is don't read any adverts or click on any sponsored links.
If you follow that then IMHO, you will be safe from being deluged by Junk & totally superfulous information.
If they do this then Adobe will stop them from calling it PDF as it does not follow the PDF standard which they control. M$ can't add bits to PDF without breaking the standard unless they spend a few of their billions and buy Adobe.
I have bought a couple of Dell Servers with no software at all. You are mistaken in thinking that those without an O/S will not have a service tag. They do. This number is also contained in the BIOS.
Dear AC,
You are paying for the priveledge of watching programmes without those intensly irritating and banal advertisments. for example. 2100 Four Adverts 2102 Program Starts 2109 First Ad Break 2113 Program Resumes 2125 Second Ad Break 2128 Program Resumes 2148 Third Ad Break 2151 Program Resumes 2158 Program Ends
If I watch anything on Commercial channels I'll record it on my PVR and skip over the ads. I know that in the US, TIVO is planning of stopping this. IF that comes in here then I'll throw the TV into the recycling bin and start reading War & Peace.
If (mr AC) you don't like the BBC and the license fee, you can always go back to whence you came and continue your studies there! I'm sure you won't be missed by the rest of us.
A Clockwork Radio or a Clockwork Powergenerator for charging all those batteries modern day kit AND One of those solar cells that you can buy to trickle charge your car battery while it is sitting on your parcel shelf.
This way, you can keep in contact with whats going on around you and charge your ipod/mobile phone/flashlight etc.
Nope.
Dec had a facility in Annecy (not that far from Grenoble). Valbonne was in the south of france not far from NICE/CANNES. It was referred by some of us as the Holiday Camp. HP had an R&D Facility in Grenoble (Great for Ski slopes in the winter).
I took my redundancy cheque from Compaq in 1999 and i'm now my own boss and loving it. Many of my old dead wood managers are still there. Where I worked, if you played golf then you were pretty safe. If you told it as you saw it then you were on your way out of the door. IMHO, HP is indeed in a death spiral.
Thats easy. 1) Buy a few Senators 2) Buy some more Congressmen 3) Continue campaign to outlaw public wifi 4) Buy lots of lawyers 5) Patent the air we breathe and a method of transmitting data through it (f**k marconi etc) 6) Buy/Bribe a President or two 7) Sit back and go down with the titanic
The only Phone Co to survive would the the one that got into bed with Google and did the deal to be the carrier of choice.
The cost of insuring in the Comunist countries was actually not that high. The reason? There were hardly any other vehicles on the road apart from trucks and busses. To get a car in Russia around this time (A Lada== Fiat 124) would take and average joe citizen at least 10 years of waiting. I think you lost the plot when you said "Most people would have imply called a cab or rented a vehicly" This was the 1970's. This sort of thing (cabs & rentals) did not exist in those places(apart from Tehran). The main reason for tranelling overland was to see the places on the journey. Belive me, travelling in Communist Eastern Europe in those days was a fantastic experience. I got to meet the people and experience life as they lived it. The real people were fantastic and very friendly indeed. The following year I took the bike by air to Totonto and rode it to Vancouder in 5 days. 9Great Journey apart from the flatlands in the middle.) Last year I drove from London to Kamchatka with my new Russian born wife to meet her parents. All I can put this down to is that I'm a traveller and not a tourist.
LLoyds of London HAS NOTHING to do with LLoyds Bank Plc so you are totally wroing to call them a bank.
OTOH, Lloyds of London have a reputation of actually being able to insure those things that conventional insurance companies would not touch with a 3000 mile barge pole naturally, subject to an appropriate premium. For example, In 1976 I wanted to take my Triumph Bonieville to Tehran to attend a wedding. No insurance company would touch me for cover in places like Romania & Bulgaria (both communist) and Syria and Iran but after some consideration, a syndicate at Lloyds did cover me for the parts of the trip that other companies would not do so. And no, I didn't have to make a claim.
