it's open source? Everyone can look at the Linux source and report a new bug, where as they cannot with Windows. This doesn't mean *nix actually has more than Windows, it means more where found, reported, and fixed.
I fail to see a strong valid argument why domains themselves should have publicly accessable contact information.
Sure the companies who register them should know who actually paid for the service, but that's all stored in their local databases anyhow (which can be kept private to the company). The only information I can see being useful in a WHOIS report is possibly when it was registered, when it will expire, and what company registered it.
There are a lot of nonprofit, blogging, community, personal, random project websites out there where contacting the author is simply not necessary. Companies who provide services such as Ebay or Google, or provide goods such as Microsoft or Newegg, can list their information on their website. The average user would look there, not at a WHOIS report anyhow. It's also less prone to spamming.
To reiterate: personal WHOIS information is pointless.
On Monday, chipmaker Intel Corp. said it planned to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to expand its operations in India and invest in local technology companies.
Cisco Systems Inc. said in October that it plans to spend $1.1 billion in India over the next three years.
Such investments are hoped to expand the market these companies and others will be able to access, hopefully generating greater revenue by the emergence.
I'm thinking CSCO..
Gaim takes the award in my book for ease of use and simplistic design.
I use Gaim to connect to the AOL IM servers, and I've found it surpasses the traditional AOL AIM client by far, as well as alternatives such as Trillian (bloated and graphically immense.)
The Gaim interface can be customized down to being nothing but a window with a list of user names (customizable names can be introduced for your list), and has optional buttons on the bottom of the user list for quick action. Bottom buttons can be graphics, textual, or removed entirely. This is a user list interface at its best.
The user list spawns a traditional 1-on-1 chat window with a remote client, and supports tabs allowing switching between conversations easy, as well as noting other conversation changes without needing to reference another window.
Gaim is portable, and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Gaim is modular. I have quite a few nice little plugins that do interesting tricks. For example, if I'm too busy to respond to someones IM (this is rare), there is a plugin to set your idle time. Sure it may be a little cheap, but it allows me to avoid talking to someone if I'm deep in writing code without making them feel like I'm just ignoring them if they see I've been idle for say, 20 minutes or so.
I also find Gaim's logging system efficient. The AOL IM client tends to save all logs in HTML format, including all the color tags and formatting. This seems to me to be a waste in hdd space (granted it's small, it's still annoying.) Gaim saves only the textual information, and provides a nice interface to viewing and searching logs based on the user you're searching for and the date of the conversation.
Being a developer myself I think it would be beneficial if there were some sort of drawing utility on the client, similar to a traditional chat window but with graphical point-and-draw type interface. A feature such as this would help in discussing new ideas for programs between developers, or perhaps go as far as drawing driving directions for friends.
Of course if we're talking "chat rooms" where the communication line is more than 1-to-1, IRC is always the best:) In that case I would recommend X-Chat.
Re:GCC is important, but what about progress in C+
on
GCC 4.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
2) real garbage collection. It is not possible to have effective collection without support from the compiler. The Boehm's collector is not a precise collector, because it can not use type information; it is only the compiler that knows such things.
I'm betting most C++ programmers will disagree with integrated garbage collection. If you can't deallocate memory yourself, you're probably writing bad code anyway. It is not difficult to execte a "delete" or "free()" call where appropriate, an entire abstract layer to do this for you is utterly absurd for such a language.
If you are having problems finding where you need to deallocate memory, or are using memory in an invalid manner, I suggest looking into Valgrind. You can run your program through valgrind and it will give you real-time analysis of your program and any invalid memory read/writes you are performing.
If anything Microsoft purchases the parts in bulk and gets a large discount over the normal wholesale price. If this is the case, their loss per unit would be less, not more.
securing networks
on
Hardening Linux
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I've been using Linux (gentoo) at home for a few years now, and I seem to be able to fix most problems I have with it that arise. In a few months it is likely I will be hired by my university to become one of two administrators for our Linux network (I'm a student as is the current administrator).
