The point is well taken for the image format. I agree that it will take a long time for this to catch on like JPEG, GIF, and even PNG (all recent browsers can handle PNG, so it usually isn't a big problem to have PNG on a website instead of GIF).
However, I spent some time looking at the JPEG 2000 website. One of the articles there did a comparison between various formats. While JP2 obviously did better than JPEG (about 2.5 dB better signal-to-noise ratio at 0.5, 1, and 2 bpp), it surprisingly did slightly bettern than MPEG4. In addition, the JP2 compression engine worked about 3 times faster than the MPEG4 engine.
While the article mentions that the times are to be taken with a grain of salt (the compression engines are not necessarily as highly optimized as they could be), it is very possible that JP2 will be replacing MPEG4 as the compression algorithm of choice: same compression rate, slightly better quality, and 3 times faster!
Of course, we have to wait until we can directly compare optimized versions of each in side by side trials. However, we all know that codecs come and go a lot faster than image formats -- clicking "yes" when asked to download a new codec is a much simpler decision for me than clicking "yes" to accept a new browser plugin.
I guess without playing around with it, I can't be sure, but I have to wonder if the hard drives are going to overheat. From what I can see, he's got the bottom of the power supply (HOT!) right next to the hard drives (HOT!). Not a good combination.
Perhaps the hard drives could have gone under the CDROM -- or does that throw the weight off too much? Maybe the hard drives above the power supply instead of below.
Strangely enough, concrete conducts electricity too well, from what I've heard. Not from anyone doing case mods, of course. Just people who have worked with car batteries and electrical equipment.
Ideally, you would use a purely functional language to take care of business. However, when you really get down to the heart of things, there it really can't be done. No matter what you try, there are always side effects. No amount of protection is 100% guaranteed.
For this reason, I have to advocate loyalty to your API. Take your time, get to know a few, but don't do the deed until you are ready to commit. Otherwise, the rest of your life will be utterly confusing -- the side effects of previous programmer-OS releationships will come back to haunt you.
Once upon a time, only the mainframes had enough power to do anything useful. The terminals had a chip to display characters on a screen and send keystrokes back, and that was all.
Then the PC came around, and everyone could have their own system. Ownership! They could keep their own private stuff private! But the cost was that they could only access their stuff at their own computer.
Since then, times have changed. Computers have become hundreds of thousands of times more powerful, and much more capable. Since we can do so much more with them, a much greater portion of our lives is associated with them.
So times have changed again -- not only do we need our OWN computers, but we need access to them all the time! And since not every computer is appropriate for every job, we have multiple computers. Every time we use a computer, we want to use its capabilities (location, portability, power), but we want access to all of the software and data we use at the other ones.
Now all of our computers are potential mainframes. It isn't a problem that the CPU runs idle all the time (you can even run SETI or DNETC). You get your money's worth out of what you do use.
So we aren't going back to "Mainframe Computer." And there isn't a "Personal Computer" either. It is simply "Computers." You can use any computer wherever you are to get your data, manipulate it (software), and store it back. You use the local resources (the computer at hand), and your personal resources (the computer at home), and some public resources (the servers online) and get your job done.
It isn't that the pendulum has swung back to mainframe from PC. It is that we now have the power to keep the benefits of mainframe and the benefits of PC, and add some additional benefits.
Of course, keeping it all simple is the hard part... But the Phillips tablet (Mira) seems to be a step in the right direction.
Make sure that your process includes the following, and your development system will scale well (assuming that all else is ok):
1. Your source control system should warn you if you "check out" a file that is also checked out by someone else. You can then judge how much you are going to change it, and if necessary contact the other person for coordination.
2. Update often. Keep an eye on what is changing. If things are changing in areas that you are playing in, skim through the changes to make sure they don't affect you.
3. Update to the latest version of everything, merge any conflicts, build clean, do a quick test of the product (especially in the areas you were working on), get a code review from someone else, and THEN check in. You should probably get somebody else to update, build, and test immediately after your checkin, in case a random disturbance in the force allowed things to work on your machine, but it really has a problem.
4. Set up a nightly "official" build. In the morning, run through a standard set of tests on the "official" build. This helps avoid regressions.
That doesn't change what the guy is saying. NAT prevents another computer from initiating a connection to the internal network, but it doesn't prevent you from being hacked. A clever hacker can hijack existing connections, or convince you to open connections that aren't friendly.
