http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTo ol s/item-details.asp?sku=m975-1032
The Linksys model I have costs about $100.
Both of them include 4 port 100baseT switches, and use NAT to act like a firewall. Unless you need more features than that out of your router/firewall your 486 is just a bif box taking up space and eating electrisity. The processor in the commercial routers isn't likely any more powerful than your 486, so you're right that those processors can still be useful. I'm just not sure the systems are still worth screwing around with. Of course, not stiking them in a landfill is a worth goal as well.
It would be a fun lab to teach, and very educational for those students who want to learn to work on PCs. There would always be something for them to learn to, because when you have a bunch of computers put together from different parts, there's always a lot of problems. You'd constantly be running into driver problems, bios problems, and failures of old hardware. When you have a bunch of identical computers you still have problems, but a lot of those problems you only hae to figure out once and apply the solution to all the computers.
Your lab would be great for a small protion of the students, but of much less use for students who want to use the computer to run software, rather than learn to fix problems with computers. If your school is large enough to support both kinds of computer labs, then I think it's a great idea, otherwise, look for corporate donations of working PCs.
if more people would do this, we would have an
abundant supply of capable PC techs in the IT
industry instead of the morons that are now the
majority.
It sounds promising, but I don't really think it will have the effect you think it will. There are some students who will get a lot out of this type of class. However, those same people would pick up those skills pretty quickly in a PC tech job too. There are usually some competent PC techs on the support team, and if the techs want to learn, they knowledge and environment is there for them. Those who want to learn and have a knack for the work learn pretty quickly. THose who just want a paycheck and heard a job as a PC tech pays well may not ever learn. A high school class would give those who want to learn and oppertunity earlier in their lives, and allow them to find out if the job suits them. It definatly has a purpose. I'm just not sure you'll really see the average level of competence in the PC tech field go up if more schools did this.
There also aren't a lot of sutdents who aspirt to become PC techs, and a network of computers built from parts isn't going to be a stable computing environment. The lab would be good for people wanting to learn to support PCs, but bad for people who just want to use PCs as tools. It would meet a need, but 100 Dells would probably meet the general needs of the school a lot better.
Do you really think that the software sold in the US had it's menus and help in Russian? He obviously knew the software was being written for export outside of Russia.
He wrote the software. His employer paid him to write the software. If the law was broken (that's for the court to decide), he profited from the crime. I also don't think he was unaware that it would be sold in the US. I curious how US laws address this, I'll definately be watching this case carefully. I've just found that in the past when something seems as unreasonable as Mr Sklyarov being charged with a crime in the US, there is usually more to the story. I also know that prosecuters don't like to prosecute high profile cases unless they've got a good chance of winning. I'm going to wait until I hear more about the evidence before I decide if I think Mr Sklyarov is a innocent victim.
That depends on if you sold them the books, knowing that they would distribute them where it's restricted. I just don't buy the defense that he had no idea that the software would be sold in the US. I doubt the version sold in the US had it's menu's in Russian. That doesn't mean that it wasn't intended for other english speaking people, but from my experience, if you're leading a software project, you know who it's target market is. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think assuming that he didn't know it would be sold in the US may not be reasonable. I'm sure it will be brought up in court, so we'll find out more soon.
That's assuming he had no knowledge that his employer was going to sell the software in the United States. If he knew that they were going to sell it there, or even had reason to suspect it because his employer sold there other products there, then he's responsible. Not only did he create the product, but he got paid for doing it. He even came to the US to tell people about it.
Re:Hate to say, sounds like a dot-bomb strategy...
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 2
Sorry, it was late and I should have clarified my language. No one has been able to run the high-margin 'workstation' market with WinTel boxes, at least not for long. By workstation I mean the sort of thing a professional runs AutoCAD on -- what you would replace an Ultra 10 or Onyx II with. The only 2 good attempts I've seen at this have been Intergraph and SGI's recent PCs (with that neat channeled memory architecture). Both sold for a short time, then fell back into the mire. There's just not enough differentiation.
Your right. There really isn't a good way to differentiate their products. SGI tried, but their machines were a poorly implemented attempt at a good idea. The differentiated their product by making their own chipset. It was an integrated solution probably best compared to what nVidia is doing with the GForce, though with higher end graphics and I/O. The problem was that the chipset was buggy, and the performance wasn't that much better than what nVidia was bringing to AGP video cards. It's hard to pay a premium for a SGI machine when it's as buggy as those systems were.
I don't have any experience with Intergraph's solution, but as you pointed out, they weren't able to grab a large market share either despite their experienc in the market.
As for Compaq/DEC, you're right that it's for the consulting arm. For its entire history, DEC was pure technical genius and absolute incompetence in sales/marketing. Acquiring that would be an easy win. Of course, alienating all your consulting customers isn't all that smart of a move either....
I used to work with a number of DEC consultants. The majority of them were highly skill professionals. Not only did they generally know what they were doing, but they made a good impression, which is important to the people who are paying for their services. DEC treated them very well, trained them well, but also expected a lot of professionalism from them. I left that job before Compaq bought DEC, so I don't know what happened to them, but I know that even the ones that did deal with Windows NT (on a Alpha) weren't big fans of NT. I'm sure that if Compaq didn't make them feel welcome they were able to find work elsewhere. There is still a surprisingly large number of VMS and DEC Unix systems out there in need of high quality support.
They cancelled their planned next revision of PA-RISC and signed some intensive contracts with Intel binding them to make IA-64. So they didn't have much more incentive to make another PA-RISC once they tossed Belluzzio.