I've never really dealt with security issues on my home machine as it's behind a firewall and really isn't a target anyone would be interested in, but if I take the position as an administrator at my school I'll be responsible for maintaining and keeping upward of 100 computers secure and running.
For a beginner such as myself, and with my limited experience with Linux and Linux security, would this book be the best resource? Certainly by the review it seems sufficient, but I'm interested in what other people may recommend too.
If you have dead pixels on your display. There is nothing more annoying than playing a game or watching a video, with (at least) one bright green pixel right in the middle of your screen that just won't go away. In such a case you'll be too distracted to even notice any ghosting your display may have.
Until someone manages to figure out a way to mass produce LCD displays with a smaller percentage of defects, LCD's still don't compare to CRT's. Unless of course they are for office use, where size is a driving factor.
I would have to go with this monitor http://www.hammacher.com/publish/10244.asp?promo=e l_computer#.
Sitting in front of one of those, I would just feel like the code was something organic, moving all around pretty much my entire view field. 21 grand is a bit steep though:\
Give me a break! It's an operating system, what technicial leaps must it render that requires so much memory? I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card without a problem, yet to render a few windows and a start bar I need twice that?
Eye-candy doesn't result in functionality Microsoft... shift your attention towards usability.
An indicator light on the mouse lights up when the battery has less than 10% power left.
That's a pretty nice feature. I use Linux and an MS Explorer optical mouse. In Windows the mouse drivers alert you when the mouse batteries are low, but I find in Linux the mouse just suddenly stops working without warning. An LED on the mouse itself, kept independent from the OS would be a useful feature.
OpenGL will be around as long as lead figures such as Carmack desire to use them. John has expressed frustration with some of the OpenGL API, but currently has no plans (at least publicly stated) to drop development with it. It's pretty safe to say with the position he and other large developers have over Windows gaming, Microsoft would never ignore support for it. To do so would be financially hazardous, why they push Direct3D is beyond me. What do they care what API developers are using for games for their OS? From what I've read, Vista will still have OpenGL support in the form of a D3D wrapper, and hardware manufactures can still make their own API's.
The problem is that once something becomes technically feasible, the market demands it.
True, some developers spend most of their time working to reach the new bar set by the hardware developers, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Take the case of id Software's Quake 3. The engine was revolutionary at the time (like all of Carmacks work), but some argue that id games are all the same; they are reincarnated to fit the current market. Well, that may be true, but this sort of technology helps others too.
As hardware becomes capable of displaying better-detailed graphics and higher polygon counts, it becomes mandatory to provide them.
Perhaps, but not all developers have to spend the time to create these new engines that can produce high polygon rendering and reasonable speeds.
Once this sort of technology is out there, other developers can get their hands on it and begin to create their own games based off of it, that's the idea behind the engine-game relationship. It allows developers who may be skilled in designing games, but lack the manpower to reach that level of technology, to produce games that are of the current market standard. And when they do, other developers come out of their closets and do the same thing. The result is a market with new and interesting game ideas that developers were able to paint over the canvas that was the engine of what other companies were able to create. For example, I do not think American McGee would have been able to create Alice (a very unqiue game with several aspects never seen in the market before) base off of Carmack's work.
A lot of people seem to be making the argument, like this guy is, that these new games such as these new Halo's, Unreal's, Doom's, Quake's, etc, are all eyecandy glossed over old games. Well some people like to play them, and others like to use them to create different games.
That's the theory, but empirical evidence bears it out. Back in the day, a Doom level took one man-day to build. A Doom III level takes two or more man-weeks.
I know this guy isn't comparing the detail of a 12 year old game to todays, how is this proving his point? Obviously there will be more polygons, just like in any other field.
Now one might argue, of course, that the improvement in graphical quality improves the gameplay experience so much that the cost is worthwhile. But if that's so, why was Doom so rapturously received, such a huge hit? And why do the critics basically agree that Doom III - well, it kind of sucks?
