some instances, I moved the data to PostgreSQL on a Linux server, but the forms are still in Access.
I'm very much looking forward to an Access alternative.
This may be slightly off-topic, but it may be time to debunk that fallacy about
"when all you want to do is really basic things?"
I hear that all the time from normal users. They just want a simple and cheap computer because all they want to do with it are only very simple things. In fact, what they have in mind with these very basic needs is the following:
- web surfing - email - Word documents - and probably sync their address book with their phone - manage their photos - listen to music - watch DVDs
Web surfing requires: - A recent browser - Acrobat PDF plugin - Flash plugin (+ Shockwave if they have kids) - Quicktime (or Quicktime Alternative) - Real (or Real Alt.)
Word documents requires Office. One would think that could be OpenOffice, but people start sending Office 2007.docx documents around. These simple people with simple computer needs expect to be able to open them and edit them. So they may very soon really need Office 2007
For syncing with their phone, they probably need Outlook anyway
In the end, they need a recent and fast machine, and probably really want Windows and the latest Office on it.
Yes, Lotus bought Samna's Ami Pro, and instead of continuing to update it, they made it into WordPro, incorporated it into Lotus Smartsuite got bought by IBM, and Ami Pro, the best word processor ever, disappeared...
I actually still used Ami Pro until a few years ago, despite it's problems (8.3 file names, outdated (by 10 years!) import/export of.doc, and a few bugs).
I use TextMaker now because it sucks much less than the others overall, but I still regret Ami Pro...
Please refrain from posting meaningless google-translated rubbish. If you want to contribute and know German, write a decent translation or summary. Otherwise, shut up and let someone else do it. We don't need your help and can go to the stupid robot on our own, if we feel like it.
If they reduce everything to the bare minimum, what is that minimum? The plot? Well, if we go that route, we can hear/read/see all stories ever told in half a day. Was it Borges who said there were only about half a dozen possible plots, and then listed them? So what would we do the rest of our lives?
As for operas, in case you didn't know, they are the story of a passion between a soprano and a tenor, with a baritone who disagrees. Now that you know the plot, you can spare yourself weeks of watching/listening to operas. Thank me...
Traditional TCP streams (such as what you get with FTP) top out around 10-20 Mbps.
I have recently observed 50-60 MBYTESps on a Gigabit LAN, between a vanilla Linux FTP server and a Windows client. And that was about the hard disk read limit on the server. Didn't look like a "traditional TCP stream" limit at all. It was a 300 MB. file, filled with random bytes. If I remember correctly, I didn't even enable jumbo frames, because one of the cards couldn't do it.
Of course it has nothing to do with your personality. They are not trying to guess/predict personalities, but roles. Obviously, people have different social roles in different settings. The role of father (to take their first example in the introduction) is not the same as that same person's role as husband/lover/son/employee/whatever. And when he has the father role with a kid he is playing with, it doesn't say anything about his personality. He could be funny or boring, calm or irritable, selfish or not, etc. It's irrelevant. And he doesn't even have to be the kid's father to be in that role. Maybe he is just spending a moment with the neighbor's kid, but he is still in the father's social role at that moment.
I'm not sure ho much power this saves, but on all servers which I install, I use this Debian HOW-TO : CPU power management page. Basically, I do:
aptitude install cpufrequtils sysfsutils cat/proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name" modprobe p4_clockmod ## depends on your CPU! modprobe cpufreq_ondemand echo ondemand >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_gover nor echo p4_clockmod >>/etc/modules ## depends on your CPU! echo cpufreq_ondemand >>/etc/modules echo devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor = ondemand >>/etc/sysctl.conf
And I see my servers run at 350MHz instead of 2.8Ghz. or more.
Of course, these are all small workgroup or very small Internet servers. It would be of no use for a server which would be at the max speed most of the time.
Anyway, I haven't had an opportunity to meter the difference yet to see how much power that really saves. Does someone know?
Slashdot Mirror
You can install TrueCrypt as an admin, and then you can use it without admin rights on that machine.
or
You can also not install anything, and just start it ("traveler mode"), but it must then be able to add it's driver when starting. And that needs admin rights.
So unless the OS already knows about that driver, you do need admin rights.
Also, the part in Cringely's column which talks about him seems to be a copy/paste job from an article about "Orbital Outfitters", a "new company to provide next generation space suits".
This is the spacefellowship.com version from 2006:
And this is Cringely's version one year later:
This week, there is not a word about the X-Prize in his column. I have some doubts now, but hope that that project is still alive and was not just some thin air.
