Whoa Whoa Whoa- they said that they didn't need the filter on (which we had on by default) and asked for it to be turned off. Who am I to deny them the Spam they are asking for.
All I'm saying is that many foliks don't realize the sheer volume of crap that is stopped at the SMTP level due to RBLs, manually denying IPs, manually denying Spam domains, SpamAssassin and so on. These are folks who had Spam features installed when they were getting 5 Spam messages a day before the sheet volume of Spam increased on the net. They fail to realize that 90-something percent of all e-mail is junk, and many of these folks send their e-mail everywhere they can.
All I'm saying is that on long-term e-mail addresses, folks don't realize how much Spam senders they actually accumulate and how much is actually being blocked. The same ones that complain about the 5 that they get a day, and want those stopped, not realizing that there are 50 that are blocked for every one that shows up in your inbox.
So by your comment, you want us to deny their request and tell them that if they want unfiltered e-mail, they should go find a company that can actually provide the service that they're specifically asking for. Hrm- that seems worse for business does it not?
We block roughly 96% of Spam on average (at times of day 85% and at other times of day 99% depending on actual volume) and tag a few percent of 'maybes' on top of that. Every once in a while someone will whine about how they are getting so much Spam and that these Spam filters are useless. So I tell them I'll take it off for 24 hours. A few thousand e-mails to some of their inboxes later and I receive a praise letter and small gift in the mail.
In any case, folks complain like anything about the 3-5 Spam e-mail messages they get a day (most of which are tagged) and have no real view as to what is actually out there. It's like taking out someones immune system for a day (except they won't die of course).
More important would be how the e-mail system would survive with 10-30 second delays on every mail as the spamhaus lookups fail.
Actually Fast and the Furious # 3 has 20% more plot than the previous two movies combined. If it wasn't for that guy's (Lucas Black aka "Sean Boswell" in the movie) absolutely horrible accent, the movie would be pretty hard to top.
Plus it'll lead way for Need For Speed: Carbon- bringing back the drift modes again.
We all know that the answer to this problem is to represent numbers as non-approximate values.
If you have a fixed number of decimals, just including a point in an integer will save storage space: 12345 = 123.45 Alternately, store as strings (though accept 8 bits per character, including decimal) and use string math, such as bcmath. This of course at the expense of speed.
You will maintain perfect precision in these cases.
The FPU uses exponents and anyone with the basics of programming knows this. Now we all know why you "don't let your 12 year old niece" make your crucial purchasing software or online store as is all too common- they ignore these facts and feel that double and single are good types... until you fail to balance at the end of the year.
But the server market would love it. Jack up the RAM and a server can not handle more requests at a time with the same space. Anything non-disk intensive will benefit from 8-cores * 2 processors = 16-way.
And on to 8 cores on the desktop- There is all this talk about not needing the power, but the power is the first step to making the computers better. Think about something as simple as spell check. There once was a time when a Spell check took a minute or so of it scanning the document and hashing at databases. Naturally, you had to manually invoke this, as it pretty much froze up your computer for a while. Now today- it has the power. It just runs the spell check in the background. In theory, you're not supposed to notice (though you can see the speed problems when you type quickly).
So why the spell check example? More power means less waiting. Why should it wait for me to click to open the program? It should have it open for me! Why should I tell it to load a Web page- As I approach the link, it should assume I might do that and get me my Web page [look at FireFox's pre-fetching]. When I click Start|Programs|Adobe and there is Photoshop and Illustrator, take that 1 second between choosing Adobe and before I choose the program and get both ready to go. Render my graphic in 20 of the most common ways so I don't have to wait for it to render. Load the next song for me in the background. Keep a database of my music and figure out what I'm going to do next.
This may all sound crazy, but put some thought into how much time you spend waiting on things to happen- common tasks that if a computer monitored the way you use your computer, would be able to do the right thing most of the time- either for you or have it ready for you in the background in case you do click the option it has learnt that you will have. We have memory, we have disk space, we have processing power- The slowest part is the end user- so lets reduce the wait time and use that power for good.
if you're literate enough to notice that, you should be able to use a search engine and figure out how to tweak it
I think you're missing the point. This is a consumer operating browser for the average user. Firefox should be smart enough to expire the memory cache either outright or to disk as it grows beyond a certain size. That size should also be set at a conservative (64MB maybe?) size to start with.