I didn't remember the details of what happend with HP's PA-RISC line. Of course I usually ignore a lot of the press releases these companies put out saying they are redirecting their efforts. It seems like a lot of times they publicly float those ideas, then when their customers revolt, they just keep with their current product lines, while making a small attempt to break into new areas.
I think the engineering was also intrigued at building the first mass-market VLIW processor -- shame it doesn't deliver. Maybe McKinley will.
I also hope that McKinley will be an exelent processor, but they need to hurry up and get it out. In order to get people to invest in the pain involved in switching to a new architecture, you need to show a profound performance increase. If McKinley can't deliver that performance jump, then AMD's Sledghammer may crush McKinley because of it's backwards compatibility. No one want to go through the pain of their old software not running on their new platform unless there's a really good reason.
As a strange side issue, a subscription based software model might make this less painful for customers, because they could switch their subscription to software for the new platform. Maybe Intel is encouraging Microsoft's efforts in this area in order to make switching away from x86 less painful for their customers in the future. Probably not, because it would also make it easy for people to switch away from Intel processors in the future, and also decrease Microsofts reliance on Intel.
As for your analysis, well, companies like having reorganizations. It makes it look like they are doing something.
I think there's an appaling amount of truth to that statement. I just hope that HP's managers have better reasons for buying Compaq than to look important in a time where job cuts are likely.
Re:Hate to say, sounds like a dot-bomb strategy...
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 3, Insightful
With this one, I'd have to say that Fiorina is a tool.
That's why HP is buying Compaq, not the other way around.
When Compaq bought DEC they weren't buying them for their Alpha or Strong arm line. They were buying them because of their consulting business. That's where DEC was making their money, not selling hardware. The thing Compaq never seemed to learn was that one of the main thing their consultants were supporting was those Alpha systems running Digital Unix (or whatever it's named now). Some of those systems could be replaced with NT, but NT is often marketed as a server OS for the less technical elite administrator. People who want to run NT are making some trade offs, and those trade offs don't include high priced consultants from Compaq.
Compaq's handling of Tandem also seems to be an example of management not knowing the market they were in. You don't sell mission critical servers without a large and highly technical sales and support force.
In, I think, 1996 HP announced a new direction: dump their processors (PA-RISC) and their Unix (HP-UX), in exchange for Intel & NT.
Did they dump their PA-RISC/HP-UX line, or just move many of their resources on to creating their next line of processors, which is Intel's IA-64. The IA-64 processor development is far behind it's original schedule, and performance has fallen short of what many expected. HP has had to spend more resources updateing the PA-RISC line because they don't yet have a new product to which they can transition their customers.
...they sold some nice NT boxes before realizing that no one can sustainably sell WinTel boxes on the margins that a big corp demands, since the clone makers can always build the same thing for less.
If this is true, then why has Dell done so well?
There are some reasons that this merger might work well. HP has always had a diverse product line. They understand much better than Compaq that you don't sell and support oscilloscopes the same way you handle printers or servers. Compaq never seemed to get this and has paid the price.
Most of their product lines are complementary. Although HP does currently sell PCs, they are not making money at it. Compaq's PC business might be a good match for them. HP's printers, scanners, and other periphrials also fit well with Compaq's offerings. There is some overlap in the server area. Both companies have some midrange servers, though Compaq likely has a better business running NT. Maybe HP can combine it's PA-RISC people with the people who are left from DEC and Tandem to revitalize their high end server business.
In any case, this industry is in a slump, and is likely in for some rough times ahead. By merging HP and Compaq might be able to better survive the slump. Though, I think HP with it's diverse product line would have survived just fine. Compaq had a diverse product line, but consistently killed off any part that was too far from what they considered their core business. It seems to me that Compaq was heading for a fall, and HP decided for some reason that Compaq's resources are worth $25 Billion. I hope HP is smart enough to not let the managers from Compaq continue to make the same mistakes under HP's name.
So why is Sklyarov not at least partially, legally responsible for this action? He works for the company. His pay derived from the creation of the software. He represented that company and that software at a conference. Just because there's some company involved doesn't absolve him of his personal responsibility to obey the law. If the law was truely broken (this is for the court to decide) in the US, then unless he had no idea it would be sold in the US (also for a court to decide), then he broke it.
I still think it's a bad law, and should be tossed out by the courts as unconstitutional, but I'm not so sure he didn't break the law.
The extent to which Skylarov was involved in selling the application is the key to whether HE violated the DMCA or not.
Oops, I thought this last line was your sig, and didn't read it until I wrote the rest of your post. I guess my point with this post is that a lot of people are screaming that the US is overstepping it's bounds, but when a foreign company is selling their products to people in the US, the US definately has the right to enforce it's laws. If you don't like it, stay out of the US, and make sure you don't have any business interests here.
The software was sold in the us, through a US distributer. This isn't a case where no laws were broken on US soil.
To keep with your analogy. Your person who jay-walked (created the software) in Podunk, then drove to new your and ran a red light (distributed illegal software) in New York. He got cited for running a red light, and your complaining that jay-walking isn't illegal in Podunk.
Dimitri's writing the software in Russia may not be within the jurisdiction of the United States, but distributing that software in the US sure is.
The software was sold in the United States, by a distributer in the United States. That means his employer, and possibly he himself, appear to have broken the law in the United States. It isn't even a case of the web site being in Russia and someone downloading the software form there. Read the articles.
Wow, it sounds like you actually have a use for all that stuff. It sounds strange to me to have it all on one system. It seems like keeping it all working would take a significat amount of your time. It also leasves you with one point of failure for all those different tasks. Maybe in your case this all makes sense.
