'I came away with a sense that Microsoft doesn't currently have a clear sense of what Microsoft should be and where Microsoft should be going...
You forgot one very important bit; that statement above should have read:
'I came away with a sense that Microsoft doesn't currently have a clear sense of what Microsoft should be and where Microsoft should be going in my not so humble opinion...'(emphasis mine)
I wonder what kind of customers were surveyed? If these customers were like me who once supported the deal, then I am really worried about Novell's future.
You see, Novell will be forced to leave out important upgrades to the [Linux] kernel if parts of this kernel end up licensed under the upcoming GPL v3. When that happens, Novell will be forced to offer an "inferior" kernel to its customers. I believe no one can say that this is positive.
When I look into Novell's past, I fail to see any positive thing they (Novell) have done to whatever they've acquired.
I hope the researchers will not bring these creature near to any [human] civilization. You see, they could potentially be harmful to us.
I know my call will not be heeded for researchers are inquisitive by nature.
In case it is verified that a human being was harmed by these creatures, we should sue the researchers and those that support them, just like the US does to terrorists and their backers.
Instead of "wasting" time and resources in space issues, I suggest we spend some time exploring the depths of the sea. We know less than 2% of what lies under there! Maybe we can grab new medicines or even fuel to use as some form of energy. Heck the bottoms of the seas are nearer.
Pinchev also described Microsoft's recent interoperability and patent peace deal with Novell Inc as a "non-event" and dismissed the suggestion that Linux users are at risk of a patent infringement lawsuit from Redmond."
While Microsoft's recent interoperability and patent peace deal with Novell Inc might indeed be a "non-event", and Linux users might not be at any risk of a Microsoft lawsuit, these "facts" do not always matter.
What matters is the perception these ramblings create. Do we remember the FUD about Linux Microsoft used to tout in early 2001? It seemed to work. All over a sudden, PHBs feared this Linux phenomenon and some [Linux] deals failed not because of facts but because of this FUD.
There was another piece of FUD when it came to support. Ballmer used to say, "Who do you run to when you need support on Linux? Do you run to RedHat, Novell, the guys at OSDL, IBM? It was all FUD but achieved some success at dissuading folks from using Linux.
The other untruth was one on installation. While software on some Linux distros can be a pain to install, other distros like Freespire, Linspire and Xandros are so easy to have software installed on. But what you hear is the same rant that software on Linux is difficult to manage.
The last untruth:
A good number of people I have spoken to seem to think that Linux, is that particular distro they are experimenting with. So when things do not work out, "Linux" is labeled as a non starter! I can confirm that I know Linux distros that will work out of the box o hardware that Microsoft's Windows has trouble even recognizing.
Ok, you want to engage them on your terms...they want to engage you on their terms.
Now, lets maintain the status quo. When I balance up the "equation", Americans do not have much to show for the almost 3,000 coalition lives lost so far. An average of 4 have been killed this month alone. Please pay a visit to http://www.icasulaties.org/ to see what I am talking about.
You could also tell me who controls Sadr City now. The only place the US has total control in IRAQ is the Green Zone. That's why the Commander in Chief, and all important US officials will NOT venture outside the Green Zone. To me, that means that someone else and NOT the Americans, are in control in areas outside on the Green Zone.
Right, like the SU-27 is any match for the Raptor. Get a grip. And besides, even if the Russians had a competitive air superiority fighter, they don't have the most critical piece of air superiority - airborne command and control. Russians might be able to defend their airspace for a few days, but as for bieng able to project air power outside of Russia? No way.
Air superiority, I dunno! One thing I know is that the Russians do not advertise themselves that much as compared to the Americans. Even when they were the *only* link to the ISS after the shuttle disasters, they were cool about everything. If Americans were in their place, they (Americans) would be "blowing their own trumpet." Look, just this evening, it was all over the news about the shuttle launch, but Russians do their thing quietly and without much fanfare.
When it comes to projecting power abroad, let's examine what the US is getting in terms of results:
Afghanistan? The Taliban are back. Ask the British who had to hand control to the same Taliban they were fighting.
Iraq? It's a mess. Ask D. Rumsfeld.
N. Korea? The "dictator" over there now has the bomb. Bush knows that
Veitnam? Heck, the US was whipped hands down! Talk to any American.
Americans have a problem. They think that if a country does not do things the conventional way, they that country is "not worth much." That's why they've been surprised in IRAQ. Mind you, IRAQ's command and control infrastructure was "destroyed" in the first two weeks of the war. So half of the mission was complete. Despite all the technology, IEDs are still hitting them hard. By the way, IEDs are 1940s technology.
