Why should I give up the use of 20 good workstations, Office 97, Windows 98, and everything working properly? I know that "up"grades never are. Things still work, we know how to use them, we've paid our money, we own everything.
The alternative is to throw everything out, buy all new hardware (do you really want me to try to run XP on a Pentium 200 with 64Mb of RAM?), get stuck with a lease on the software, and then to get locked into whatever upgrade cycle Bill thinks is best for Micro$oft.
Microsoft has chosen the greedy path, and eliminated themselves from the list of viable true upgrade paths. I'll upgrade those machines when RedHat (or someone else) gets their act together, supports the still functional Office 97 standard, and does it for less than $60/machine/year. All we need are bug and security patches!
I believe he's still go with Hasselblad for the camera, and use both the Kodak DCS16 megapixel back for it, for proofs, etc... but I suspect he's still shoot film after a quick change of the back.
Remember, he was one of the founders of f/64, the whole point of which was the revolutionary idea that Pictures should be tack sharp. (Quite unfashionable at the time)
He'd defintely have a very good scanner and printer, and a current workstation with Photoshop. He spent as much time in the darkroom as he did taking the photos in the first place. I suspect he'd be pulling out new detail from his exposures in the 1930s that nobody else could even see.
The secret to dealing with rules like this is to bend with the wind, like a reed.
Let them give you MS-Access, and use it like it should be used. MS-ACCESS is a pretty frond end, and sufficient for small databases. It's also a nice teaching tool because it'll let you see the syntax of a query by example. Once those lessons are imparted, and you need to do real work, the fun begins. You can then show how easy it is to install and run a real database server such as MySQL on the backend.
You can then contrast and compare the benchmarks between a system of 20 clients sharing a database on a fileserver, and a properly configured MySql server with 20 Access clients. It should teach the proper lesson once and for all.
It sounds like your thermocouple on the pilot light is about to die (it happens to to metal fatigue on a normal basis)... have the furnace serviced. This also gets you an inspection for conditions that could lead to Carbon Monoxide generation. In this case, you're not qualfied, so spend the $ instead of doing it yourself.
I'll do it ONLY if I see it working on ALL of our elected leaders, for at least 1 year, and we all get full read access to the system across the internet, and it is guaranteed to stay that way.
No Exceptions for anyone, ever.
Obviously, they won't go for that, so why should I?
How much does it cost RedHat to support the Up2Date channel for RedHat Linux 9? How do these costs break down? I realize it's non-trivial, to say the least, that at a minimum you have to:
Sift through all the bug reports to look for real issues
Research the problems found
Find or build patchs
Testing on patches
Publish results to the RedHat channel
Send out notices to email subscribers, etc.
While it's tempting to break out the incremental cost of adding one additional subscriber to the RedHat network, I am interested in knowing what the whole thing actually costs, in real dollars? Also, how big a team does it take?
Perhaps if we knew the real size and scope required to keep RedHat going, we'd feel the need to be more supportive, instead of feeling betrayed.
I'm the entire IT staff for a small business. My strategic plan was to migrate to Red Hat Linux for our servers by the end of next year, to avoid the Windows 2003/Longhorn/DRM trap that Bill Gates and crew are setting up for everyone. I was willing to pay $60/server/year to get bug fixes and some email security alerts to tell me to install them. I was happy, having a nice relaxed pace plan.
Now I'm faced with your website offering no clue as to the future of "up2date" and my ability to run a stable configuration of Linux without having to either:
Pay more for the software per year that the servers are worth for the "Enterprise" rebranding
Become a Linux guru, maybe even a kernel hacker, just so that I know the patches are current.
Take a big chunk of time and effort, use BasicSoftware.com as a base to build, or help build, a community supported LiveUpdate type system, which would eventually take the place of Up2Date (and RedHat?)
Submit to the extortion, and suffer with closed source inferiorware from the monopolists.
What migration option do you have for your current customers who are willing to pay $50/year/machine?
Win32 isn't dead... nobody sane is going to want the ball and chain that comes with LongHorn, and all this.NET vaporware. Win98 is going to be a lot of places for a very long time.
New development will shift from Win32 to a Linux base as the Monopoly gets recognised as the Naziware (Digital Restriction Ware?) (Prisonware?)that it is, and shunned in the marketplace.
I already pay for support. (US$60/year/machine) to Red Hat for the Red Hat Network. I expect to be able to get security notifications and patches for that money. I can't believe it's not profitable to run the service at that price. The incremental cost for supporting another machine is almost zero, the support costs are sunk past the first user... so where's the profit going?
So, the only option that offers an auto-update is getting killed off of linux. I was planning to migrate my servers by the end of 2004 from Windows 2000 to Red Hat... but if they don't want my business, so be it. $30,000 just went to Microsoft, and I'm not happy about it.
While PowerPoint is evil in terms of the boiling down of the nice Red Meat of content into a Grey Goo worthy of an Army chef.... it's better than the truely evil of... FLASH.
At least you can print a PowerPoint, look at the slides, and the notes. PowerPoint forces a nice, easy to deal with, linear structure on a Presentation.
