Ok, Smart Tags are obviously beyond evil. I'm curious if they are even legal. If I had a trademarked site, which had advertisments for Burger King, and Microsoft put up links to McDonalds wouldn't that be bullshit. I mean they would be using my trademarked logos etc to endorse their product.
I think there are some serious legal issues here. Here are other examples:
American Heart Association site mentions the word asprin, and Microsoft puts links to Bayer, suggesting that The AHA endorses Bayer. That is definitly illegal.
There will be a flood of legal cases if this thing ever flys.
Usually, I hate the/. anti-microsoft bias, as it is often socialist banter. However, this is rediculous. How on earth, does Microsoft think this will float muster. They would never put this feature in say MS Word or Excel. Imagine reading some Acrobat PDF tech manual, and the thing inserting advertisment links into the documentation. How f-ing confusing would that be? No way this feature ends up in the release version. They couldn't possibly attempt it. Its ludicrous. In fact, this is the worst marketing crap I've ever heard from any compnay anywhere. This is worse than the CD club that sends you the CD, and if you don't want it you have to send it back.
Microsoft is bucking for some serious trouble here. Balmer just poured fuel on the fire.
The do tell CNN not to run stories that make them look bad. All of the media conglomerates do this and the practice dates back to the newspaper barons.
Have you ever noticed that the inventor of these inventions always present some altruistic (but totally far-fetched) application for their technology? Nothing against this guy. His tech looks really cool and will have lots of applications. But, who thought up helping blind people navigate through airports?
The design meeting:
So what will people use this thing for?
hmmm how about another delivery system for Bluetooth?
...nah.
How about a communication alternative for the navy?
....mmmm no that's no good
hmm
How about a way to alert blind patients with Heart Diease of impending transplants availability as they walk along the mall escalator?
BINGO!
The trembling was a bunch of FUD frankly. Judge Jackson was a Regan appointee. However, while I agree a Bush DOJ would be less likely to go after Microsoft, I disagree that conservative judges are pro-business. Conservative when applied to judicial nominees is different from political conservative. Judicial conservatives tend to rule within the strict confines of the law (hence their conservatism). On the other hand, liberal judges tend to extend the law (often fabricating their own) when they rule.
Napster to Start New Service (patent pending)
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Napster Going Legit
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· Score: 3
from nytimes:
Napster in a new agreement with the recording industry is changing direction using an entirely new version of peer-to-peer technology. According to Napster's VP of Marketing Ken Philps, users wont need to download the Napster client for this service. In fact, they won't need a computer at all. Napster is using the recording industry's large distribution network to ship bulk quantities of CDs to buildings around the nation. Napster calls these buildings "Retail Centers." Users get off their asses and drive their cars to the retail center, where they then can purchase a wide variety of their favorite music labels.
"There's no subscription attached to this service. This gives our user a whole new level of flexibility, and allows us to tap into an entirely new market of non-computer users. We believe this new market will grow in years to come, " said Philps.
Thankfully, we do live in a free market system, and the system will hopefully take care of this for us. VA Linux is feeling the pressure, so they are sure to eventually weed out the Katz factor.
This week, Microsoft unleashes a virtual onslaught of new products and initiatives, from gaming to small business software that will likely leave the company dominating the world of computing for years. Microsoft doesn't dominate the world of computing now nor will they for years. They only dominate the Personal Computing market.
Bill Gates, on the ropes just a year ago, is now the undisputed King of the Net, the CEO of the Corporate Republic. Bill Gates is Chairman with Steve Ballmer as the CEO. Gates' role is removed from the day to day operation of the company, and he is no longer driving strategy. His primary job is hiring and firing the CEO.
He's created the first but surely not the last truly Unaccountable Corporation, a vast entity that is, in fact, above the law and more powerful than the government which enables it. Microsoft is accountable in so many ways, one could not list them all here. Ultimately they are accountable to the shareholders. Microsoft is not above the law. The US government spends roughly 8x the total market cap of MS each year. To suggest that MS is even a spec compared to the power of the government is laughable (but Ted Kennedy wants you to think that).
Remember that scene in The Return of Frankenstein... This is a horrible analogy, because Microsoft was never burned at the stake. Microsoft was never "destroyed" and they are still here.
Bill Gates, exposed just a year ago as a ruthless and less-than-candid corporate predator, is today the King of the Corporate Republic, the CEO of Internet, Inc. He and his company are about to launch one of the most ambitious campaigns in the history of business, one that should leave him firmly in control of the digital universe. Exhagerate much?