The drives could (admittedly) be replaced by a newer drive configuration (I have a pair of 75GB SCSI waiting to replace all), but I keep putting it off and depending on my DAT24 backups because the move will be a pain and will shut me down (by completely occupying my attention and waiting for everything to copy) for a day or two while I make the switch.
I can imagine that if I got all that equipmet working well together, I wouldn't want to play with it any more than I had to either. If it works, don't screw with it is a good rule to live by in many cases. If you decide you don't need those 75 GB SCSI drives sitting around taking up space, let me know.
IDE is clumsy and slow compared to SCSI when you start to get many devices in the same machine.
This is true. IDE isn't designed to support a large number of devices. Then again, do you really need a large number of devices. Your system looks like a lot of old parts kludged together, and a lot of the parts look redundant to the point of being useless.
1) Three 18.2GB Barracuda LVD drives in a RAID-0.
2) Four 9.1GB Micropolis UW drives in a RAID-0. Replace thes old drivers with one or 2 newer high capacity drives. Select IDE or SCSI as your needs require, but if you don't end up needing a lot of devices, IDE is likely fine, and much cheaper. You obviously aren't real concerned about losing some of the data on these since they're RAID 0. I realize you can back up the really important data on one of your 8 different methods of data backup (9 if the system has a floppy), but if you lose a drive, you've lost all the data on that RAID set.
3) 8x CD-R (not CD-RW) drive.
4) Brand new DVD-R drive (whoopee!) Do you really still need the CD-R? If you're making CD to CD coppies I guess this could be useful. Does your DVD-R write CDs as well. or just DVDs?
5) Two 1.3GB 5.25" Magneto-Optical drives.
Are you using these to make disk to disk coppies, or are they just parts you used to need, but don't feel like throwing out.
6) 7/14GB 8mm tape drive.
7) 12/24GB 4mm tape drive.
8) Very old (but needed) Archive 2150S (QIC-150). Ok, I'm getting a picture of a system where you've used too many different formats in the past to backup data, and are now paying the price to have access to that data. Sooner or later as some of those tape drives start to fail it's going to come back and haunt you.
9) 100 MB Zip drive. Why not you've got everything else. Why not add a compact flash reader too.
10) 300 DPI scanner (for rough stuff).
11) 1200 DPI scanner (for more important stuff). The 300 DPI scanner has to be both old and slow. Just use the 1200 DPI one. Quit being such a pack rat and get rid of the old junk.
You might even be able to pay for a new system with big IDE drives with the savings on your electric bill. This monster system you have right now must be a power hog.
On my IDE system, I've got two hard drives, a CD-RW and an IDE tape, and the IDE channels often seem to slow each other down and fight for control when I start to burn, backup, and do lots of disk I/O at the same time. I've been told that this is because a single IDE interface doesn't do concurrent access to both drives.
Newer CD-RWs have firmware and drivers that do an exelent job of hiding this. Busmastering IDE drivers for your motherboard also help a lot. IDE implemented poorly is far from a high performance system. But when it's implemented well, it can challange SCSI in many (but not all) for small systems.
Either way, I love using the SCSI system. It's an I/O monster. And I love being able to just hang whatever kind of device I need to use off of the external connector and know with reasonable certainty that Linux will support it. Long live SCSI.
I suspect SCSI will live a long life yet, though it's a high end product, and Fibre Channel may squeeze it out from the high end eventually because of SCSI's reliance on parallel cables.
For the low end a system with IDE and USB 2.0 would do quite nicely. All the recordable media types could easily hook up to USB 2.0 along with the scanner. They would also be easily used on another machine if necessary, which would reduce costs, and provide an alternative if this non fault tolerant system goes down. They could also be swapped in and out hot, which would reduce downtime. You could use firewire instead of USB 2.0, but I haven't seen a lot of firewire devices. I don't recommend USB 1.x because it's just too slow for things like DVD writers, and even 1200 DPI scanners. USB 2.0 devices are just comming out, so this isn't a real practical solution yet.
Even a used iMac is awfully expensive to just browse the web and look at some email. He could probably get a nice quiet, underpowered, used x86 laptop a lot cheaper, and it would take up less space, and seemingly suit his needs.
I think you missed part of his post. One of the things he said he didn't want was "overpowered, overpriced machines that seem to try and replace PCs."
This isn't a troll. Ok, maybe quoting the "try to replace PCs" part is a little bit of a troll in this context. The point is that this guy doesn't need a full fledged computer. He just needs some kind of X Terminal. No need for a hard drive. He can use one of his three working computers to act as the apps and storage server.
Stomping on other nation's soverignity isn't unconstitutional as far a I know. Other countries also do this all the time. The ability to enforct those laws outside of the United States is somewhat limited, but California it seems can pass their stupid laws.
You make good points, and I agree with all of them.
Now how should this problem be addressed. The way people use computers has evolved to the point where a computer should come with a media player, and that media player should handle things like streaming audio and video. People buying a computer should be able to assume that that feature will be included, and people writing software and developing web based applications should be able to assume that user's computers will be able to perform those opperations. If would be nice if the industry could have standardized on one media format, but that didn't happen. For streaming video there are three that I can think of, Real, Quicktime, Windows.
Should Microsoft be forced to include other media players? If so, whose? Do they have to accept all of them, since any who are left out are at a distinct disadvantage? At what point do you end up with confusing clutter that does consumers more harm than good?
In my opinion Windows should ship with exactly one media player. Not zero, and not more than one. If you want to have a more competitive market, then make Microsoft use an open format for their media player. That way other companies can compete on playback features, but consumers are still guarenteed to have a tool to play the media content.