For example: you browse to www.ima.hacker.net. The page has code to exploit a browser vulerability, and the exploit code initiates a connection back to www.ima.hacker.net.
Another problem is connection hijacking -- a hacker can send extra packets to a firewall that actually get through because they are marked as being from the same port and address as those of a real connection. This is especially easy if the hacker is able to sniff packets en route.
Yes, being behind a NAT does reduce the risk of attacks: you probably only have to secure your client apps, not your server apps. But clients are vulnerable, too.
Overall, IPv6 will be far more resistant to hacking. The designers had the wisdom of many years of IPv4 problems and security flaws to influence the design. Now it is much harder to spoof a packet. Now you can't sniff packet ID numbers. Any advantage that you are currently attributing to NAT can be gotten with a firewall, and much more reliably.
Can't wait can't wait can't wait.
Re:They've released the dev stuff.
on
What is .NET?
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As far as C++ compliance, you're right. MS is really trying to get their compiler into the modern age without leaving anybody out to dry. It's a problem, though -- fix too many noncompliant things, and you break the code that depends on noncompliance.
MS released its first C++ compiler before certain standards were determined. It therefore has to support the code of developers who coded for the beta standard.
Significant examples of this is for-loop variable scoping and the thowing operator new().
With VC6, the following correct code would throw a duplicate definition error:
for(int x=1; x10; x++)
DoStuff(x);
// x shouldn't be defined here, but it is
for(int x=2; x11; x++)
DoMoreStuff(x);
Now in VC7, Microsoft makes a compromise. X is still defined between the two for loops, but the compiler special-cases the second declaration and doesn't regard it as an error. This allows ANSI standard C++ code to compiler without breaking existing code.
Eventually, I'm guessing they will stop supporting the old style, or make it an option.
I see nothing wrong with what you are doing, and it is one heck of a good idea. I really wish I had the time to go in and write some little drivers that would journal the addition/deletion of files and folders to the personal SQL server on my PC, so that when I do my (frequent) searches for files, they would be quick. Locate is nice, but it isn't real-time...
You'll get good info, and the info is the most important part for doing a good job of reorganizing things. Ad-hoc can be fine when everybody is responsible for their own stuff, but when the whole system is supposed to work cohesively, nothing is as cool as a really well-engineered large system that is bulletproof, and you can't do that with out really good planning.
Maybe off topic...
I think the whole "files and folders" system is artificial anyway. We had no concept of files at first, until the technology on the mainframes was good enough that we were able to finally put some structure around the data. Then we started categorizing the files, and eventually the device, folders/directories, etc. structure evolved. In addition, we have this server hierarchy, with mount points, etc. It is a lot more complex, and somewhat more capable of organizing our data, but it still isn't even close to how we really think. It was invented because it was a good way to organize that was efficient for the horsepower available at the time. Now we're somewhat entrenched by it.
Database filesystems are a much more natural way to do things, though. How do you categorize your MP3s? By Hard rock/Soft Rock/Pop/Oldies? By Artist? By title of the song? With folders you have to pick one method. With a database, you can switch anytime.
Now that the computers are capable of it, we're starting to move in the direction of database filesystems already. MP3 categorizers are coming in quickly, as are filesystem indexers (locate, and MS's indexing server). Handheld devices kind of go by a "database" filesystem as well.
I envision a filesystem as follows: a flat set of files, each with a serial number (inode number basically). Also, a database that associates each inode with any number of attributes. There are certain pre-defined attributes with globally well-understood meanings, and namespace rules about defining new attributes and personal-use attributes. The attributes can themselves have attributes (more on this later).
Attributes include file names (as opposed to "filenames," though similar), creation/modification/access dates, owner, comment, file type, keywords. And a file may or may not be assigned a "Default open with" attribute... Or maybe 2 or 3 (in which case a list box would pop up when you double clicked on the file!)
If the file didn't have a "default open with," what then? Well, it probably has a file type attribute. Say, File Type text/plain. Well, the attribute text/plain has a "default open with" attribute of "GVim.EXE." Well, cool!
This would be nice in a lot of places: source code control would be very simple. Just put a "version" attribute on, and move the "latestversion" tag around. Also, this eliminates the need for multiple copies of a file in a build environment (well, theoretically, you should be able to eliminate this by proper engineering, but we all know that sometimes you miss something and have to copy a file somewhere...) -- you just refer to the same file twice.