Not many people make that arguement. Many people perfer gameplay over graphics, but if the graphics are there and do not interfer with the gameplay, why not have both? Doom was revolutionary for it's time - it brought in a whole new wave of gaming concepts; Doom 3 expands on that, not in the gameplay area but in technology. Doom 3 showcased Carmack's engine, and eventually it will be used for innovative new games (I'd like to see American McGee do something with it). In 2 years no one will be criticizing id for developing the game when 20 other smash hits are in the market place which are built off it.
As much as we all hate it, we have to keep Windows around for some necessary things.
Just because I don't use Windows that often doesn't mean I hate it. In fact, I don't even dislike it, I really have no problem with most of Microsoft's software. I don't entirely agree with their business tactics, but I give them credit for making software that is easy to use to even casual users.
Most people I run in to that claim they hate Windows are those who are really just frustrated with the OS because they don't spend the time to learn what exactly it is that they are doing. I'm sure many of the/. readers here would agree, Windows is a great OS for those people who don't have a significant amount of time to learn about open source alternatives such as Linux. You don't really think your grandmother wants to spend weeks learning how to read her email on Linux do you? If they just want normal day-to-day tasks, like reading email or the latest news, go with Windows -- there's nothing wrong with that.
However, I think this idea of dedicating a reasonable amount of time to attempting to learn how to use Linux is a great idea (if of course you have the time and you are genuinely interested). Not to say all the people who participate will stick with it after their ten day trial, but some of them may enjoy the system and either continue to use it on their spare time, to take what they've learned to the Windows community. I'd like to see more programs like this, and less about "schools completely switching to Linux". If you force someone to switch to a more advanced environment when they may not have been comfortable with using a more user friendly one, that's really not going to give you the results you are aiming for. People will become frustrated and lose interest, probably destroying any consideration of looking into the alternative in the future.
The source was actually released over 24 hours ago on the id ftp server.
Anyhow, does anyone know of any open source projects based off this new code yet, or are developers still just poking around it? I'm interested to see if someone will make a project that updates the renderer, while leaving everything else untouched. Wouldn't that be nice?:)
"Microsoft is being realistic," Indonesia's information minister, Sofyan Djalil, was quoted as saying in the Jakarta Post newspaper.
"They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it. They want us to gradually reduce our use of it."
Whoa now Mr. CantMakeMe, ever heard of people working to make the product you're stealing? Seriously, this is pretty arrogant of him to say on behalf of his country, why not just apologize, pay the 50 grand, and move to some free alternative? There are other operating systems out there you can get for free, various Linux and BSD flavors to be quick. You don't need to use illegal copies of Windows, and when the company who developed it gets angry, act like you are king shit and don't have to pay just because you can't afford it. Simple solution, dump Microsoft, it's too damn expensive anyway.
Obviously you don't know much about C++, or programming for that matter. C++ is a great language for almost any task. Java needs that crappy VM (I'm not saying Java is bad, it's just not my cup of tea), and.NET... is that even ported to other operating systems yet (maybe the mono project, but I'm not sure how far developed that is)? The point is C++ is fully portable, easy to use for most tasks, and is powerful.
Hell, I still like C over C++, simply because I feel like I'm really in control of whats going on when I write it, and that I feel I have a better understanding of how it's being executed. If you like this new stuff like Java (and I should point out I don't know Java, or do I have any desire to learn it), you're really not in control of what's happening. Some people that write Java don't even know what the heap is, they don't concern themselves with memory management because it's so difficult to free dynamicly allocated memory with Java.
C++ is by no means an anceint or dead language, hell no.
Great book, I have it too. It's perfect for reference if you're having one of those horrid brain cramps, but it is nothing to learn from IMO. If you're just starting out grab another book, the one the story is talking about looks interesting. I'm not much on C++, but it looks great for those of you who really want to get a foothold on the language. Of course, even if you know C++ it's always helpful to try out pure C too.
I use mailinator for all those "one time signup" forms where I don't expect my login information is that important. I used it for sites like gamespy.com, and similar ones that force you to sign up to use their features, but in turn spam the hell out of you.