You, my friend, should be the one tweaking to get additional performance or make use of the 1-2GB of available RAM you probably have- not your average shmo with a Intel-Cellery processor and 192MB of RAM.
Am I the only one that believes that things should work right out of the box in 99% of the cases? Look at Linux's file cache system. buffers/cache will use most of the available memory, but when you start filling your memory, it reduces them instantly. Now of course FireFox doesn't have this power. It should be more sane to start with.
PS: As a side note, those of you in the OS world know that free() on Linux and Windows returns memory to the program, and not to the OS. So realisticly, Firefox should never use too much in the first place, as that won't go to the OS until the program exits.
So:
- small MEMORY cache to start with (64MB maybe?)
- configurable to make it bigger
- expiration policy to memory or disk
- minimal growth in application size due to reclaimation time on an application that pretty much doesn't close most of the time and hence won't release its memory
Unsolicited commercial faxxing is illegal in many parts of the world- at least sans the USA.
Now lets recall that this is:
- solicited: they asked to get copies of the receipts, multiple times.
- non-commercial: this is an individual who is a customer of the company, sending requested information.
While all you want, but it sounds like that wouldn't last long in court anyway -M
Now the question you may be asking is "Why aren't they waiting until Vista"? It makes perfect sense to leave XP as is and put the time and effort into a great copy protection scheme for Vista that takes full advantage of the connected world.
The answer? If they do it in the final 6 months of XP, people (mainly companies) are forced to buy XP, then upgrade to Vista, rather than just buy Vista outright. Pure money-grab.
Am I the only one a bit tired of large networks being used for small systems? Why are you hooking your dryer up to the Internet to send an instant message to MSN/ICQ/AOL/Yahoo/Google to come to your computer? Isn't that silly?
First, a dryer takes a fixed amount of time. If you can't estimate 40 minutes, seek professional help.
Second, the buzzer was always a good method. Many newer washer/dryers have remote devices like a pager that wirelessly buzzes you when it's done. A useful feature for those in big houses who can't hear their dryer/washer buzz at them.
That is a short-range solution, and how it should be. If you're not within a few hundred feet of your washer, you're not going to run home and change your laundry.
If you're trying to notify someone in the next room, why are we using the Internet? When would you ever have to turn on something that requires loading remotely?
That will be _SO_ helpful when you lock yourself out of your own system.
and force everyone to use public/private key authentication
Will be great if your hard drive fails, keychain with your memory key gets stolen, or you're not at your office computer.
Rat our passwords all you want, but combined with throttling/limiting/detection on the server passwords are about as secure as they come. Note my qualifier here. There are tons of scripts, and I run them on all of my servers, that will parse/var/log/auth (or whatever you have set up) and find the failed password or invalid user strings. Five-Ten failed passwords and your IP gets denied for a while (/etc/hosts.deny or iptables- your pick).
These scripts are readily available on the net, and are easy to make as well.
This will protect brute force and easy passwords. Now your users just naming their password after their dog will always be a problem. Requiring complexity (a number or mixed case) will be key to securing those passwords, although I'm sure are directly correlated with an increase in support calls.
"Ohhh! A monkey is asking for my credit card number. That sounds reasonable and fair!"
There are those 'surveys' (many posted around slashdot) that want you to pick the phishing attempts.
Look at any major company- financial institutions, etc- they never send you e-mail. they never ask for your e-mail. You never get credit card info via e-mail.
This is where paypal went wrong- they depend on e-mail, and for anything that deals with money, there should never be an e-mail address on file.
The show didn't replace with Seven. It was in the 'valuable life lesson' stage, where they were trying to _teach_ you to never let visitors go out for cigarettes and leave their child in your home. Especially when your wife wants another kid. It's an important thing to teach the future parents of this world. They need to include something similar on Sesseme Street.
unlike the simpsons? how about lisa becoming a vegetarian in season 7; apu getting married, later having kids, then cheating on his wife and going to marriage counseling (this story spanned 4 seasons). or barney going sober in season 11, and not relapsing till season 14? cripes, maud died in season 11 or so, and flanders spent the next year getting over it and then started dating. there is tons of progression happening in the show, its one of the things that makes the simpsons world so great. there is story, depth, history.
