Don't know if he's a troll or not but it is possible to have X running perfectly happily on a machine of those specs.
You can't really use KDE, Gnome or anything like that. Simple stuff like AfterStep's actually pretty nippy (and indeed was exactly what I did a couple of years ago with my K62-400).
OpenOffice performs acceptably, as does most other software. Provided you've got enough memory, processor speed is seldom a big deal.
As a fellow UK resident I'd have to disagree with you regarding the effectiveness of CCTV. Have you watched the average bit of CCTV footage on TV?
The images are usually at least two of the following: Blocky, poor quality, jerky, black and white, dirty (because nobody's cleaned the lens on the camera in the 5 years since it was installed and pigeons have been messing on it ever since).
However, there have been recent cases where these same images have been used to secure convictions, being put to a jury as "proof". Later investigation has proven it to be a case of mistaken identity - all too easy with the usually abysmal image quality.
If we're to believe the industry "analysts", Senior C developer with 10 years experience == MCSE straight out of Microsoft "boot camp" == "Would you like fries with that?".
If in doubt, remember where the word "analyst" comes from:
"anal" - bumhole. "lystere" - to pull numbers from.
You missed the point. The 497 million euro fine isn't supposed to achieve much. Being forced to open their APIs and standards is the kicker.
Samba, for instance, could go from being a pretty good if not always complete implementation of SMB to a complete drop-in replacement very quickly indeed. Developing a complete replacement for Exchange which can interoperate with an existing Exchange setup becomes much more faesible.
Ah, great solution, "sue". Guess you must be American.
I'm not. I'm English.
Here in Merrie Olde England, a few years ago, the London Ambulance Service decided that a computer could work out the most efficient route from A to B through a busy city far better than a human controller. Reference Here
Thus the computer could decide which ambulance was best placed to answer a specific call based on its geographic location far more efficiently than a person.
It couldn't. People died. Nobody was ultimately held liable. Had the problem been that a bunch of vehicles with faulty steering was sold as ambulances, the manufacturer would have been feeling the pain for years.
It is my 'umble, very 'umble opinion, that there are some things which we still do not understand sufficiently to turn into reliable computer systems. Oh, we understand them ourselves OK - regular drivers know where's a bad place to drive in their home town at rush hour - but we simply don't have a thorough enough understanding to be able to turn it into a reliable computer system. Yet we still try it.
Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow A former Microsoftie says addiction to Windows revenue, mediocre products, and missed opportunities could doom Seattle's most successful company.
by Jeff Reifman
(Illustration by Dean MacAdam)
Jeff Reifman builds Internet tools for nonprofit organizations as director of technology at Groundspring.org. In his spare time, he writes the progressive political journal IDEAlog.us.
Why are Microsoft products so endlessly frustrating to use? Even techno-geeks like me get annoyed by Windows. I'm tired of spending the first 10 minutes of my day rebooting just so I can get to work. Microsoft Outlook 2003, the latest version of the company's e-mail and calendar software, hangs for me about once a day, requiring me to restart my PC. I also have a problem with Word 2003: Whenever I bullet a line of text, every line in the document gets a bullet. Asking Windows to shut down is more of a request than a command--it might, it might not. And recently, Internet Explorer stopped opening for me.
I know I'm not alone. If you're like me, you've invested in technology to become more efficient and productive but mutter about the many frustrations of the digital lifestyle. Technology is my hobby as well as my job, so I regularly ponder why software giant Microsoft Corp., which has more than $56 billion in cash, hasn't solved more of these problems.
I began using Microsoft products 23 years ago, at age 11, and I worked for Microsoft from 1991 to 1999 as a technology manager. For many years, I was a Microsoft loyalist. While aware of Microsoft's shortcomings, I always believed that the Soft did its best to improve products over time, as it did with Windows XP. But recently, I've had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I've rebooted Windows one too many times.
I've had a crisis of faith. Last month I went out and bought a Macintosh G5 and began using the new Mac operating system, OS X. It has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows.