If everything works as planned, Microsoft software will shortly control nearly every point at which a consumer or business interacts with the Web. That puts Microsoft at the center of all computing. While Microsoft probably does have a plan to control all aspects of the market (what company doesnt), it's rediculous to assume they would ever be able to succeed. There are some other big fish in the pond who wont let that happen.
And soon, the company may even escape the break-up threat hanging over its head. Soon? This issue is dead. No breakup.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule momentarily on the company's appeal, and based on the questions asked during oral arguments, the court is expected to reverse Judge Thomas P. Jackson's findings that the company illegally "tied" its browser into its operating system, and acted illegally to maintain its Windows monopoly.
What an idiot that Judge was in the first place. If that egomaniac had just kept his mouth shut and not spoken to any journalists for his stupid book, the case would have gone a different way.
This, say competitors like Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, is where we started, only more so. "It appears they're doing all over again what they did when they previously went into foul territory," McNealy told congressional investigators, according to Business Week. Microsoft's new Internet strategy is the boldest move yet, he says, to leverage the company's Windows monopoly to create a bottleneck that will constrict the Internet.
McNealy is more on target that you are, but I don't hear him saying undisputed King of the Net.
McNealy might as well be talking to himself -- the Bush administration is hardly going to curb Microsoft's new juggernaut, which can proceed unimpeded for at least four years, by which time the company may well be beyond any control, if that's not already the case. Ah, I was waiting for this to come along./. liberal shows its colors. Of course, the Clinton administration was right on top of this issue! Give me a break. This is an issue for the courts not the commander in chief. Let Bush appoint some real judges, and you'll see Microsoft tremble next time its at the bench.
Microsoft has transcended the economic realities of our time. Even with the NASDAQ down 9 per cent, the company's stock price has risen more than 60 per cent this year. In the quarter ending March 31, MS earned $2.45 billion on sales of $6.46 billion. The stock is still off by about 45% from its high last year.
And thanks in part to a media that has utterly failed to grasp or cover well the real issues involving the soft- and hardware that governs the Net and the Web, the public has no idea that they will be spending billions for years on things they could have -- ought to have -- for free. Microsoft's lock on corporate america (office) is its stronghold, which supports the lock on the residential market. The corporate market is well informed.
There are now real questions whether corporations like Microsoft, Disney, and AOL Time-Warner are vulnerable any longer to government regulation, or to any other kind of curb. Only from socialists like yourself.
Microsoft seems to have convincingly demonstrated that is is, in fact, above the law, and means to stay that way. Maybe you should write this out several dozen times to get your point across.
Even bitter critics of the government's attempt to break up Microsoft concede that Bill Gates was arrogant and dishonest in his Federal court testimony, and whatever the ultimate judicial ruling, mountains of evidence presented at the antitrust trial showed how Microsoft squelched competitors and discouraged both innovation and competition. Nobody doubts Microsofts guilt. The remedy is what people can honestly disagree over.
Yet it all seems to have had no more impact on the company than a pea bouncing off an elephant, or a torch on the monster. I doubt that it is operation as usual at Microsfot. First of all, Bill Gates stepped down as CEO. That is significant. Second, they've had serious personel problems since the trial.
We saw this company humbled and carved up with our own eyes, and celebrated it's being brought down to size. ?? When was this
Boy, were we dumb. Ah, we agree on something. You were dumb and you still are.
Microsoft is stronger than ever, and, as a consequence, so is Linux and Open Source. Yes, Microsoft is stronger than ever. They are positioned well. And they have a great deal of competition in front of them. Linux is a major part of that competition. The "King of the Net" is in fact not King afterall.
Just a year ago, Microsoft was so embattled -- its revenue growth had slowed to 8 per cent, Jackson had ordered the company split in half, $250 billion had vanished from the company's market value -- that Microsoft called 20,000 of its employees together at Seattle's Safeco Field. There it showed a motivational video that included scenes from a documentary about the mythic l974 title fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. The horror, the horror
But on the Net, a year might as well be a century. The time it takes your articles seems like a century too
So the monster isn't only alive, he's stronger than ever. It's the Microsoft Era, Part Deux.
Wow. Lots of sustinance and good solid reporting here. Wonderful editorial (full of interesting facts and insites). And the prose! Shakespear stand down!!! Katz is here
Motor looks like a well thought out IDE with lots of handy features. It seems like it is "the way it should be done." My only criticism is the antiquated text mode. I'm not trying to start a holy war. I'm just curious. Why text mode? Why not X-windows, or even KDE or Gnome? Why not one of the various multiplatform window kits? Obviously lots of people out there still use text mode development and I'm wondering why. (Personally, you'll have to pry my xemacs out of my dead hands before I'll switch IDE's)
Public Key Encryption with 3rd Party identity verification is the most secure way to encrypt emails. However, it is difficult to achieve, and too easy to fake out the 3rd Party Vendors like Verisign (remember the Microsoft boondoggle!).
