Its surprising the number of organizations that use the SSN as id. Most school systems do, primary, secondary, and colleges. If you are in the military, your serial number is your social security number. Its right there on your id card. All your documents will have it printed on them as well. You want a bunch of SSN's, get a job as a bouncer near a military base and write them down as you check id's.
Get a job in 'retail' anyplace that offers military or student discounts. We are constantly putting our security in the hands of an abused underpaid underclass. Do you think someone making $5.15/hour really cares about keeping your info secure?
Truth be told, you would think banks, who have a financial interest in the matter would look for something other than a social security number for id. They are only making easy to get themselves ripped off.
lol, if you saw how that place works on the inside, you'd not be suprised. Its a joke. Consultant (developer) interview, (on the phone): What the difference between a class and an interface? Whats the difference between a hashmap and a hashtable? Tell us about your experience. You're hired! No writing actual code as a condition of employment, no actual in person interview. The IT department has posters on the wall explaining what phishing is. The code is a joke. I would have fired anyone working for me who writes code the way they do. I terminated my contract after the first 3 days, once I realized they were not interested in cleaning things up.
The truth is, nothing will change because of this. They don't really care. Any changes were already in the works. This is a place where people become managers by staying around long enough.
if it meant they could use some quality hardware with the respective OS
Perhaps its not high quality hardware. By staying secretive, they can try to prevent people from finding this out.
Maybe you are being too generous by giving them the benefit of the doubt. I seem to recall that one of the signs of mature, high quality software is that it is available for multiple platforms. Porting code can reveal bugs that are hard to find. Maybe if the hardware design is sketchy and barely functional, they are scared to attempt to get it to work on another platform lest they be found out. Or, perhaps like many "modem" manufactures, they put some of the expected hardware functionality in the software.
The simple reaction should be, if they don't support my efforts, I will not support them.
How do you expect the computer to be able to handle something that it doesn't know is coming?
Its a machine, I don't expect it to know anything. I expect the USB drive to be built so that it implements the USB specification, therefore it should not *die* from being pulled out. If I/O to the device is complete (light off), it should be fine to remove. Anything else is a faulty implementation.
I see one of the major problems with systems these days is an acceptance of fuzzy functionality. People seem to be ok saying that if they do X then the computer *might* do Y. If the OS were to die from pulling a USB device, it should either do it or not.
The hotplug deamon on Linux implements the specification. If a USB drive is pulled, it unmounts it from the filesystem (even if performing I/O). Same goes for firewire.
I understand the issue of growing complexity. It has become the excuse accepting of less reliable software and hardware. Most large software projects now contain code to deal with the fact that there will be crappy code running and try to keep the program running when errors would otherwise have caused it to crash. While a great advance, it also reduces the modivation to get it right.
How about the computer be polite to me? Its a tool. The reason it exists is to serve me, not the other way around. If the little green light is off on my usb drive I should be able to yank it out. Thats what the USB protocol is all about. Hotswap anyone. Yanking it out without going through the motions on windows give youy a nice pop-up threatening doom and destruction. Linux does what it should, nothing....says the tech curmudgeon
btw, I hate Linux too. I just happen to hate it less than windows.
So, you demonstrated that people buying their computers could know their hardware will work on both windows and linux. Looks like you are doing some good marketing on the behalf of Best Buy
Well, if they are paying extra for free software that's already installed..... They aren't throwing away their money, they are spending money to make more of their personal time free.
There are companies that have no other product than "free" software.
After a set of email exchanges, you might get a live chat, with a "tech support" person that has access to the same things you will find searching Microsoft's site. If you opt to pay some rather large dollars for phone support, you get the same tech who doesn't know anymore than the bulletins posted on Microsoft's web site.
Support? It's Microsoft's "support" (lack there of) that DROVE ME TO LINUX. Now I run Linux, I don't have weird driver issues that make you have to restart after boot up. I don't have to reboot after installing programs. I don't have to shutdown all of my programs when installing one. I don't have to reboot when installing new hardware. I can just yank out a USB device when I'm done using it, instead of clicking through windows to deactivate; same for firewire. If I want to use multiple monitors with multiple video cards, I can, regardless of who made the video cards (Windows only supports a small list for this). I can update my system and continue to work. I can continue to use my computer while performing IO oprerations. My computer doesn't need to reboot after updating. I can update an application while I'm using it. I spend less time keeping my computer alive, thus my time using it is more productive. My last company probably saved about $20K+ per year after I switched due to higher productivity (not including software savings). Of course there is all the virus and spyware crap that I don't even think about anymore.