I went on a 3 week trip to Madagascar last fall with my 2 Nikon DSLR's and a Flashtrax 80Gb device. I took 6 512Mb CF Cards for the days shooting and at the end of the day I copied them to the Flashtrax device. Even in this very poor country main power was available in most places so the battry life was not really tested but I took a couple of spares for the two days we were in an area where there was no power. I also took an Ipod compatible Solar Panel. This trickle charged my various batteries during the day so I had no problems with batteries running out. The screen on the Flashtrax allows us to review pictures in the evening to attempt to identify various species including my attempt at photographing the elusive Fossa(success!) If you plan your trip successfully and think about spare batteries etc then any devices like these are worthwhile. On a recent trip to North norfolk, there was another DSLR user with an Archos. The screen on them is far better tha the Flashtrax but this user was extreemly frusrtated with the Software on the Archos. It would not copy the whole CF card from his Canon EOS30D but had to copy individiual folders as Canon in their wisdom insist on creating new folders on the CF Card every 100 shots! He was envious of my Nikon/Flashtrax combination which was far easier to use. So, if you are considering on of these devices to go with your Digital Camera, try one out before buying or you could end up like my Canon user friend. When buting one of these devices don't be a cheapskate and buy one of these with a small HDD. Get the 80Gb version. Then you will have plenty of space for your MP3 collection and the thousands of pictures you will take. I shot 10,000+ piccies in three weeks in Madagascar. Also, with the ever increasing numbers on MegaPixels on Digital Cameras, the size of each picture will only ever get bigger as I have found out with my new D2X. Finally, a checklist:- - Ease of use when copying Digital Media - Spare Batteries for Flashtrax/Archos etc - Spare Batteries for digital camera & flashgun - Spare Digital Media - Solar panel for trickle charging batteries - Digital Camera soft case(eg Lowepro) to put the Flashtrax/Archos/etc device in to protect it.
If you get yourself orgaqnised then these devices are brilliant.
A significant portion of the world's population earns very little so $179 to them is an absolure fortune. Take Madagascar for instance. The per capita income per year is approx $200. Yes two hundred dollars a year. Most ofthe population for not have access to Electricity, Sewerage or clean drinking water. We in thr west take all these for granted. When I visited (for the 5th time) last november, I gave a gross of pencils to a school way out in the country. They were overjoyed. I had saved them lots of money. I visited a few internet cafe's. Most were running Win98 on 64Mb PII's. They were riddled with virii. I gave one operator copies of Spybot etc so he could clean up his systems. I got an email before christmas thanking me for my help. So, the request for XP+SP2 to run on "Ancient H/W" is perfectly valid. Get rid of the bloat!
Yes. I guess that there could be a lot of GPL code inside Windows and they don't want to get caught. Therefore, if the GPL dies then they can breathe a big sigh of relief. Imagine the scale of the damages if they got caught like this. $x for the infringement and $y for each copy of the software sold. If they sufficiently pissed off the Judge (Who Me Surely not says BillG) it could make their stock become Junk. The Judge could even order it all opened up for inspection by interested companies(Now where have I seen that before. Yep SCO) so there is a precident for this type of order. Then watch the numbers of law suits escalate. Naturally, this is just speculation and guesswork and I have no evidence that this is true but... This is Microsoft...
From an ex-users point of view
on
Contrabandwidth
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
When I was working in Riyadh the compound where I Lived had two internet access routes. The first was available to all residents regardless of nationality and went via the government censored route. So, the only sites reachable were those which had been passed by the Saudi censor. The other route was only available to non Muslims was via satellite and was totally uncensored. It was very illegal but we made sure that it was kept quiet and for the 18 months I was there the service was splendid. From my experience you have to actually live in the place to understand the paranoia of the Censor. In the branch of Safeway that I regulrarly visited there were plenty of womens magazines that carried no censorship whereas any picture of a women in a magazine or paper that was aimed at men was heavily censored with the black felt tip pen.