If you don't want to deal with platform issues, public keys, private key registration, etc, Web-based is the easiest and very secure solution. If you don't trust a provider, do it yourself. Just send people emails with urls to your message. Serve your message up with SSL and some kind of authenitcation. (Obviously you need a server with a static IP and an SSL cert).
If you aren't interested in real security, but just want to piss off the NSA, just send your emails as GIF images. So they will be a bit larger. Who cares? No Echelon system is going to scan a compressed bit map to look for the word "Atom Bomb". And, any gerk can look at a gif file.
Anyone who knows me (all 2 of them) would tell you that I am a book freak. I love tech books, and I learned everything I know about engineering pretty much from books alone. Especially with C and C++. There are so many great books on C and C++, I could recommend a wonderful list.
However, Java is a different deal all together. First of all, if you are familiar with C++ you now about 90% of Java right of the bat. So you don't really need a "from scratch" Java book. All you really need is reference material, and some basic guides on how key things work in the JVM, like threading, synchronization, etc.
My recommendation is the web on this one. Download the latest JDK (1.3 or 1.4). That is full of great references, API's, HOWTO's and guides. This will be the source of 95% of your Java knowledge.
Next, I'd start checking out C/C++ User's Journal's Java Solutions. You can subscribe to the magazine, but frankly I'd stick to the online version. These guys are C++ freaks who talk about java from the C++ perspective, so you will feel at home with the discussions there.
The only books that I would recommend, are for specific applications. For GUI work, get O'Reilly's Java Swing, and Topley's Core Swing Advanced Programming. Either one will do; they are both excellent. For Serlvet's, O'Reilly's Java Servlets is OK, but slightly out of date (maybe mine is and they have updated). Also, Professional JSP by Wrox is excellent for both serlvet and JSP work (even touches on EJB).
What is interesting for me about Java, is that I find myself using online resources much more than I ever do with C/C++ applications. Java documentation is so standardized (javadoc) that it lends well to this approach.
Re:What's Not To Like
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Just For Fun
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· Score: 2
I agree. I have a great deal of respect for Linus as an engineer and a visionary leader, but he shouldn't quit his day job to become a writer. I found David Diamond's demagogical narratives over the top. Mainly, I couldn't get over the first person narrative, which painted an egotistical persona on Linus, something which he is clearly not. The book was also poorly constructed, too anicdotal, and the context schedular needed to relax and let threads develop a bit more.
First of all. You aint runnin no data through the core. Splicing fiber is already difficult without a wrapper of high voltage current. Second, why not just make the wires thicker? Alluminum pound for pound is stronger than steal. If you need more alluminum, just make the thing all alluminum. Maybe this wont work, but dont even joke about running data through this thing.
Is this me or seems like Slashdot seems to be completely dominated by leftists and liberals. When was a last time you saw any story presented from conservative point of view?
How long did it take you to figure this one out. I'm not sure when the open source movement took such a leftist tilt, because non of its leaders are active politically or take part in this corporate-bashing practice (Linus doesn't even MS-bash). Of course, college kids tend to be to left, until they start paying taxes, and I think a big chunk of/. viewers are comp-sci undergrads. Personally, I think the editors of/. are really leftists, because they are about to get sacked by VA Linux and they want some excuse for why.
Actually it has everything to do with what he was saying, because he's missing the point entirely. This Madrid shanty town has nothing to do with protest rights and has everything to do with fundemental flaws in the Spanish Economy, which despite its hurculean efforts towards reform still has some problems. His jest at the US is completely ludicrous, and it is symbolic of the liberal rant that dominates this site.
Imagin a society where the governing officials were just teenaged idiots whose only job was to admin a few Linux boxes runing perl and mysql. The people submit propositions to the LegaslatureSlashCode, and those that get mod'd up are passed as law. Certain "privilledged" citizens who've been respected by their peers (and had laws mod'd up) get bonus points. All citizens meta-moderate the law moderation in order to curb out the unwanted moderators. We would call this society... FUDland.
Such a thing could never exist in the U.S. for longer than it took to load up the tear gas grenade launchers.
