The person who wrote the article hasn't a clue. Does he really think that Windows is easy to use or support?? If he does, then ask him about daylight savings time....
He's not saying windows is necessarily easy to support.
He *is* implying that the support infrastructure is all in place,
and that linux doesn't have that in a form that users can use.
Not everyone is going to be happy scanning online man pages and
asking questions on forums. They need online help and customer care reps
and a phone number to call.
Its going to be expensive to set up
and expensive to maintain. Windows support people are 10 a penny and
linux support people are not.
You aren't competing with the "large number of major OEM computer manufacturers", just those few that build to order and install linux. And support linux.
He's identified an opportunity for linux people to put their $$ where their mouth is - invest in creating a company that does *exactly* what they want Dell to do.
DBC has a greater requirement towards designing everything up front. XP allows you to be more flexible in your approach, and supports the need to constantly refactor your code.
In my experience, at the start of a complex project, we are never sure of all the answers. The ability to pull together small pieces, to constantly refactor as we learn more and to work in a close team outweighs the big-systems sort of approach where everything is specified to the last detail before you start.
Killed quite a few people. The distance between unconcious and dead is quite small with many of these drugs, and requires different doses for different people.
My flash drive says its good for 2000Gs !
I've been wondering how to test that.
iPod's flash is probably something similar.
It doesn't matter if the circuitry survives, just
the flash.
For a home learner, a better choice is the Art Of Electronics Student Edition. Its a series of labs that works you through, in a very practical manner, what each component does and what it means. If refers to you readings from the Art.
Doesn't matter who does it.
As a user, XP has that feature.
Linux does (or did) not.
My point is that Linux is still a ways
from meeting the gold standard - which is
set by XP (or Vista).
Hence - people will be somewhat disappointed
when they try linux. Its not the year of Linux
on the desktop.
Even more pertinant - in my country (NZ) and probably most others outside the US, all dvd players sold are region free (i.e. they play DVDs from any region). All manufacturers do it.
Wonder what sort of conversations they have with the MPAA over that one?
I run XP at work on my laptop. For the last 3 years, I've kept a second HDD around with linux on it. Every few months I put it in to see if it works well enough for me to switch to that as my desktop (I'm an ex-dev turned manager).
It used to be Fedora, and for the last 2 years, its been ubuntu because of its simply brilliant simplicity.
And so far its never worked.
Dual monitors didn't work, or evolution to exchange wasn't reliable, or WPA to my office and home didn't work/switch reliably, or mounting windows server shares wasn't reliable. The list goes on over the last few years.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I made the switch again. And so far everythings worked just fine**.
Network Manager is great. Dual Monitors works. Evolution is stable***. Places works a treat.
There's some grumbles still: - beagle refuses to index an SMB share, and to even get
it to look at an SMB share is non trivial. - setting up dual monitors is a ***pain***. Its trivial
on windows. But once you find the right incarnation, its
ok.
I'm going to blaspheme here....
Its not as good as XP. (ducks) Those issues I have had and still do have with Ubuntu... they *just work* under windows. Dual monitors is trivial, WIFIs are trivial, indexing is trivial...
So to all those people who think its the year of linux on the desktop... sorry nope. But its still is extremely valuable: a) it pushes MS to produce better product. MS *need* that competition, without it they lose focus. b) its darn good for a free OS and brings the price of a PC down c) it serves an important purpose in an increasingly DRM controlled world (you *can* choose to get away from products that monitor you and limit your freedom).
Just my $0.02c worth.
** except that the ATI driver doesnt' support DVI to the second monitor, just analog, but I can live with that.
The uniqueidentification of many (soon to me most or all) inkjets and color lasers was not done for you or me. It was done quietly for law enforcement to be able to *find* the owner of any printed document.
The enormity of that type of underhanded removal of privacy is just gobsmacking. And most vendors quietly went along with it.
This technology will no doubt be used in a similar vein - any picture uploaded onto the internet can be traced back to *you*.
Because industrial robots break down reasonably often.
Sure people are unreliable for all sorts of
reasons, but they don't break down as often and
usually have initiative to think through new
situations (even a grocery shelf stacker).
I think we first need to ask who will actually get the money.
Sure, they say its for the artists - but once the PCC's "costs"
are taken out - how much will be left.
How will they
distribute the money? Proportional to the CD sales? To online
sales? Will they just cut a check to every artists in
canada? How will recompence non-canadian artists? Or is
this just a scam fee going to the RIAA? (Just like the millions
that the RIAA is making from their lawsuit business - that sure
as hell ain't going to Justin Timberlake or Joni Mitchell)
Suggestions that BitLocker contains a backdoor allowing law enforcement agencies automatic access to encrypted volumes have been robustly denied by Microsoft.
Thats the only thing MS *could* say. Imagine them responding with the likely more truthful: "um... yes. We and the cops can peruse your files anytime we want. But we promise not to. Honest."