You have never actually used one in anger. I have (in a two seat fighter aircraft)or I doubt you live in Speed Camera World (U.K.) where detecting speeding drivers is no longer a crime prevention matter but one totally dedicated to generating revenue for the Government. I got a fine for exceeding a 40mph limit on a four lane freeway at 04:00 in the morning with no other traffic in sight just because the police forgot to remove the temporary speed limit after an accident was cleared some hours earlier... A properly configured HUD is set to present clear data when your eyes are focussed at infinity. This allows you to focus you attention on the road ahead. Thats my 0.2Sum worth (finally I hope)
We get a viable HUD (Head Up Display) system. Military pilots have had these for over 20 years so it is about time this bit of military technology percolated down into civvi-street.
A HUD would allow the use of such a system without taking your eyes off the road ahead.
I would like to see legislators try to ban this though. After all how could they ban devices that are ok for the military while flying at up to Mach-2? but I am sure some politician will try to make a name for himself.
Actually, HUD displays in general for vehicles make a lot of sense. Projecting your speed onto the windscreen would solve a lot of problems where you are more intent in keeping your speed down to avoid speed cameras than watching the road ahead.
Just my 0.02zloty worth.
Totally wrong here. Only about half of the 25 member countries are holding referenda on the constitution.
As it is being staggered over possible a number of years it is also a farce as far as democracy goes. If the system was democratic, there would be a vote in all 25 member countries on the same day. Only then would be vote be truly democratic and free from outside influence.
Hi Holyness Presidente Blair does not want a referendum but has agreed to it kicking and screaming. After all they think it is "Only a tidying up exercise"... (says Peter Madelsson & others in Gov).
In fact, the constitution gives far more powers to the EU. It is an organisaton that is proven to be corrupt so we will get all we deserve if we vote for this farce. Just look how rich Neil Kinnock is now after his spell as a commissioner.
Try larger Sainsbury;s stores. They sell a Dual Band FM/DAB receiver for under £50.00(Brand name "Red"). This is a Mains/Battery receiver.
There are truly portable DAB receivers on the way to market as well(Pocketsize).
IMHO Satellite Radio is really a non starter while there is a total monopoly in service provider. SKY (prop R Murdoch) does not want it to take off so it won't. He wants all the commercial revenue from the dross he calls TV and as the parent said, its not mobile. US Satellite Radio stations are probably not receivable here in Europe as we are well outside their broadcast footprint.
I use a 2.6 kernel on my various Fedora Core 3 systems through two different KVM's and don't get this sort of behaviour. Perhaps it is your particular type of KVM that is causing the probmelemette.
In fact, there is nothing out of the ordinary with any of my systems that run through these KVM's. They are not branded types but just cheapo ones.
Thats just my 0.2tenge worth
There are quite a few suppliers of Continious inking systems for Inkjets.
If you do any serious amount of Photo Printing above 7*5 size you should really consider doing going this way. I have two A3+ printers setup like this. One with only B/W inks the other with archival quality small gamut colour inks. The result is that my costs have gone down by around 60% per sheet.
Also, the manufacturers have a habit of changing their ink formulation without notice. This way, you but ink in 500ml Bottles(about a pint!)
Finally, you can then get your printer profiled properly so that the colours are more accurate.
Do day to day printing, I use a Kyocera Laser Printer. Very low costs per sheet anyway.
Please stop the Chewbacca jokes.
He is a kind and gentle guy who used to ride a Triumph 3TA.
Chewy does not need to be associated with scum like SCO.
May Chewy live long and prosper(sorry about the star trek quote) while SCO die an ugly death.
IMHO, the ease or difficulty in porting an application really begins at the design stage. If you design for a standard(GUI apps excepted) like POSIX then porting is much easier. Granted that many things on Windows become more difficult but usually not impossible. I have written many apps over the years for diverse platforms and usualy only have to rewrite one module that contains the platform specific code.
For example, calling SYS$ & LIB$ functions on OpenVMS.
However, whe it comes to the GUI then things get a lot more indeterminate which it where the auhor is coming from.