I'm not saying that there's no happenings that they cary through. That'd be silly if it didn't. Unlike the Simpsons, Futurama characters age. They develop in personality. They constantly refer to past experiences. The next episodes takes into account the previous, allowing relationships and interactions to develop with the characters.
You'll also notice that I'm talking about main characters and the only one you mentioned was Lisa being a vegetarian. Funny- seems Bart has been int he same grade for 14 seasons, Homer has been fired so many times yet mysteriously has his job the next week, and so on. Yes they still call Marge's sister a lesbian in recent episodes, but these are all gimmicks. There is minimal progression with the main characters beyond the occasional reference.
Yes the Simpsons has history, but they don't make enough use of it. A part of what makes people interesting is freshness, is seeing characters grow up. Think of your typical 'family' show... ummm... Full House, Family Matters, etc. You watched these folks grow up. You see that on Futurama. You don't watch Bart grow as a person. You don't watch Homer change. You just see him doing stupid jokes that he gets written for.
Simpsons should have died around season 11-12 when it was already bad for a few years (though of course firing the writers a few seasons before that because they asked for raises because everyone else got them but them probably didn't help). It's painful to watch these days. I'd say the movie in 2007 will be the farewell.
Most shows have some kind of continuity and Futurama does. Sure they'll be a bit random and break rules at times (take that Bender is made of 40% of Zinc, 40% of Titanium and 40% of Dolomite- 120% for those of you who are reading this early in the morning), but in general unlike the Simpsons, the show progresses. The characters age, have different birthdays, refer to events in the past. You'll also notice the love between Fry and Leela developing. Take the later episodes like 'The Sting' where Fry takes a giant bee for Leela, and the many loving things they do that continues to bring them closer, as well as the same thing on the Amy side.
PS: best episode ever: Jurassic Bark.... poor Seymour the dog.
Family Guy Season 4+ sucks.
on
Futurama Returns
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
As long as they don't try too hard like Family Guy is doing. I have to say, Family Guy these days is boring as anything. First three seasons were mint, but what they're coming out with now is total crap. Previously it was edgy, but funny. Now they just go for offensive for the sake of offensive. The plots are horrible, and just aren't trying.
Raise your hand if you have read any documentation included with any software you purchased in the past five years. Anyone? Anyone?
Okay then- raise your hand if you know that there are 600-odd page gorilla Linux reference books out there which may provide documentation should you need it that will be 100x better than anything included with the software.
Raise your hand if you know where to seek help, such as #linuxhelp and #linux on EFNet.
Case in point. Why not put a properly run linux server against a properly run Windows server- that is what it comes down to. A trained, professional, and experienced admin who has learnt the software they are running and know it well, in a specific purpose. Put Linux as a fileserver against Windows as a fileserver with any optimizations possible and equivalent configurations that are agreed upon beforehand. Put Linux versus Windows as a Web server with a knowledgable admin. This `good at neither` system doesn`t work! -M
"PHP started as a quick Perl hack written by Rasmus Lerdorf in late 1994. Over the next two to three years, it evolved into what we today know as PHP/FI 2.0." -- http://www.zend.com/zend/art/intro.php#Heading4
Notice? quick Perl hack? PHP was intended to fill a need of a developer. It's since developed into a much larger language and continues to evolve. Whereas C has remained constant, PHP keeps evolving. C's library functions are pretty static, whereas PHP keeps changing. It keeps meeting needs.
PHP5 redefined much of its class structure and enforced good practices with itterators. It introduced strict error reporting which makes it easier to spot sloppy code and improve it. Keeping with the argument, Basic evolved to interpreted visual basic which involved to the current compiled visual basic- a language now taken seriously by many development firms. PHP similarly keeps evolving. It becomes faster and provides more extensions, more options, more stability, more power, and ease of use.