Geeze, its a long time ago - that level of detail
has long been moved aside to make way for more
important details about wine and beer.
There was definately a crapload of matrix ops
and eigenstuff going on... Stuff that I suspected
at the time wasn't a chip op but a library implementation.
Could this be the much-needed nail in the coffin for Blu-Ray?
I suspect that this is the case.
Tosh need to remove the major consumer perceived advantage
of the Blu-ray format - storage space (ignoring content for now). So they simply announce a standard.
Now everyone thinks HD-DVD is as big as Blu-ray. Never mind
that tosh haven't even got a proof of concept running let
alone get a product to market, nor that the
disc would be incompatible...
I know that Fortran has a good reputation for speed...
But when I was postgrad at university, I helped a Math mate recode
some department apps used in his thesis from Fortran into 'C'.
The end result is the damn stuff ran faster. I looked into
it more deeply to try to understand the difference - was it
that I (comp-sci major) was coding the apps more cleanly
than the original math majors?
Details are lost - it was a while ago - but I do recall that
the 'C' libs were doing most floating point
operations faster than fortran. Not just the low level
co-processor stuff, but also the more complex operations.
Surprised the heck out of both of us.
I suspected at the time that it was just the variant
of fortran we were running on Vax's, but didn't bother
checking further.
If you're going to do something poorly, at least by consistent.
Yeah, because we know how consistent the imperial system is...
Let me see...
16 ounces to the pound
14 pounds to the stone
2240 pounds to the ton (more correctly a long ton)
1000 pounds to the short ton
40 cubic feet to the freight ton
And this is my favourite:
Both the long and short ton are 20 hundredweights, but the
hundredweight differs from 100 to 108 pounds.
Dont forget the furlong, rood, pole, chain, link, inches, feet, yards...
Yeah - but he also stands to take the biggest risk.
He offered these devs CASH up front, whether or not he made a bean. Turns out he did well, but it could well have gone the other way. Good on him - Risk does not always equal reward.
I mean - I was just saying the other day to a friend, I haven't seen a new virus in ages... just the same old ebola, HIV, flu, H5N1, herpes... I mean YAWN. Where's the excitement in those?/sarcasm
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Its going to be expensive to set up and expensive to maintain. Windows support people are 10 a penny and linux support people are not.
Read the article.
You aren't competing with the "large number of major OEM computer manufacturers",
just those few that build to order and install linux. And support linux.
He's identified an opportunity for linux people to put their $$ where their
mouth is - invest in creating a company that does *exactly* what they want Dell
to do.
Any takers? Anyone?
DBC has a greater requirement towards designing everything up front.
XP allows you to be more flexible in your approach, and supports the need
to constantly refactor your code.
In my experience, at the start of a complex project, we are never sure of
all the answers. The ability to pull together small pieces, to constantly
refactor as we learn more and to work in a close team outweighs the
big-systems sort of approach where everything is specified to the last
detail before you start.
Tried both, DBC stuck in the throat.
The russians tried something like that...
Killed quite a few people. The distance between unconcious and dead is quite small
with many of these drugs, and requires different doses for different people.
My flash drive says its good for 2000Gs ! I've been wondering how to test that. iPod's flash is probably something similar. It doesn't matter if the circuitry survives, just the flash.
For a home learner, a better choice is the Art Of Electronics Student Edition.
Its a series of labs that works you through, in a very practical manner,
what each component does and what it means. If refers to you readings
from the Art.
Absolutely brilliant.
A little off topic admittedly, but...
Here in NZ, the Automobile Assoc did a survey of all members to find
out the types of driving that concerned them the most.
Turns out there were two ranked waaaaay above all others:
41% said they hated tailgaters
42% said they hated slow drivers.
hmmmm an interesting correlation.
Doesn't matter who does it. As a user, XP has that feature. Linux does (or did) not. My point is that Linux is still a ways from meeting the gold standard - which is set by XP (or Vista). Hence - people will be somewhat disappointed when they try linux. Its not the year of Linux on the desktop.
Even more pertinant - in my country (NZ) and probably
most others outside the US,
all dvd players sold are region free (i.e. they play
DVDs from any region). All manufacturers do it.
Wonder what sort of conversations they have with
the MPAA over that one?
I run XP at work on my laptop.
For the last 3 years, I've kept a second HDD around with linux on it.
Every few months I put it in to see if it works well enough for me to switch
to that as my desktop (I'm an ex-dev turned manager).
It used to be Fedora, and for the last 2 years, its been ubuntu
because of its simply brilliant simplicity.
And so far its never worked.
Dual monitors didn't work, or evolution to exchange wasn't reliable,
or WPA to my office and home didn't work/switch reliably, or mounting
windows server shares wasn't reliable. The
list goes on over the last few years.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I made the switch again.
And so far everythings worked just fine**.
Network Manager is great.
Dual Monitors works.
Evolution is stable***.
Places works a treat.