Such a thing wouldn't happen in the US because our unemployment rate is 4.5% while Spain's floats around 11%. Such a thing wouldn't happen in the US because those skilled workers would have been paid more while they were employed, and would have been hired the week after they were fired. Such a thing wouldn't have happened in the US, because the cost of living in the US is about 4/5ths the cost of living in Spain and tech costs about 1/2 the cost in Spain. I love Spain. It's a beautiful country. I wouldn't want to work or run a business there. The Spanish work lazy hours (Ciesta), regulation and red-tape abound, and it is impossible to get anything done. Great place to visit though. Friendly warm people.
Just more evidence of what a pathetic waste of time Trade Shows are. Like I'm going to pick my operating system based on something I saw at a Trade Show? I once worked for a company (went broke last year) that pissed a bunch of money away at so many of those stupid shows. They even one Best New Idea awards and all that kind of crap. There's nothing like that cringe you feel when the marketing people tell you, "Oh, by the way, we'll need something for that show next week. Can you set it up and we'll probably need two or three of your people for the show." I swear the only reason Flash and PowerPoint were invented, was to keep the marketing people busy so the rest of us could get some work done!
Its like Civilization and Ants. You build a unix editor, window manager, or desktop API and distribute it to various admins and developers. Meanwhile your competing with other similar projects. You win when your enemy project leaders are slain!
SVGA 256 colors with 600 x 400 resolution!
Right now it only runs on AIX, but I'm porting to Solaris.
Completely playable from the command line.
This version runs with MySQL, but I'm porting to DB/2 where I think the performance might improve.
It's like the game Deer Hunter IV, but we've pulled alot from the movie on this one.
Works with VM 1.2 - 1.4!
The code is GPL'd.
It works really well with IE 4 but IE 5 kind of messed it up.
Before I show you the demo, you have to have Large Fonts on.
It worked really well, until Microsoft patched those VBScript security holes.
The game will support tens of thousands of players. I have a demo running over on the IBM Linux Open Source Development Mainframe...
It's a German Concentration Camp, and you can play either the Nazi's, the Poles or the Jews.
Completely XML compatible.
The game is first-post on/., but with a 3D interface.
For a better idea of how the game works goto http://goatsex.org
The game takes a stupid joke and keeps going with it over and over again, until the joke isn't really funny, and somebody gets offended.
If it is a personal email address, you could get them on theft of identity. If they are using your domain, then you can go after them on trademark and copyright issues too.
His beef is with keeping the government out of software development and I find myself cringing that I actually agree with him. I suspect that some of our motivations are different however.
Open Source is a wonderful endeavor and it has provided a "utility" value to society. I view open source projects to be similar to the common domain. Anybody can publish the contents of the English Dictionary, and heck the dictionary is pretty damn useful!
However, I am a capitalist, and I believe that entranapuners are heroes too. Open Source (on its own) will never threaten the capital markets. Open Source (on its own) will not discourage proprietary investment in software technologies. Clearly there are those within the open source community who would dispense with proprietary research and development in software. While I sympathize with this perspective, I must honestly disagree. I believe our capital system ultimately will drive Open Source to further successes, and by using Open Source to dissuade the capital system will be self destructive.
Encouraging open source development with tax incentives and direct research grants from the Government would be a terrible mistake.
With direct grants, the government would be the arbitrator of funding. This is socialism. We don't want the government picking our software for us for the same reason we don't want the government choosing our luncheon meats.
Tax incentives provide a blind, softer level of government involvement. While the government should support scientific research, I believe a line (albeit gray) should be drawn between research and software development. If the government actively displays a bias for open source development they are implicitly discouraging closed source development.
I vehemently disagree with discouraging closed source development of software. I believe in intellectual property rights and I believe in the capital markets. I believe that open source fits extremely well in the capital market model. I strongly disagree with Balmer that the GPL is some kind of cancer that prevents companies from developing proprietary software for GPL platforms. That is simply not true. Plenty of proprietary software runs on Linux.
Linux, the GPL and other open source forms have performed extremely well over the past few years (and scared the shit out of people like Balmer!) Let's not upset the balance, and leave the government out of software.
Software development in the future will be more about telling computers what you want to do, rather than how to do it. In a way, this is just a logical extension of modern compilers, libraries and high-level languages. However, developers still do so much of the structural design and algorythmic application (often badly). Compilers really optimize minor details when you think of the complexity of most programs. Libraries and higher langauges wrap much of the underpinnings, but they still don't think for you. I wouldn't expect a computer to ever be able to design a database, but I could see a computer implementing a design.