That is my idea of how the database file system should work. Of course, it really messes with our current paradigm, and it introduces some problems (bye bye canonical pathnames for files!) but sometimes I really wish I had a database behind my filesystem, not a hierarchy.
You would be fine either way. I really don't think you would be able to tell the difference performance-wise.
If you've never installed either before, I would go with BSD - the installer will help you get a good server set up without all of the desktop fluff that automatically comes with a lot of the more recent Linux distros (not that the fluff is bad, just that you don't want it for your server). The ports and packages systems will make getting Apache+PHP and MySQL easy as pie.
I ran an Apache/PHP/MySQL website off of a 486-66 with 16 MB RAM. The AB benchmark of a dynamic page (PHP with several database lookups) put it at about 1-10 dynamic hits per second, depending on which pages got hit. Of course, it could flood a 10 Mbit ethernet line with static requests for large files, but that isn't saying much. For my purposes (running a site for 100 people), this was great. Nobody ever complained about performance, and the only time it ever crashed was when the hard drive literally crashed.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions...
Nope. They used it as a reference, of course, as did everyonce else, but after tracking this down a while, I have come to the conclusion that this is a false rumor. (On the other hand, MS does release source to a small amount of stuff, such as WinCE...)
Umm, actually, cmd.exe is starting to approach usability. I actually like it. I am interested to know Bill's response to Regis' question "is that your last command prompt?" If Bill were honest, he would say no, because some little birdies have told me that MS development uses a whole lot of command line utilities.
Well, actually, I suppose Bill doesn't do all that much development any more, so maybe not.
Except that I don't think Galoob obtained their information about how to interoperate with the NES under a contractual agreement with Nintendo. Via made certain agreements with Intel, in which it received information from Intel, and agreed to certain restrictions about how it could use that information. The question is whether Via's licensing agreement allows them to sell these products. I personally hope they can, but I can see some reasons why they might get caught in court for a while.
U of U is not particularly Mormon. A lot of Mormons go there, but to a certain extent it is THE campus to go to if you want to go to a Utah school but don't want to have the ultra-Mormon atmosphere.
I'm a Mormon. I just graduated from BYU, which is DEFINITELY ultra-Mormon. My sister just graduated from U of U, which is definitely NOT Mormon-centered. It may be conservative, and it may have some leaders who are members of the church, but that doesn't mean that the church is fascist.
I haven't studied the issue in-depth, so I can't cast judgement. From what I can see, I strongly disagree with the actions of the local police and the university. It just ticks me off that everything that happens bad in Utah gets blamed on Mormons. Often it IS a Mormon who did whatever is dumb, but that doesn't mean that the Mormon Church is behind what happened.
For my home computer, hard drive noise was a big deal. I had a 7200 RPM drive. The only noise it made was seeking, but that was still pretty loud. However, this need not be. My latest work computer has an IBM DTLA-307030, and when it was first booting up, I thought there was a hard drive problem - I couldn't even hear it. Check the specs on the HDD noise before you buy - different drives have way different specs. The IBM drive gets two thumbs up.
The -12v isn't used by most components, but a lot of sound cards DO use it. (I happen to know because my -12v lead came loose, and the only thing that went wrong was my audio out picked up a whole lot of noise and reduced its volume 90%.)
If you want someone to tell you if your code sucks, call the expert. Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" should be required reading. He talks about a lot of this stuff, and tells when each C++ feature should and should not be used. Highly recommended.
Ok, so what's the big deal? Here we are, whining because somebody doesn't get copyright protection for their work, somebody finds their work distributed in a way not allowed by the license. (Not that this is right.)
Whatever happened to all of those people who were crying to mommy because Napster was in trouble for wholesale distribution of copyrighted material in violation of the licenses on the albums?
Apparently, we like to have our cake and eat it too. We want to be able to download copyrighted materials from Napster, yet can't stand it when somebody uses our IP against our license.
Please, our arguments would be a little bit stronger if we picked one side or the other. I'm not saying Napster should be shut down, I'm not saying the RIAA isn't a bunch of jerks, and I'm not saying it isn't wrong to take someone's code and distribute it against their license agreement. I'm just saying that if we want to claim that information wants to be free, we'd better follow through and apply that belief in all areas, not just where convenient. If we want people to respect our license agreements (like GPL and FreeBSD's), we should make more of an effort to do a little bit of respecting ourselves.
