Bynari Software has Linux Outlook/Exchange support
on
KOffice 1.1 Rolls Out
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In addition to the now-Open-Sourced "TradeClient" Linux mail client (which I believe is Exchange-server compatible), they sell two products called Insight, which appear to be a client and a server that support Outlook/Exchange's (IMHO useless) calendar-and-meeting features on Linux. They say it's "not an Outlook clone!" but you might find one of these programs useful. They sure as damn aren't a total lack of any support, though.
In my shop, which uses MS Outlook / Exchange, I just run a standard POP3 client off the mail server's SMTP/POP gateway, and to the seven hells with the calendar functions. Integrated systems fail in an integrated fashion... Of course, not everyone has that option.
at the University of Maine at Portland, my favorite physics professor (and scrounging mentor), Charles Armentrout, equipped most of the physics labs from scrounge when UMP's new science building went way over-budget on a big concrete estimating error. They were able to finish it (less 2 floors that were dropped from the design), but couldn't furnish it much. Charlie's scrounging skills meant the Physics labs were fully equipped, while the chemistry labs were just so much empty space. Scrounging just plain rules.
Yes, but he gave a talk and explained out it works in the US.. that is illegal (currently) in the US.
There's a disused piece of parchment in a display case in Philadelphia that purports to secure the right to free speech, and NO law passed by Congress can overrule it. Dmitri's talk is CLEARLY speech, and thus is, or should be, protected by the First Amendment; this protection flat-out trumps the DMCA. Dmitri has cause here to sue massively for frivolous arrest.
Also, if I recall correctly, the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision applies ONLY to access control methods that EFFECTIVELY control access. Anyone here think ROT13 (a Caesar alphabet where each letter is shifted 13 places down the alphabet) is an effective control measure? Anyone? Funny, but I don't see anyone with their hand raised...
Simple answer, if I understand the GPL correctly, is that he cannot include user patches to the GPL'ed code into non-GPL'ed code unless they assigned their copyrights to him (unlikely to have happened) or otherwise explicitly/implicitly gave him control of it (dicey), or he implemented outside suggestions by writing his OWN code that is not a derivative work of others' patches (the most probable case, and VERY dicey, but likely unenforceable, especially if the others didn't clearly mark their contributions as GPLed). The critical point in the last case is whether the original developer did or didn't incorporate actual code written by others. The typical case of a user submitting a report that "there's a bug in line XXX of module YYY that should do Z but does Q" would likely not cause GPL trouble of this kind. I doubt this would be an obstacle in practice, but one never knows...
That the Feds insist that it is perfectly OK for them to listen in on Chinese military radio communications, but it is illegal for a private US citizen to watch a satellite TV broadcast for private use without paying the broadcaster?
After all, they are BOTH radio broadcasts, and supposedly the RF spectrum is a public resource... The public nature nof the airwaves is, after all, the reason the FCC is allowed to crimp free speech on-air. A curious contradiction, what?
Well, I must agree with you to some extent, but not totally. There are indeed social differences at work; Americans are far less graceful in crowded conditions than Japanese, but you'll find that Japan has significant crowding-related social problems as well. (Note the recent moves to establish women-only train cars 'cause of epidemic sexual harassment on the crowded trains.) I concede a relative difference in general politeness, and I agree it is an important factor, but I think the crowding effect is also relevant.
For an example of what happens when you overcrowd a society, look at reaearch done on rat colonies (alas, I know of this only second0hand and have no direct access to such data...). IIRC, rat colonies have a definite and orderly social structure; overcrowd the living space, and you get social breakdown and inter-rat violence.
I would argue that human society, with our ever-growing communications and transport networks, is becoming socially more "crowded," and that a similar social degradation (epidemic rudeness, road rage, and the like) is taking place as a result.
Of course, a case can also be made that in any large group of people and at any point in time, a sizeable number will be acting like idiots.
is that they will be operated and managed by the same sort of tie-the-safety-valve-down idiots who run many chemical power plants. A SAFELY operated and maintained nuke plant is a fine idea; my disquiet with commercial nuke plants (and I am a physicist/engineer who works with radiation sources) is that they'll be run by corner-cutters and bean-counters.