I could not agree with you any more. The bottom line, is that all government spending starts out with the best intentions (man in space, get to the moon). But once you spend, they can't stop. Look at NASA. Florida, California and Texas. Hmmm, like a politician is going to cut pork spending in one of those states? I mean, who needs FLORIDA to win an election? NASA will consume a little over 6% of the federal budget in 2002. Those three states get the bulk of that percentage. Think about that. Three states getting 6% of the federal budget. Ok, you are a Senator from Florida. You are getting some piece of 6% of the federal budget, just for NASA. Are you going to say, "Hold on one second, we need to drive these costs down!" I doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, Smart Tags are obviously beyond evil. I'm curious if they are even legal. If I had a trademarked site, which had advertisments for Burger King, and Microsoft put up links to McDonalds wouldn't that be bullshit. I mean they would be using my trademarked logos etc to endorse their product.
I think there are some serious legal issues here. Here are other examples:
American Heart Association site mentions the word asprin, and Microsoft puts links to Bayer, suggesting that The AHA endorses Bayer. That is definitly illegal.
There will be a flood of legal cases if this thing ever flys.
Usually, I hate the /. anti-microsoft bias, as it is often socialist banter. However, this is rediculous. How on earth, does Microsoft think this will float muster. They would never put this feature in say MS Word or Excel. Imagine reading some Acrobat PDF tech manual, and the thing inserting advertisment links into the documentation. How f-ing confusing would that be?
No way this feature ends up in the release version. They couldn't possibly attempt it. Its ludicrous. In fact, this is the worst marketing crap I've ever heard from any compnay anywhere. This is worse than the CD club that sends you the CD, and if you don't want it you have to send it back. Microsoft is bucking for some serious trouble here. Balmer just poured fuel on the fire.
The do tell CNN not to run stories that make them look bad. All of the media conglomerates do this and the practice dates back to the newspaper barons.
The design meeting:
So what will people use this thing for?
hmmm how about another delivery system for Bluetooth?
...nah.
How about a communication alternative for the navy?
....mmmm no that's no good
hmm
How about a way to alert blind patients with Heart Diease of impending transplants availability as they walk along the mall escalator?
BINGO!
The trembling was a bunch of FUD frankly. Judge Jackson was a Regan appointee. However, while I agree a Bush DOJ would be less likely to go after Microsoft, I disagree that conservative judges are pro-business. Conservative when applied to judicial nominees is different from political conservative. Judicial conservatives tend to rule within the strict confines of the law (hence their conservatism). On the other hand, liberal judges tend to extend the law (often fabricating their own) when they rule.
from nytimes:
Napster in a new agreement with the recording industry is changing direction using an entirely new version of peer-to-peer technology. According to Napster's VP of Marketing Ken Philps, users wont need to download the Napster client for this service. In fact, they won't need a computer at all. Napster is using the recording industry's large distribution network to ship bulk quantities of CDs to buildings around the nation. Napster calls these buildings "Retail Centers." Users get off their asses and drive their cars to the retail center, where they then can purchase a wide variety of their favorite music labels.
"There's no subscription attached to this service. This gives our user a whole new level of flexibility, and allows us to tap into an entirely new market of non-computer users. We believe this new market will grow in years to come, " said Philps.
Thankfully, we do live in a free market system, and the system will hopefully take care of this for us. VA Linux is feeling the pressure, so they are sure to eventually weed out the Katz factor.
Microsoft doesn't dominate the world of computing now nor will they for years. They only dominate the Personal Computing market.
Bill Gates, on the ropes just a year ago, is now the undisputed King of the Net, the CEO of the Corporate Republic.
Bill Gates is Chairman with Steve Ballmer as the CEO. Gates' role is removed from the day to day operation of the company, and he is no longer driving strategy. His primary job is hiring and firing the CEO.
He's created the first but surely not the last truly Unaccountable Corporation, a vast entity that is, in fact, above the law and more powerful than the government which enables it.
Microsoft is accountable in so many ways, one could not list them all here. Ultimately they are accountable to the shareholders. Microsoft is not above the law. The US government spends roughly 8x the total market cap of MS each year. To suggest that MS is even a spec compared to the power of the government is laughable (but Ted Kennedy wants you to think that).
Remember that scene in The Return of Frankenstein ...
This is a horrible analogy, because Microsoft was never burned at the stake. Microsoft was never "destroyed" and they are still here.
Bill Gates, exposed just a year ago as a ruthless and less-than-candid corporate predator, is today the King of the Corporate Republic, the CEO of Internet, Inc. He and his company are about to launch one of the most ambitious campaigns in the history of business, one that should leave him firmly in control of the digital universe.
Exhagerate much?
If everything works as planned, Microsoft software will shortly control nearly every point at which a consumer or business interacts with the Web. That puts Microsoft at the center of all computing.