(I'll get off my soapbox now. Sorry! Rant mode turning off.)
-- There are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
Yeah, I run Linux on my old 386sx/16 laptop - 5MB RAM (RAM is MAXED OUT!), 128MB HDD. Kernel recompile takes 18 hours. Man pages take 30 seconds to come up. But most stuff actually runs quite nicely. I just have to use a slightly out-of-date kernel.
I've figured out some things that were confusing me when I did the original translation. Replace the word "replacement" with "replacement of old license plates." Replace "making legal" with "bidding for." In addition, make the following correction and addition:
Original The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Corrected The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement of old license plates - for all citizens who have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment of registration fees - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of bidding for the computer goods.
Add this on at the end: (I couldn't figure out what they were talking about, so I left this last paragraph out of my first translation).
It was announced that with the payment of [overdue] registration fees, the replacement of old license plates was going to be free; do you have anything to say about that, and is this part of the design of the new system?
Of course. In fact, if you notice that the payment of fees this year is very different from the payment of other years. . . It is for this reason that we are connecting the two databases, even the payment mechanism for both cases. In other words, the fees now on-time, the fees later, all this so that it can be put in the banks [databanks?].
(Disclaimer: I'm not native, but this should get the gist of it. I ran into a few phrases where I am nearly certain that the article had typos, but I don't have enough ability with the language to figure out what they were really trying to say. I left most of the run-on sentances as they were, but some I corrected.)
Local Government will avoid buying Windows
The technical coordinator of the capital's administration, Jose Barberan, informed [us?] that with the new computer system it will be possible to implement a database program that will be used in the replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
by Alejandra Bordon
Mexico City, Mexico - (March 12, 2001) The information revolution, the seed of which was planted by a young programmer from Finland, Linus Torvalds, has arrived at the Distrito Federal's [Mexico's equivalent of Washington D.C., the area surrounding Mexico City] government.
The method: use Linux un all areas of the capitol's administration, an open, free [cost], and free [license] operating system created by Torvalds in 1991 and continually spreading over the entire world.
The objective: save 10's of millions of pesos [millions of dollars] in license fees for the use of commercial programs - like Windows - and use the money for poor-assistance programs that the Government leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has initiated.
In charge of the project is Jose Barberan, Technical Coordinator of the capital administration, who informed [us] in an interview that Linux will be used un the program for the database replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Among the first steps, they have already taken the step of moving from commercial systems to open systems in some of the driver's-licence offices, where Linux is already working.
The goal, as Barberan explained in the interview, is to bring all of the systems in the City Government to Linux in one or two years, in a gradual process that avoids risks in the administration's operation.
Among the areas that in the near future will see their systems changed are the ones in charge of tax collection, databases that have to do with the transition and the new programs, as it is the one with the elderly [referring to the poverty programs].
Is it true that you plan to use and improve the Linux environment for use in the government?
Use and improve Linux? No, we aren't going to improve it ourselves, there are people all over the world improving it, but yes we want to bring the Distrito Federal [DF] Government's systems, as far as is possible and as long as the process doesn't interfere with basic functions, to open [source] systems, beginning with Linux as the OS. Not only Linux, but all of the free [cost] software that revolves around Linux systems.
The DF government, like all governments and like all companies, spends a significant amount of money on software, and we want to make this more efficient, because we have the instruction [? my guess is "we are an example to"] all areas of the government, of the most efficient way to set up the government, to create savings that will create something easy to understand that is more support for, say, support of the elderly, of the disabled, the single mothers, etc.
Will this be a substitute for Windows, which is that which is currently used in all of the offices?
I'm thinking that the advantage would be in the molding process. You draw into wire at 250 degrees Farenheit. You wrap it around the core at room temperature. Once you've gotten your 10-gazillion loops of the plastic stuff to make your nifty supermagnet, you drop it into the ice bath (read: liquid nitro) and it starts to superconduct. You can't do that with the ceramics.
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The point is well taken for the image format. I agree that it will take a long time for this to catch on like JPEG, GIF, and even PNG (all recent browsers can handle PNG, so it usually isn't a big problem to have PNG on a website instead of GIF).