So you tell me how this power is really useful when widows and widowers are being created in IRAQ every single day. Tell me.
You're crazy. The AK-47 is indeed a fine weapon, but every time somebody toting one engages our forces, they get shot/killed/blown the hell up.
So you want them to engage you on your terms so that you destroy can them as you mention? No way! These guerrillas (or insurgents as you call them), are smarter than that.
In fact they are engaging you on their terms and from what I have seen and heard, it's working for them. Again, it's very saddening that the war had to take all these many lives and time, for American military leaders to realize that it's not working.
Let the Americans and Britons squabble. And as they do this, the Russians will give them a not-so-pleasant surprise. Who cares anyway?
The American military machine, touted as the strongest, most efficient, lethal, modern and advanced, has just got a beating from AK-47 wielding thugs of IRAQ. The sad thing is that it has takes three years and almost 3,000 coalition deaths for the military authorities to acknowledge this. You no longer hear statements like "bring them on"..."We'll prevail"..."stay the course"...
Who tells these military folks that the so called modern weapon systems win today's wars?
Look, the Europeans and Americans can produce all the weapon systems they want...even with their massive debts and budget deficits. But in the end, a guerrilla with a reliable weapon like the AK-47, is more lethal than all those flying coffins. One incident that was reported were guerrillas who submerged themselves with their Ak-47s in a swamp, waited for the coalition forces to pass them, then they emerged and fired. Very few weapon systems can fire just after being under water.
"Advanced" weapon systems are of limited value in todays wars. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld who just acknowledged a few weeks ago that things are really bad. To see how and more, point your browser to http://www.liveleak.com/.
Much as his "speaking up" might be seen as a good thing, for Yahoo, they continue to be blinded by bigotry and incompetence.
One might wonder why for example, Yahoo will not support Firefox on any platform despite the fact that it's now captured more than 20% of the European browser market. Whenever on tries their Launchast service with Firefox, he's met with an "Error code: 24"!
This happens even when the so called ActiveX plugin is installed on Windows. One wonders whether there is nothing like testing before products are launched.
The other thing that really makes me "mad", is the fact that Yahoo seem to think that every internet user used IE or even likes it. I for one, hate it and will not touch Microsoft's latest release.
I will give Yahoo some credit: They seem to be changing for the better. You see, their commercials are being served in Adobe's flash format which runs on most systems. This means that commercials will likely be seen or watched by most people.
The problem on this particular issue is that the news or commentary videos are in some proprietary format that does not run to completion if one is using Firefox. That is after seeing the commercials. Ironic indeed.
Fit the stolen car with your own number plates complete with relevant RFID information and presto!
There is nothing to suggest that criminals cannot produce these tags. Malaysia is not a backward country. Heck they produce some of the technology our [American] government uses in some cases.
"The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.
It's in situations like these that I support communism or even its loose form (socialism). In many cases these rich folks are able to remain rich because of influence peddling, crony-ism, threats and corruption. In these Unites States, the above unwelcome features have become so apparent that our congress has also become the "no action congress."
Can somebody tell me what significant thing congress did in this term? Nothing was done for the common man. In 365 days of the year, congress will sit for about 110 days, and pull US$165,000 in salaries alone for congressmen and women. Overall, the picture is not good at all.
Oh sure? So it looks like a long work day for you tomorrow? I have some work for you.
Please begin putting together a schema for OpenOffice.org using the recently GPLed Java framework. I am very certain that this will keep you busy enough.
By the way, am I alone in thinking that it would be a good idea to have OpenOffice.org re-written in the Java language? The Java license is now very appealing.
In my case, we were presented with a problem and asked to "produce" a possible solution in a month. From the tools we had, VB was the most obvious. No body dictated what we should be using in our solutions.
With a little research, nothing could beat MS-Access with its VB. We quickly had working GUIs integrated with business logic. Things were beautiful. PHP was available but the its abilities at the time were very limited.
Sadly, there is still no real answer to MS-Access' programming paradigm in the Linux world. Gambas http://gambas.sourceforge.net/ comes close. So does RealBasic http://www.realbasic.com/. Other wannabe environments are simply wasting time at present, and do not appear to be serious.
Having powerful programming environments that are friendly to newbies is OK, but making them actively hostile to power users on the other hand is insane. Those two items aren't mutually exclusive, but Linux programmers tend to think so - sadly.
Techworld is one of many that is already looking at Xandros as a possible challenger to Windows Vista"
I am one of the very few slashdotters that have publicly said that Xandros, Freespire and especially Xandros are one of the best distros out there. I even contributes a few days ago that these distros actaully work as advertised.