Over the past year, my frustration with Windows grew, as did my envy of Apple's cool new products. Finally, last month I went out and bought an Apple Macintosh G5 and began using the new Mac operating system, OS X. It had been years since I'd used a Macintosh. Until recently, I dismissed those who did as impractical, elitist hipsters, and I mocked the Mac "switch" ads on TV.
But in the first five minutes on my new Mac, I was surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, and ripping a CD. OS X has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows.
This made me wonder about Microsoft's willingness to innovate and compete. Why are Microsoft products still so difficult to use and so unreliable? Why is the company improving them so slowly? Is Microsoft losing its competitive edge? Has the company seen its best days?
The Web's phenomenal growth has driven a number of fundamental changes. And from my vantage, at least, Microsoft seems to have overlooked the most important of those trends. It made a series of missteps, and it's not clear if it has learned from them. In protecting Windows and Office revenues, Microsoft has innovated less quickly than it could have. The company relies on the same strategy that helped it years ago come to dominate the personal-computer market with the Windows operating system, despite mounting evidence that its customers are looking for a new approach. Competitors such as Linux and Google are gaining, and Microsoft seems unprepared for the road ahead.
My Time at Microsoft
I arrived at Microsoft the week I turned 21. I was fortunate to spend the next eight years growing up on the Redmond campus. I learned nearly everything I know about project management there. I became a more critical thinker. And, like many others, I was very fortunate financially. In time, my stock options allowed me to pursue a for-profit dot-com startup, as well as a series of socially responsible nonprofit ventures.
I spent my first four years at the company working to build Windows int
Mod parent up as insightful... it's an excellent point.
We sue architects for designing buildings which collapse before they're even completed. We sue car manufacturers who build cars which have an annoying tendency to explode. Our relatives sue doctors who say "that little lump is nothing to worry about". In each case, a person in a profession which requires a degree of understanding greater than expected of the general public has screwed up.
I can only imagine that the IT industry has convinced the general public that computers are Just So Complicated that nobody on earth can possibly understand them properly, and therefore such mistakes are to be expected. One day someone will be killed because of such complacency. Perhaps then the industry will start to take some responsibility for its mistakes.
Now how are they going to implement this on normal CDs without software and/or hardware support on every PC out there?
My guess: A DRM-crippled CD which ships with a program which makes "X" number of copies. Said copies are also DRM-crippled BUT (and this is the kicker) don't include the program.
This might be a helpful start. I wrote it a couple of years ago to help a number of teachers (ie. intelligent but not particularly IT literate people) grasp the basics.
Silly AC. That particular troll has been copied & pasted into several Linux stories, word for word. He is modded down because he provides nothing but Microsoft's own marketing materials and presents them as "established facts".
Clue: Slashdot is not meant to be a Microsoft fansite. There are other sites for that.
Many technical decisions are based on business requirements. If the business has a desire to ensure Apple's AAC encryption fails miserably (who could possibly want that?), current business practise throws up a number of choices:
1. Compete on price (impossible unless they can get the RIAA to play ball) 2. Compete on availability. 3. Sue Apple for patent infringement. 4. Ruin the image of Apple in the eyes of the RIAA so the RIAA pulls the plug.
Now, who could possibly be so delusional and paranoid as to try #4?
It's a calculated risk on the part of baystar, based on business logic.
Business logic says "you don't take on a behemoth like IBM without a damn good case, therefore they must have a good case, therefore they're a pretty good risk". Unfortunately it doesn't always take much account of the sheer quantities of crack some managers smoke.
OK, perhaps it sounds condescending. I was referring to what I perceive as being a large "middle ground" of people who know enough about computers to get into trouble but not enough to get out again. With such people, it usually works like this:
1. JR buys computer, surfs web, uses email. 2. JR goes out and buys a digital camera/scanner/whatever & installs everything that came with it. Some of the software doesn't work very well, or isn't very suitable, but s/he doesn't bother uninstalling it because it might come in useful. 3. JR discovers another interest - say, perhaps, tracing his family tree. He decides it might be an idea to hold all this information on his computer. He either buys, pirates or downloads a product to do this. If the product is no good, he tries another. 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until the computer grinds to a shuddering halt.