However, I spent some time looking at the JPEG 2000 website. One of the articles there did a comparison between various formats. While JP2 obviously did better than JPEG (about 2.5 dB better signal-to-noise ratio at 0.5, 1, and 2 bpp), it surprisingly did slightly bettern than MPEG4. In addition, the JP2 compression engine worked about 3 times faster than the MPEG4 engine.
While the article mentions that the times are to be taken with a grain of salt (the compression engines are not necessarily as highly optimized as they could be), it is very possible that JP2 will be replacing MPEG4 as the compression algorithm of choice: same compression rate, slightly better quality, and 3 times faster!
Of course, we have to wait until we can directly compare optimized versions of each in side by side trials. However, we all know that codecs come and go a lot faster than image formats -- clicking "yes" when asked to download a new codec is a much simpler decision for me than clicking "yes" to accept a new browser plugin.
I guess without playing around with it, I can't be sure, but I have to wonder if the hard drives are going to overheat. From what I can see, he's got the bottom of the power supply (HOT!) right next to the hard drives (HOT!). Not a good combination.
Perhaps the hard drives could have gone under the CDROM -- or does that throw the weight off too much? Maybe the hard drives above the power supply instead of below.
Just a thought...
Strangely enough, concrete conducts electricity too well, from what I've heard. Not from anyone doing case mods, of course. Just people who have worked with car batteries and electrical equipment.
Yes, but you wouldn't even be ABLE to do those things on EITHER browser if they hadn't extended the standard!
Ideally, you would use a purely functional language to take care of business. However, when you really get down to the heart of things, there it really can't be done. No matter what you try, there are always side effects. No amount of protection is 100% guaranteed.
For this reason, I have to advocate loyalty to your API. Take your time, get to know a few, but don't do the deed until you are ready to commit. Otherwise, the rest of your life will be utterly confusing -- the side effects of previous programmer-OS releationships will come back to haunt you.
You have been warned!
Once upon a time, only the mainframes had enough power to do anything useful. The terminals had a chip to display characters on a screen and send keystrokes back, and that was all.
Then the PC came around, and everyone could have their own system. Ownership! They could keep their own private stuff private! But the cost was that they could only access their stuff at their own computer.
Since then, times have changed. Computers have become hundreds of thousands of times more powerful, and much more capable. Since we can do so much more with them, a much greater portion of our lives is associated with them.
So times have changed again -- not only do we need our OWN computers, but we need access to them all the time! And since not every computer is appropriate for every job, we have multiple computers. Every time we use a computer, we want to use its capabilities (location, portability, power), but we want access to all of the software and data we use at the other ones.
Now all of our computers are potential mainframes. It isn't a problem that the CPU runs idle all the time (you can even run SETI or DNETC). You get your money's worth out of what you do use.
So we aren't going back to "Mainframe Computer." And there isn't a "Personal Computer" either. It is simply "Computers." You can use any computer wherever you are to get your data, manipulate it (software), and store it back. You use the local resources (the computer at hand), and your personal resources (the computer at home), and some public resources (the servers online) and get your job done.
It isn't that the pendulum has swung back to mainframe from PC. It is that we now have the power to keep the benefits of mainframe and the benefits of PC, and add some additional benefits.
Of course, keeping it all simple is the hard part... But the Phillips tablet (Mira) seems to be a step in the right direction.
Make sure that your process includes the following, and your development system will scale well (assuming that all else is ok):
1. Your source control system should warn you if you "check out" a file that is also checked out by someone else. You can then judge how much you are going to change it, and if necessary contact the other person for coordination.
2. Update often. Keep an eye on what is changing. If things are changing in areas that you are playing in, skim through the changes to make sure they don't affect you.
3. Update to the latest version of everything, merge any conflicts, build clean, do a quick test of the product (especially in the areas you were working on), get a code review from someone else, and THEN check in. You should probably get somebody else to update, build, and test immediately after your checkin, in case a random disturbance in the force allowed things to work on your machine, but it really has a problem.
4. Set up a nightly "official" build. In the morning, run through a standard set of tests on the "official" build. This helps avoid regressions.
5. Provide lots of pizza.
That doesn't change what the guy is saying. NAT prevents another computer from initiating a connection to the internal network, but it doesn't prevent you from being hacked. A clever hacker can hijack existing connections, or convince you to open connections that aren't friendly.
For example: you browse to www.ima.hacker.net. The page has code to exploit a browser vulerability, and the exploit code initiates a connection back to www.ima.hacker.net.