There's some grumbles still:
- beagle refuses to index an SMB share, and to even get
it to look at an SMB share is non trivial.
- setting up dual monitors is a ***pain***. Its trivial
on windows. But once you find the right incarnation, its
ok.
I'm going to blaspheme here....
Its not as good as XP. (ducks) Those issues I have had and still do
have with Ubuntu... they *just work* under windows.
Dual monitors is trivial, WIFIs are trivial, indexing
is trivial...
So to all those people who think its the year of linux on the desktop...
sorry nope.
But its still is extremely valuable:
a) it pushes MS to produce better product. MS *need* that competition,
without it they lose focus.
b) its darn good for a free OS and brings the price of a PC down
c) it serves an important purpose in an increasingly DRM controlled
world (you *can* choose to get away from products that monitor
you and limit your freedom).
Just my $0.02c worth.
** except that the ATI driver
doesnt' support DVI to the second monitor, just analog, but I can live
with that.
*** well - mostly, but enough.
Actually, the space shuttle is not a good example.
NASA do not fly the space shuttle during 31 Dec -> 1 Jan as
they are not confident of what would happen. Better just
to avoid the problem.
That was one of the pressures to getting the Dec 2k6 flight off the ground.
The unique identification of many (soon to me most or all) inkjets and color lasers was not
done for you or me. It was done quietly for law enforcement to be able
to *find* the owner of any printed document.
The enormity of that type of underhanded removal of privacy is
just gobsmacking. And most vendors quietly went along with it.
This technology will no doubt be used in a similar vein - any
picture uploaded onto the internet can be traced back to *you*.
Freedom takes another blow.
Sure people are unreliable for all sorts of reasons, but they don't break down as often and usually have initiative to think through new situations (even a grocery shelf stacker).
Sure, they say its for the artists - but once the PCC's "costs" are taken out - how much will be left.
How will they distribute the money? Proportional to the CD sales? To online sales? Will they just cut a check to every artists in canada? How will recompence non-canadian artists? Or is this just a scam fee going to the RIAA? (Just like the millions that the RIAA is making from their lawsuit business - that sure as hell ain't going to Justin Timberlake or Joni Mitchell)
Thats the only thing MS *could* say. Imagine them responding with the likely more truthful:
"um... yes. We and the cops can peruse your files anytime we want.
But we promise not to. Honest."
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I just think these guys have messed up and can't figure out how to fix it yet.
There was definately a crapload of matrix ops and eigenstuff going on... Stuff that I suspected at the time wasn't a chip op but a library implementation.
Tosh need to remove the major consumer perceived advantage of the Blu-ray format - storage space (ignoring content for now). So they simply announce a standard.
Now everyone thinks HD-DVD is as big as Blu-ray. Never mind that tosh haven't even got a proof of concept running let alone get a product to market, nor that the disc would be incompatible...
(sigh).
But when I was postgrad at university, I helped a Math mate recode some department apps used in his thesis from Fortran into 'C'.
The end result is the damn stuff ran faster. I looked into it more deeply to try to understand the difference - was it that I (comp-sci major) was coding the apps more cleanly than the original math majors?
Details are lost - it was a while ago - but I do recall that the 'C' libs were doing most floating point operations faster than fortran. Not just the low level co-processor stuff, but also the more complex operations.
Surprised the heck out of both of us. I suspected at the time that it was just the variant of fortran we were running on Vax's, but didn't bother checking further.
- pounds for weight
- inches for weight and balance/C of G calculations
- litres for fuel and fuel consumption rate (convert to pounds for W&B/CoG calcs)
- celsius for temperature
- feet for altitude
- knots (nautical miles (nm) per hour) for speed
- nm for distance
- km or metres for visibility
and so on...Let me see...
16 ounces to the pound
/sarcasm.
14 pounds to the stone
2240 pounds to the ton (more correctly a long ton)
1000 pounds to the short ton
40 cubic feet to the freight ton
And this is my favourite:
Both the long and short ton are 20 hundredweights, but the
hundredweight differs from 100 to 108 pounds.
Dont forget the furlong, rood, pole, chain, link, inches, feet, yards...
Yeah... that looks pretty consistent.
Yeah - but he also stands to take the biggest risk.
He offered these devs CASH up front, whether or not he
made a bean. Turns out he did well, but it could well
have gone the other way. Good on him - Risk does not
always equal reward.
This is marketing...
These guys are paid to be there.
...a new (retro)virus.
/sarcasm
I mean - I was just saying the other day to a friend, I haven't
seen a new virus in ages... just the same old ebola, HIV,
flu, H5N1, herpes... I mean YAWN. Where's the excitement in
those?
Thank you kindly for the offer Pete.
:-)
Sadly I'm not in your constituency (nor even
in your country).
At the risk of sounding toady, you'd get my
vote as the first politician who knows that
you can't wear a network mask
Good luck with the contest - Mr Hatch is
a dangerous man and needs to be replaced.