What came out of that contribution was being touted as one who had contributed flamebait!
Now, with this view from Techworld, I feel very happy inside. This makes me wonder why there is all this hype about K[U]buntu, which is dogged with all sorts of bugs. Thanks once again to the folks at Xandros.
De-indexes? That word "de-indexes" does not exist! Not from any English dictionary! The word that captures the meaning of the heading should be "deindexes" that comes from the word "deindex" as defined over here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=deind ex. Note the absence of that little dash.
Yahoo does not get it. Can you imagine that even now, Yahoo's Launchcast service does not support Firefox! When one attempts to use it, he is faced with this "Error Code: 24."
No wonder they (Yahoo) are a struggling company by some measures these days. It does not have to be that way. It's because of this reason that it is my mission to avoid Yahoo services as much as possible.
The pushing of Internet Explorer 7 is yet another arrogant and bigoted notion that tends to lean on the premise that all internet users use the Windows platform, which is grossly false.
The coolest thing I ever did was build my own custom Linux Kernel. It was way back in the year 1999 when the process was not that straight forward. My distro was called `Bogaboga Linux' and is still available on a 486 system.
Microsoft does not really care that much because it knows that sooner or later companies will bite. This was the same story when Windows XP was released.
For Microsoft, it will be a matter of threatening to stop support for older programs or even make maintaining them more expensive.
The other strategy is to stop shipping Windows XP to OEMs while providing Vista alone. That act alone will do the trick.
So I say to Microsoft...."Do not worry, these ambivalent companies will soon bite whether they like it or not."
"At one point, realising that most of the usability issues were attributable to Gnome, which had taken three months to configure, staff ripped out Gnome and replaced it with KDE. The new interface was up and running within a week....
I have long said that Gnome had a problem for most users in a typical business environment, and was met with comments referring to me as a troll and as one who was just a KDE fanboy.
This article articulates just one of the problems with Gnome.
For this particular problem, there are folks who say that I should use "ctrl + L". Though this keyboard shortcut is not even documented anywhere near where one would want to use it. Imagine that.
I want to be able to type in Gnome's file selector dialog. Gnome will not permit me!
Why should Gnome assume that every file I want to open *is* on the local system? KDE on the other hand, does not assume that. And you can type/paste whatever URL you want and it will do the needful.
Why can't I be able to do some basic file operations (renaming, deleting, moving) in the selector dialog itself? Why do I have to go back and open Nautilus?
These are just *some* of the issues that make Gnome a non-starter for me and I am glad the Britons found out as well. This will make the developers think about what users want. How can a desktop environment take three months to configure? This is insane! These are not my words but quotes from the article.
Hospitals are dirty becuase they outsource their cleaning to companies that employ mostly low paid, un(der)trained staff.
So, according to you, an entity cannot be "low paid" and "clean." Right? But I can assure you that when death is demanding a visit to your household, you will not think of the "cleanliness" you appear to crave.
On the other hand I have an issue with the headline. Consider:
A video shows it in action [.wmv].
When shall we have a video in an Open Source format like.ogg? If slashdot could transform the videos to open source formats before posting the stories, this could be a very welcome development.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot one very important bit; that statement above should have read:
'I came away with a sense that Microsoft doesn't currently have a clear sense of what Microsoft should be and where Microsoft should be going in my not so humble opinion...'(emphasis mine)
You see, Novell will be forced to leave out important upgrades to the [Linux] kernel if parts of this kernel end up licensed under the upcoming GPL v3. When that happens, Novell will be forced to offer an "inferior" kernel to its customers. I believe no one can say that this is positive.
When I look into Novell's past, I fail to see any positive thing they (Novell) have done to whatever they've acquired.
I know my call will not be heeded for researchers are inquisitive by nature.
In case it is verified that a human being was harmed by these creatures, we should sue the researchers and those that support them, just like the US does to terrorists and their backers.
Instead of "wasting" time and resources in space issues, I suggest we spend some time exploring the depths of the sea. We know less than 2% of what lies under there! Maybe we can grab new medicines or even fuel to use as some form of energy. Heck the bottoms of the seas are nearer.
I must admit: My posts leave a lot to be desired too!
While Microsoft's recent interoperability and patent peace deal with Novell Inc might indeed be a "non-event", and Linux users might not be at any risk of a Microsoft lawsuit, these "facts" do not always matter.