From their website:
Get enough SPAM lately? Have you ever gone to a website that asks for your email address for no reason (other than they are going to sell it to the highest bidder so you get spam forever)?
Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam service. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Wherever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com - pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).
Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk away - an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. Its an anti-spam solution for everyone. The messages are automatically deleted for you after a few hours.
Let'em spam.
Try http://www.mailinator.com/ for these sorts of things and you'll get less crap in your inbox. I've only given my real email out to friends and family and thats pretty much all I have in my inbox anymore.
onboard everything? In the first pic, you can clearly see the PCI expansion slots to the right of the cockpit window. By the placement of the motherboard, expansion ports would be going upward into the glass. So is he using onboard video, audio, and networking?
I like it being a table much more than a PC case mod:)
of Microsoft's business tactics. Not that I blame them, from a business standpoint why have one product when you can have two with none of the extra work? Personally though, I don't agree with selling two versions if the difference is apparently so small, once the public learns of the tricky afoot it's not good publicity for the company (like they need anymore of it).
Besides all the "eyecandy" of Windows XP, what is the difference between this and 2k? I mean, they use the same kernel don't they? So if they are pretty much the same system, one "better" for desktop users and the other "better" for more experienced users, why discontinue support for one?
This is great news for everyone, especially 64-bit users. Like you, I use Gentoo with an AMD64, and use the 64-bit firefox browser build. We've been trying to get Macromedia to port it to 64-bit through various email requests but we haven't received any replies.
Hopefully we'll be seeing great new things from GPLFlash soon.
Slashdot Mirror
it's open source? Everyone can look at the Linux source and report a new bug, where as they cannot with Windows. This doesn't mean *nix actually has more than Windows, it means more where found, reported, and fixed.
I fail to see a strong valid argument why domains themselves should have publicly accessable contact information.
Sure the companies who register them should know who actually paid for the service, but that's all stored in their local databases anyhow (which can be kept private to the company). The only information I can see being useful in a WHOIS report is possibly when it was registered, when it will expire, and what company registered it.
There are a lot of nonprofit, blogging, community, personal, random project websites out there where contacting the author is simply not necessary. Companies who provide services such as Ebay or Google, or provide goods such as Microsoft or Newegg, can list their information on their website. The average user would look there, not at a WHOIS report anyhow. It's also less prone to spamming.
To reiterate: personal WHOIS information is pointless.
Such investments are hoped to expand the market these companies and others will be able to access, hopefully generating greater revenue by the emergence.
I'm thinking CSCO..
I use Gaim to connect to the AOL IM servers, and I've found it surpasses the traditional AOL AIM client by far, as well as alternatives such as Trillian (bloated and graphically immense.)
The Gaim interface can be customized down to being nothing but a window with a list of user names (customizable names can be introduced for your list), and has optional buttons on the bottom of the user list for quick action. Bottom buttons can be graphics, textual, or removed entirely. This is a user list interface at its best.
The user list spawns a traditional 1-on-1 chat window with a remote client, and supports tabs allowing switching between conversations easy, as well as noting other conversation changes without needing to reference another window.
Gaim is portable, and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Gaim is modular. I have quite a few nice little plugins that do interesting tricks. For example, if I'm too busy to respond to someones IM (this is rare), there is a plugin to set your idle time. Sure it may be a little cheap, but it allows me to avoid talking to someone if I'm deep in writing code without making them feel like I'm just ignoring them if they see I've been idle for say, 20 minutes or so.
I also find Gaim's logging system efficient. The AOL IM client tends to save all logs in HTML format, including all the color tags and formatting. This seems to me to be a waste in hdd space (granted it's small, it's still annoying.) Gaim saves only the textual information, and provides a nice interface to viewing and searching logs based on the user you're searching for and the date of the conversation.
Being a developer myself I think it would be beneficial if there were some sort of drawing utility on the client, similar to a traditional chat window but with graphical point-and-draw type interface. A feature such as this would help in discussing new ideas for programs between developers, or perhaps go as far as drawing driving directions for friends.