What I mean is "another Linux distribution which promises Windows compatability but cannot deliver is liable to turn a middle-ground user discussed above against Linux, and it's their IT literate friends who are going to be asked to come around, re-install Windows & get all their software working again".
Very true. But most of the JR Sixpacks I know don't just play games - they use their computer for all sorts of odd stuff.
And in many cases the knee-jerk reaction to a new requirement is "find a program to do it" rather than "use the perfectly good existing software".
So they call you to fix their computer, there's hundreds of crappy little programs on there, which may or may not have ever worked very well, and JR Sixpack's forgotten why he installed most of them in the first place. But most of them installed and ran the first time around. I simply don't see that happening with any "Windows Compatible" linux distro - much of this software is so badly written it only just runs on Windows.
after less than a dozen comments.
Google cache:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UpTSilLJE-MJ:ww w.ignalum.com/+ignalum+linux&hl=en
Proudly karma whoring since 2003.
Does the world really need another Linux distribution? I know I'll be modded to hell for this, but why?
"Better" windows compatability still isn't 100%. And J. R. Sixpack is gonna be as confused as hell when his system which he bought which is "compatible with Windows" won't run some random program he found on a shovelware CD.
Slashdot Mirror
On Karma Whores.
Don't know if he's a troll or not but it is possible to have X running perfectly happily on a machine of those specs.
You can't really use KDE, Gnome or anything like that. Simple stuff like AfterStep's actually pretty nippy (and indeed was exactly what I did a couple of years ago with my K62-400).
OpenOffice performs acceptably, as does most other software. Provided you've got enough memory, processor speed is seldom a big deal.
For instance, did you know that Windows on an Intel box is up to 5 TIMES cheaper than Linux on an S390?
Or that NTL (see also here) found Microsoft software to be considerably cheaper than open source?
As a fellow UK resident I'd have to disagree with you regarding the effectiveness of CCTV. Have you watched the average bit of CCTV footage on TV?
The images are usually at least two of the following: Blocky, poor quality, jerky, black and white, dirty (because nobody's cleaned the lens on the camera in the 5 years since it was installed and pigeons have been messing on it ever since).
However, there have been recent cases where these same images have been used to secure convictions, being put to a jury as "proof". Later investigation has proven it to be a case of mistaken identity - all too easy with the usually abysmal image quality.
... is that they assume that all jobs are equal.
If we're to believe the industry "analysts", Senior C developer with 10 years experience == MCSE straight out of Microsoft "boot camp" == "Would you like fries with that?".
If in doubt, remember where the word "analyst" comes from:
"anal" - bumhole.
"lystere" - to pull numbers from.
You missed the point. The 497 million euro fine isn't supposed to achieve much. Being forced to open their APIs and standards is the kicker.
Samba, for instance, could go from being a pretty good if not always complete implementation of SMB to a complete drop-in replacement very quickly indeed. Developing a complete replacement for Exchange which can interoperate with an existing Exchange setup becomes much more faesible.
Ah, great solution, "sue". Guess you must be American.
I'm not. I'm English.
Here in Merrie Olde England, a few years ago, the London Ambulance Service decided that a computer could work out the most efficient route from A to B through a busy city far better than a human controller. Reference Here
Thus the computer could decide which ambulance was best placed to answer a specific call based on its geographic location far more efficiently than a person.
It couldn't. People died. Nobody was ultimately held liable. Had the problem been that a bunch of vehicles with faulty steering was sold as ambulances, the manufacturer would have been feeling the pain for years.
It is my 'umble, very 'umble opinion, that there are some things which we still do not understand sufficiently to turn into reliable computer systems. Oh, we understand them ourselves OK - regular drivers know where's a bad place to drive in their home town at rush hour - but we simply don't have a thorough enough understanding to be able to turn it into a reliable computer system. Yet we still try it.
Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow
A former Microsoftie says addiction to Windows revenue, mediocre products, and missed opportunities could doom Seattle's most successful company.
by Jeff Reifman
(Illustration by Dean MacAdam)
Jeff Reifman builds Internet tools for nonprofit organizations as director of technology at Groundspring.org. In his spare time, he writes the progressive political journal IDEAlog.us.