There are some tradeoffs to be done here. Either:-
1) Design for performance
2) Design for portability
If you take the former and for example, design the GUI using Visual Studio tools then you will get something that will work and perform well on Windows but moving to other platforms is nigh on impossible.
So, where do we go in the future? Well Microsoft would want you to go down the.NET route but they ave singularly failed to release it for other platforms. Mono is there but it does not have the cachet of Mictosoft support which is needed in many companies.
Java is pretty portable and there are lots of skill out there to continue development.
There are other niche languages & environments that are portable but these have their roots in OSS and sometimes trying to itroduce something like Python into a totally Microsoft shop is like trying to make the Red Sea part. {I know as I tried this and was regarded as a subversive influence.}
The overall situation is cloudy but there are breaks of sunlight where Portability is a prime consideration and the company can reap the benefits in a MultiPlatform world.
I think that IBM also charge per CPU on many of their products. I'm not sure about DB2 but many of the Websphere range do charge per CPU
eg
mqsisetcapacity
setmqcap
etc
If Microsoft made cars thay would have been sued out of existance by now due to BSOD Suits. Their "We deny all responsibility" ELUA has a lot to answer for.
If any car made depends upon any M$ software for critical safety systems then think really hard before you buy it. Read the ELUA and ask a lawyer what happens if it fails at a critical moment. Can you sue M$? If not on't buy it.
IMHO, all car safety systems MST be certified to the same level as that required for Aircraft Avionics Systems./S
{I'd rather be riding my '69 Bonniville)
take one of their fantastic 20 or 23 inch TFT screens, mod the back to include a nice slot.
Take one MiniMac, strip the case away and mod the back panel to fit into slot in Monitor.
And bingo, you have the next iMac. Want to upgrade the processor, remove I miniMac from slot, remove HDD & ram, insert into new chassis, plug in and you are off....
Not to Apple, plese donate any royalties due to me from this idea to UNICEF.
In the words of the late great Arthur Askey,
"I Thank You..."
Slashdot Mirror
is don't read any adverts or click on any sponsored links. If you follow that then IMHO, you will be safe from being deluged by Junk & totally superfulous information.
If they do this then Adobe will stop them from calling it PDF as it does not follow the PDF standard which they control. M$ can't add bits to PDF without breaking the standard unless they spend a few of their billions and buy Adobe.
I have bought a couple of Dell Servers with no software at all. You are mistaken in thinking that those without an O/S will not have a service tag. They do. This number is also contained in the BIOS.
Dear AC,
You are paying for the priveledge of watching programmes without those intensly irritating and banal advertisments. for example.
2100 Four Adverts
2102 Program Starts
2109 First Ad Break
2113 Program Resumes
2125 Second Ad Break
2128 Program Resumes
2148 Third Ad Break
2151 Program Resumes
2158 Program Ends
If I watch anything on Commercial channels I'll record it on my PVR and skip over the ads. I know that in the US, TIVO is planning of stopping this. IF that comes in here then I'll throw the TV into the recycling bin and start reading War & Peace.
If (mr AC) you don't like the BBC and the license fee, you can always go back to whence you came and continue your studies there! I'm sure you won't be missed by the rest of us.
A Clockwork Radio or a Clockwork Powergenerator for charging all those batteries modern day kit
/mobile phone/flashlight etc.
AND
One of those solar cells that you can buy to trickle charge your car battery while it is sitting on your parcel shelf.
This way, you can keep in contact with whats going on around you and charge your ipod
I have just upgrded my ADSL connection to 2Mb/Unlimited downloads and it costs approx £17.00($30.00) per month including all taxes.
Nope.
Dec had a facility in Annecy (not that far from Grenoble). Valbonne was in the south of france not far from NICE/CANNES. It was referred by some of us as the Holiday Camp. HP had an R&D Facility in Grenoble (Great for Ski slopes in the winter).