Another problem is connection hijacking -- a hacker can send extra packets to a firewall that actually get through because they are marked as being from the same port and address as those of a real connection. This is especially easy if the hacker is able to sniff packets en route.
Yes, being behind a NAT does reduce the risk of attacks: you probably only have to secure your client apps, not your server apps. But clients are vulnerable, too.
Overall, IPv6 will be far more resistant to hacking. The designers had the wisdom of many years of IPv4 problems and security flaws to influence the design. Now it is much harder to spoof a packet. Now you can't sniff packet ID numbers. Any advantage that you are currently attributing to NAT can be gotten with a firewall, and much more reliably.
Can't wait can't wait can't wait.
As far as C++ compliance, you're right. MS is really trying to get their compiler into the modern age without leaving anybody out to dry. It's a problem, though -- fix too many noncompliant things, and you break the code that depends on noncompliance.
MS released its first C++ compiler before certain standards were determined. It therefore has to support the code of developers who coded for the beta standard.
Significant examples of this is for-loop variable scoping and the thowing operator new().
With VC6, the following correct code would throw a duplicate definition error:
for(int x=1; x10; x++)
DoStuff(x);
// x shouldn't be defined here, but it is
for(int x=2; x11; x++)
DoMoreStuff(x);
Now in VC7, Microsoft makes a compromise. X is still defined between the two for loops, but the compiler special-cases the second declaration and doesn't regard it as an error. This allows ANSI standard C++ code to compiler without breaking existing code.
Eventually, I'm guessing they will stop supporting the old style, or make it an option.
I see nothing wrong with what you are doing, and it is one heck of a good idea. I really wish I had the time to go in and write some little drivers that would journal the addition/deletion of files and folders to the personal SQL server on my PC, so that when I do my (frequent) searches for files, they would be quick. Locate is nice, but it isn't real-time...
You'll get good info, and the info is the most important part for doing a good job of reorganizing things. Ad-hoc can be fine when everybody is responsible for their own stuff, but when the whole system is supposed to work cohesively, nothing is as cool as a really well-engineered large system that is bulletproof, and you can't do that with out really good planning.
Maybe off topic...
I think the whole "files and folders" system is artificial anyway. We had no concept of files at first, until the technology on the mainframes was good enough that we were able to finally put some structure around the data. Then we started categorizing the files, and eventually the device, folders/directories, etc. structure evolved. In addition, we have this server hierarchy, with mount points, etc. It is a lot more complex, and somewhat more capable of organizing our data, but it still isn't even close to how we really think. It was invented because it was a good way to organize that was efficient for the horsepower available at the time. Now we're somewhat entrenched by it.
Database filesystems are a much more natural way to do things, though. How do you categorize your MP3s? By Hard rock/Soft Rock/Pop/Oldies? By Artist? By title of the song? With folders you have to pick one method. With a database, you can switch anytime.
Now that the computers are capable of it, we're starting to move in the direction of database filesystems already. MP3 categorizers are coming in quickly, as are filesystem indexers (locate, and MS's indexing server). Handheld devices kind of go by a "database" filesystem as well.
I envision a filesystem as follows: a flat set of files, each with a serial number (inode number basically). Also, a database that associates each inode with any number of attributes. There are certain pre-defined attributes with globally well-understood meanings, and namespace rules about defining new attributes and personal-use attributes. The attributes can themselves have attributes (more on this later).
Attributes include file names (as opposed to "filenames," though similar), creation/modification/access dates, owner, comment, file type, keywords. And a file may or may not be assigned a "Default open with" attribute... Or maybe 2 or 3 (in which case a list box would pop up when you double clicked on the file!)
If the file didn't have a "default open with," what then? Well, it probably has a file type attribute. Say, File Type text/plain. Well, the attribute text/plain has a "default open with" attribute of "GVim.EXE." Well, cool!
This would be nice in a lot of places: source code control would be very simple. Just put a "version" attribute on, and move the "latestversion" tag around. Also, this eliminates the need for multiple copies of a file in a build environment (well, theoretically, you should be able to eliminate this by proper engineering, but we all know that sometimes you miss something and have to copy a file somewhere...) -- you just refer to the same file twice.
That is my idea of how the database file system should work. Of course, it really messes with our current paradigm, and it introduces some problems (bye bye canonical pathnames for files!) but sometimes I really wish I had a database behind my filesystem, not a hierarchy.