Of course, as one of my colleagues (the company radiation safety officer, and a damn' good scientist) says, "Isotopes decay. Arsenic is forever." He also points out that while stray radioactives are really easy to detect with a radiation counter, there are lots of chemicals that are lethal in milligram quantities and cannot be easily detected. I suppose it all comes down to waste management, and the human species is lousy at most forms of management.
Seems there's a rather large number (in the hundreds) of children from that area with thyroid cancer; NPR recently ran a story on the regular visits by groups of them to (I think) Boston for treatment. I believe that qualifies as a significant increase in the likelyhood.
... And if it doesn't work out of the box for me, I'll at least give them a month or two to come up with some bug fixes....
Sorry, you lost me right there. This is what beta test is for; to get those bugs out of the way before the paying customers hafta wait for fixes. Why on earth should I plunk down $50 for something that doesn't work as advertised? And if I do, you'd better believe I'll raise holy hell with customer support (and the managers if I don't get satisfaction). Games are expensive at first release; as a customer, I have a reasonable expectation of good quality 'ware for my money. If I get crap, they'll catch hell. Think of it as Skinnerian operant conditioning for vendors...
And by the way, I DO run a lot of older games; I buy'em in department stores in Germany for DM 20 (~$9.95) per copy (older games are widely marketed there on the cheap as bare CD-in-jewel-case, no fancy box, no printed manual; a neat idea we could use, too), and if they're crap, it's no big deal. So far, I've been quite satisfied. There being so little REAL innovation in games these days, I'm not missing out on anything. Every so often, I cruise the shelves at CompUSA, and all I see is bloodthirsty FPS variations on Quake. (Someone, PLEASE, come up with some new, playable game concepts...)
The author of the code in question says it is all GPL, specifically NOT LGPL, as he hadn't built it as libraries; the librariness was a result of post-hoc encapsulation into DLLs by Vidomi. I recommend checking out the links in the header; there's good reading there.
At least according to the VirtualDub fellow's Web site, Vidomi's software is linked to his code as libraries, and is non-functional without it. (They offer a fig-leaf "independent" option that apparently does nothing useful).
Linking to GPL'ed software for its vital program functions means Vidomi's code is NOT an "independent and separate work", and thus is subject to the GPL on the libraries it depends on.
Seems like a smoking gun to me, assuning the VirtualDub fellow is right (and he seems to know what he's talking about).
Dear Mr. Miller,
Microsoft's strategy of "Embrace and Extend", its clear opposition to interoperability (except among its own products), and its strategy of virtually-forced upgrades, are aspects of the company's corporate behavior that users and developers alike (including those of Microsoft products) find odious and despicable. These behaviors started waaay back with early MS-DOS, and persist essentially unchanged today.
If there ever was a time that Microsoft actually NEEDED to behave this way in order to achieve market share, it is long past, and that strategy no longer serves any worthwhile purpose. If Microsoft were a "good corporate citizen", it would still be, and would likely remain, the largest software firm in the world.
Why, then, does Microsoft persist in obstructing real interoperability when that obstruction is of marginal benefit if any, and is there any prospect of this behavior genuinely being changed?
Because, while the poor gnomes in the mailroom will know that X% of incoming BRM is empty/blank/filled with turds, the bozos in the advertising department will look at the gross response rate for mailings (easily calculated from the number of BRM pieces charged to their account) and conclude that it's working.
Granted, this MAY not be how many spamail places calculate their rate of response, but it is a likely method, and would cause the opposite of the desired result...
For several reasons, this seemingly-great "set a worm to fix a wormhole" idea is NOT useful.
For starters, consider this scenario:
1. You know your machine is vulnerable, so you check out its wu-ftpd and rpc.statd binaries and the various logfiles. Whoa, there are worm tracks here! How do you KNOW (not just suspect, KNOW) whether the "bad" worm or the "good" worm was here?
2. Assume that the "good worm" has been coded to announce and identify itself. A) Most victims won't be able to judge whether to believe it, and B) the forthcoming "bad worm variant 2" will pretend to be the "good worm" anyway, so the ID cannot be trusted in the first place. The "bad worm variant 3" will be even better at hiding its damage while pretending to be the "good worm".