Why are Microsoft products so endlessly frustrating to use? Even techno-geeks like me get annoyed by Windows. I'm tired of spending the first 10 minutes of my day rebooting just so I can get to work. Microsoft Outlook 2003, the latest version of the company's e-mail and calendar software, hangs for me about once a day, requiring me to restart my PC. I also have a problem with Word 2003: Whenever I bullet a line of text, every line in the document gets a bullet. Asking Windows to shut down is more of a request than a command--it might, it might not. And recently, Internet Explorer stopped opening for me.
I know I'm not alone. If you're like me, you've invested in technology to become more efficient and productive but mutter about the many frustrations of the digital lifestyle. Technology is my hobby as well as my job, so I regularly ponder why software giant Microsoft Corp., which has more than $56 billion in cash, hasn't solved more of these problems.
I began using Microsoft products 23 years ago, at age 11, and I worked for Microsoft from 1991 to 1999 as a technology manager. For many years, I was a Microsoft loyalist. While aware of Microsoft's shortcomings, I always believed that the Soft did its best to improve products over time, as it did with Windows XP. But recently, I've had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I've rebooted Windows one too many times.
I've had a crisis of faith. Last month I went out and bought a Macintosh G5 and began using the new Mac operating system, OS X. It has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows.
Over the past year, my frustration with Windows grew, as did my envy of Apple's cool new products. Finally, last month I went out and bought an Apple Macintosh G5 and began using the new Mac operating system, OS X. It had been years since I'd used a Macintosh. Until recently, I dismissed those who did as impractical, elitist hipsters, and I mocked the Mac "switch" ads on TV.
But in the first five minutes on my new Mac, I was surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, and ripping a CD. OS X has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows.
This made me wonder about Microsoft's willingness to innovate and compete. Why are Microsoft products still so difficult to use and so unreliable? Why is the company improving them so slowly? Is Microsoft losing its competitive edge? Has the company seen its best days?
The Web's phenomenal growth has driven a number of fundamental changes. And from my vantage, at least, Microsoft seems to have overlooked the most important of those trends. It made a series of missteps, and it's not clear if it has learned from them. In protecting Windows and Office revenues, Microsoft has innovated less quickly than it could have. The company relies on the same strategy that helped it years ago come to dominate the personal-computer market with the Windows operating system, despite mounting evidence that its customers are looking for a new approach. Competitors such as Linux and Google are gaining, and Microsoft seems unprepared for the road ahead.
My Time at Microsoft
I arrived at Microsoft the week I turned 21. I was fortunate to spend the next eight years growing up on the Redmond campus. I learned nearly everything I know about project management there. I became a more critical thinker. And, like many others, I was very fortunate financially. In time, my stock options allowed me to pursue a for-profit dot-com startup, as well as a series of socially responsible nonprofit ventures.
I spent my first four years at the company working to build Windows int
Mod parent up as insightful... it's an excellent point.
We sue architects for designing buildings which collapse before they're even completed. We sue car manufacturers who build cars which have an annoying tendency to explode. Our relatives sue doctors who say "that little lump is nothing to worry about". In each case, a person in a profession which requires a degree of understanding greater than expected of the general public has screwed up.
I can only imagine that the IT industry has convinced the general public that computers are Just So Complicated that nobody on earth can possibly understand them properly, and therefore such mistakes are to be expected. One day someone will be killed because of such complacency. Perhaps then the industry will start to take some responsibility for its mistakes.
Absolutely fine.
Now how are they going to implement this on normal CDs without software and/or hardware support on every PC out there?
My guess: A DRM-crippled CD which ships with a program which makes "X" number of copies. Said copies are also DRM-crippled BUT (and this is the kicker) don't include the program.
From the article, it seems that Cringely perceives this as being an idea which could put your local phone company out of business.
Would this be the same local phone company which provides the ADSL link this would require?