Yes, I realize that this leaves Real in a very bad spot. The playback of streaming media is an obvious need for modern computing. They have gone down the path of providing this through a propriatary format, which they aren't willing to license to other manufactures in a way that would make it an industry standard. They put themselves in the place they are in. The governments of this world shouldn't step in and protect their business model. If their business model can't adapt to the market, then they go out of business. This isn't Microsoft manipulating the market to destory Real. This is the market heading in a logical direction, and Real can't adjust to it because they put themselves in this spot. Good bye Real, you enabled us to watch video when that market was in it's infantcy, it's a shame you didn't come up with a sustainable businees model.
Why don't chips compete on power consumption and battery life?
They do. It's just a smaller and less publisized market. Intel, AMD and Transmeta all have power benchmarks they are happy to pull out and show how their low power chips do. Low power is important in not only the Laptop market, but the emdeded market as well.
So in this age of power crises in California, why not sell laptops or desktops that are smaller and consume less power? I personally want a laptop that will run eight to ten hours on a battery.
The processor is far from the most power hungry part of a computer system, but it's not a bad idea to save every bit you can. To get a laptop running 8 to 10 hours your're probably going to sacrifice a lot in the display though.
Meanwhile, Intel and AMD are releasing gigahertz processors for laptops. Why? Laptops are not gaming machines.
Why not? A nice protable, powerful gaming machine sounds nice to me. I'd also like to invest in one computer rather than a laptop for low ind portable uses, and a desktop for high end uses.
Truly "on the go" laptops could be smaller and lighter with longer run times. High end "desktop replacement" laptops could still use the full speed processors and the powerhouse video cards which spank my Voodoo 3.
This is already being done. There are small light laptops which trade performance and display size for battery life. There are also laptops which use higher end graphices chips like the Geforce 2 GO to provide more of a desktop replacement. ATI also just released a new high end laptop video chip.
Desktops could likewise be smaller, using the same features. Most desktops are available with build-in everything, so expansion bays/slots could be kept to a minimum.
These types of systems are already available. They just haven't been very popular. They usually aren't cheaper, and are usually lower performance systems because there's less airflow in a smaller case, and they can't accomodate the heat the higher performance systems put off. In the end you save desktop space but get a slower and often more expensive system that's less expandible. They just don't sell well.
Another advantage of this is that one could create silent computers, similar to the Apple G4 Cube. Less heat generation means less fans and that means silence.
There is a market for quieter systems, but it's not very large. You also need quieter hard drives, which are also lower performance to get a very quiet system. The G4 cube was actually quiet and a good performer, but it was very expensive, and too few people were willing to pay for it. That's why Apple doesn't make it anymore.
Those who want to overclock are going to buy the high end processors anyways. But those building an MP3 server/player to integrate with their TV/stereo are not going to need a 2 Ghz processor. A 500 Mhz Pentium III (0.13 micron process) would simply need a heatsink and some airflow.
They don't even need a P III 500 Mhz. There are lots of low power choices for the embedded market. Unless you have design constraints that direct you toward an X86 chip, Power PC and Strong Arm chips likely offer more processing power per watt.
I welcome the day when megahertz is something you need to look to the "technical specs" page (and I mean technical).
It's a nice idea, but people do need to have some way to compare the relative power of products they are buying, and the industry hasn't come up with a good solution. The problem is that everytime a benchmark is created, people will design systems that are made to do well at the benchmark, and the benchmark no longer has it's original meaning.
In my opinion you don't "screw" them. They chose that business model, or at least chose to enter into a market where that is the business model everyone uses. Microsoft is also trying to convince game developers that there are a lot of XBox owners out there for them to sell games to. While selling XBoxes at a loss is a pretty expensive marketing ploy, at least they get something out of it. Depending on what you run on it you may even buy some Microsoft or Microsoft licened hardware on which they can make some money.
However, I'll probably buy some games. I play Asheron's Call, and one of the Devs kind of hinted that it may be and XBox title in the future. The hard drive will allow the XBox to support the monthly patches (which include new content, as well as some bug fixes).
Actually, you're right, I don't like it. Gates tends to donate to causes like third world vaccines [salon.com] while he holds stock in biotech companies [businessweek.com]. Sounds like a conflict of interest there.
This rant is not intended to be polite political correct critisism. If you are offended by it, then good. If you're offended by it, then I'm probably offended by you.
This is one of the stupidest things I've seen on slashdot for a while, and it has some good competition. It's so horrible that Mr Gates invests money in boitech companies. The article says he's actually interested in seeing that the drugs work, and that they do what they are designed to do. He donates millions of dollars to vaccinate children in third world countries. There is no possible way he is actually making a profit from that just because he owns significant amounts of stock in biotech companies. However, there is a chance that it shows he really does care, and he's investing in helping create new medicines to make people's life's better.
Bill gates owns stock in a lot of companies. Someone always seems to want to whine that anything he does to help people is in some way a conflict of interest. He donates a significan portion of his income to charities to help people, especially those in dire need. He does a lot of good through those charities, and complaining about him donating money to vaccinate children so they don't die at a very young age, is beyond stupid. It's childish, craven, and pathetic. People's lives are at stake and you want to complain that possibly one or two percent of the money he donates may somehow find it's way back to him through profits of a company he owns stock in. You truely disgust me.
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I alsowy thought DEC was a services company that sold hardware and software so their consultants could charge you large fees to support it.
Or you can buy a little 3COM dsl/router for $49.
o ol s/item-details.asp?sku=m975-1032
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchT
The Linksys model I have costs about $100.