MySQL too started a bit sloppy up to and including MySQL3. It loosely borrowed from standards, and lacked the robustness seen in many databases. Take a look at MySQL4, and now MySQL 5 and 5.1. No more does it just truncate input without raising an error or warning! No more is its date handling completely improper. No more does it lack key features that other databases have been providing for years. Again- it's come a long way.
Apache? You're telling me that Apache isn't ready? 1.3 apache is still the most popular on the net. 2.0 Apache (and now 2.2) is a huge upgrade to ensure it's success in the future, by enabling different module structures to do more and do it better, as well as provide a more extensible and compatible engine. Some say 2.0/2.2 isn't ready, but if that's true, it sure is on its way to being here- countless big websites use it.
People are so quick to bash other languages. PHP was never a 'learning language'- It's intended to be easy for home user yet powerful enough for a Web developer to make a huge corporate site out of... and it seems to be doing both very well. It's only as good as the programmer at the helm.
Telecom carrier? I'd doubt it. Internet service provider- fine- but they're not a carrier.
Telecom carriers are Long Distance providers, and Ma-Bell providers around the globe. They are the ones that provide power into your home for your phone service as well as the service itself. They are the ones that do switching entirely on closed circuts.
Carrier grade is usually coined as 5-9's (9.9999%) which is friggin amazing. It's what the systems are designed for, and they usually pull it off.
A speadsheet is just like a blank word document or piece of paper. You put stuff on it. Any stuff in fact. Right or wrong, it's just data.
Doing accounting on paper leads to hard-to-read or misread digits, space considerations, inverting numbers, aligning numbers improperly and other key problems. A spreadsheet fixes many of these problems, but when it comes down to it, what's on the spreadsheet is what you put there [or what auto-correct put there]. Same thing- a calculator adds what you enter (or mis-enter). If you entered the wrong thing in a spreadsheet, at least it's easy to spot.
The answer? check your work. Go back and verify the numbers there. Go back and make sure things balance. Have the hard receipts of what you're totalling as a good copy of anything you do.
Why is this even a question on Slashdot? Make a formula to total and check sanity of numbers, which may help. When it comes down to it though, just take care in what you enter and make sure it's right afterwards.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa Whoa Whoa- they said that they didn't need the filter on (which we had on by default) and asked for it to be turned off. Who am I to deny them the Spam they are asking for.
All I'm saying is that many foliks don't realize the sheer volume of crap that is stopped at the SMTP level due to RBLs, manually denying IPs, manually denying Spam domains, SpamAssassin and so on. These are folks who had Spam features installed when they were getting 5 Spam messages a day before the sheet volume of Spam increased on the net. They fail to realize that 90-something percent of all e-mail is junk, and many of these folks send their e-mail everywhere they can.
All I'm saying is that on long-term e-mail addresses, folks don't realize how much Spam senders they actually accumulate and how much is actually being blocked. The same ones that complain about the 5 that they get a day, and want those stopped, not realizing that there are 50 that are blocked for every one that shows up in your inbox.
So by your comment, you want us to deny their request and tell them that if they want unfiltered e-mail, they should go find a company that can actually provide the service that they're specifically asking for. Hrm- that seems worse for business does it not?
-M
Been There- Done That.
We block roughly 96% of Spam on average (at times of day 85% and at other times of day 99% depending on actual volume) and tag a few percent of 'maybes' on top of that. Every once in a while someone will whine about how they are getting so much Spam and that these Spam filters are useless. So I tell them I'll take it off for 24 hours. A few thousand e-mails to some of their inboxes later and I receive a praise letter and small gift in the mail.
In any case, folks complain like anything about the 3-5 Spam e-mail messages they get a day (most of which are tagged) and have no real view as to what is actually out there. It's like taking out someones immune system for a day (except they won't die of course).
More important would be how the e-mail system would survive with 10-30 second delays on every mail as the spamhaus lookups fail.
-M
Actually Fast and the Furious # 3 has 20% more plot than the previous two movies combined.
If it wasn't for that guy's (Lucas Black aka "Sean Boswell" in the movie) absolutely horrible accent, the movie would be pretty hard to top.