While Microsoft probably does have a plan to control all aspects of the market (what company doesnt), it's rediculous to assume they would ever be able to succeed. There are some other big fish in the pond who wont let that happen.
And soon, the company may even escape the break-up threat hanging over its head.
Soon? This issue is dead. No breakup.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule momentarily on the company's appeal, and based on the questions asked during oral arguments, the court is expected to reverse Judge Thomas P. Jackson's findings that the company illegally "tied" its browser into its operating system, and acted illegally to maintain its Windows monopoly.
What an idiot that Judge was in the first place. If that egomaniac had just kept his mouth shut and not spoken to any journalists for his stupid book, the case would have gone a different way.
This, say competitors like Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, is where we started, only more so. "It appears they're doing all over again what they did when they previously went into foul territory," McNealy told congressional investigators, according to Business Week. Microsoft's new Internet strategy is the boldest move yet, he says, to leverage the company's Windows monopoly to create a bottleneck that will constrict the Internet.
McNealy is more on target that you are, but I don't hear him saying undisputed King of the Net.
McNealy might as well be talking to himself -- the Bush administration is hardly going to curb Microsoft's new juggernaut, which can proceed unimpeded for at least four years, by which time the company may well be beyond any control, if that's not already the case. /. liberal shows its colors. Of course, the Clinton administration was right on top of this issue! Give me a break. This is an issue for the courts not the commander in chief. Let Bush appoint some real judges, and you'll see Microsoft tremble next time its at the bench.
Ah, I was waiting for this to come along.
Microsoft has transcended the economic realities of our time. Even with the NASDAQ down 9 per cent, the company's stock price has risen more than 60 per cent this year. In the quarter ending March 31, MS earned $2.45 billion on sales of $6.46 billion.
The stock is still off by about 45% from its high last year.
And thanks in part to a media that has utterly failed to grasp or cover well the real issues involving the soft- and hardware that governs the Net and the Web, the public has no idea that they will be spending billions for years on things they could have -- ought to have -- for free.
Microsoft's lock on corporate america (office) is its stronghold, which supports the lock on the residential market. The corporate market is well informed.
There are now real questions whether corporations like Microsoft, Disney, and AOL Time-Warner are vulnerable any longer to government regulation, or to any other kind of curb.
Only from socialists like yourself.
Microsoft seems to have convincingly demonstrated that is is, in fact, above the law, and means to stay that way.
Maybe you should write this out several dozen times to get your point across.
Even bitter critics of the government's attempt to break up Microsoft concede that Bill Gates was arrogant and dishonest in his Federal court testimony, and whatever the ultimate judicial ruling, mountains of evidence presented at the antitrust trial showed how Microsoft squelched competitors and discouraged both innovation and competition.
Nobody doubts Microsofts guilt. The remedy is what people can honestly disagree over.
Yet it all seems to have had no more impact on the company than a pea bouncing off an elephant, or a torch on the monster.
I doubt that it is operation as usual at Microsfot. First of all, Bill Gates stepped down as CEO. That is significant. Second, they've had serious personel problems since the trial.
We saw this company humbled and carved up with our own eyes, and celebrated it's being brought down to size.
?? When was this
Boy, were we dumb.
Ah, we agree on something. You were dumb and you still are.
Microsoft is stronger than ever, and, as a consequence, so is Linux and Open Source.
Yes, Microsoft is stronger than ever. They are positioned well. And they have a great deal of competition in front of them. Linux is a major part of that competition. The "King of the Net" is in fact not King afterall.
Just a year ago, Microsoft was so embattled -- its revenue growth had slowed to 8 per cent, Jackson had ordered the company split in half, $250 billion had vanished from the company's market value -- that Microsoft called 20,000 of its employees together at Seattle's Safeco Field. There it showed a motivational video that included scenes from a documentary about the mythic l974 title fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.
The horror, the horror
But on the Net, a year might as well be a century.
The time it takes your articles seems like a century too
So the monster isn't only alive, he's stronger than ever. It's the Microsoft Era, Part Deux.