I took my redundancy cheque from Compaq in 1999 and i'm now my own boss and loving it. Many of my old dead wood managers are still there. Where I worked, if you played golf then you were pretty safe. If you told it as you saw it then you were on your way out of the door.
IMHO, HP is indeed in a death spiral.
Thats easy.
1) Buy a few Senators
2) Buy some more Congressmen
3) Continue campaign to outlaw public wifi
4) Buy lots of lawyers
5) Patent the air we breathe and a method of transmitting data through it (f**k marconi etc)
6) Buy/Bribe a President or two
7) Sit back and go down with the titanic
The only Phone Co to survive would the the one that got into bed with Google and did the deal to be the carrier of choice.
The cost of insuring in the Comunist countries was actually not that high. The reason? There were hardly any other vehicles on the road apart from trucks and busses. To get a car in Russia around this time (A Lada== Fiat 124) would take and average joe citizen at least 10 years of waiting.
I think you lost the plot when you said
"Most people would have imply called a cab or rented a vehicly"
This was the 1970's. This sort of thing (cabs & rentals) did not exist in those places(apart from Tehran). The main reason for tranelling overland was to see the places on the journey. Belive me, travelling in Communist Eastern Europe in those days was a fantastic experience. I got to meet the people and experience life as they lived it. The real people were fantastic and very friendly indeed.
The following year I took the bike by air to Totonto and rode it to Vancouder in 5 days. 9Great Journey apart from the flatlands in the middle.)
Last year I drove from London to Kamchatka with my new Russian born wife to meet her parents.
All I can put this down to is that I'm a traveller and not a tourist.
LLoyds of London HAS NOTHING to do with LLoyds Bank Plc so you are totally wroing to call them a bank.
OTOH, Lloyds of London have a reputation of actually being able to insure those things that conventional insurance companies would not touch with a 3000 mile barge pole naturally, subject to an appropriate premium.
For example, In 1976 I wanted to take my Triumph Bonieville to Tehran to attend a wedding. No insurance company would touch me for cover in places like Romania & Bulgaria (both communist) and Syria and Iran but after some consideration, a syndicate at Lloyds did cover me for the parts of the trip that other companies would not do so.
And no, I didn't have to make a claim.
I went on a 3 week trip to Madagascar last fall with my 2 Nikon DSLR's and a Flashtrax 80Gb device. I took 6 512Mb CF Cards for the days shooting and at the end of the day I copied them to the Flashtrax device. Even in this very poor country main power was available in most places so the battry life was not really tested but I took a couple of spares for the two days we were in an area where there was no power. I also took an Ipod compatible Solar Panel. This trickle charged my various batteries during the day so I had no problems with batteries running out.
The screen on the Flashtrax allows us to review pictures in the evening to attempt to identify various species including my attempt at photographing the elusive Fossa(success!)
If you plan your trip successfully and think about spare batteries etc then any devices like these are worthwhile.
On a recent trip to North norfolk, there was another DSLR user with an Archos. The screen on them is far better tha the Flashtrax but this user was extreemly frusrtated with the Software on the Archos. It would not copy the whole CF card from his Canon EOS30D but had to copy individiual folders as Canon in their wisdom insist on creating new folders on the CF Card every 100 shots!
He was envious of my Nikon/Flashtrax combination which was far easier to use.
So, if you are considering on of these devices to go with your Digital Camera, try one out before buying or you could end up like my Canon user friend.
When buting one of these devices don't be a cheapskate and buy one of these with a small HDD. Get the 80Gb version. Then you will have plenty of space for your MP3 collection and the thousands of pictures you will take. I shot 10,000+ piccies in three weeks in Madagascar.
Also, with the ever increasing numbers on MegaPixels on Digital Cameras, the size of each picture will only ever get bigger as I have found out with my new D2X.
Finally, a checklist:-
- Ease of use when copying Digital Media
- Spare Batteries for Flashtrax/Archos etc
- Spare Batteries for digital camera & flashgun
- Spare Digital Media
- Solar panel for trickle charging batteries
- Digital Camera soft case(eg Lowepro) to put the Flashtrax/Archos/etc device in to protect it.