Both of them include 4 port 100baseT switches, and use NAT to act like a firewall. Unless you need more features than that out of your router/firewall your 486 is just a bif box taking up space and eating electrisity. The processor in the commercial routers isn't likely any more powerful than your 486, so you're right that those processors can still be useful. I'm just not sure the systems are still worth screwing around with. Of course, not stiking them in a landfill is a worth goal as well.
It would be a fun lab to teach, and very educational for those students who want to learn to work on PCs. There would always be something for them to learn to, because when you have a bunch of computers put together from different parts, there's always a lot of problems. You'd constantly be running into driver problems, bios problems, and failures of old hardware. When you have a bunch of identical computers you still have problems, but a lot of those problems you only hae to figure out once and apply the solution to all the computers.
Your lab would be great for a small protion of the students, but of much less use for students who want to use the computer to run software, rather than learn to fix problems with computers. If your school is large enough to support both kinds of computer labs, then I think it's a great idea, otherwise, look for corporate donations of working PCs.
if more people would do this, we would have an
abundant supply of capable PC techs in the IT
industry instead of the morons that are now the
majority.
It sounds promising, but I don't really think it will have the effect you think it will. There are some students who will get a lot out of this type of class. However, those same people would pick up those skills pretty quickly in a PC tech job too. There are usually some competent PC techs on the support team, and if the techs want to learn, they knowledge and environment is there for them. Those who want to learn and have a knack for the work learn pretty quickly. THose who just want a paycheck and heard a job as a PC tech pays well may not ever learn. A high school class would give those who want to learn and oppertunity earlier in their lives, and allow them to find out if the job suits them. It definatly has a purpose. I'm just not sure you'll really see the average level of competence in the PC tech field go up if more schools did this.
There also aren't a lot of sutdents who aspirt to become PC techs, and a network of computers built from parts isn't going to be a stable computing environment. The lab would be good for people wanting to learn to support PCs, but bad for people who just want to use PCs as tools. It would meet a need, but 100 Dells would probably meet the general needs of the school a lot better.
Do you really think that the software sold in the US had it's menus and help in Russian? He obviously knew the software was being written for export outside of Russia.
He wrote the software. His employer paid him to write the software. If the law was broken (that's for the court to decide), he profited from the crime. I also don't think he was unaware that it would be sold in the US. I curious how US laws address this, I'll definately be watching this case carefully. I've just found that in the past when something seems as unreasonable as Mr Sklyarov being charged with a crime in the US, there is usually more to the story. I also know that prosecuters don't like to prosecute high profile cases unless they've got a good chance of winning. I'm going to wait until I hear more about the evidence before I decide if I think Mr Sklyarov is a innocent victim.
That depends on if you sold them the books, knowing that they would distribute them where it's restricted. I just don't buy the defense that he had no idea that the software would be sold in the US. I doubt the version sold in the US had it's menu's in Russian. That doesn't mean that it wasn't intended for other english speaking people, but from my experience, if you're leading a software project, you know who it's target market is. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think assuming that he didn't know it would be sold in the US may not be reasonable. I'm sure it will be brought up in court, so we'll find out more soon.
That's assuming he had no knowledge that his employer was going to sell the software in the United States. If he knew that they were going to sell it there, or even had reason to suspect it because his employer sold there other products there, then he's responsible. Not only did he create the product, but he got paid for doing it. He even came to the US to tell people about it.
Sorry, it was late and I should have clarified my language. No one has been able to run the high-margin 'workstation' market with WinTel boxes, at least not for long. By workstation I mean the sort of thing a professional runs AutoCAD on -- what you would replace an Ultra 10 or Onyx II with. The only 2 good attempts I've seen at this have been Intergraph and SGI's recent PCs (with that neat channeled memory architecture). Both sold for a short time, then fell back into the mire. There's just not enough differentiation.
Your right. There really isn't a good way to differentiate their products. SGI tried, but their machines were a poorly implemented attempt at a good idea. The differentiated their product by making their own chipset. It was an integrated solution probably best compared to what nVidia is doing with the GForce, though with higher end graphics and I/O. The problem was that the chipset was buggy, and the performance wasn't that much better than what nVidia was bringing to AGP video cards. It's hard to pay a premium for a SGI machine when it's as buggy as those systems were.
I don't have any experience with Intergraph's solution, but as you pointed out, they weren't able to grab a large market share either despite their experienc in the market.
As for Compaq/DEC, you're right that it's for the consulting arm. For its entire history, DEC was pure technical genius and absolute incompetence in sales/marketing. Acquiring that would be an easy win. Of course, alienating all your consulting customers isn't all that smart of a move either....
I used to work with a number of DEC consultants. The majority of them were highly skill professionals. Not only did they generally know what they were doing, but they made a good impression, which is important to the people who are paying for their services. DEC treated them very well, trained them well, but also expected a lot of professionalism from them. I left that job before Compaq bought DEC, so I don't know what happened to them, but I know that even the ones that did deal with Windows NT (on a Alpha) weren't big fans of NT. I'm sure that if Compaq didn't make them feel welcome they were able to find work elsewhere. There is still a surprisingly large number of VMS and DEC Unix systems out there in need of high quality support.
They cancelled their planned next revision of PA-RISC and signed some intensive contracts with Intel binding them to make IA-64. So they didn't have much more incentive to make another PA-RISC once they tossed Belluzzio.
I didn't remember the details of what happend with HP's PA-RISC line. Of course I usually ignore a lot of the press releases these companies put out saying they are redirecting their efforts. It seems like a lot of times they publicly float those ideas, then when their customers revolt, they just keep with their current product lines, while making a small attempt to break into new areas.