Who cares about open vs closed source? I just want something that works. I use Linux because it does. I no longer use Windows because it never did and currently doesn't. I don't really give a damn about the licencing issues. A Windows install with the equivalent software as my Linux box would probaly be around $3-4k. If it worked as well and was as reliable, I wouldn't min d paying it. But, I'm not going to pay $4K for some software that causes me to lose $20K a year in wasted time, that would be stupid. I paid $70 for Mandrake, and its now saving $20k/year.
My recent experience: I'm in a shop picking up a Serial ATA Controller, Seagate hard drive, and 2 gigs of ram, (total $500+). I asked the guy if they carried linux. I really needed it as my hard drive was dead and being replaced, I wasn't evangelizing. They didn't have it , they did know what it was, and apparently had little interest in getting it. This is also the last time that I'll do business there. When I lived outside of Seattle, my local shop had all the major linux distros for $5 each as a value added service.
This will probably sound like bigotry but, I tend to have a higher regard shops that can deal with multiple OS's. They tend to be more knowledgeable and can actually answer questions instead of changing the subject to whatever the latest 3d thriller game is. JMHO
In the two schools my son has been in I doubt more than 5% of the teachers could even tell you what an office suite is. They seemed more concerned with their subject areas than with playing on the computers. At his previous school, teacher were able to check out computers for temporary use. Most only used for emailing parents. With zero knowledge, I'd argue the learning curve is about the same, with reduced clippy induced foul language (another bonus). Both of these products will still torque you off with the auto indenting/bulleting by default.
I agree with your point and the technique may work in more traditional software but, when all you have to do is point your browser somewhere else, the cost (and risk) of adoption evaporates. Of course the risk here is that anybody (including google) could get toppled at anytime for the same reason.
o Keep your mouth shut - This keeps you from promising more than you can deliver - Keeps expectations non-existent - Creates "mystery", which means free press as people speculate - The press watches your site like a hawk, looking for any little new thing - The quieter they are the more free press they get, can you say cheap advertising - Google PR campaign, four letters, STFU
o Cheap inovation by giving employees 20% personal project time - Make use of "wasted time", most employees are not working for more than 20% of the day anyways - Generates a large pool of ideas with working POCs instead of WAIs - Encourages employee skill development - Makes corporate espionage impractical due to high noise to signal ratio - Gain inovative ideas to turn into products and services - People love working on "their own" idea", thus work harder
o Release products, not promises - Surprise the competition - Nobody acuses you of missing your release dates - You get a reputation for delivering working products - Nobody acuses you of producing vaporware
o Leverage existing hardware/software - Google satelite uses much of the google map code - The cluster used for search indexing leaves lots of CPU and disk space for other things
o KISS - Simple things have fewer bugs - Simple things are easier to manage - Customers like things uncomplicated and uncluttered
o Be nice Notice they said nothing when "google suggest" or "google maps" was dissected. This is the opposite of Apple and MS policy of sue first, ask questions later. It makes people thing you are cool
I'm sure the CIA is a very trustworthy source on this subject;) considering their goals.
I seem to remember stories of fake missle silos, and "airbases" appearing over night in artic Alaska, that were little more than inflatable mylar planes, just to spoof their satelites. Throw some crates and a bunch of guys out of a plane in the middle of the night.
I think Google is trying to beat Microsoft using the classic cold war economic strategy. We used to do a lot of crazy things to make the Russians think our military was bigger and more mobile than it really was. As a result they had to keep spending enormous amounts of money to try to "keep up". They eventually drove their economy into the ground. Google, gives its workers 20% time to work on personal projects. Some of these go live. Their search cluster basically gives a project unlimited disk and cpu. When a project goes live, it comes as a surprise. Microsoft, (and others) finds itself caught off guard, and has to work feverishly to make a "better" product before they even have a competing or functioning one. Since the projects start off as "personal" projects, and considering the number of employees, even corporate espionage can't be very effective, at getting a heads up, because of the noise ratio.