The net result: Systems hit by the "good worm" will have to be cleaned up and rebuilt just like systems hit by the "bad worm", unless the sysop/user is too clueless to notice the presence of either one. Thus, the "target audience" for this hypothetical white-hat is limited to clueless users who haven't already been hit by the "bad worm". To say nothing of the lawsuits unleashed by offended sysops who had to clean systems "your" worm "attacked".
Most of the people on this site wave the banner of Freedom and Openness when in reality all they want is a free lunch.
Sorry, this sort of ad hominem bullshit just doesn't cut it here. Sure, some of the community are freeloaders, but very few of the Open Source people I deal with are. Those whom I know well don't hesitate to pay shareware fees, buy a few copies of RedHat, and otherwise compensate that digital street musician for his/her fine work. The "some do it, so all are bad" argument is worthless crap, no matter who presents it. Even M$ ain't totally bad, if examined fairly and without bias.
In my experience, the same people who support open source software are the ones who support the whole pirate warez scene.
Then I suggest you stop hanging with those clods and get some better experience, or else provide some verifiable support for that claim. I DO NOT believe the FACTS support it. My experience, for one data point, is entirely the opposite. To take the extreme position, does Stallman approve of warez? I think you'll find he does not.
Hmmm. Alas for 100BASE_T; I haven't tried it, so I never hit that snag. Bummer... I've seen 1 CPU board that went bad (I have VMIVME-7588 boards), and another that had a loose interboard connection (I pushed the board back in, and it stayed good), out of a total of 7. Not so high a failure rate as yours, but I can see the common thread; I hope VMIC pay good attention to closing the faiilure-analysis-remedy loop.
No experience with vxWorks, I ran Linux from the get-go. I DID have one weird problem, though; Seems the last 2 boards had a different Adaptec SCSI chip in them; same part number, NO indication given of any difference in "form, fit, or function", BUT it crashed the SCSI detect in RH5.X 'cause Adaptec changed the chip's internal architecture without telling anyone. VMIC hadn't heard of the problem either... Bad, Adaptec, VERY bad! Fortunately, RH6 includes the fix.
I have a ten-years-old distributed system (small, just 3 nodes, but distributed) that uses an early version of QNX to remotely boot diskless front-end systems and operate them from a central computer (a 386-33MHz speed demon). The system IS nice, you can run programs on a remote system from the command line with trivial ease, and the networking (at least the Arcnet system we used for the network-boot architecture) was quite robust. (Of course, the lousy application program that we ran on top of QNX is cursed to the deepest pits, and the system has always been marginal as a result...) QNX itself is s fine OS.
On the minus side, QNX (at least then) did NOT let you create a bootable floppy, something that annoys me no end. We had sufficient licences for all nodes (at $hundreds per node), but ya still needed those double-damned fingerprinted floppies to make it work.
More recently, I had a brief fling with LynxOS 2 years ago; after several days of can't-get-it-to-install-even-with-tech-support-pho ne-calls, changing the NIC and video card 'cause LynxOS didn't like'em, and general difficulty using it, I went out and bought RedHat 5.0, and I'm never, ever going closed-source again unless forced. (BTW, the funny thing 'bout LynxOS was, all the primary development tools were GNU; gcc, gdb... Only the profiler and MetroX X server were proprietary. Now, tell me again why I paid $30K for this package?)
Yes, I MAY be able to get superior real-time performance out of a closed-source OS (unproven IMHO); but my systems, like MOST of those out there, do NOT stretch the boundaries of achievable performance. I'm running P5-200MHz front-end systems using VMEbus; if I need more performance, (which I haven't yet and probably won't), I'll just slap in a faster CPU card. So far, I've had to hack the NIC code once to eliminate a funky media-autosense problem, and the VME driver to accommodate the VMIC VME implementation (the latter has since fixed by VMIC; great people, I HIGHLY recommend them, AND they support Linux on their iron!); I could NOT have done this with LynxOS or QNX, and MY experience says there's every chance I would have needed to do so.