If you get yourself orgaqnised then these devices are brilliant.
A significant portion of the world's population earns very little so $179 to them is an absolure fortune. Take Madagascar for instance. The per capita income per year is approx $200. Yes two hundred dollars a year. Most ofthe population for not have access to Electricity, Sewerage or clean drinking water. We in thr west take all these for granted.
When I visited (for the 5th time) last november, I gave a gross of pencils to a school way out in the country. They were overjoyed. I had saved them lots of money.
I visited a few internet cafe's. Most were running Win98 on 64Mb PII's. They were riddled with virii. I gave one operator copies of Spybot etc so he could clean up his systems. I got an email before christmas thanking me for my help.
So, the request for XP+SP2 to run on "Ancient H/W" is perfectly valid. Get rid of the bloat!
Yes.
I guess that there could be a lot of GPL code inside Windows and they don't want to get caught. Therefore, if the GPL dies then they can breathe a big sigh of relief.
Imagine the scale of the damages if they got caught like this. $x for the infringement and $y for each copy of the software sold. If they sufficiently pissed off the Judge (Who Me Surely not says BillG) it could make their stock become Junk. The Judge could even order it all opened up for inspection by interested companies(Now where have I seen that before. Yep SCO) so there is a precident for this type of order. Then watch the numbers of law suits escalate. Naturally, this is just speculation and guesswork and I have no evidence that this is true but...
This is Microsoft...
When I was working in Riyadh the compound where I Lived had two internet access routes. The first was available to all residents regardless of nationality and went via the government censored route. So, the only sites reachable were those which had been passed by the Saudi censor.
The other route was only available to non Muslims was via satellite and was totally uncensored. It was very illegal but we made sure that it was kept quiet and for the 18 months I was there the service was splendid.
From my experience you have to actually live in the place to understand the paranoia of the Censor. In the branch of Safeway that I regulrarly visited there were plenty of womens magazines that carried no censorship whereas any picture of a women in a magazine or paper that was aimed at men was heavily censored with the black felt tip pen.
just my 0.02riyals worth
You have never actually used one in anger. I have (in a two seat fighter aircraft)or I doubt you live in Speed Camera World (U.K.) where detecting speeding drivers is no longer a crime prevention matter but one totally dedicated to generating revenue for the Government.
I got a fine for exceeding a 40mph limit on a four lane freeway at 04:00 in the morning with no other traffic in sight just because the police forgot to remove the temporary speed limit after an accident was cleared some hours earlier...
A properly configured HUD is set to present clear data when your eyes are focussed at infinity. This allows you to focus you attention on the road ahead.
Thats my 0.2Sum worth (finally I hope)
I would like to see legislators try to ban this though. After all how could they ban devices that are ok for the military while flying at up to Mach-2? but I am sure some politician will try to make a name for himself.
Actually, HUD displays in general for vehicles make a lot of sense. Projecting your speed onto the windscreen would solve a lot of problems where you are more intent in keeping your speed down to avoid speed cameras than watching the road ahead. Just my 0.02zloty worth.
Totally wrong here. Only about half of the 25 member countries are holding referenda on the constitution. As it is being staggered over possible a number of years it is also a farce as far as democracy goes. If the system was democratic, there would be a vote in all 25 member countries on the same day. Only then would be vote be truly democratic and free from outside influence. Hi Holyness Presidente Blair does not want a referendum but has agreed to it kicking and screaming. After all they think it is "Only a tidying up exercise"... (says Peter Madelsson & others in Gov). In fact, the constitution gives far more powers to the EU. It is an organisaton that is proven to be corrupt so we will get all we deserve if we vote for this farce. Just look how rich Neil Kinnock is now after his spell as a commissioner.