What matters is the perception these ramblings create. Do we remember the FUD about Linux Microsoft used to tout in early 2001? It seemed to work. All over a sudden, PHBs feared this Linux phenomenon and some [Linux] deals failed not because of facts but because of this FUD.
There was another piece of FUD when it came to support. Ballmer used to say, "Who do you run to when you need support on Linux? Do you run to RedHat, Novell, the guys at OSDL, IBM? It was all FUD but achieved some success at dissuading folks from using Linux.
The other untruth was one on installation. While software on some Linux distros can be a pain to install, other distros like Freespire, Linspire and Xandros are so easy to have software installed on. But what you hear is the same rant that software on Linux is difficult to manage.
The last untruth:
A good number of people I have spoken to seem to think that Linux, is that particular distro they are experimenting with. So when things do not work out, "Linux" is labeled as a non starter! I can confirm that I know Linux distros that will work out of the box o hardware that Microsoft's Windows has trouble even recognizing.
Now, lets maintain the status quo. When I balance up the "equation", Americans do not have much to show for the almost 3,000 coalition lives lost so far. An average of 4 have been killed this month alone. Please pay a visit to http://www.icasulaties.org/ to see what I am talking about.
You want to know which battle the insurgents won in IRAQ? Please have a look at http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_0105 _Fallujah-P1,00.html then come back and tell me.
You could also tell me who controls Sadr City now. The only place the US has total control in IRAQ is the Green Zone. That's why the Commander in Chief, and all important US officials will NOT venture outside the Green Zone. To me, that means that someone else and NOT the Americans, are in control in areas outside on the Green Zone.
Did you even read my submission? Key word: Very few..., and the systems you talk about are among those very few.
Air superiority, I dunno! One thing I know is that the Russians do not advertise themselves that much as compared to the Americans. Even when they were the *only* link to the ISS after the shuttle disasters, they were cool about everything. If Americans were in their place, they (Americans) would be "blowing their own trumpet." Look, just this evening, it was all over the news about the shuttle launch, but Russians do their thing quietly and without much fanfare.
When it comes to projecting power abroad, let's examine what the US is getting in terms of results:
- Veitnam? Heck, the US was whipped hands down! Talk to any American.
Americans have a problem. They think that if a country does not do things the conventional way, they that country is "not worth much." That's why they've been surprised in IRAQ. Mind you, IRAQ's command and control infrastructure was "destroyed" in the first two weeks of the war. So half of the mission was complete. Despite all the technology, IEDs are still hitting them hard. By the way, IEDs are 1940s technology.So you tell me how this power is really useful when widows and widowers are being created in IRAQ every single day. Tell me.
So you want them to engage you on your terms so that you destroy can them as you mention? No way! These guerrillas (or insurgents as you call them), are smarter than that.
In fact they are engaging you on their terms and from what I have seen and heard, it's working for them. Again, it's very saddening that the war had to take all these many lives and time, for American military leaders to realize that it's not working.
The American military machine, touted as the strongest, most efficient, lethal, modern and advanced, has just got a beating from AK-47 wielding thugs of IRAQ. The sad thing is that it has takes three years and almost 3,000 coalition deaths for the military authorities to acknowledge this. You no longer hear statements like "bring them on"..."We'll prevail"..."stay the course"...
Who tells these military folks that the so called modern weapon systems win today's wars?
Look, the Europeans and Americans can produce all the weapon systems they want...even with their massive debts and budget deficits. But in the end, a guerrilla with a reliable weapon like the AK-47, is more lethal than all those flying coffins. One incident that was reported were guerrillas who submerged themselves with their Ak-47s in a swamp, waited for the coalition forces to pass them, then they emerged and fired. Very few weapon systems can fire just after being under water.
"Advanced" weapon systems are of limited value in todays wars. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld who just acknowledged a few weeks ago that things are really bad. To see how and more, point your browser to http://www.liveleak.com/.
One might wonder why for example, Yahoo will not support Firefox on any platform despite the fact that it's now captured more than 20% of the European browser market. Whenever on tries their Launchast service with Firefox, he's met with an "Error code: 24"!
This happens even when the so called ActiveX plugin is installed on Windows. One wonders whether there is nothing like testing before products are launched.
The other thing that really makes me "mad", is the fact that Yahoo seem to think that every internet user used IE or even likes it. I for one, hate it and will not touch Microsoft's latest release.
I will give Yahoo some credit: They seem to be changing for the better. You see, their commercials are being served in Adobe's flash format which runs on most systems. This means that commercials will likely be seen or watched by most people.
The problem on this particular issue is that the news or commentary videos are in some proprietary format that does not run to completion if one is using Firefox. That is after seeing the commercials. Ironic indeed.