The last part of the strategy is the quiet, surprise releases. No advance anouncements, no press conference or press release. Just a simple link. The media goes crazy because there is a new link on a google page. They get a reputation of producing instead of promising.
The satelite imagery is a great example. They buy a profitable business, Keyhole, and leverage the access to imagery and for a small amount of development effort, integrate it into the mapping service in a very similar way that the mapping service already works. Even though the satelite stuff in maps might lose money, Keyhole is still earning them money. The imagery becomes a value-added feature.
I think its more interesting how these are released, and how MS is taking a bigger risk.
Google didn't tell anybody. They just added a link to their maps page and said beta. No anouncement, nada. Just a working product, and no expectations.
Microsoft is making an anouncement before they are putting a working product in peoples hands. This may create a lot of expectations, and they will get more critical treatment when bugs are found, if they miss the release date (not MS), etc.
However the MS product turns out. Google will probably end up looking better because they simply released a working service. They didn't hype it up and generate false expectations.
Either way, I think we win as these companies fight one another by making their offerings and products better.
Ok, all these experts say we'll run out of fossil fuels in about 50 years at our current consumption. When we run out of crap to burn, no more CO2, thus global warming will brought to an end. Sure, our economy will be doomed but, our kids can worry about that. They'll have some crazy national debt to deal with anyway.
you chose to install the patch that required a reboot, Except, there is no indication that a patch will need a reboot until you start down that path. -Vendor did not give the user sufficient information to make the correct choice-
Linux, patch happens in background, reboot not required 99.9% of time. User can work while patch occurs. User can use the SAME application that is being patched, while it is being patched. In the 0.01% case where a reboot is required, the user can do it at his/her convienence. The system will not behave erradically becasue of it.
Scenario: you arrive at work in the morning and need some critical updates (maybe one requires a reboot). You also have some important work to do, and want to leave early. Linux, start updates in background, get your work done, reboot when you leave for lunch. Windows, decide to work or update. One happens before the other, you are late for your lunch date.
I'm sure many will point out that most linux distros have many options for updating (Xen is just one).
For example, Mandrake(driva) has MandrakeUpdate (gui for urpmi). You just run it, pick what you want updated (or just select all), and keep working. No reboot. And, unlike windows, you can actually work while the system is updating. You would think that in the year 2005 that your OS would not slow to a crawl because there is some IO happening. You get a reboot message when its done. In fact, you can update an application WHILE you are using it. It seems that most major distros have a pretty simple patch/update facility. I have never heard of a distro that blocked operation of the computer or its applications while updating. In all distros I have seen, the only time a reboot is required is when patching the kernel. Even then, you can keep working without problems and reboot at your convienence.
Windows might be easier for some things but, patching is definitely not it.
____BEGIN_RANTS_____
I plugged my new usb jump drive in my linux box (prepared to go through hellish config), one second later, I had a drive icon on my desktop. I could drag files to it. I unplugged when I was finished. I took the drive to a Windows XP Professional box, plugged it in. Waited for a minute while windows found the driver. Waited for another 5 minutes as windows informed me I needed to reboot. Logged back in. Navigated to the new drive. Dragged out the folders. Had to right-click the icon in the task bar and disable the drive before I could unplug it. Even apple doesn't abuse users this bad.
I plug my new HP Photoprinter into my Linux box (prepared to go through hellish config), a few seconds later, a printer config utility pops up, I click a few options, it informs me it needs to download the drivers. When done, it offers to print a test page. It works.
Total time from plugging in to printing test page <60secs.
I plug same printer into my son's Windows XP box. It begs for driver disk. Reboots. I have to manually add a printer, and configure it.
Total time from plugging in to printing test page ~= 10 minutes.
I see new Linux vulnerability on Slashdot. When I get home I run Mandrake Update, minimize it. I continue doing what I'm doing. It leaves me alone.
I go sit at my son's computer. Little icon says it needs updates. I click it. The system slows to a crawl. It then decides that it needs to close the browser. It then interupts me to say I should reboot. I'm busy, I say I'll do it later. The system starts acting all wacked, I give in.
I want to type an email to my wife in Spanish. Linux, click the little icon in the task bar to switch to the Intl-Engligh keymap. ~n becomes ñ.