<shameless plug>
This might be a helpful start. I wrote it a couple of years ago to help a number of teachers (ie. intelligent but not particularly IT literate people) grasp the basics.
</shameless plug>
Nah, quite right. On my CS course a student installed Linux three weeks before his final big dissertation was due in.
Thing is, he didn't take a backup beforehand and had never used Linux before. All his coursework was on that computer and, unsurprisingly, was lost.
I'm glad he did that then, frankly. I don't want my piece of paper devalued by people doing stupid things like that.
He's both. He lied because he led the university to believe it was all his own work for three years, he's an idiot to complain when he got caught.
He doesn't deserve a degree.
Microsoft sometimes claims that it has more full-time programmers working on Microsoft software than there are working on Linux software.
How do they know?
Silly AC. That particular troll has been copied & pasted into several Linux stories, word for word. He is modded down because he provides nothing but Microsoft's own marketing materials and presents them as "established facts". Clue: Slashdot is not meant to be a Microsoft fansite. There are other sites for that.
Somewhat appropriate, then, that they GET neither liberty nor safety in 95% of cases.
They lose the liberty to use their cellphone.
They don't get safety because anyone who really wants to blow something up isn't going to be deterred by something as small as a cell phone jammer.
It's phenomenally tinfoil hat. I like it.
Many technical decisions are based on business requirements. If the business has a desire to ensure Apple's AAC encryption fails miserably (who could possibly want that?), current business practise throws up a number of choices:
1. Compete on price (impossible unless they can get the RIAA to play ball)
2. Compete on availability.
3. Sue Apple for patent infringement.
4. Ruin the image of Apple in the eyes of the RIAA so the RIAA pulls the plug.
Now, who could possibly be so delusional and paranoid as to try #4?
OK, tinfoil hat off. Mod me down.
But that's all right! It means that it's much easier for you to create a superior product, thus guaranteeing you a significant chunk of the market!
Oh, wait...
It's a calculated risk on the part of baystar, based on business logic.
Business logic says "you don't take on a behemoth like IBM without a damn good case, therefore they must have a good case, therefore they're a pretty good risk". Unfortunately it doesn't always take much account of the sheer quantities of crack some managers smoke.
I never thought about it like that, but you have a point. Extra bananas, that AC.
OK, perhaps it sounds condescending. I was referring to what I perceive as being a large "middle ground" of people who know enough about computers to get into trouble but not enough to get out again. With such people, it usually works like this:
1. JR buys computer, surfs web, uses email.
2. JR goes out and buys a digital camera/scanner/whatever & installs everything that came with it. Some of the software doesn't work very well, or isn't very suitable, but s/he doesn't bother uninstalling it because it might come in useful.
3. JR discovers another interest - say, perhaps, tracing his family tree. He decides it might be an idea to hold all this information on his computer. He either buys, pirates or downloads a product to do this. If the product is no good, he tries another.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until the computer grinds to a shuddering halt.
What I mean is "another Linux distribution which promises Windows compatability but cannot deliver is liable to turn a middle-ground user discussed above against Linux, and it's their IT literate friends who are going to be asked to come around, re-install Windows & get all their software working again".
Very true. But most of the JR Sixpacks I know don't just play games - they use their computer for all sorts of odd stuff.
And in many cases the knee-jerk reaction to a new requirement is "find a program to do it" rather than "use the perfectly good existing software".
So they call you to fix their computer, there's hundreds of crappy little programs on there, which may or may not have ever worked very well, and JR Sixpack's forgotten why he installed most of them in the first place. But most of them installed and ran the first time around. I simply don't see that happening with any "Windows Compatible" linux distro - much of this software is so badly written it only just runs on Windows.
after less than a dozen comments. Google cache: http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UpTSilLJE-MJ:ww w.ignalum.com/+ignalum+linux&hl=en
Proudly karma whoring since 2003.
Does the world really need another Linux distribution? I know I'll be modded to hell for this, but why?
"Better" windows compatability still isn't 100%. And J. R. Sixpack is gonna be as confused as hell when his system which he bought which is "compatible with Windows" won't run some random program he found on a shovelware CD.