It's not ideology that moves me to say this, and not cheapness (the OS cost isn't an issue in my systems); it's Linux' better flexibility, equal or better reliability and hardware compatibility, and that source accessibility that make it my primary choice for an OS.
As a practical matter of getting my job done, Open Source wins for me. Period.
As other responders have replied, the magnetic-field idea is impractical.
However, if you are REALLY serious about this, you CAN set up a device that, when triggered by lifting the computer off the table (without first disarming the device), dumps a corrosive, adhesive, or abrasive into the drive through its breather filter, effectively killing the drive. (Shaped charges are too messy, physically hazardous, and laden with legal hassles to use for this application).
Some aspects to keep in mind in such a case:
1. To effectively dodge destruction of evidence charges, the system MUST be preinstalled before they come knocking, and MUST be totally automatic in operation - NO positive action on your part to trigger or arm it.
2. This will seriously piss The Man off, so killing your data had better be worth A) having them never EVER return your stuff, and B) come back in a huff and turn your house upside-down with extreme prejudice, breaking many things and confiscating all backups and everything with more transistors in it than a Walkman.
3. You WILL need to somehow defend yourself against the destruction-of-evidence or obstruction-of-justice charge they will try to hang on you. Have a lawyer primed and ready to launch on warning; he might fill his trousers upon suddenly learning of your hard-drive-destroyer, so make sure he's informed in advance. After all, it is NOT illegal to make your computer commit seppuku when stolen.
Frankly, I cannot think of many people this would be worthwhile for.
For myself, I would rather tell The Man, "You can have my computer right now, untouched by my hands, without flashing a warrant or incurring the legal obstacles my lawyer will put in your way, BUT ONLY if you supply me, in advance, with a new system of equivalent capability as a loaner until you return my equipment. Your technician will also back up my data under my supervision before removing anything." This approach might not work either, but it's less hazardous and well worth trying.
Hey, that gives me an idea. Anyone wanna lobby for a "Replacement of Property Taken As Evidence Act" mandating the immediate replacement of confiscated computing hardware and data?
I agree with the poster who characterized Banks' writing as "inventively grim." Wish I'd thought of that... The thing is, he draws you into sympathizing with, liking, even identifying with the protagonists, and then he trashes them. Every single time. In every book.
Case in point: The shape-changer character in (I believe) "Player of Games" and his crew of mercenaries are decently likeable sorts; and in the end, Banks does a Hamlet number on them; everyone winds up dead meat but the single adversary/almost-lover who gets to do the Hamlet-esque death-march with his corpse.
By now, every time I start reading one of his novels (and they are very well crafted, interesting places), I go into it KNOWING that everyone in it whom I will care about in the least is going to be destroyed in one way or another. These novels are NOT for the easily-depressed...
One of Heinlein's last novels broke the divide between the author and his/her characters by having them all mixing it up in Valhalla or thereabouts; I shudder for Banks if his characters were ever to catch up with him in a dark alley there...
I have a love-hate relationship with his works. He is a master storyteller, and his worlds are really neat -- well-drawn, fascinating places -- but he is SOOO mean to his characters! He really wrenches the reader around some, too. Years after the fact, I am STILL wondering about the protagonist of Use of Weapons. Nonetheless, I'll snatch the new book up as soon as it arrives in the US.
As I racall, the Motorola 6800 apps manual (not the 68000, the 8-bit 6800 chip) had a neat example program on reading Code 39 barcodes in software. It's really NOT all that tough to do this; you measure time intervals between bar edges, normalize them for swipe speed, classify them as wide bar/narrow bar ==> 1 and 0, and you're most of the way there. Then you need only identify the barcode type using the standard characteristics of each encoding (and they are designed to facilitate just this identification), do a simple forwards/backwards check in case the moron scanned the label right-to-left, test the check digit with a simple algorithm, and you're done. Not trivial, and there's effort required for handling multiple code types, but CERTAINLY not rocket science. (And I DO rocket science for a living...)
check the project on SourceForge for lotsa info on the format, plus some neat decoders for the reader. One or the other of these (there are also kernel drivers available, despite DCNV's nasty letters) can be used as a filter to read the barcode, translate it to a readable number, AND strip off the serial number.