Plus it'll lead way for Need For Speed: Carbon- bringing back the drift modes again.
In any case, it wasn't that bad.
-M
Sounds like a less funny version of Tripping The Rift.
-M
We all know that the answer to this problem is to represent numbers as non-approximate values.
If you have a fixed number of decimals, just including a point in an integer will save storage space: 12345 = 123.45
Alternately, store as strings (though accept 8 bits per character, including decimal) and use string math, such as bcmath. This of course at the expense of speed.
You will maintain perfect precision in these cases.
The FPU uses exponents and anyone with the basics of programming knows this. Now we all know why you "don't let your 12 year old niece" make your crucial purchasing software or online store as is all too common- they ignore these facts and feel that double and single are good types... until you fail to balance at the end of the year.
-M
But the server market would love it. Jack up the RAM and a server can not handle more requests at a time with the same space. Anything non-disk intensive will benefit from 8-cores * 2 processors = 16-way.
And on to 8 cores on the desktop- There is all this talk about not needing the power, but the power is the first step to making the computers better. Think about something as simple as spell check. There once was a time when a Spell check took a minute or so of it scanning the document and hashing at databases. Naturally, you had to manually invoke this, as it pretty much froze up your computer for a while. Now today- it has the power. It just runs the spell check in the background. In theory, you're not supposed to notice (though you can see the speed problems when you type quickly).
So why the spell check example? More power means less waiting. Why should it wait for me to click to open the program? It should have it open for me! Why should I tell it to load a Web page- As I approach the link, it should assume I might do that and get me my Web page [look at FireFox's pre-fetching]. When I click Start|Programs|Adobe and there is Photoshop and Illustrator, take that 1 second between choosing Adobe and before I choose the program and get both ready to go. Render my graphic in 20 of the most common ways so I don't have to wait for it to render. Load the next song for me in the background. Keep a database of my music and figure out what I'm going to do next.
This may all sound crazy, but put some thought into how much time you spend waiting on things to happen- common tasks that if a computer monitored the way you use your computer, would be able to do the right thing most of the time- either for you or have it ready for you in the background in case you do click the option it has learnt that you will have. We have memory, we have disk space, we have processing power- The slowest part is the end user- so lets reduce the wait time and use that power for good.
-M
I think you're missing the point. This is a consumer operating browser for the average user. Firefox should be smart enough to expire the memory cache either outright or to disk as it grows beyond a certain size. That size should also be set at a conservative (64MB maybe?) size to start with.
You, my friend, should be the one tweaking to get additional performance or make use of the 1-2GB of available RAM you probably have- not your average shmo with a Intel-Cellery processor and 192MB of RAM.
Am I the only one that believes that things should work right out of the box in 99% of the cases? Look at Linux's file cache system. buffers/cache will use most of the available memory, but when you start filling your memory, it reduces them instantly. Now of course FireFox doesn't have this power. It should be more sane to start with.
PS: As a side note, those of you in the OS world know that free() on Linux and Windows returns memory to the program, and not to the OS. So realisticly, Firefox should never use too much in the first place, as that won't go to the OS until the program exits.
So:
- small MEMORY cache to start with (64MB maybe?)
- configurable to make it bigger
- expiration policy to memory or disk
- minimal growth in application size due to reclaimation time on an application that pretty much doesn't close most of the time and hence won't release its memory
-M
Another useless intention for those of you who don't want to listen to and squeeze your fruit.
Why are we solving problems that don't exist?
-M
Unsolicited commercial faxxing is illegal in many parts of the world- at least sans the USA.
Now lets recall that this is:
- solicited: they asked to get copies of the receipts, multiple times.
- non-commercial: this is an individual who is a customer of the company, sending requested information.
While all you want, but it sounds like that wouldn't last long in court anyway
-M
Like when they started embedding SiS chipsets and graphic chipsets onto motherboards... Who needs stability when you have cheap hardware?
-M
That's the whole point!
Now the question you may be asking is "Why aren't they waiting until Vista"? It makes perfect sense to leave XP as is and put the time and effort into a great copy protection scheme for Vista that takes full advantage of the connected world.