As a former Eudora user, I don't care for graphics that would make Thunderbird look like Eudora. What I miss is a lot of Eudora functionality, not it's (rather ugly) looks.
.exe; add a folder argument, and the mails and settings are in that folder)
- Powerful and easy search
- Powerful and easy filtering
- Automatic "detachment" of attachments
- Mailbox windows kept inside the program window
- Primitive (but good for me) multi-language spell check (it just aggregates the installed dictionaries, so there is no annoying need to change the language, and you can mix languages in a single email)
And as an IT person:
- No install (you can copy the program folder to anywhere and just double-click the
- The x-eudora-option:... system: clickable configuration changes which I can send to people and keep a collection of for new installs. (see http://www.geocities.com/x_eudora_options/)
I have no mod points today, so someone please mod the parent up from 0 points. His example is perfect, and people who know Perl can think of hundreds like this one.
I totally agree that the linguist's design made Perl much more readable than many other languages. Provided the author actually knows Perl, and cares to write in a readable way. And also much less boring and more creative, as a side-effect.
What/who are these "online sexual predators" anyway? What is this thing that we should protect the children from? Has there ever been some serious research into this, which would confirm that it is a problem.
In a few years, I may be afraid that my daughter, when going out, may get into trouble and at worst even be raped if she happens to cross the path of some drunken assholes. Unfortunately, rapes do happen. Whether in big cities or in small towns.
But even that may be (statistically) less of a danger than a car accident.
But this "online sexual predators" hysteria seems to me to be just that. Some completely hysterical fantasy. Of course, there are a few weird people among us. Some (very few) of them even dangerous. But these are dangerous in real life. If children are educated to deal with possible real life problems (which they hopefully are), and understand not to trust strangers and take some elementary precaution in dealing with unknown people, then there is nothing special about online communities.
Aren't there any journalists who report these initiatives as the idiocy they seem to be?
Austrians have known the virtues of antifreeze for quite some time.
"We hope to follow this release by a web site over hall in the next two weeks"
Never seen a web site over a hall before. Would it be displayed on some giant screen?
This looks like a great device, and it being open source is definitely a huge advantage. Unfortunately, it lacks AVC (H264) support. I wonder why. Is this related to it's open source nature (are there specific problems with including H264 in an open source device)? And/or may it be hacked on independently?
Also, they only mention NTSC resolution (720x480). That would be a problem in PAL countries (720x576).
Sorry but I disagree. I don't know Approach, but I have seen many times what happens when "end users" are given an easy to use database (it was always Filemaker). The result is much worse than what the other users do in Excel (because they don't have an easy DB). In Excel, they realize much faster that it doesn't really work and that they need to ask someone for help. With Filemaker, they do not realize it for years. They just keep adding fields and layouts, until nobody can make any sense of it.
Normal "end users" cannot develop databases. The only way to help them is to let them know early enough that they need the help of someone who understands databases. I mean at a very basic level. The problem is that the way humans normally think is completely incompatible with the mechanical rigidity of computer databases.
Yes, Access is for "power users". It's the minimum requirement to build a half decent version of very simple database. They can then do the forms which the end users will see. And they will (hopefully) see quickly enough when they need someone else.
I'm currently running Debian stable on all my servers. Why would I want to get the next with Ubuntu? Would it be just as stable?
/etc/cron*). So I wouldn't really gain any time.
The install with netinst is very fast. What takes a long time is all the configuration of the needed services, and customization (backup scripts, various checks and email alerts, etc. In short everything one adds to
Am I not seeing some advantage that a pre-installed Ubuntu would bring? Maybe compatibility with newer hardware. I had to use backports a few times, and that was a hassle. Any other advantage I'm overlooking?
I actually knew someone who definitely needed "print selection". He had never heard of the concept of files, much less folders. He had ONE Word document on his Mac desktop, and only ever typed into that. Then he would select the part he needed and print that. I'm not kidding! Luckily, I was in a hurry and was able to refrain from getting into helping him. Anyway, he didn't want or need help. I have no idea how it ended, and whether eventually someone showed him the light. But maybe he wouldn't have been interested. It worked for him, with all his writings in a single huge Word file...
That's precisely why Access is great. Once you realize the database is still there after a few years and has become important, you keep the Access GUI and move the data out into a "real database".