A Flash presentation is too programmable, you never know how to advance to the next slide... and you often can't go back!
Ok.. C:\freedom is taking up 131 Megabytes already... and I expect it to grow, what with DeCSS, the Diebold voting stuff, the DEA report about the Israeli spies, etc...
I've 3.15 Gigabytes of photos from 2002 on my laptop... and that's AFTER I weeded them out. So far for this year, I'm at 7.13 Gigabytes of photos, and it's not even Christmas season yet!
I admit I take more pictures than most, but I haven't gotten a video camera yet... just think of the Terabytes I'll consume with that bad boy.
The key to this architecture is that it's not Von-Neuman... You don't have billions of transistors waiting for their chance to interact with an instruction stream. The fact that it's an optical multiply-accumulator is just an distraction.
Take a silicon die, build a 16x16 - 16bit (32 bit result) MAC on it, run it at 1 Ghz (all feasible with modern technology), you get 16x16*1Ghz - 256 Billion ops/sec. I'm guessing this could be done for less than a buck/chip in any kind of quantity. Stack up 256 of those... and you've left this optical thing in the dust.
If there were justice in this world, my opinion, Gator is a Computer Virus!, would be both instantly recognised as sane, and unquestioned.
It takes over functions of your machine, for its own gain. Close enough to the functional defintion of a virus for me.
I think, that there needs to be a class action lawsuit against the "AntiVirus" vendors for selling defective programs! If they were functional, Gator would have gone away long ago!
Hey... while we're at it let's get rid of our stable currencies such as Gold and Silver, and let a bunch of International Thieves...er... Bankers print our money...
Ooops... we already did that. And then the bastards had the gaul to put Andrew Jackson's picture on the most used bill!
Why test the output of the cellular base station? Typical users aren't standing on the cell towers 60 Meters in the air, to get a better connection. This is, at best, a bad experiment. At worst, it's propaganda.
Why not test the output from a handset?
The power levels used in cell phones aren't enough to cause real problems, and thus make for a boring study, that's why.
Someone needs a clue.... the people who use more than average bandwidth represent HALF of their customer base. If the Monopoly resamples and harasses every month, in a few months they'll have upset MOST of their customers.
I work for a small marketing company, with some home-office and contractors to support. We're currently a Microsoft Dependent shop, but I hope to change that by December 2004.
My primary tasks include stomping out the various fires that crop up, and making sure our systems are up and available (in spite of the Children in Redmond).
I do a lot of one-on-one support, and fix anything that's broken. I get drafted to fill in the gaps whenever something comes up that we don't have enough resources for. (I just spent a day doing forms data entry, for example).
In my spare time (which varies from 40 to -20 hours/week), I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to plan out a migration to Linux. I'm free to pursue whatever projects I think will help the company. I also hope to eventually move our in-house database from Access 97 to MySql/Apache.
I read slashdot, k5, and a few other sites, to keep a watch out for the newest holes from the kiddies in Redmond. Yes, it counts as work, if I didn't do it, we'd have gotten crushed by things at least 3 times in the past 2 years.
How can they stop you from wanting to talk with your classmates? As long as you aren't claiming to be officially sanctioned, what can they do? (I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV).
I had to install a firewall becase of the continuing problems with the RPC Open Door issues with Windows Servers. I found to my horror that the Microsoft VPN client in Win98, etc. totally ignores the subnet mask you give it, and decideds to to use a/8 subnet mask for the VPN route, and there's no way around it.
The only sane way out of this (aside from looking at the Windows VPN Client Source and posting a patch to the group... oh.... yeah, not open source)... is to use the ONLY available/8 address out there for a VPN server... 10.0.0.x/8.
It's only caused one conflict, but it's far safer than the original instance, in which the VPN clients suddenly thought the entire 66.x.y.z address space was on our wire. This caused no end of problems and complaints because the users then couldn't make use of their ISP's 66.?.?.? services. Think about this, it shuts off 1/2% of the internet at random
Plug Well, this is exactly why I registered ITwiki.com, in hopes that I could build a community site that could become a knowledgebase of just such things. It's a WikiWiki Website, so anyone can edit anything. It's just a personal project, but who knows... might take off.
Prayer I hope my little desktop machine survives slashdotting, and the ravages of the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing other than satisfy the immature need to have a newer toy.
--Mike--
The alternative is to throw everything out, buy all new hardware (do you really want me to try to run XP on a Pentium 200 with 64Mb of RAM?), get stuck with a lease on the software, and then to get locked into whatever upgrade cycle Bill thinks is best for Micro$oft.
Microsoft has chosen the greedy path, and eliminated themselves from the list of viable true upgrade paths. I'll upgrade those machines when RedHat (or someone else) gets their act together, supports the still functional Office 97 standard, and does it for less than $60/machine/year. All we need are bug and security patches!