Windows, alt-0241 every freakin time. Linux, 'i becaomes í, windows, alt-0237. Where's the intuitivness? Where's the easier to use interface? WTF?
____END_RANTS_____
I think windows usability arguments are starting to get very thin. I'm really beginning to think that the only thing that windows really has going for it is a larger selection of apps and device drivers.
Disclaimer: I am a developer, not a system admin. My linux box is a pretty standard install. I haven't done anything special to it. I hate all operating systems (I just hate linux about 10% less than the others). I am not an open source advocate but, I don't mind using it.
A. Does the Linux community really need a leader? I'll argue that one of the strengths, is the lack of a leader. Why is there always an assumption that every group needs a leader? I'll represent my oen opinion, thankyou, I don't need a leader to do it for me. B. I think Dvorak is happy being a pundit. I haven't really seen a struggle toward leadership in him. Just MHO. C. I agree with you 100%
The planes might be able to exploit each other aerodynamically as well. If a plane can position itself in the upward moving portion of the wingtip vortex of the plane in front of it, it could potentially use less power to keep itself airborne. If the planes rotate the "leadership" position then they may be able to fly for extended periods of time.
I was specifically replaying to ZephyrXero's statement, "...but you don't develop open source code with a closed source language." This would have made sense (and is a good point) if it started as an open source project however, it didn't.
As to "import sun.*", well, I think we are both against it but for different reasons. I argue against doing it becasuse its bad practice to write Java around a specific VM, or to non-standard classes (This is as bad as people who write C/C++ that will only compile with GCC or VC++). Now, if they created an interface for their needs, and wrote a wrapper class that implemented the interface that happened to use the sun classes, then that would be a different story (IMO). (You will disagree with me here) This technique would isolate the code that depends on the non-standard (sun) classes and allow for simple replacement with a different implementation.
Lets not forget that Stallman is against public domain code. Public domain is about as free as possible, you can do absolutely anything with it, except please Stallman. The GPL seems more restrictive than many closed source licenses (as many have pointed out) due to the obligations it creates.
Slashdot Mirror
Its surprising the number of organizations that use the SSN as id.
Most school systems do, primary, secondary, and colleges. If you are in the military, your serial number is your social security number. Its right there on your id card. All your documents will have it printed on them as well. You want a bunch of SSN's, get a job as a bouncer near a military base and write them down as you check id's.
Get a job in 'retail' anyplace that offers military or student discounts. We are constantly putting our security in the hands of an abused underpaid underclass. Do you think someone making $5.15/hour really cares about keeping your info secure?
Truth be told, you would think banks, who have a financial interest in the matter would look for something other than a social security number for id. They are only making easy to get themselves ripped off.
lol, if you saw how that place works on the inside, you'd not be suprised.
Its a joke.
Consultant (developer) interview, (on the phone):
What the difference between a class and an interface?
Whats the difference between a hashmap and a hashtable?
Tell us about your experience.
You're hired!
No writing actual code as a condition of employment, no actual in person interview.
The IT department has posters on the wall explaining what phishing is.
The code is a joke. I would have fired anyone working for me who writes code the way they do. I terminated my contract after the first 3 days, once I realized they were not interested in cleaning things up.
The truth is, nothing will change because of this. They don't really care. Any changes were already in the works. This is a place where people become managers by staying around long enough.
if it meant they could use some quality hardware with the respective OS
Perhaps its not high quality hardware. By staying secretive, they can try to prevent people from finding this out.
Maybe you are being too generous by giving them the benefit of the doubt. I seem to recall that one of the signs of mature, high quality software is that it is available for multiple platforms. Porting code can reveal bugs that are hard to find. Maybe if the hardware design is sketchy and barely functional, they are scared to attempt to get it to work on another platform lest they be found out. Or, perhaps like many "modem" manufactures, they put some of the expected hardware functionality in the software.
The simple reaction should be, if they don't support my efforts, I will not support them.
with the new google translator, they'll be able to serve your foreign visitors too.
put illegal immigrants out of work?
How do you expect the computer to be able to handle something that it doesn't know is coming?
Its a machine, I don't expect it to know anything. I expect the USB drive to be built so that it implements the USB specification, therefore it should not *die* from being pulled out. If I/O to the device is complete (light off), it should be fine to remove. Anything else is a faulty implementation.