Change step 2 to:
Fit the stolen car with your own number plates complete with relevant RFID information and presto!
There is nothing to suggest that criminals cannot produce these tags. Malaysia is not a backward country. Heck they produce some of the technology our [American] government uses in some cases.
It's in situations like these that I support communism or even its loose form (socialism). In many cases these rich folks are able to remain rich because of influence peddling, crony-ism, threats and corruption. In these Unites States, the above unwelcome features have become so apparent that our congress has also become the "no action congress."
Can somebody tell me what significant thing congress did in this term? Nothing was done for the common man. In 365 days of the year, congress will sit for about 110 days, and pull US$165,000 in salaries alone for congressmen and women. Overall, the picture is not good at all.
First, they did not do much to improve Yast2 on speed, bugs and the way it handles dependencies. This alone, made me avoid its Linux products.
Now comes this Microsoft deal. With this deal, I will not even touch its Linux products even with a 10 foot long pole!
Sadly, those who predicted that Novell will do nothing good for SuSE after buying it, (just like Word Perfect), are being proven right.
Please begin putting together a schema for OpenOffice.org using the recently GPLed Java framework. I am very certain that this will keep you busy enough.
By the way, am I alone in thinking that it would be a good idea to have OpenOffice.org re-written in the Java language? The Java license is now very appealing.
With a little research, nothing could beat MS-Access with its VB. We quickly had working GUIs integrated with business logic. Things were beautiful. PHP was available but the its abilities at the time were very limited.
Sadly, there is still no real answer to MS-Access' programming paradigm in the Linux world. Gambas http://gambas.sourceforge.net/ comes close. So does RealBasic http://www.realbasic.com/. Other wannabe environments are simply wasting time at present, and do not appear to be serious.
I am meant to understand that Kross http://conference2006.kde.org/conference/talks/2.p hp is progressing well, but was not impressed when I tried it.
Having powerful programming environments that are friendly to newbies is OK, but making them actively hostile to power users on the other hand is insane. Those two items aren't mutually exclusive, but Linux programmers tend to think so - sadly.
I am one of the very few slashdotters that have publicly said that Xandros, Freespire and especially Xandros are one of the best distros out there. I even contributes a few days ago that these distros actaully work as advertised.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=208360&cid=169 89294.
What came out of that contribution was being touted as one who had contributed flamebait!
Now, with this view from Techworld, I feel very happy inside. This makes me wonder why there is all this hype about K[U]buntu, which is dogged with all sorts of bugs. Thanks once again to the folks at Xandros.
De-indexes? That word "de-indexes" does not exist! Not from any English dictionary! The word that captures the meaning of the heading should be "deindexes" that comes from the word "deindex" as defined over here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=deind ex. Note the absence of that little dash.
No wonder they (Yahoo) are a struggling company by some measures these days. It does not have to be that way. It's because of this reason that it is my mission to avoid Yahoo services as much as possible.
The pushing of Internet Explorer 7 is yet another arrogant and bigoted notion that tends to lean on the premise that all internet users use the Windows platform, which is grossly false.
The coolest thing I ever did was build my own custom Linux Kernel. It was way back in the year 1999 when the process was not that straight forward. My distro was called `Bogaboga Linux' and is still available on a 486 system.
For Microsoft, it will be a matter of threatening to stop support for older programs or even make maintaining them more expensive.
The other strategy is to stop shipping Windows XP to OEMs while providing Vista alone. That act alone will do the trick.
So I say to Microsoft...."Do not worry, these ambivalent companies will soon bite whether they like it or not."
I better act fast! This is the time to sell my remaining SCO stock before the tsunami strikes.
I have long said that Gnome had a problem for most users in a typical business environment, and was met with comments referring to me as a troll and as one who was just a KDE fanboy.
This article articulates just one of the problems with Gnome.
For this particular problem, there are folks who say that I should use "ctrl + L". Though this keyboard shortcut is not even documented anywhere near where one would want to use it. Imagine that.
These are just *some* of the issues that make Gnome a non-starter for me and I am glad the Britons found out as well. This will make the developers think about what users want. How can a desktop environment take three months to configure? This is insane! These are not my words but quotes from the article.
So, according to you, an entity cannot be "low paid" and "clean." Right? But I can assure you that when death is demanding a visit to your household, you will not think of the "cleanliness" you appear to crave.
On the other hand I have an issue with the headline. Consider:
When shall we have a video in an Open Source format like .ogg? If slashdot could transform the videos to open source formats before posting the stories, this could be a very welcome development.