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In addition to the now-Open-Sourced "TradeClient" Linux mail client (which I believe is Exchange-server compatible), they sell two products called Insight, which appear to be a client and a server that support Outlook/Exchange's (IMHO useless) calendar-and-meeting features on Linux. They say it's "not an Outlook clone!" but you might find one of these programs useful. They sure as damn aren't a total lack of any support , though.
In my shop, which uses MS Outlook / Exchange, I just run a standard POP3 client off the mail server's SMTP/POP gateway, and to the seven hells with the calendar functions. Integrated systems fail in an integrated fashion... Of course, not everyone has that option.
at the University of Maine at Portland, my favorite physics professor (and scrounging mentor), Charles Armentrout, equipped most of the physics labs from scrounge when UMP's new science building went way over-budget on a big concrete estimating error. They were able to finish it (less 2 floors that were dropped from the design), but couldn't furnish it much. Charlie's scrounging skills meant the Physics labs were fully equipped, while the chemistry labs were just so much empty space. Scrounging just plain rules.
Yes, but he gave a talk and explained out it works in the US.. that is illegal (currently) in the US.
There's a disused piece of parchment in a display case in Philadelphia that purports to secure the right to free speech, and NO law passed by Congress can overrule it. Dmitri's talk is CLEARLY speech, and thus is, or should be, protected by the First Amendment; this protection flat-out trumps the DMCA. Dmitri has cause here to sue massively for frivolous arrest.
Also, if I recall correctly, the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision applies ONLY to access control methods that EFFECTIVELY control access. Anyone here think ROT13 (a Caesar alphabet where each letter is shifted 13 places down the alphabet) is an effective control measure? Anyone? Funny, but I don't see anyone with their hand raised...
Simple answer, if I understand the GPL correctly, is that he cannot include user patches to the GPL'ed code into non-GPL'ed code unless they assigned their copyrights to him (unlikely to have happened) or otherwise explicitly/implicitly gave him control of it (dicey), or he implemented outside suggestions by writing his OWN code that is not a derivative work of others' patches (the most probable case, and VERY dicey, but likely unenforceable, especially if the others didn't clearly mark their contributions as GPLed). The critical point in the last case is whether the original developer did or didn't incorporate actual code written by others. The typical case of a user submitting a report that "there's a bug in line XXX of module YYY that should do Z but does Q" would likely not cause GPL trouble of this kind. I doubt this would be an obstacle in practice, but one never knows...
That the Feds insist that it is perfectly OK for them to listen in on Chinese military radio communications, but it is illegal for a private US citizen to watch a satellite TV broadcast for private use without paying the broadcaster?
After all, they are BOTH radio broadcasts, and supposedly the RF spectrum is a public resource... The public nature nof the airwaves is, after all, the reason the FCC is allowed to crimp free speech on-air. A curious contradiction, what?
Well, I must agree with you to some extent, but not totally. There are indeed social differences at work; Americans are far less graceful in crowded conditions than Japanese, but you'll find that Japan has significant crowding-related social problems as well. (Note the recent moves to establish women-only train cars 'cause of epidemic sexual harassment on the crowded trains.) I concede a relative difference in general politeness, and I agree it is an important factor, but I think the crowding effect is also relevant.
For an example of what happens when you overcrowd a society, look at reaearch done on rat colonies (alas, I know of this only second0hand and have no direct access to such data...). IIRC, rat colonies have a definite and orderly social structure; overcrowd the living space, and you get social breakdown and inter-rat violence.
I would argue that human society, with our ever-growing communications and transport networks, is becoming socially more "crowded," and that a similar social degradation (epidemic rudeness, road rage, and the like) is taking place as a result.
Of course, a case can also be made that in any large group of people and at any point in time, a sizeable number will be acting like idiots.
is that they will be operated and managed by the same sort of tie-the-safety-valve-down idiots who run many chemical power plants. A SAFELY operated and maintained nuke plant is a fine idea; my disquiet with commercial nuke plants (and I am a physicist/engineer who works with radiation sources) is that they'll be run by corner-cutters and bean-counters.