You would be fine either way. I really don't think you would be able to tell the difference performance-wise.
If you've never installed either before, I would go with BSD - the installer will help you get a good server set up without all of the desktop fluff that automatically comes with a lot of the more recent Linux distros (not that the fluff is bad, just that you don't want it for your server). The ports and packages systems will make getting Apache+PHP and MySQL easy as pie.
I ran an Apache/PHP/MySQL website off of a 486-66 with 16 MB RAM. The AB benchmark of a dynamic page (PHP with several database lookups) put it at about 1-10 dynamic hits per second, depending on which pages got hit. Of course, it could flood a 10 Mbit ethernet line with static requests for large files, but that isn't saying much. For my purposes (running a site for 100 people), this was great. Nobody ever complained about performance, and the only time it ever crashed was when the hard drive literally crashed.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions...
Nope. They used it as a reference, of course, as did everyonce else, but after tracking this down a while, I have come to the conclusion that this is a false rumor. (On the other hand, MS does release source to a small amount of stuff, such as WinCE...)
Umm, actually, cmd.exe is starting to approach usability. I actually like it. I am interested to know Bill's response to Regis' question "is that your last command prompt?" If Bill were honest, he would say no, because some little birdies have told me that MS development uses a whole lot of command line utilities.
Well, actually, I suppose Bill doesn't do all that much development any more, so maybe not.
Time to sue GNU... They distributed a dangerous circumvention device.
tr [a-zA-Z] [n-za-mN-ZA-M]
Except that I don't think Galoob obtained their information about how to interoperate with the NES under a contractual agreement with Nintendo. Via made certain agreements with Intel, in which it received information from Intel, and agreed to certain restrictions about how it could use that information. The question is whether Via's licensing agreement allows them to sell these products. I personally hope they can, but I can see some reasons why they might get caught in court for a while.
U of U is not particularly Mormon. A lot of Mormons go there, but to a certain extent it is THE campus to go to if you want to go to a Utah school but don't want to have the ultra-Mormon atmosphere.
I'm a Mormon. I just graduated from BYU, which is DEFINITELY ultra-Mormon. My sister just graduated from U of U, which is definitely NOT Mormon-centered. It may be conservative, and it may have some leaders who are members of the church, but that doesn't mean that the church is fascist.
I haven't studied the issue in-depth, so I can't cast judgement. From what I can see, I strongly disagree with the actions of the local police and the university. It just ticks me off that everything that happens bad in Utah gets blamed on Mormons. Often it IS a Mormon who did whatever is dumb, but that doesn't mean that the Mormon Church is behind what happened.
For my home computer, hard drive noise was a big deal. I had a 7200 RPM drive. The only noise it made was seeking, but that was still pretty loud. However, this need not be. My latest work computer has an IBM DTLA-307030, and when it was first booting up, I thought there was a hard drive problem - I couldn't even hear it. Check the specs on the HDD noise before you buy - different drives have way different specs. The IBM drive gets two thumbs up.
The -12v isn't used by most components, but a lot of sound cards DO use it. (I happen to know because my -12v lead came loose, and the only thing that went wrong was my audio out picked up a whole lot of noise and reduced its volume 90%.)
If you want someone to tell you if your code sucks, call the expert. Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" should be required reading. He talks about a lot of this stuff, and tells when each C++ feature should and should not be used. Highly recommended.
(This isn't meant to be a troll. I promise!)
Ok, so what's the big deal? Here we are, whining because somebody doesn't get copyright protection for their work, somebody finds their work distributed in a way not allowed by the license. (Not that this is right.)
Whatever happened to all of those people who were crying to mommy because Napster was in trouble for wholesale distribution of copyrighted material in violation of the licenses on the albums?
Apparently, we like to have our cake and eat it too. We want to be able to download copyrighted materials from Napster, yet can't stand it when somebody uses our IP against our license.
Please, our arguments would be a little bit stronger if we picked one side or the other. I'm not saying Napster should be shut down, I'm not saying the RIAA isn't a bunch of jerks, and I'm not saying it isn't wrong to take someone's code and distribute it against their license agreement. I'm just saying that if we want to claim that information wants to be free, we'd better follow through and apply that belief in all areas, not just where convenient. If we want people to respect our license agreements (like GPL and FreeBSD's), we should make more of an effort to do a little bit of respecting ourselves.