Wow. Lots of sustinance and good solid reporting here. Wonderful editorial (full of interesting facts and insites). And the prose! Shakespear stand down!!! Katz is here
Motor looks like a well thought out IDE with lots of handy features. It seems like it is "the way it should be done." My only criticism is the antiquated text mode. I'm not trying to start a holy war. I'm just curious. Why text mode? Why not X-windows, or even KDE or Gnome? Why not one of the various multiplatform window kits? Obviously lots of people out there still use text mode development and I'm wondering why. (Personally, you'll have to pry my xemacs out of my dead hands before I'll switch IDE's)
Public Key Encryption with 3rd Party identity verification is the most secure way to encrypt emails. However, it is difficult to achieve, and too easy to fake out the 3rd Party Vendors like Verisign (remember the Microsoft boondoggle!). If you don't want to deal with platform issues, public keys, private key registration, etc, Web-based is the easiest and very secure solution. If you don't trust a provider, do it yourself. Just send people emails with urls to your message. Serve your message up with SSL and some kind of authenitcation. (Obviously you need a server with a static IP and an SSL cert). If you aren't interested in real security, but just want to piss off the NSA, just send your emails as GIF images. So they will be a bit larger. Who cares? No Echelon system is going to scan a compressed bit map to look for the word "Atom Bomb". And, any gerk can look at a gif file.
However, Java is a different deal all together. First of all, if you are familiar with C++ you now about 90% of Java right of the bat. So you don't really need a "from scratch" Java book. All you really need is reference material, and some basic guides on how key things work in the JVM, like threading, synchronization, etc.
My recommendation is the web on this one. Download the latest JDK (1.3 or 1.4). That is full of great references, API's, HOWTO's and guides. This will be the source of 95% of your Java knowledge.
Next, I'd start checking out C/C++ User's Journal's Java Solutions. You can subscribe to the magazine, but frankly I'd stick to the online version. These guys are C++ freaks who talk about java from the C++ perspective, so you will feel at home with the discussions there.
The only books that I would recommend, are for specific applications. For GUI work, get O'Reilly's Java Swing, and Topley's Core Swing Advanced Programming. Either one will do; they are both excellent. For Serlvet's, O'Reilly's Java Servlets is OK, but slightly out of date (maybe mine is and they have updated). Also, Professional JSP by Wrox is excellent for both serlvet and JSP work (even touches on EJB).
What is interesting for me about Java, is that I find myself using online resources much more than I ever do with C/C++ applications. Java documentation is so standardized (javadoc) that it lends well to this approach.
I agree. I have a great deal of respect for Linus as an engineer and a visionary leader, but he shouldn't quit his day job to become a writer. I found David Diamond's demagogical narratives over the top. Mainly, I couldn't get over the first person narrative, which painted an egotistical persona on Linus, something which he is clearly not. The book was also poorly constructed, too anicdotal, and the context schedular needed to relax and let threads develop a bit more.
First of all. You aint runnin no data through the core. Splicing fiber is already difficult without a wrapper of high voltage current. Second, why not just make the wires thicker? Alluminum pound for pound is stronger than steal. If you need more alluminum, just make the thing all alluminum. Maybe this wont work, but dont even joke about running data through this thing.
How long did it take you to figure this one out. I'm not sure when the open source movement took such a leftist tilt, because non of its leaders are active politically or take part in this corporate-bashing practice (Linus doesn't even MS-bash). Of course, college kids tend to be to left, until they start paying taxes, and I think a big chunk of /. viewers are comp-sci undergrads. Personally, I think the editors of /. are really leftists, because they are about to get sacked by VA Linux and they want some excuse for why.
Actually it has everything to do with what he was saying, because he's missing the point entirely. This Madrid shanty town has nothing to do with protest rights and has everything to do with fundemental flaws in the Spanish Economy, which despite its hurculean efforts towards reform still has some problems. His jest at the US is completely ludicrous, and it is symbolic of the liberal rant that dominates this site.
is a store where I can buy a Cassette Tape with this program on it and I'm on my way!
Imagin a society where the governing officials were just teenaged idiots whose only job was to admin a few Linux boxes runing perl and mysql. The people submit propositions to the LegaslatureSlashCode, and those that get mod'd up are passed as law. Certain "privilledged" citizens who've been respected by their peers (and had laws mod'd up) get bonus points. All citizens meta-moderate the law moderation in order to curb out the unwanted moderators. We would call this society... FUDland.
Such a thing wouldn't happen in the US because our unemployment rate is 4.5% while Spain's floats around 11%. Such a thing wouldn't happen in the US because those skilled workers would have been paid more while they were employed, and would have been hired the week after they were fired. Such a thing wouldn't have happened in the US, because the cost of living in the US is about 4/5ths the cost of living in Spain and tech costs about 1/2 the cost in Spain. I love Spain. It's a beautiful country. I wouldn't want to work or run a business there. The Spanish work lazy hours (Ciesta), regulation and red-tape abound, and it is impossible to get anything done. Great place to visit though. Friendly warm people.
Not to mention portability (battery). Cube does look kind of cool though. It's hypnotic.