Try larger Sainsbury;s stores. They sell a Dual Band FM/DAB receiver for under £50.00(Brand name "Red"). This is a Mains/Battery receiver. There are truly portable DAB receivers on the way to market as well(Pocketsize). IMHO Satellite Radio is really a non starter while there is a total monopoly in service provider. SKY (prop R Murdoch) does not want it to take off so it won't. He wants all the commercial revenue from the dross he calls TV and as the parent said, its not mobile. US Satellite Radio stations are probably not receivable here in Europe as we are well outside their broadcast footprint.
I use a 2.6 kernel on my various Fedora Core 3 systems through two different KVM's and don't get this sort of behaviour. Perhaps it is your particular type of KVM that is causing the probmelemette. In fact, there is nothing out of the ordinary with any of my systems that run through these KVM's. They are not branded types but just cheapo ones. Thats just my 0.2tenge worth
There are quite a few suppliers of Continious inking systems for Inkjets.
If you do any serious amount of Photo Printing above 7*5 size you should really consider doing going this way. I have two A3+ printers setup like this. One with only B/W inks the other with archival quality small gamut colour inks. The result is that my costs have gone down by around 60% per sheet.
Also, the manufacturers have a habit of changing their ink formulation without notice. This way, you but ink in 500ml Bottles(about a pint!) Finally, you can then get your printer profiled properly so that the colours are more accurate.
Do day to day printing, I use a Kyocera Laser Printer. Very low costs per sheet anyway.
Please stop the Chewbacca jokes. He is a kind and gentle guy who used to ride a Triumph 3TA. Chewy does not need to be associated with scum like SCO. May Chewy live long and prosper(sorry about the star trek quote) while SCO die an ugly death.
IMHO, the ease or difficulty in porting an application really begins at the design stage. If you design for a standard(GUI apps excepted) like POSIX then porting is much easier. Granted that many things on Windows become more difficult but usually not impossible. I have written many apps over the years for diverse platforms and usualy only have to rewrite one module that contains the platform specific code. For example, calling SYS$ & LIB$ functions on OpenVMS. However, whe it comes to the GUI then things get a lot more indeterminate which it where the auhor is coming from. There are some tradeoffs to be done here. Either:- 1) Design for performance 2) Design for portability If you take the former and for example, design the GUI using Visual Studio tools then you will get something that will work and perform well on Windows but moving to other platforms is nigh on impossible. So, where do we go in the future? Well Microsoft would want you to go down the .NET route but they ave singularly failed to release it for other platforms. Mono is there but it does not have the cachet of Mictosoft support which is needed in many companies.
Java is pretty portable and there are lots of skill out there to continue development.
There are other niche languages & environments that are portable but these have their roots in OSS and sometimes trying to itroduce something like Python into a totally Microsoft shop is like trying to make the Red Sea part. {I know as I tried this and was regarded as a subversive influence.}
The overall situation is cloudy but there are breaks of sunlight where Portability is a prime consideration and the company can reap the benefits in a MultiPlatform world.
I think that IBM also charge per CPU on many of their products. I'm not sure about DB2 but many of the Websphere range do charge per CPU eg mqsisetcapacity setmqcap etc
If Microsoft made cars thay would have been sued out of existance by now due to BSOD Suits. Their "We deny all responsibility" ELUA has a lot to answer for. If any car made depends upon any M$ software for critical safety systems then think really hard before you buy it. Read the ELUA and ask a lawyer what happens if it fails at a critical moment. Can you sue M$? If not on't buy it. IMHO, all car safety systems MST be certified to the same level as that required for Aircraft Avionics Systems. /S
{I'd rather be riding my '69 Bonniville)
take one of their fantastic 20 or 23 inch TFT screens, mod the back to include a nice slot. Take one MiniMac, strip the case away and mod the back panel to fit into slot in Monitor. And bingo, you have the next iMac. Want to upgrade the processor, remove I miniMac from slot, remove HDD & ram, insert into new chassis, plug in and you are off.... Not to Apple, plese donate any royalties due to me from this idea to UNICEF. In the words of the late great Arthur Askey, "I Thank You..."