Of course if we're talking "chat rooms" where the communication line is more than 1-to-1, IRC is always the best :) In that case I would recommend X-Chat.
If you are having problems finding where you need to deallocate memory, or are using memory in an invalid manner, I suggest looking into Valgrind. You can run your program through valgrind and it will give you real-time analysis of your program and any invalid memory read/writes you are performing.
If anything Microsoft purchases the parts in bulk and gets a large discount over the normal wholesale price. If this is the case, their loss per unit would be less, not more.
I've been using Linux (gentoo) at home for a few years now, and I seem to be able to fix most problems I have with it that arise. In a few months it is likely I will be hired by my university to become one of two administrators for our Linux network (I'm a student as is the current administrator).
I've never really dealt with security issues on my home machine as it's behind a firewall and really isn't a target anyone would be interested in, but if I take the position as an administrator at my school I'll be responsible for maintaining and keeping upward of 100 computers secure and running.
For a beginner such as myself, and with my limited experience with Linux and Linux security, would this book be the best resource? Certainly by the review it seems sufficient, but I'm interested in what other people may recommend too.
If you have dead pixels on your display. There is nothing more annoying than playing a game or watching a video, with (at least) one bright green pixel right in the middle of your screen that just won't go away. In such a case you'll be too distracted to even notice any ghosting your display may have.
Until someone manages to figure out a way to mass produce LCD displays with a smaller percentage of defects, LCD's still don't compare to CRT's. Unless of course they are for office use, where size is a driving factor.
I would have to go with this monitor http://www.hammacher.com/publish/10244.asp?promo=e l_computer#. :\
Sitting in front of one of those, I would just feel like the code was something organic, moving all around pretty much my entire view field. 21 grand is a bit steep though
Give me a break! It's an operating system, what technicial leaps must it render that requires so much memory? I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card without a problem, yet to render a few windows and a start bar I need twice that?
Eye-candy doesn't result in functionality Microsoft... shift your attention towards usability.
OpenGL will be around as long as lead figures such as Carmack desire to use them. John has expressed frustration with some of the OpenGL API, but currently has no plans (at least publicly stated) to drop development with it. It's pretty safe to say with the position he and other large developers have over Windows gaming, Microsoft would never ignore support for it. To do so would be financially hazardous, why they push Direct3D is beyond me. What do they care what API developers are using for games for their OS? From what I've read, Vista will still have OpenGL support in the form of a D3D wrapper, and hardware manufactures can still make their own API's.
Take the case of id Software's Quake 3. The engine was revolutionary at the time (like all of Carmacks work), but some argue that id games are all the same; they are reincarnated to fit the current market. Well, that may be true, but this sort of technology helps others too. Perhaps, but not all developers have to spend the time to create these new engines that can produce high polygon rendering and reasonable speeds.
Once this sort of technology is out there, other developers can get their hands on it and begin to create their own games based off of it, that's the idea behind the engine-game relationship. It allows developers who may be skilled in designing games, but lack the manpower to reach that level of technology, to produce games that are of the current market standard. And when they do, other developers come out of their closets and do the same thing. The result is a market with new and interesting game ideas that developers were able to paint over the canvas that was the engine of what other companies were able to create. For example, I do not think American McGee would have been able to create Alice (a very unqiue game with several aspects never seen in the market before) base off of Carmack's work.
A lot of people seem to be making the argument, like this guy is, that these new games such as these new Halo's, Unreal's, Doom's, Quake's, etc, are all eyecandy glossed over old games. Well some people like to play them, and others like to use them to create different games.
I know this guy isn't comparing the detail of a 12 year old game to todays, how is this proving his point? Obviously there will be more polygons, just like in any other field.
Not many people make that arguement. Many people perfer gameplay over graphics, but if the graphics are there and do not interfer with the gameplay, why not have both? Doom was revolutionary for it's time - it brought in a whole new wave of gaming concepts; Doom 3 expands on that, not in the gameplay area but in technology. Doom 3 showcased Carmack's engine, and eventually it will be used for innovative new games (I'd like to see American McGee do something with it). In 2 years no one will be criticizing id for developing the game when 20 other smash hits are in the market place which are built off it.