Of course, as one of my colleagues (the company radiation safety officer, and a damn' good scientist) says, "Isotopes decay. Arsenic is forever." He also points out that while stray radioactives are really easy to detect with a radiation counter, there are lots of chemicals that are lethal in milligram quantities and cannot be easily detected. I suppose it all comes down to waste management, and the human species is lousy at most forms of management.
Seems there's a rather large number (in the hundreds) of children from that area with thyroid cancer; NPR recently ran a story on the regular visits by groups of them to (I think) Boston for treatment. I believe that qualifies as a significant increase in the likelyhood.
... And if it doesn't work out of the box for me, I'll at least give them a month or two to come up with some bug fixes. ...
Sorry, you lost me right there. This is what beta test is for; to get those bugs out of the way before the paying customers hafta wait for fixes. Why on earth should I plunk down $50 for something that doesn't work as advertised? And if I do, you'd better believe I'll raise holy hell with customer support (and the managers if I don't get satisfaction). Games are expensive at first release; as a customer, I have a reasonable expectation of good quality 'ware for my money. If I get crap, they'll catch hell. Think of it as Skinnerian operant conditioning for vendors...
And by the way, I DO run a lot of older games; I buy'em in department stores in Germany for DM 20 (~$9.95) per copy (older games are widely marketed there on the cheap as bare CD-in-jewel-case, no fancy box, no printed manual; a neat idea we could use, too), and if they're crap, it's no big deal. So far, I've been quite satisfied. There being so little REAL innovation in games these days, I'm not missing out on anything. Every so often, I cruise the shelves at CompUSA, and all I see is bloodthirsty FPS variations on Quake. (Someone, PLEASE, come up with some new, playable game concepts...)
The author of the code in question says it is all GPL, specifically NOT LGPL, as he hadn't built it as libraries; the librariness was a result of post-hoc encapsulation into DLLs by Vidomi. I recommend checking out the links in the header; there's good reading there.
At least according to the VirtualDub fellow's Web site, Vidomi's software is linked to his code as libraries, and is non-functional without it. (They offer a fig-leaf "independent" option that apparently does nothing useful).
Linking to GPL'ed software for its vital program functions means Vidomi's code is NOT an "independent and separate work", and thus is subject to the GPL on the libraries it depends on.
Seems like a smoking gun to me, assuning the VirtualDub fellow is right (and he seems to know what he's talking about).
Dear Mr. Miller, Microsoft's strategy of "Embrace and Extend", its clear opposition to interoperability (except among its own products), and its strategy of virtually-forced upgrades, are aspects of the company's corporate behavior that users and developers alike (including those of Microsoft products) find odious and despicable. These behaviors started waaay back with early MS-DOS, and persist essentially unchanged today.
If there ever was a time that Microsoft actually NEEDED to behave this way in order to achieve market share, it is long past, and that strategy no longer serves any worthwhile purpose. If Microsoft were a "good corporate citizen", it would still be, and would likely remain, the largest software firm in the world.
Why, then, does Microsoft persist in obstructing real interoperability when that obstruction is of marginal benefit if any, and is there any prospect of this behavior genuinely being changed?
Because, while the poor gnomes in the mailroom will know that X% of incoming BRM is empty/blank/filled with turds, the bozos in the advertising department will look at the gross response rate for mailings (easily calculated from the number of BRM pieces charged to their account) and conclude that it's working.
Granted, this MAY not be how many spamail places calculate their rate of response, but it is a likely method, and would cause the opposite of the desired result...
For several reasons, this seemingly-great "set a worm to fix a wormhole" idea is NOT useful.
For starters, consider this scenario:
1. You know your machine is vulnerable, so you check out its wu-ftpd and rpc.statd binaries and the various logfiles. Whoa, there are worm tracks here! How do you KNOW (not just suspect, KNOW) whether the "bad" worm or the "good" worm was here?
2. Assume that the "good worm" has been coded to announce and identify itself. A) Most victims won't be able to judge whether to believe it, and B) the forthcoming "bad worm variant 2" will pretend to be the "good worm" anyway, so the ID cannot be trusted in the first place. The "bad worm variant 3" will be even better at hiding its damage while pretending to be the "good worm".