I think the engineering was also intrigued at building the first mass-market VLIW processor -- shame it doesn't deliver. Maybe McKinley will.
I also hope that McKinley will be an exelent processor, but they need to hurry up and get it out. In order to get people to invest in the pain involved in switching to a new architecture, you need to show a profound performance increase. If McKinley can't deliver that performance jump, then AMD's Sledghammer may crush McKinley because of it's backwards compatibility. No one want to go through the pain of their old software not running on their new platform unless there's a really good reason.
As a strange side issue, a subscription based software model might make this less painful for customers, because they could switch their subscription to software for the new platform. Maybe Intel is encouraging Microsoft's efforts in this area in order to make switching away from x86 less painful for their customers in the future. Probably not, because it would also make it easy for people to switch away from Intel processors in the future, and also decrease Microsofts reliance on Intel.
As for your analysis, well, companies like having reorganizations. It makes it look like they are doing something.
I think there's an appaling amount of truth to that statement. I just hope that HP's managers have better reasons for buying Compaq than to look important in a time where job cuts are likely.
With this one, I'd have to say that Fiorina is a tool.
...they sold some nice NT boxes before realizing that no one can sustainably sell WinTel boxes on the margins that a big corp demands, since the clone makers can always build the same thing for less.
That's why HP is buying Compaq, not the other way around.
When Compaq bought DEC they weren't buying them for their Alpha or Strong arm line. They were buying them because of their consulting business. That's where DEC was making their money, not selling hardware. The thing Compaq never seemed to learn was that one of the main thing their consultants were supporting was those Alpha systems running Digital Unix (or whatever it's named now). Some of those systems could be replaced with NT, but NT is often marketed as a server OS for the less technical elite administrator. People who want to run NT are making some trade offs, and those trade offs don't include high priced consultants from Compaq.
Compaq's handling of Tandem also seems to be an example of management not knowing the market they were in. You don't sell mission critical servers without a large and highly technical sales and support force.
In, I think, 1996 HP announced a new direction: dump their processors (PA-RISC) and their Unix (HP-UX), in exchange for Intel & NT.
Did they dump their PA-RISC/HP-UX line, or just move many of their resources on to creating their next line of processors, which is Intel's IA-64. The IA-64 processor development is far behind it's original schedule, and performance has fallen short of what many expected. HP has had to spend more resources updateing the PA-RISC line because they don't yet have a new product to which they can transition their customers.
If this is true, then why has Dell done so well?
There are some reasons that this merger might work well. HP has always had a diverse product line. They understand much better than Compaq that you don't sell and support oscilloscopes the same way you handle printers or servers. Compaq never seemed to get this and has paid the price.
Most of their product lines are complementary. Although HP does currently sell PCs, they are not making money at it. Compaq's PC business might be a good match for them. HP's printers, scanners, and other periphrials also fit well with Compaq's offerings. There is some overlap in the server area. Both companies have some midrange servers, though Compaq likely has a better business running NT. Maybe HP can combine it's PA-RISC people with the people who are left from DEC and Tandem to revitalize their high end server business.
In any case, this industry is in a slump, and is likely in for some rough times ahead. By merging HP and Compaq might be able to better survive the slump. Though, I think HP with it's diverse product line would have survived just fine. Compaq had a diverse product line, but consistently killed off any part that was too far from what they considered their core business. It seems to me that Compaq was heading for a fall, and HP decided for some reason that Compaq's resources are worth $25 Billion. I hope HP is smart enough to not let the managers from Compaq continue to make the same mistakes under HP's name.
Selling the application in the US...a violation.
So why is Sklyarov not at least partially, legally responsible for this action? He works for the company. His pay derived from the creation of the software. He represented that company and that software at a conference. Just because there's some company involved doesn't absolve him of his personal responsibility to obey the law. If the law was truely broken (this is for the court to decide) in the US, then unless he had no idea it would be sold in the US (also for a court to decide), then he broke it.
I still think it's a bad law, and should be tossed out by the courts as unconstitutional, but I'm not so sure he didn't break the law.
The extent to which Skylarov was involved in selling the application is the key to whether HE violated the DMCA or not.
Oops, I thought this last line was your sig, and didn't read it until I wrote the rest of your post. I guess my point with this post is that a lot of people are screaming that the US is overstepping it's bounds, but when a foreign company is selling their products to people in the US, the US definately has the right to enforce it's laws. If you don't like it, stay out of the US, and make sure you don't have any business interests here.
The software was sold in the us, through a US distributer. This isn't a case where no laws were broken on US soil.
To keep with your analogy. Your person who jay-walked (created the software) in Podunk, then drove to new your and ran a red light (distributed illegal software) in New York. He got cited for running a red light, and your complaining that jay-walking isn't illegal in Podunk.
Dimitri's writing the software in Russia may not be within the jurisdiction of the United States, but distributing that software in the US sure is.
You left out Guns.
The software was sold in the United States, by a distributer in the United States. That means his employer, and possibly he himself, appear to have broken the law in the United States. It isn't even a case of the web site being in Russia and someone downloading the software form there. Read the articles.
The software was sold in the United States. Read the articles.
Wow, it sounds like you actually have a use for all that stuff. It sounds strange to me to have it all on one system. It seems like keeping it all working would take a significat amount of your time. It also leasves you with one point of failure for all those different tasks. Maybe in your case this all makes sense.