I see one of the major problems with systems these days is an acceptance of fuzzy functionality. People seem to be ok saying that if they do X then the computer *might* do Y. If the OS were to die from pulling a USB device, it should either do it or not.
The hotplug deamon on Linux implements the specification. If a USB drive is pulled, it unmounts it from the filesystem (even if performing I/O). Same goes for firewire.
I understand the issue of growing complexity. It has become the excuse accepting of less reliable software and hardware. Most large software projects now contain code to deal with the fact that there will be crappy code running and try to keep the program running when errors would otherwise have caused it to crash. While a great advance, it also reduces the modivation to get it right.
How about the computer be polite to me? Its a tool. The reason it exists is to serve me, not the other way around. ...says the tech curmudgeon
If the little green light is off on my usb drive I should be able to yank it out. Thats what the USB protocol is all about. Hotswap anyone.
Yanking it out without going through the motions on windows give youy a nice pop-up threatening doom and destruction. Linux does what it should, nothing.
btw, I hate Linux too. I just happen to hate it less than windows.
So, you demonstrated that people buying their computers could know their hardware will work on both windows and linux.
Looks like you are doing some good marketing on the behalf of Best Buy
Well, if they are paying extra for free software that's already installed.....
They aren't throwing away their money, they are spending money to make more of their personal time free.
There are companies that have no other product than "free" software.
don't forget the irremovable bike helmet...
Have you ever tried using Microsoft support?
After a set of email exchanges, you might get a live chat, with a "tech support" person that has access to the same things you will find searching Microsoft's site. If you opt to pay some rather large dollars for phone support, you get the same tech who doesn't know anymore than the bulletins posted on Microsoft's web site.
Support? It's Microsoft's "support" (lack there of) that DROVE ME TO LINUX.
Now I run Linux, I don't have weird driver issues that make you have to restart after boot up.
I don't have to reboot after installing programs.
I don't have to shutdown all of my programs when installing one.
I don't have to reboot when installing new hardware.
I can just yank out a USB device when I'm done using it, instead of clicking through windows to deactivate; same for firewire.
If I want to use multiple monitors with multiple video cards, I can, regardless of who made the video cards (Windows only supports a small list for this).
I can update my system and continue to work.
I can continue to use my computer while performing IO oprerations.
My computer doesn't need to reboot after updating.
I can update an application while I'm using it.
I spend less time keeping my computer alive, thus my time using it is more productive.
My last company probably saved about $20K+ per year after I switched due to higher productivity (not including software savings).
Of course there is all the virus and spyware crap that I don't even think about anymore.
Who cares about open vs closed source? I just want something that works. I use Linux because it does. I no longer use Windows because it never did and currently doesn't. I don't really give a damn about the licencing issues.
A Windows install with the equivalent software as my Linux box would probaly be around $3-4k. If it worked as well and was as reliable, I wouldn't min d paying it. But, I'm not going to pay $4K for some software that causes me to lose $20K a year in wasted time, that would be stupid. I paid $70 for Mandrake, and its now saving $20k/year.
This is my experience, I don't care about yours.
My recent experience:
I'm in a shop picking up a Serial ATA Controller, Seagate hard drive, and 2 gigs of ram, (total $500+). I asked the guy if they carried linux. I really needed it as my hard drive was dead and being replaced, I wasn't evangelizing. They didn't have it , they did know what it was, and apparently had little interest in getting it. This is also the last time that I'll do business there.
When I lived outside of Seattle, my local shop had all the major linux distros for $5 each as a value added service.
This will probably sound like bigotry but, I tend to have a higher regard shops that can deal with multiple OS's. They tend to be more knowledgeable and can actually answer questions instead of changing the subject to whatever the latest 3d thriller game is.
JMHO
In the two schools my son has been in I doubt more than 5% of the teachers could even tell you what an office suite is. They seemed more concerned with their subject areas than with playing on the computers. At his previous school, teacher were able to check out computers for temporary use. Most only used for emailing parents.
With zero knowledge, I'd argue the learning curve is about the same, with reduced clippy induced foul language (another bonus).
Both of these products will still torque you off with the auto indenting/bulleting by default.
I agree with your point and the technique may work in more traditional software but, when all you have to do is point your browser somewhere else, the cost (and risk) of adoption evaporates.