--Mike--
--Mike--
Remember, he was one of the founders of f/64, the whole point of which was the revolutionary idea that Pictures should be tack sharp. (Quite unfashionable at the time)
He'd defintely have a very good scanner and printer, and a current workstation with Photoshop. He spent as much time in the darkroom as he did taking the photos in the first place. I suspect he'd be pulling out new detail from his exposures in the 1930s that nobody else could even see.
--Mike--
Let them give you MS-Access, and use it like it should be used. MS-ACCESS is a pretty frond end, and sufficient for small databases. It's also a nice teaching tool because it'll let you see the syntax of a query by example. Once those lessons are imparted, and you need to do real work, the fun begins. You can then show how easy it is to install and run a real database server such as MySQL on the backend.
You can then contrast and compare the benchmarks between a system of 20 clients sharing a database on a fileserver, and a properly configured MySql server with 20 Access clients. It should teach the proper lesson once and for all.
--Mike--
--Mike--
No Exceptions for anyone, ever.
Obviously, they won't go for that, so why should I?
--Mike--
While it's tempting to break out the incremental cost of adding one additional subscriber to the RedHat network, I am interested in knowing what the whole thing actually costs, in real dollars? Also, how big a team does it take?
Perhaps if we knew the real size and scope required to keep RedHat going, we'd feel the need to be more supportive, instead of feeling betrayed.
--Mike--
Now I'm faced with your website offering no clue as to the future of "up2date" and my ability to run a stable configuration of Linux without having to either:
- Pay more for the software per year that the servers are worth for the "Enterprise" rebranding
- Become a Linux guru, maybe even a kernel hacker, just so that I know the patches are current.
- Take a big chunk of time and effort, use BasicSoftware.com as a base to build, or help build, a community supported LiveUpdate type system, which would eventually take the place of Up2Date (and RedHat?)
- Submit to the extortion, and suffer with closed source inferiorware from the monopolists.
What migration option do you have for your current customers who are willing to pay $50/year/machine?--Mike--
--Mike--
New development will shift from Win32 to a Linux base as the Monopoly gets recognised as the Naziware (Digital Restriction Ware?) (Prisonware?)that it is, and shunned in the marketplace.
--Mike--
Or... did Bill Gates buy someone off?
--Mike--
--Mike--
At least you can print a PowerPoint, look at the slides, and the notes. PowerPoint forces a nice, easy to deal with, linear structure on a Presentation.
A Flash presentation is too programmable, you never know how to advance to the next slide... and you often can't go back!
--Mike--
--Mike--
I admit I take more pictures than most, but I haven't gotten a video camera yet... just think of the Terabytes I'll consume with that bad boy.
--Mike--
Take a silicon die, build a 16x16 - 16bit (32 bit result) MAC on it, run it at 1 Ghz (all feasible with modern technology), you get 16x16*1Ghz - 256 Billion ops/sec. I'm guessing this could be done for less than a buck/chip in any kind of quantity. Stack up 256 of those... and you've left this optical thing in the dust.
--Mike--
It takes over functions of your machine, for its own gain. Close enough to the functional defintion of a virus for me.
I think, that there needs to be a class action lawsuit against the "AntiVirus" vendors for selling defective programs! If they were functional, Gator would have gone away long ago!
--Mike--
Ooops... we already did that. And then the bastards had the gaul to put Andrew Jackson's picture on the most used bill!
--Mike--
Why not test the output from a handset? The power levels used in cell phones aren't enough to cause real problems, and thus make for a boring study, that's why.
I recommend the researchers just stick to the study of extra strength placebos.
--Mike--
--Mike--
My primary tasks include stomping out the various fires that crop up, and making sure our systems are up and available (in spite of the Children in Redmond).
I do a lot of one-on-one support, and fix anything that's broken. I get drafted to fill in the gaps whenever something comes up that we don't have enough resources for. (I just spent a day doing forms data entry, for example).
In my spare time (which varies from 40 to -20 hours/week), I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to plan out a migration to Linux. I'm free to pursue whatever projects I think will help the company. I also hope to eventually move our in-house database from Access 97 to MySql/Apache.
I read slashdot, k5, and a few other sites, to keep a watch out for the newest holes from the kiddies in Redmond. Yes, it counts as work, if I didn't do it, we'd have gotten crushed by things at least 3 times in the past 2 years.
--Mike--
--Mike--
The only sane way out of this (aside from looking at the Windows VPN Client Source and posting a patch to the group... oh.... yeah, not open source)... is to use the ONLY available /8 address out there for a VPN server... 10.0.0.x/8.
It's only caused one conflict, but it's far safer than the original instance, in which the VPN clients suddenly thought the entire 66.x.y.z address space was on our wire. This caused no end of problems and complaints because the users then couldn't make use of their ISP's 66.?.?.? services. Think about this, it shuts off 1/2% of the internet at random
--Mike--
Well, this is exactly why I registered ITwiki.com, in hopes that I could build a community site that could become a knowledgebase of just such things. It's a WikiWiki Website, so anyone can edit anything. It's just a personal project, but who knows... might take off.
Prayer
I hope my little desktop machine survives slashdotting, and the ravages of the internet.
--Mike--