The drives could (admittedly) be replaced by a newer drive configuration (I have a pair of 75GB SCSI waiting to replace all), but I keep putting it off and depending on my DAT24 backups because the move will be a pain and will shut me down (by completely occupying my attention and waiting for everything to copy) for a day or two while I make the switch.
I can imagine that if I got all that equipmet working well together, I wouldn't want to play with it any more than I had to either. If it works, don't screw with it is a good rule to live by in many cases. If you decide you don't need those 75 GB SCSI drives sitting around taking up space, let me know.
IDE is clumsy and slow compared to SCSI when you start to get many devices in the same machine.
This is true. IDE isn't designed to support a large number of devices. Then again, do you really need a large number of devices. Your system looks like a lot of old parts kludged together, and a lot of the parts look redundant to the point of being useless.
1) Three 18.2GB Barracuda LVD drives in a RAID-0.
2) Four 9.1GB Micropolis UW drives in a RAID-0.
Replace thes old drivers with one or 2 newer high capacity drives. Select IDE or SCSI as your needs require, but if you don't end up needing a lot of devices, IDE is likely fine, and much cheaper. You obviously aren't real concerned about losing some of the data on these since they're RAID 0. I realize you can back up the really important data on one of your 8 different methods of data backup (9 if the system has a floppy), but if you lose a drive, you've lost all the data on that RAID set.
3) 8x CD-R (not CD-RW) drive.
4) Brand new DVD-R drive (whoopee!)
Do you really still need the CD-R? If you're making CD to CD coppies I guess this could be useful. Does your DVD-R write CDs as well. or just DVDs?
5) Two 1.3GB 5.25" Magneto-Optical drives.
Are you using these to make disk to disk coppies, or are they just parts you used to need, but don't feel like throwing out.
6) 7/14GB 8mm tape drive.
7) 12/24GB 4mm tape drive.
8) Very old (but needed) Archive 2150S (QIC-150).
Ok, I'm getting a picture of a system where you've used too many different formats in the past to backup data, and are now paying the price to have access to that data. Sooner or later as some of those tape drives start to fail it's going to come back and haunt you.
9) 100 MB Zip drive.
Why not you've got everything else. Why not add a compact flash reader too.
10) 300 DPI scanner (for rough stuff).
11) 1200 DPI scanner (for more important stuff).
The 300 DPI scanner has to be both old and slow. Just use the 1200 DPI one. Quit being such a pack rat and get rid of the old junk.
You might even be able to pay for a new system with big IDE drives with the savings on your electric bill. This monster system you have right now must be a power hog.
On my IDE system, I've got two hard drives, a CD-RW and an IDE tape, and the IDE channels often seem to slow each other down and fight for control when I start to burn, backup, and do lots of disk I/O at the same time. I've been told that this is because a single IDE interface doesn't do concurrent access to both drives.
Newer CD-RWs have firmware and drivers that do an exelent job of hiding this. Busmastering IDE drivers for your motherboard also help a lot. IDE implemented poorly is far from a high performance system. But when it's implemented well, it can challange SCSI in many (but not all) for small systems.
Either way, I love using the SCSI system. It's an I/O monster. And I love being able to just hang whatever kind of device I need to use off of the external connector and know with reasonable certainty that Linux will support it. Long live SCSI.
I suspect SCSI will live a long life yet, though it's a high end product, and Fibre Channel may squeeze it out from the high end eventually because of SCSI's reliance on parallel cables.
For the low end a system with IDE and USB 2.0 would do quite nicely. All the recordable media types could easily hook up to USB 2.0 along with the scanner. They would also be easily used on another machine if necessary, which would reduce costs, and provide an alternative if this non fault tolerant system goes down. They could also be swapped in and out hot, which would reduce downtime. You could use firewire instead of USB 2.0, but I haven't seen a lot of firewire devices. I don't recommend USB 1.x because it's just too slow for things like DVD writers, and even 1200 DPI scanners. USB 2.0 devices are just comming out, so this isn't a real practical solution yet.
Even a used iMac is awfully expensive to just browse the web and look at some email. He could probably get a nice quiet, underpowered, used x86 laptop a lot cheaper, and it would take up less space, and seemingly suit his needs.
I think you missed part of his post. One of the things he said he didn't want was "overpowered, overpriced machines that seem to try and replace PCs."
This isn't a troll. Ok, maybe quoting the "try to replace PCs" part is a little bit of a troll in this context. The point is that this guy doesn't need a full fledged computer. He just needs some kind of X Terminal. No need for a hard drive. He can use one of his three working computers to act as the apps and storage server.
Stomping on other nation's soverignity isn't unconstitutional as far a I know. Other countries also do this all the time. The ability to enforct those laws outside of the United States is somewhat limited, but California it seems can pass their stupid laws.
The Wall Street Journal tilts toward the delusional on its ideology-laden editorial pages...
You've just got to love the irony of it.
You make good points, and I agree with all of them.
Now how should this problem be addressed. The way people use computers has evolved to the point where a computer should come with a media player, and that media player should handle things like streaming audio and video. People buying a computer should be able to assume that that feature will be included, and people writing software and developing web based applications should be able to assume that user's computers will be able to perform those opperations. If would be nice if the industry could have standardized on one media format, but that didn't happen. For streaming video there are three that I can think of, Real, Quicktime, Windows.
Should Microsoft be forced to include other media players? If so, whose? Do they have to accept all of them, since any who are left out are at a distinct disadvantage? At what point do you end up with confusing clutter that does consumers more harm than good?
In my opinion Windows should ship with exactly one media player. Not zero, and not more than one. If you want to have a more competitive market, then make Microsoft use an open format for their media player. That way other companies can compete on playback features, but consumers are still guarenteed to have a tool to play the media content.