Of course the risk here is that anybody (including google) could get toppled at anytime for the same reason.
o Keep your mouth shut
- This keeps you from promising more than you can deliver
- Keeps expectations non-existent
- Creates "mystery", which means free press as people speculate
- The press watches your site like a hawk, looking for any little new thing
- The quieter they are the more free press they get, can you say cheap advertising
- Google PR campaign, four letters, STFU
o Cheap inovation by giving employees 20% personal project time
- Make use of "wasted time", most employees are not working for more than 20% of the day anyways
- Generates a large pool of ideas with working POCs instead of WAIs
- Encourages employee skill development
- Makes corporate espionage impractical due to high noise to signal ratio
- Gain inovative ideas to turn into products and services
- People love working on "their own" idea", thus work harder
o Release products, not promises
- Surprise the competition
- Nobody acuses you of missing your release dates
- You get a reputation for delivering working products
- Nobody acuses you of producing vaporware
o Leverage existing hardware/software
- Google satelite uses much of the google map code
- The cluster used for search indexing leaves lots of CPU and disk space for other things
o KISS
- Simple things have fewer bugs
- Simple things are easier to manage
- Customers like things uncomplicated and uncluttered
o Be nice
Notice they said nothing when "google suggest" or "google maps" was dissected. This is the opposite of Apple and MS policy of sue first, ask questions later.
It makes people thing you are cool
I'm sure the CIA is a very trustworthy source on this subject ;) considering their goals.
I seem to remember stories of fake missle silos, and "airbases" appearing over night in artic Alaska, that were little more than inflatable mylar planes, just to spoof their satelites. Throw some crates and a bunch of guys out of a plane in the middle of the night.
I think Google is trying to beat Microsoft using the classic cold war economic strategy.
We used to do a lot of crazy things to make the Russians think our military was bigger and more mobile than it really was. As a result they had to keep spending enormous amounts of money to try to "keep up". They eventually drove their economy into the ground.
Google, gives its workers 20% time to work on personal projects. Some of these go live. Their search cluster basically gives a project unlimited disk and cpu.
When a project goes live, it comes as a surprise. Microsoft, (and others) finds itself caught off guard, and has to work feverishly to make a "better" product before they even have a competing or functioning one.
Since the projects start off as "personal" projects, and considering the number of employees, even corporate espionage can't be very effective, at getting a heads up, because of the noise ratio.
The last part of the strategy is the quiet, surprise releases. No advance anouncements, no press conference or press release. Just a simple link. The media goes crazy because there is a new link on a google page. They get a reputation of producing instead of promising.
The satelite imagery is a great example. They buy a profitable business, Keyhole, and leverage the access to imagery and for a small amount of development effort, integrate it into the mapping service in a very similar way that the mapping service already works. Even though the satelite stuff in maps might lose money, Keyhole is still earning them money. The imagery becomes a value-added feature.
I think its more interesting how these are released, and how MS is taking a bigger risk.
Google didn't tell anybody. They just added a link to their maps page and said beta. No anouncement, nada. Just a working product, and no expectations.
Microsoft is making an anouncement before they are putting a working product in peoples hands. This may create a lot of expectations, and they will get more critical treatment when bugs are found, if they miss the release date (not MS), etc.
However the MS product turns out. Google will probably end up looking better because they simply released a working service. They didn't hype it up and generate false expectations.
Either way, I think we win as these companies fight one another by making their offerings and products better.
Ok, all these experts say we'll run out of fossil fuels in about 50 years at our current consumption.
When we run out of crap to burn, no more CO2, thus global warming will brought to an end.
Sure, our economy will be doomed but, our kids can worry about that. They'll have some crazy national debt to deal with anyway.
you chose to install the patch that required a reboot, Except, there is no indication that a patch will need a reboot until you start down that path. -Vendor did not give the user sufficient information to make the correct choice-
Linux, patch happens in background, reboot not required 99.9% of time. User can work while patch occurs. User can use the SAME application that is being patched, while it is being patched. In the 0.01% case where a reboot is required, the user can do it at his/her convienence. The system will not behave erradically becasue of it.
Scenario: you arrive at work in the morning and need some critical updates (maybe one requires a reboot). You also have some important work to do, and want to leave early.
Linux, start updates in background, get your work done, reboot when you leave for lunch.