Just because I don't use Windows that often doesn't mean I hate it. In fact, I don't even dislike it, I really have no problem with most of Microsoft's software. I don't entirely agree with their business tactics, but I give them credit for making software that is easy to use to even casual users.
Most people I run in to that claim they hate Windows are those who are really just frustrated with the OS because they don't spend the time to learn what exactly it is that they are doing. I'm sure many of the
However, I think this idea of dedicating a reasonable amount of time to attempting to learn how to use Linux is a great idea (if of course you have the time and you are genuinely interested). Not to say all the people who participate will stick with it after their ten day trial, but some of them may enjoy the system and either continue to use it on their spare time, to take what they've learned to the Windows community. I'd like to see more programs like this, and less about "schools completely switching to Linux". If you force someone to switch to a more advanced environment when they may not have been comfortable with using a more user friendly one, that's really not going to give you the results you are aiming for. People will become frustrated and lose interest, probably destroying any consideration of looking into the alternative in the future.
The source was actually released over 24 hours ago on the id ftp server. Anyhow, does anyone know of any open source projects based off this new code yet, or are developers still just poking around it? I'm interested to see if someone will make a project that updates the renderer, while leaving everything else untouched. Wouldn't that be nice? :)
I downloaded and watched this, but it ended at about 60 minutes in the middle of a sentence. Where's the rest of it? I wanted to see the Q&A :\
Obviously you don't know much about C++, or programming for that matter. C++ is a great language for almost any task. Java needs that crappy VM (I'm not saying Java is bad, it's just not my cup of tea), and .NET... is that even ported to other operating systems yet (maybe the mono project, but I'm not sure how far developed that is)? The point is C++ is fully portable, easy to use for most tasks, and is powerful.
Hell, I still like C over C++, simply because I feel like I'm really in control of whats going on when I write it, and that I feel I have a better understanding of how it's being executed. If you like this new stuff like Java (and I should point out I don't know Java, or do I have any desire to learn it), you're really not in control of what's happening. Some people that write Java don't even know what the heap is, they don't concern themselves with memory management because it's so difficult to free dynamicly allocated memory with Java.
C++ is by no means an anceint or dead language, hell no.
Great book, I have it too. It's perfect for reference if you're having one of those horrid brain cramps, but it is nothing to learn from IMO. If you're just starting out grab another book, the one the story is talking about looks interesting. I'm not much on C++, but it looks great for those of you who really want to get a foothold on the language. Of course, even if you know C++ it's always helpful to try out pure C too.
1 103628/qid=1118258760/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-7661 598-1944930?v=glance&s=books&n=507846, C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the guys who created the language.
The book the parent is talking about is here http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/013
From their website: Try http://www.mailinator.com/ for these sorts of things and you'll get less crap in your inbox. I've only given my real email out to friends and family and thats pretty much all I have in my inbox anymore.
onboard everything? In the first pic, you can clearly see the PCI expansion slots to the right of the cockpit window. By the placement of the motherboard, expansion ports would be going upward into the glass. So is he using onboard video, audio, and networking?
:)
I like it being a table much more than a PC case mod
of Microsoft's business tactics. Not that I blame them, from a business standpoint why have one product when you can have two with none of the extra work? Personally though, I don't agree with selling two versions if the difference is apparently so small, once the public learns of the tricky afoot it's not good publicity for the company (like they need anymore of it).
Besides all the "eyecandy" of Windows XP, what is the difference between this and 2k? I mean, they use the same kernel don't they? So if they are pretty much the same system, one "better" for desktop users and the other "better" for more experienced users, why discontinue support for one?
This is great news for everyone, especially 64-bit users. Like you, I use Gentoo with an AMD64, and use the 64-bit firefox browser build. We've been trying to get Macromedia to port it to 64-bit through various email requests but we haven't received any replies.
Hopefully we'll be seeing great new things from GPLFlash soon.
RoTS isn't playing in iMax.. at least not according to their site.