The net result: Systems hit by the "good worm" will have to be cleaned up and rebuilt just like systems hit by the "bad worm", unless the sysop/user is too clueless to notice the presence of either one. Thus, the "target audience" for this hypothetical white-hat is limited to clueless users who haven't already been hit by the "bad worm". To say nothing of the lawsuits unleashed by offended sysops who had to clean systems "your" worm "attacked".
Most of the people on this site wave the banner of Freedom and Openness when in reality all they want is a free lunch.
Sorry, this sort of ad hominem bullshit just doesn't cut it here. Sure, some of the community are freeloaders, but very few of the Open Source people I deal with are. Those whom I know well don't hesitate to pay shareware fees, buy a few copies of RedHat, and otherwise compensate that digital street musician for his/her fine work. The "some do it, so all are bad" argument is worthless crap, no matter who presents it. Even M$ ain't totally bad, if examined fairly and without bias.
In my experience, the same people who support open source software are the ones who support the whole pirate warez scene.
Then I suggest you stop hanging with those clods and get some better experience, or else provide some verifiable support for that claim. I DO NOT believe the FACTS support it. My experience, for one data point, is entirely the opposite. To take the extreme position, does Stallman approve of warez? I think you'll find he does not.
Which just goes to showe that the whole universe is ronzelle between...
Hmmm. Alas for 100BASE_T; I haven't tried it, so I never hit that snag. Bummer... I've seen 1 CPU board that went bad (I have VMIVME-7588 boards), and another that had a loose interboard connection (I pushed the board back in, and it stayed good), out of a total of 7. Not so high a failure rate as yours, but I can see the common thread; I hope VMIC pay good attention to closing the faiilure-analysis-remedy loop.
No experience with vxWorks, I ran Linux from the get-go. I DID have one weird problem, though; Seems the last 2 boards had a different Adaptec SCSI chip in them; same part number, NO indication given of any difference in "form, fit, or function", BUT it crashed the SCSI detect in RH5.X 'cause Adaptec changed the chip's internal architecture without telling anyone. VMIC hadn't heard of the problem either... Bad, Adaptec, VERY bad! Fortunately, RH6 includes the fix.
I have a ten-years-old distributed system (small, just 3 nodes, but distributed) that uses an early version of QNX to remotely boot diskless front-end systems and operate them from a central computer (a 386-33MHz speed demon). The system IS nice, you can run programs on a remote system from the command line with trivial ease, and the networking (at least the Arcnet system we used for the network-boot architecture) was quite robust. (Of course, the lousy application program that we ran on top of QNX is cursed to the deepest pits, and the system has always been marginal as a result...) QNX itself is s fine OS.
o ne-calls, changing the NIC and video card 'cause LynxOS didn't like'em, and general difficulty using it, I went out and bought RedHat 5.0, and I'm never, ever going closed-source again unless forced. (BTW, the funny thing 'bout LynxOS was, all the primary development tools were GNU; gcc, gdb... Only the profiler and MetroX X server were proprietary. Now, tell me again why I paid $30K for this package?)
On the minus side, QNX (at least then) did NOT let you create a bootable floppy, something that annoys me no end. We had sufficient licences for all nodes (at $hundreds per node), but ya still needed those double-damned fingerprinted floppies to make it work.
More recently, I had a brief fling with LynxOS 2 years ago; after several days of can't-get-it-to-install-even-with-tech-support-ph
Yes, I MAY be able to get superior real-time performance out of a closed-source OS (unproven IMHO); but my systems, like MOST of those out there, do NOT stretch the boundaries of achievable performance. I'm running P5-200MHz front-end systems using VMEbus; if I need more performance, (which I haven't yet and probably won't), I'll just slap in a faster CPU card. So far, I've had to hack the NIC code once to eliminate a funky media-autosense problem, and the VME driver to accommodate the VMIC VME implementation (the latter has since fixed by VMIC; great people, I HIGHLY recommend them, AND they support Linux on their iron!); I could NOT have done this with LynxOS or QNX, and MY experience says there's every chance I would have needed to do so.
