I, for one, think a migration to windows Vista would not be much cheaper; licenses, new hardware, 3 praty and home grown application rewrites, and a lot of tests. however, the license costs for OS and many desktop apps will vanish in the future with the linux solution. also, it looks like they are going for linux terminals, so i guess a lot of maintenance work will be saved on the new clients as well.
on the same planet in switzerland, windows admins with a good degree of knowledge cost as much as unix administrators... thus tend to need more time to fix problems due to the lack of window's reporting facilities (where were thos logs again ? errr we don't have any) and background information in general.
an no, as you imply, i am not a guy who discovered ubuntu 2 months ago and thinks it'll cure cancer. after over 10 years working with free and commercial unices i could gather some experience.
time multiplied by cost per hour makes up the amount she would have to pay. if my solution is (and this is for most windows supporters the default option) to re-install windows... the windows dude would have to be pretty cheap.
while we are at it, would she pay for helping her patch her computer every microsoft tuesday (and after that resolving issues every other month)?
i could go on for months...
i am still convinced that for people with basic office needs which are conencted to the internet, there is probably any other os betetr suited than windows. osx or a decent linux distro... hence even free bsd would bring their tco down while maintaining all the functionality they need.
My mother is not able to even change the desktop background on her windows XP, however she relies on her computer for her business (email, web, word processing, spreadheet stuff). If she'd to pay for support (my brothers and i doing it for free) she'd have it much cheeper if she had a knowledgeable *nix administrator.
imagine: ok mom; start a console (yes click there and there...) then type `sudo/etc/init.d/sshd start` *
now go and have a coffe, i'll call you back in 10 minutes when i am done.
i really regrett the day i installed her first windows pc because i tought it'd be easy for her (well things like OOo werent really usable at this time and she needed to be "compatible" with customers / business partners).
Cheers, -S
*) if this happens on a regular basis, add a script she can double-click
i find it interesting when the headline says "Software Makers Lobby EU Against Microsoft" that a lot of comments here suddenly back microsofts position.
microsoft would have to pay to integrate pdf into office or the operating system (as apple does) and they (ms) appearently don't like the idea[1] (hint, hint, spyglass). so they seem to try to drive adobe out of this business.
microsoft also tries actively to disallow 3rd party products to hook into the vista kernel which makes it hard to programm such products (if even possible)[2].
now, i am not a big fan of all these 3 companies, but it looks to me as if this is really an attempt to stiffle competition for the good of microsoft. it also looks like they try to use the monopoly power to achieve these goals. IMHO these claims are pretty valid and the results could hurt the customer (you and me)!
"FF needs add-ons to remove JavaScript... ", i beg your pardon ? since javascript was introduced in netscape, netscape and all it's siblings (read gecko based browsers) had an option to turn off javascript. You can even decide what to prevent (want no statusbar changes which are pretty anoying, turn that off). NoScript exists to give the user finer graned control.
"The reason the IE seems more secure is that fewer people use it, those who..." IE is still the most used browser in the world.
"... use it, those who do use it tend to be more computer savvy" IE is mostly used by the computer un-savy people!
from your link (which is what I had in my mind): "Netscape submitted the JavaScript specification to Ecma International for standardization; the work on the specification, ECMA-262, began in November 1996. The first edition of ECMA-262 was adopted by the ECMA General Assembly of June 1997."
It makes some of us nervous that Google and other Web companies are building huge collections of data...
In my quest for anonymity, each time I was done surfing I also deleted my "cookies,"...
I also had to re-enter a login name and password when I returned to sites requiring registration,...
he is defenately missing the point of anonymous surfing. once he logs in he is not anonymous anymore, there is no point of obfuscating your ip to those servers nor will deleting cookies for such a site help, once he logs in again he is identified (maybe he has another unique token in the cookie but the server will recognize him again).
You probably mean KHTML which is the html rendering engine of Konqueror. Nothing. it's a decent render engine. JavaScript support always laggs a bit behind gecko tho (read XMLHttpRequest, rich text editing, etc.).
does any one remeber IE (AFAIK IE 4) for unix ? it never worked propperly (buggy) was slow as hell and even incompatible with windows and mac version (read no activex, no VB, different front sizes, etc.). Microsoft didn't support it fro long...
MS Office is another beast, it is not "just" a web browser (ok, ok, IE is also not just a web browser but still, office does a lot more and is tightly integrated in their OS).