I cannot quite understand how you cannot see what Access is used for. When you need a databse application with a GUI, what do you build the GUI with? HTML? That's fine for many tings, as the web demonstrates. But for a real desktop GUI application, what do you suggest instead of Access? Perl/Tk? C++? Visual Basic?
Despite it's horrible VBA scripting, Access is a great tool to build GUI frontend applications. In fact, I think Access is the main reason why many people cannot move from Windows to Mac or Linux. They have a vital Access application, and there is no easy way to replace it. I have several clients with such applications. In some instances, I moved the data to PostgreSQL on a Linux server, but the forms are still in Access.
I'm very much looking forward to an Access alternative.
Pardon the nitpicking, but no, Persia was NOT "located in roughly the same place Iraq is now." Persia is Iran, and it isn't even Arabic.
This may be slightly off-topic, but it may be time to debunk that fallacy about
.docx documents around. These simple people with simple computer needs expect to be able to open them and edit them. So they may very soon really need Office 2007
"when all you want to do is really basic things?"
I hear that all the time from normal users. They just want a simple and cheap computer because all they want to do with it are only very simple things. In fact, what they have in mind with these very basic needs is the following:
- web surfing
- email
- Word documents
- and probably sync their address book with their phone
- manage their photos
- listen to music
- watch DVDs
Web surfing requires:
- A recent browser
- Acrobat PDF plugin
- Flash plugin (+ Shockwave if they have kids)
- Quicktime (or Quicktime Alternative)
- Real (or Real Alt.)
Word documents requires Office. One would think that could be OpenOffice, but people start sending Office 2007
For syncing with their phone, they probably need Outlook anyway
In the end, they need a recent and fast machine, and probably really want Windows and the latest Office on it.
Depressing...
Yes, Lotus bought Samna's Ami Pro, and instead of continuing to update it, they made it into WordPro, incorporated it into Lotus Smartsuite got bought by IBM, and Ami Pro, the best word processor ever, disappeared...
.doc, and a few bugs).
I actually still used Ami Pro until a few years ago, despite it's problems (8.3 file names, outdated (by 10 years!) import/export of
I use TextMaker now because it sucks much less than the others overall, but I still regret Ami Pro...
Please refrain from posting meaningless google-translated rubbish. If you want to contribute and know German, write a decent translation or summary. Otherwise, shut up and let someone else do it. We don't need your help and can go to the stupid robot on our own, if we feel like it.
If they reduce everything to the bare minimum, what is that minimum? The plot? Well, if we go that route, we can hear/read/see all stories ever told in half a day. Was it Borges who said there were only about half a dozen possible plots, and then listed them? So what would we do the rest of our lives?
As for operas, in case you didn't know, they are the story of a passion between a soprano and a tenor, with a baritone who disagrees. Now that you know the plot, you can spare yourself weeks of watching/listening to operas. Thank me...
I have recently observed 50-60 MBYTESps on a Gigabit LAN, between a vanilla Linux FTP server and a Windows client. And that was about the hard disk read limit on the server. Didn't look like a "traditional TCP stream" limit at all. It was a 300 MB. file, filled with random bytes. If I remember correctly, I didn't even enable jumbo frames, because one of the cards couldn't do it.
Of course it has nothing to do with your personality. They are not trying to guess/predict personalities, but roles. Obviously, people have different social roles in different settings. The role of father (to take their first example in the introduction) is not the same as that same person's role as husband/lover/son/employee/whatever. And when he has the father role with a kid he is playing with, it doesn't say anything about his personality. He could be funny or boring, calm or irritable, selfish or not, etc. It's irrelevant. And he doesn't even have to be the kid's father to be in that role. Maybe he is just spending a moment with the neighbor's kid, but he is still in the father's social role at that moment.
Of course, these are all small workgroup or very small Internet servers. It would be of no use for a server which would be at the max speed most of the time.
Anyway, I haven't had an opportunity to meter the difference yet to see how much power that really saves. Does someone know?
For the problem of "geek slang" you mention, a few tips which can help:
/. and forums, but also some literature...
- Google define: Type "define:" followed by what you search in the Google search bar. For example: nightly build
- Many of the above will lead to Wikipedia, which is a good resource for anything geeky (and other stuff also)
- Sometimes, the Urban Dictionary can help
- In forums or mailing lists, when you come across an unknown term, just ask.
- Don't only read
So you feel the article should have been about 4 email clients and a beer opener?
I didn't understand it as rude, but as funny.
Maybe because I'm not an immigrant, nor do I wish to become one. I feel fine on another continent.
Thanks