Just more evidence of what a pathetic waste of time Trade Shows are. Like I'm going to pick my operating system based on something I saw at a Trade Show? I once worked for a company (went broke last year) that pissed a bunch of money away at so many of those stupid shows. They even one Best New Idea awards and all that kind of crap. There's nothing like that cringe you feel when the marketing people tell you, "Oh, by the way, we'll need something for that show next week. Can you set it up and we'll probably need two or three of your people for the show." I swear the only reason Flash and PowerPoint were invented, was to keep the marketing people busy so the rest of us could get some work done!
Some bad buzzwords and pitches to avoid:
/., but with a 3D interface.
My game is Y2k ready.
Its like Civilization and Ants. You build a unix editor, window manager, or desktop API and distribute it to various admins and developers. Meanwhile your competing with other similar projects. You win when your enemy project leaders are slain!
SVGA 256 colors with 600 x 400 resolution!
Right now it only runs on AIX, but I'm porting to Solaris.
Completely playable from the command line.
This version runs with MySQL, but I'm porting to DB/2 where I think the performance might improve.
It's like the game Deer Hunter IV, but we've pulled alot from the movie on this one.
Works with VM 1.2 - 1.4!
The code is GPL'd.
It works really well with IE 4 but IE 5 kind of messed it up.
Before I show you the demo, you have to have Large Fonts on.
It worked really well, until Microsoft patched those VBScript security holes.
The game will support tens of thousands of players. I have a demo running over on the IBM Linux Open Source Development Mainframe...
It's a German Concentration Camp, and you can play either the Nazi's, the Poles or the Jews.
Completely XML compatible.
The game is first-post on
For a better idea of how the game works goto http://goatsex.org
The game takes a stupid joke and keeps going with it over and over again, until the joke isn't really funny, and somebody gets offended.
Pokimon-Porn
If it is a personal email address, you could get them on theft of identity. If they are using your domain, then you can go after them on trademark and copyright issues too.
His beef is with keeping the government out of software development and I find myself cringing that I actually agree with him. I suspect that some of our motivations are different however.
Open Source is a wonderful endeavor and it has provided a "utility" value to society. I view open source projects to be similar to the common domain. Anybody can publish the contents of the English Dictionary, and heck the dictionary is pretty damn useful!
However, I am a capitalist, and I believe that entranapuners are heroes too. Open Source (on its own) will never threaten the capital markets. Open Source (on its own) will not discourage proprietary investment in software technologies. Clearly there are those within the open source community who would dispense with proprietary research and development in software. While I sympathize with this perspective, I must honestly disagree. I believe our capital system ultimately will drive Open Source to further successes, and by using Open Source to dissuade the capital system will be self destructive.
Encouraging open source development with tax incentives and direct research grants from the Government would be a terrible mistake.
With direct grants, the government would be the arbitrator of funding. This is socialism. We don't want the government picking our software for us for the same reason we don't want the government choosing our luncheon meats.
Tax incentives provide a blind, softer level of government involvement. While the government should support scientific research, I believe a line (albeit gray) should be drawn between research and software development. If the government actively displays a bias for open source development they are implicitly discouraging closed source development.
I vehemently disagree with discouraging closed source development of software. I believe in intellectual property rights and I believe in the capital markets. I believe that open source fits extremely well in the capital market model. I strongly disagree with Balmer that the GPL is some kind of cancer that prevents companies from developing proprietary software for GPL platforms. That is simply not true. Plenty of proprietary software runs on Linux.
Linux, the GPL and other open source forms have performed extremely well over the past few years (and scared the shit out of people like Balmer!) Let's not upset the balance, and leave the government out of software.
Software development in the future will be more about telling computers what you want to do, rather than how to do it. In a way, this is just a logical extension of modern compilers, libraries and high-level languages. However, developers still do so much of the structural design and algorythmic application (often badly). Compilers really optimize minor details when you think of the complexity of most programs. Libraries and higher langauges wrap much of the underpinnings, but they still don't think for you. I wouldn't expect a computer to ever be able to design a database, but I could see a computer implementing a design.
I could not agree with you any more. The bottom line, is that all government spending starts out with the best intentions (man in space, get to the moon). But once you spend, they can't stop. Look at NASA. Florida, California and Texas. Hmmm, like a politician is going to cut pork spending in one of those states? I mean, who needs FLORIDA to win an election? NASA will consume a little over 6% of the federal budget in 2002. Those three states get the bulk of that percentage. Think about that. Three states getting 6% of the federal budget. Ok, you are a Senator from Florida. You are getting some piece of 6% of the federal budget, just for NASA. Are you going to say, "Hold on one second, we need to drive these costs down!" I doubt it.