OTOH, wine IE6/5.5/5 works well from my own experience (altough it's a bit slower than native on w32 it is compatible with the windows equivalent as long as you rip the font files from your... aehm... old windows you have there). And I read that crossover office (altough not on the latest and greates version) shall work well on linx and OSX.
so from my own experience, eighter hell freezes over or some other company will provide a usable ms office support on linux but certainly not microsoft.
i can second that! i am looking forward to a mobile phone with a couple of GB's storage, a 4+ Mega pixel camera, FM tuner and bluetooth interface all in the size of the current phones (at best an additional usb 2 cable which just make the storage available as block device). I am sick of having to carry so many devices, the mp3 player is usually just with me when i am jogging.
you really need to have a look at a swiss german (sg-latin1) keyboard which has both; german umlauts and french accents on it. as long as you want to use the uppercase accents or umlauts you can access them only with caps-lock enabled (and in some casese caps-lock + shift + key).
in some languages you cannot type special characters without the caps lock keye (ÖÄÜÀÉÈ for german and french) come to mind. on a us keyboard you might not need it however.
i am not much into hardware, so please forgive me if i misunderstand this. i understand that clients in a lan would benefit of this new technology.
Nowadays games are played over the internet and a lot more than a couple of NIC's and hubs are involved.
Plus, most of the game load is usually transferred over udp, tcp chanells usually exist just to transport very few reliable game information (like player infos upon server joins, round start/end info... you name it).
So if i get this right, this techmology (sic) would help on a lan, games are not played often on a lan anymore and since we are in the age of affordable gigabit ethernet, where is the point (concering gaming) ?
blocking javascript is not enough. as pointed out in many comments; what they do now with the XMLHttpRequest Object (a JavaScrip HTTP Client) is also partially possible with the image object, java/activx objects (probably even flash) and most importantly with serverside scripting coupled with an iframe.
The problem really lies in the nature of the web, that one site is allowed to call ressources from another host.
And Joe Average clicks on the [Wahtever] button which usually defaults to [install] [yes] or [ok] on windows. Such a measure will not prevent many windows users from installing ie7 blindly. the dialog will look something like this:
"Important security update:
We are about to install Internet Explorer 7. This is an improtant security update. Not installing this update WILL PREVENT YOU FROM FUTURE SECURITY UPDATES.
What would you like to do: [INSTALL] [Ask me later] [Don't Install]"
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were acused by Amnesty international were accused to "beeing evil".
a couple of days later google releases an accessible search which seems to be rushed out badly (their code doesn't validate to basic HTML standards, let alon WAI and other compatibilities which would really help disabled people).
just a coincidence ? I think not.
They have managed to avoid bad press in the tech world.
lexxe.com is implemented in ColdFusion. ColdFusion used to be a neat solution back in 97 for your first-guestobook(tm) and the sorts. CFML is s server parsed language embedded in HTML. The coldFsuion server was written in Delphi and later with kylix (i guess since it was made available on linux too). They must done quiet some string parsing and when CF hit version 4 it became really slow and did not scale well.
Then someone had the neat idea to emulate the cf syntax by using a java xml parser. compared to the original cf it was pretty fast. So Allaire (back then) decided to move to Java and nearly went bankrupt (might be unrelated).
Macromedia aquired allaire and the coldFusion server has seen some more half-hearted development. ColdFusion was now based on JRun, an EJB Server. JRun had everything but a kitchen sink + the ColdFusion functionality. and because it was based on some "Enterprise" thechnology became the flagship of Macromedias server side technologies. Macromedia wasn't showing much interest in supporting ColdFusion anymore (apart from selling what they had).
now that Macromedia was aquired by Adobe, interest in the product (read: stability, performance , support) is/will be more problematic than ever.
Long comment short meaning; WTF are they using such an utterly bad performing (and expensive as well) technology to implement a meta search engine. Do they expect any traffic soon? or is this just a playground of some kid ?
i have tried to use lexxe just now and got the following response
Sorry, Lexxe has just experienced Internet connection problem. Please try a few minutes later. Thank you for your cooperation.
When they were disconnected from the "internet" then i would probably not even get an error message, right? right!. So i gues this "search" engin just got slashdottet, hehe. Or the search providers are blocking their requests ?
Track Ir is actually trought to be used in online games, especially in simulations where you would like to use the hands for steering input and the head for looking around in your vehicle.
AFAIK it emulates the mouse (because most simulations use the mouse for moving the view angle) and therefore shouldn't need any special drivers for applications.
this might be geeky but it might be worth a try (i am really not sure if it is usable as mouse, in games, it works like a charm).
Slashdot Mirror
I, for one, think a migration to windows Vista would not be much cheaper; licenses, new hardware, 3 praty and home grown application rewrites, and a lot of tests. however, the license costs for OS and many desktop apps will vanish in the future with the linux solution. also, it looks like they are going for linux terminals, so i guess a lot of maintenance work will be saved on the new clients as well.
on the same planet in switzerland, windows admins with a good degree of knowledge cost as much as unix administrators ... thus tend to need more time to fix problems due to the lack of window's reporting facilities (where were thos logs again ? errr we don't have any) and background information in general.