Windows, decide to work or update. One happens before the other, you are late for your lunch date.
For example, Mandrake(driva) has MandrakeUpdate (gui for urpmi). You just run it, pick what you want updated (or just select all), and keep working. No reboot. And, unlike windows, you can actually work while the system is updating. You would think that in the year 2005 that your OS would not slow to a crawl because there is some IO happening. You get a reboot message when its done. In fact, you can update an application WHILE you are using it. It seems that most major distros have a pretty simple patch/update facility. I have never heard of a distro that blocked operation of the computer or its applications while updating. In all distros I have seen, the only time a reboot is required is when patching the kernel. Even then, you can keep working without problems and reboot at your convienence.
Windows might be easier for some things but, patching is definitely not it.
____BEGIN_RANTS_____
- I plugged my new usb jump drive in my linux box (prepared to go through hellish config), one second later, I had a drive icon on my desktop. I could drag files to it. I unplugged when I was finished. I took the drive to a Windows XP Professional box, plugged it in. Waited for a minute while windows found the driver. Waited for another 5 minutes as windows informed me I needed to reboot. Logged back in. Navigated to the new drive. Dragged out the folders. Had to right-click the icon in the task bar and disable the drive before I could unplug it. Even apple doesn't abuse users this bad.
- I plug my new HP Photoprinter into my Linux box (prepared to go through hellish config), a few seconds later, a printer config utility pops up, I click a few options, it informs me it needs to download the drivers. When done, it offers to print a test page. It works.
Total time from plugging in to printing test page <60secs.
I plug same printer into my son's Windows XP box. It begs for driver disk. Reboots. I have to manually add a printer, and configure it.
Total time from plugging in to printing test page ~= 10 minutes.
- I see new Linux vulnerability on Slashdot. When I get home I run Mandrake Update, minimize it. I continue doing what I'm doing. It leaves me alone.
I go sit at my son's computer. Little icon says it needs updates. I click it. The system slows to a crawl. It then decides that it needs to close the browser. It then interupts me to say I should reboot. I'm busy, I say I'll do it later. The system starts acting all wacked, I give in.
- I want to type an email to my wife in Spanish. Linux, click the little icon in the task bar to switch to the Intl-Engligh keymap. ~n becomes ñ.
Windows, alt-0241 every freakin time. Linux, 'i becaomes í, windows, alt-0237. Where's the intuitivness? Where's the easier to use interface? WTF?
____END_RANTS_____I think windows usability arguments are starting to get very thin. I'm really beginning to think that the only thing that windows really has going for it is a larger selection of apps and device drivers.
Disclaimer: I am a developer, not a system admin. My linux box is a pretty standard install. I haven't done anything special to it. I hate all operating systems (I just hate linux about 10% less than the others). I am not an open source advocate but, I don't mind using it.
A.
Does the Linux community really need a leader? I'll argue that one of the strengths, is the lack of a leader. Why is there always an assumption that every group needs a leader? I'll represent my oen opinion, thankyou, I don't need a leader to do it for me.
B.
I think Dvorak is happy being a pundit. I haven't really seen a struggle toward leadership in him. Just MHO.
C.
I agree with you 100%
The planes might be able to exploit each other aerodynamically as well. If a plane can position itself in the upward moving portion of the wingtip vortex of the plane in front of it, it could potentially use less power to keep itself airborne. If the planes rotate the "leadership" position then they may be able to fly for extended periods of time.
I was specifically replaying to ZephyrXero's statement, "...but you don't develop open source code with a closed source language."
This would have made sense (and is a good point) if it started as an open source project however, it didn't.
As to "import sun.*", well, I think we are both against it but for different reasons. I argue against doing it becasuse its bad practice to write Java around a specific VM, or to non-standard classes (This is as bad as people who write C/C++ that will only compile with GCC or VC++). Now, if they created an interface for their needs, and wrote a wrapper class that implemented the interface that happened to use the sun classes, then that would be a different story (IMO). (You will disagree with me here) This technique would isolate the code that depends on the non-standard (sun) classes and allow for simple replacement with a different implementation.
Lets not forget that Stallman is against public domain code.
Public domain is about as free as possible, you can do absolutely anything with it, except please Stallman.
The GPL seems more restrictive than many closed source licenses (as many have pointed out) due to the obligations it creates.