Yes, I realize that this leaves Real in a very bad spot. The playback of streaming media is an obvious need for modern computing. They have gone down the path of providing this through a propriatary format, which they aren't willing to license to other manufactures in a way that would make it an industry standard. They put themselves in the place they are in. The governments of this world shouldn't step in and protect their business model. If their business model can't adapt to the market, then they go out of business. This isn't Microsoft manipulating the market to destory Real. This is the market heading in a logical direction, and Real can't adjust to it because they put themselves in this spot. Good bye Real, you enabled us to watch video when that market was in it's infantcy, it's a shame you didn't come up with a sustainable businees model.
Why don't chips compete on power consumption and battery life?
They do. It's just a smaller and less publisized market. Intel, AMD and Transmeta all have power benchmarks they are happy to pull out and show how their low power chips do. Low power is important in not only the Laptop market, but the emdeded market as well.
So in this age of power crises in California, why not sell laptops or desktops that are smaller and consume less power? I personally want a laptop that will run eight to ten hours on a battery.
The processor is far from the most power hungry part of a computer system, but it's not a bad idea to save every bit you can. To get a laptop running 8 to 10 hours your're probably going to sacrifice a lot in the display though.
Meanwhile, Intel and AMD are releasing gigahertz processors for laptops. Why? Laptops are not gaming machines.
Why not? A nice protable, powerful gaming machine sounds nice to me. I'd also like to invest in one computer rather than a laptop for low ind portable uses, and a desktop for high end uses.
Truly "on the go" laptops could be smaller and lighter with longer run times. High end "desktop replacement" laptops could still use the full speed processors and the powerhouse video cards which spank my Voodoo 3.
This is already being done. There are small light laptops which trade performance and display size for battery life. There are also laptops which use higher end graphices chips like the Geforce 2 GO to provide more of a desktop replacement. ATI also just released a new high end laptop video chip.
Desktops could likewise be smaller, using the same features. Most desktops are available with build-in everything, so expansion bays/slots could be kept to a minimum.
These types of systems are already available. They just haven't been very popular. They usually aren't cheaper, and are usually lower performance systems because there's less airflow in a smaller case, and they can't accomodate the heat the higher performance systems put off. In the end you save desktop space but get a slower and often more expensive system that's less expandible. They just don't sell well.
Another advantage of this is that one could create silent computers, similar to the Apple G4 Cube. Less heat generation means less fans and that means silence.
There is a market for quieter systems, but it's not very large. You also need quieter hard drives, which are also lower performance to get a very quiet system. The G4 cube was actually quiet and a good performer, but it was very expensive, and too few people were willing to pay for it. That's why Apple doesn't make it anymore.
Those who want to overclock are going to buy the high end processors anyways. But those building an MP3 server/player to integrate with their TV/stereo are not going to need a 2 Ghz processor. A 500 Mhz Pentium III (0.13 micron process) would simply need a heatsink and some airflow.
They don't even need a P III 500 Mhz. There are lots of low power choices for the embedded market. Unless you have design constraints that direct you toward an X86 chip, Power PC and Strong Arm chips likely offer more processing power per watt.
I welcome the day when megahertz is something you need to look to the "technical specs" page (and I mean technical).
It's a nice idea, but people do need to have some way to compare the relative power of products they are buying, and the industry hasn't come up with a good solution. The problem is that everytime a benchmark is created, people will design systems that are made to do well at the benchmark, and the benchmark no longer has it's original meaning.
In my opinion you don't "screw" them. They chose that business model, or at least chose to enter into a market where that is the business model everyone uses. Microsoft is also trying to convince game developers that there are a lot of XBox owners out there for them to sell games to. While selling XBoxes at a loss is a pretty expensive marketing ploy, at least they get something out of it. Depending on what you run on it you may even buy some Microsoft or Microsoft licened hardware on which they can make some money.
However, I'll probably buy some games. I play Asheron's Call, and one of the Devs kind of hinted that it may be and XBox title in the future. The hard drive will allow the XBox to support the monthly patches (which include new content, as well as some bug fixes).
Corporations limit finacial libility to the amount invested in the corporation, unless the investor commits a crime such as fraud.
Corporations do not limit individual criminal liability. Individuals are still and always should be responsible for their individual actions.
Actually, you're right, I don't like it. Gates tends to donate to causes like third world vaccines [salon.com] while he holds stock in biotech companies [businessweek.com]. Sounds like a conflict of interest there.
This rant is not intended to be polite political correct critisism. If you are offended by it, then good. If you're offended by it, then I'm probably offended by you.
This is one of the stupidest things I've seen on slashdot for a while, and it has some good competition. It's so horrible that Mr Gates invests money in boitech companies. The article says he's actually interested in seeing that the drugs work, and that they do what they are designed to do. He donates millions of dollars to vaccinate children in third world countries. There is no possible way he is actually making a profit from that just because he owns significant amounts of stock in biotech companies. However, there is a chance that it shows he really does care, and he's investing in helping create new medicines to make people's life's better.
Bill gates owns stock in a lot of companies. Someone always seems to want to whine that anything he does to help people is in some way a conflict of interest. He donates a significan portion of his income to charities to help people, especially those in dire need. He does a lot of good through those charities, and complaining about him donating money to vaccinate children so they don't die at a very young age, is beyond stupid. It's childish, craven, and pathetic. People's lives are at stake and you want to complain that possibly one or two percent of the money he donates may somehow find it's way back to him through profits of a company he owns stock in. You truely disgust me.