... the windows dude would have to be pretty cheap.
...
... hence even free bsd would bring their tco down while maintaining all the functionality they need.
...
an no, as you imply, i am not a guy who discovered ubuntu 2 months ago and thinks it'll cure cancer. after over 10 years working with free and commercial unices i could gather some experience.
time multiplied by cost per hour makes up the amount she would have to pay. if my solution is (and this is for most windows supporters the default option) to re-install windows
while we are at it, would she pay for helping her patch her computer every microsoft tuesday (and after that resolving issues every other month)?
i could go on for months
i am still convinced that for people with basic office needs which are conencted to the internet, there is probably any other os betetr suited than windows. osx or a decent linux distro
out, over nd end
-S
My mother is not able to even change the desktop background on her windows XP, however she relies on her computer for her business (email, web, word processing, spreadheet stuff). If she'd to pay for support (my brothers and i doing it for free) she'd have it much cheeper if she had a knowledgeable *nix administrator.
...) then type `sudo /etc/init.d/sshd start` *
imagine: ok mom; start a console (yes click there and there
now go and have a coffe, i'll call you back in 10 minutes when i am done.
i really regrett the day i installed her first windows pc because i tought it'd be easy for her (well things like OOo werent really usable at this time and she needed to be "compatible" with customers / business partners).
Cheers,
-S
*) if this happens on a regular basis, add a script she can double-click
i find it interesting when the headline says "Software Makers Lobby EU Against Microsoft" that a lot of comments here suddenly back microsofts position.
... IANAL!
2 432485 6230
microsoft would have to pay to integrate pdf into office or the operating system (as apple does) and they (ms) appearently don't like the idea[1] (hint, hint, spyglass). so they seem to try to drive adobe out of this business.
microsoft also tries actively to disallow 3rd party products to hook into the vista kernel which makes it hard to programm such products (if even possible)[2].
now, i am not a big fan of all these 3 companies, but it looks to me as if this is really an attempt to stiffle competition for the good of microsoft. it also looks like they try to use the monopoly power to achieve these goals. IMHO these claims are pretty valid and the results could hurt the customer (you and me)!
and
1] http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/02/1
2] http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/19/20
How can this be +3 insightful ?
... ", i beg your pardon ? since javascript was introduced in netscape, netscape and all it's siblings (read gecko based browsers) had an option to turn off javascript. You can even decide what to prevent (want no statusbar changes which are pretty anoying, turn that off). NoScript exists to give the user finer graned control.
..." IE is still the most used browser in the world.
... use it, those who do use it tend to be more computer savvy" IE is mostly used by the computer un-savy people!
"FF needs add-ons to remove JavaScript
"The reason the IE seems more secure is that fewer people use it, those who
"
ECMAscript 262 comes from JavaScript.
There, fixed that for you.
Cheers,
-S
from your link (which is what I had in my mind):
"Netscape submitted the JavaScript specification to Ecma International for standardization; the work on the specification, ECMA-262, began in November 1996. The first edition of ECMA-262 was adopted by the ECMA General Assembly of June 1997."
XP SP2 did not install on my w2k.
"So, what exactly is wrong with Konqueror?"
You probably mean KHTML which is the html rendering engine of Konqueror. Nothing. it's a decent render engine. JavaScript support always laggs a bit behind gecko tho (read XMLHttpRequest, rich text editing, etc.).
FTFS: ... such as using the less-compatible Konqueror over Firefox for its default web browser."
5 .html ?
"
i am not a KDE user, so i wonder what happend to the gecko support in KDE http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040911-417
if it gets to HTML compatibility, it is really just the render engine that matters (IMHO) and if konqueror can use gecko where is the difference ?
Cheers,
-S
does any one remeber IE (AFAIK IE 4) for unix ? it never worked propperly (buggy) was slow as hell and even incompatible with windows and mac version (read no activex, no VB, different front sizes, etc.). Microsoft didn't support it fro long ...
... aehm ... old windows you have there). And I read that crossover office (altough not on the latest and greates version) shall work well on linx and OSX.
MS Office is another beast, it is not "just" a web browser (ok, ok, IE is also not just a web browser but still, office does a lot more and is tightly integrated in their OS).
OTOH, wine IE6/5.5/5 works well from my own experience (altough it's a bit slower than native on w32 it is compatible with the windows equivalent as long as you rip the font files from your
so from my own experience, eighter hell freezes over or some other company will provide a usable ms office support on linux but certainly not microsoft.
Cheers,
-S
i can second that! i am looking forward to a mobile phone with a couple of GB's storage, a 4+ Mega pixel camera, FM tuner and bluetooth interface all in the size of the current phones (at best an additional usb 2 cable which just make the storage available as block device). I am sick of having to carry so many devices, the mp3 player is usually just with me when i am jogging.