It's not ideology that moves me to say this, and not cheapness (the OS cost isn't an issue in my systems); it's Linux' better flexibility, equal or better reliability and hardware compatibility, and that source accessibility that make it my primary choice for an OS.
As a practical matter of getting my job done, Open Source wins for me. Period.
As other responders have replied, the magnetic-field idea is impractical.
However, if you are REALLY serious about this, you CAN set up a device that, when triggered by lifting the computer off the table (without first disarming the device), dumps a corrosive, adhesive, or abrasive into the drive through its breather filter, effectively killing the drive. (Shaped charges are too messy, physically hazardous, and laden with legal hassles to use for this application).
Some aspects to keep in mind in such a case:
1. To effectively dodge destruction of evidence charges, the system MUST be preinstalled before they come knocking, and MUST be totally automatic in operation - NO positive action on your part to trigger or arm it.
2. This will seriously piss The Man off, so killing your data had better be worth A) having them never EVER return your stuff, and B) come back in a huff and turn your house upside-down with extreme prejudice, breaking many things and confiscating all backups and everything with more transistors in it than a Walkman.
3. You WILL need to somehow defend yourself against the destruction-of-evidence or obstruction-of-justice charge they will try to hang on you. Have a lawyer primed and ready to launch on warning; he might fill his trousers upon suddenly learning of your hard-drive-destroyer, so make sure he's informed in advance. After all, it is NOT illegal to make your computer commit seppuku when stolen.
Frankly, I cannot think of many people this would be worthwhile for.
For myself, I would rather tell The Man, "You can have my computer right now, untouched by my hands, without flashing a warrant or incurring the legal obstacles my lawyer will put in your way, BUT ONLY if you supply me, in advance, with a new system of equivalent capability as a loaner until you return my equipment. Your technician will also back up my data under my supervision before removing anything." This approach might not work either, but it's less hazardous and well worth trying.
Hey, that gives me an idea. Anyone wanna lobby for a "Replacement of Property Taken As Evidence Act" mandating the immediate replacement of confiscated computing hardware and data?
I agree with the poster who characterized Banks' writing as "inventively grim." Wish I'd thought of that... The thing is, he draws you into sympathizing with, liking, even identifying with the protagonists, and then he trashes them. Every single time. In every book.
Case in point: The shape-changer character in (I believe) "Player of Games" and his crew of mercenaries are decently likeable sorts; and in the end, Banks does a Hamlet number on them; everyone winds up dead meat but the single adversary/almost-lover who gets to do the Hamlet-esque death-march with his corpse.
By now, every time I start reading one of his novels (and they are very well crafted, interesting places), I go into it KNOWING that everyone in it whom I will care about in the least is going to be destroyed in one way or another. These novels are NOT for the easily-depressed...
One of Heinlein's last novels broke the divide between the author and his/her characters by having them all mixing it up in Valhalla or thereabouts; I shudder for Banks if his characters were ever to catch up with him in a dark alley there...
I have a love-hate relationship with his works. He is a master storyteller, and his worlds are really neat -- well-drawn, fascinating places -- but he is SOOO mean to his characters! He really wrenches the reader around some, too. Years after the fact, I am STILL wondering about the protagonist of Use of Weapons. Nonetheless, I'll snatch the new book up as soon as it arrives in the US.
is the correct spelling per the book, IIRC.
As I racall, the Motorola 6800 apps manual (not the 68000, the 8-bit 6800 chip) had a neat example program on reading Code 39 barcodes in software. It's really NOT all that tough to do this; you measure time intervals between bar edges, normalize them for swipe speed, classify them as wide bar/narrow bar ==> 1 and 0, and you're most of the way there. Then you need only identify the barcode type using the standard characteristics of each encoding (and they are designed to facilitate just this identification), do a simple forwards/backwards check in case the moron scanned the label right-to-left, test the check digit with a simple algorithm, and you're done. Not trivial, and there's effort required for handling multiple code types, but CERTAINLY not rocket science. (And I DO rocket science for a living...)
check the project on SourceForge for lotsa info on the format, plus some neat decoders for the reader. One or the other of these (there are also kernel drivers available, despite DCNV's nasty letters) can be used as a filter to read the barcode, translate it to a readable number, AND strip off the serial number.