(I'll get off my soapbox now. Sorry! Rant mode turning off.)
-- There are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
Yeah, I run Linux on my old 386sx/16 laptop - 5MB RAM (RAM is MAXED OUT!), 128MB HDD. Kernel recompile takes 18 hours. Man pages take 30 seconds to come up. But most stuff actually runs quite nicely. I just have to use a slightly out-of-date kernel.
I've figured out some things that were confusing me when I did the original translation. Replace the word "replacement" with "replacement of old license plates." Replace "making legal" with "bidding for." In addition, make the following correction and addition:
Original
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Corrected
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement of old license plates - for all citizens who have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment of registration fees - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of bidding for the computer goods.
Add this on at the end: (I couldn't figure out what they were talking about, so I left this last paragraph out of my first translation).
It was announced that with the payment of [overdue] registration fees, the replacement of old license plates was going to be free; do you have anything to say about that, and is this part of the design of the new system?
Of course. In fact, if you notice that the payment of fees this year is very different from the payment of other years. . . It is for this reason that we are connecting the two databases, even the payment mechanism for both cases. In other words, the fees now on-time, the fees later, all this so that it can be put in the banks [databanks?].
(Disclaimer: I'm not native, but this should get the gist of it. I ran into a few phrases where I am nearly certain that the article had typos, but I don't have enough ability with the language to figure out what they were really trying to say. I left most of the run-on sentances as they were, but some I corrected.)
Local Government will avoid buying Windows
The technical coordinator of the capital's administration, Jose Barberan, informed [us?] that with the new computer system it will be possible to implement a database program that will be used in the replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
by Alejandra Bordon
Mexico City, Mexico - (March 12, 2001) The information revolution, the seed of which was planted by a young programmer from Finland, Linus Torvalds, has arrived at the Distrito Federal's [Mexico's equivalent of Washington D.C., the area surrounding Mexico City] government.
The method: use Linux un all areas of the capitol's administration, an open, free [cost], and free [license] operating system created by Torvalds in 1991 and continually spreading over the entire world.
The objective: save 10's of millions of pesos [millions of dollars] in license fees for the use of commercial programs - like Windows - and use the money for poor-assistance programs that the Government leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has initiated.
In charge of the project is Jose Barberan, Technical Coordinator of the capital administration, who informed [us] in an interview that Linux will be used un the program for the database replacement that will begin in the middle of the year.
The design of the program for the free [cost] replacement - for which the contributors have brought themselves up-to-date in their payment [?] - began in September 2000 and through several meetings headed by the Technical Coordination, is currently in the process of making legal [?] the computer goods.
Among the first steps, they have already taken the step of moving from commercial systems to open systems in some of the driver's-licence offices, where Linux is already working.
The goal, as Barberan explained in the interview, is to bring all of the systems in the City Government to Linux in one or two years, in a gradual process that avoids risks in the administration's operation.
Among the areas that in the near future will see their systems changed are the ones in charge of tax collection, databases that have to do with the transition and the new programs, as it is the one with the elderly [referring to the poverty programs].
Is it true that you plan to use and improve the Linux environment for use in the government?
Use and improve Linux? No, we aren't going to improve it ourselves, there are people all over the world improving it, but yes we want to bring the Distrito Federal [DF] Government's systems, as far as is possible and as long as the process doesn't interfere with basic functions, to open [source] systems, beginning with Linux as the OS. Not only Linux, but all of the free [cost] software that revolves around Linux systems.
The DF government, like all governments and like all companies, spends a significant amount of money on software, and we want to make this more efficient, because we have the instruction [? my guess is "we are an example to"] all areas of the government, of the most efficient way to set up the government, to create savings that will create something easy to understand that is more support for, say, support of the elderly, of the disabled, the single mothers, etc.
Will this be a substitute for Windows, which is that which is currently used in all of the offices?
I'm thinking that the advantage would be in the molding process. You draw into wire at 250 degrees Farenheit. You wrap it around the core at room temperature. Once you've gotten your 10-gazillion loops of the plastic stuff to make your nifty supermagnet, you drop it into the ice bath (read: liquid nitro) and it starts to superconduct. You can't do that with the ceramics.
The review tells how the book ends. Why didn't you warn us about the spoiler?
(grin)