Cheers,
-S
BTW: what phone did you buy ?
you really need to have a look at a swiss german (sg-latin1) keyboard which has both; german umlauts and french accents on it. as long as you want to use the uppercase accents or umlauts you can access them only with caps-lock enabled (and in some casese caps-lock + shift + key).
...
so long
in some languages you cannot type special characters without the caps lock keye (ÖÄÜÀÉÈ for german and french) come to mind. on a us keyboard you might not need it however.
someone should have sponsored them a tachimeter, would have made it much easiert.
i guess linspire is hoping to sell more software trough CNR which will give them some income even on the free (as in beer) releases.
CNR seems to be tightly integrated into the desktop.
i am not much into hardware, so please forgive me if i misunderstand this. i understand that clients in a lan would benefit of this new technology.
... you name it).
Nowadays games are played over the internet and a lot more than a couple of NIC's and hubs are involved.
Plus, most of the game load is usually transferred over udp, tcp chanells usually exist just to transport very few reliable game information (like player infos upon server joins, round start/end info
So if i get this right, this techmology (sic) would help on a lan, games are not played often on a lan anymore and since we are in the age of affordable gigabit ethernet, where is the point (concering gaming) ?
-S
blocking javascript is not enough. as pointed out in many comments; what they do now with the XMLHttpRequest Object (a JavaScrip HTTP Client) is also partially possible with the image object, java/activx objects (probably even flash) and most importantly with serverside scripting coupled with an iframe.
The problem really lies in the nature of the web, that one site is allowed to call ressources from another host.
Cheers,
-S
And Joe Average clicks on the [Wahtever] button which usually defaults to [install] [yes] or [ok] on windows. Such a measure will not prevent many windows users from installing ie7 blindly. the dialog will look something like this:
...
"Important security update:
We are about to install Internet Explorer 7. This is an improtant security update. Not installing this update WILL PREVENT YOU FROM FUTURE SECURITY UPDATES.
What would you like to do:
[INSTALL] [Ask me later] [Don't Install]"
have fun
it's actually very hard (if not impossible) to fool google with meta tags (i guess you mean the meta keywords and meta descriptions).
google is weighting meta tags very low, the content and especially it's structure (headings, links, etc.) are much more important for the ranking.
Cheers,
-S
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were acused by Amnesty international were accused to "beeing evil".
a couple of days later google releases an accessible search which seems to be rushed out badly (their code doesn't validate to basic HTML standards, let alon WAI and other compatibilities which would really help disabled people).
just a coincidence ? I think not.
They have managed to avoid bad press in the tech world.
online WYSIWYG editors use an editable iframe (usually). therefore the inline spellchecker which works on and shouldn't affect them.
lexxe.com is implemented in ColdFusion. ColdFusion used to be a neat solution back in 97 for your first-guestobook(tm) and the sorts. CFML is s server parsed language embedded in HTML. The coldFsuion server was written in Delphi and later with kylix (i guess since it was made available on linux too). They must done quiet some string parsing and when CF hit version 4 it became really slow and did not scale well.
Then someone had the neat idea to emulate the cf syntax by using a java xml parser. compared to the original cf it was pretty fast. So Allaire (back then) decided to move to Java and nearly went bankrupt (might be unrelated).
Macromedia aquired allaire and the coldFusion server has seen some more half-hearted development. ColdFusion was now based on JRun, an EJB Server. JRun had everything but a kitchen sink + the ColdFusion functionality. and because it was based on some "Enterprise" thechnology became the flagship of Macromedias server side technologies. Macromedia wasn't showing much interest in supporting ColdFusion anymore (apart from selling what they had).
now that Macromedia was aquired by Adobe, interest in the product (read: stability, performance , support) is/will be more problematic than ever.
Long comment short meaning; WTF are they using such an utterly bad performing (and expensive as well) technology to implement a meta search engine. Do they expect any traffic soon? or is this just a playground of some kid ?
i have tried to use lexxe just now and got the following response
When they were disconnected from the "internet" then i would probably not even get an error message, right? right!. So i gues this "search" engin just got slashdottet, hehe. Or the search providers are blocking their requests ?
I couldn't agree more with you, pear DB is a really neat solution, accepted, well documented and ships with php.
Track Ir is actually trought to be used in online games, especially in simulations where you would like to use the hands for steering input and the head for looking around in your vehicle.
AFAIK it emulates the mouse (because most simulations use the mouse for moving the view angle) and therefore shouldn't need any special drivers for applications.
this might be geeky but it might be worth a try (i am really not sure if it is usable as mouse, in games, it works like a charm).