The answer? If they do it in the final 6 months of XP, people (mainly companies) are forced to buy XP, then upgrade to Vista, rather than just buy Vista outright. Pure money-grab.
-M
Am I the only one a bit tired of large networks being used for small systems? Why are you hooking your dryer up to the Internet to send an instant message to MSN/ICQ/AOL/Yahoo/Google to come to your computer? Isn't that silly?
First, a dryer takes a fixed amount of time. If you can't estimate 40 minutes, seek professional help.
Second, the buzzer was always a good method. Many newer washer/dryers have remote devices like a pager that wirelessly buzzes you when it's done. A useful feature for those in big houses who can't hear their dryer/washer buzz at them.
That is a short-range solution, and how it should be. If you're not within a few hundred feet of your washer, you're not going to run home and change your laundry.
If you're trying to notify someone in the next room, why are we using the Internet? When would you ever have to turn on something that requires loading remotely?
-M
That will be _SO_ helpful when you lock yourself out of your own system.
Will be great if your hard drive fails, keychain with your memory key gets stolen, or you're not at your office computer.
Rat our passwords all you want, but combined with throttling/limiting/detection on the server passwords are about as secure as they come. Note my qualifier here. There are tons of scripts, and I run them on all of my servers, that will parse
These scripts are readily available on the net, and are easy to make as well.
This will protect brute force and easy passwords. Now your users just naming their password after their dog will always be a problem. Requiring complexity (a number or mixed case) will be key to securing those passwords, although I'm sure are directly correlated with an increase in support calls.
-M
Corel still exists? Have they produced anything since Corel Draw for Windows 3.11?
That's one company that is going nowhere at record speed!
-M
Phishing works because people are idiots.
"Ohhh! A monkey is asking for my credit card number. That sounds reasonable and fair!"
There are those 'surveys' (many posted around slashdot) that want you to pick the phishing attempts.
Look at any major company- financial institutions, etc- they never send you e-mail. they never ask for your e-mail. You never get credit card info via e-mail.
This is where paypal went wrong- they depend on e-mail, and for anything that deals with money, there should never be an e-mail address on file.
-M
for the record, that was intended entirely as a joke, treating Married With Children as a lesson-teaching show. Yeah- Seven sucked.
-M
The show didn't replace with Seven. It was in the 'valuable life lesson' stage, where they were trying to _teach_ you to never let visitors go out for cigarettes and leave their child in your home. Especially when your wife wants another kid. It's an important thing to teach the future parents of this world. They need to include something similar on Sesseme Street.
-M
I'm not saying that there's no happenings that they cary through. That'd be silly if it didn't. Unlike the Simpsons, Futurama characters age. They develop in personality. They constantly refer to past experiences. The next episodes takes into account the previous, allowing relationships and interactions to develop with the characters.
You'll also notice that I'm talking about main characters and the only one you mentioned was Lisa being a vegetarian. Funny- seems Bart has been int he same grade for 14 seasons, Homer has been fired so many times yet mysteriously has his job the next week, and so on. Yes they still call Marge's sister a lesbian in recent episodes, but these are all gimmicks. There is minimal progression with the main characters beyond the occasional reference.
Yes the Simpsons has history, but they don't make enough use of it. A part of what makes people interesting is freshness, is seeing characters grow up. Think of your typical 'family' show... ummm... Full House, Family Matters, etc. You watched these folks grow up. You see that on Futurama. You don't watch Bart grow as a person. You don't watch Homer change. You just see him doing stupid jokes that he gets written for.
Simpsons should have died around season 11-12 when it was already bad for a few years (though of course firing the writers a few seasons before that because they asked for raises because everyone else got them but them probably didn't help). It's painful to watch these days. I'd say the movie in 2007 will be the farewell.
-M
To quote pinky: yeah but ... "apply north pole to what?" :)
It was a great episode. Forgot about that one. Though that was 10-11 years ago by now.
-M
Most shows have some kind of continuity and Futurama does. Sure they'll be a bit random and break rules at times (take that Bender is made of 40% of Zinc, 40% of Titanium and 40% of Dolomite- 120% for those of you who are reading this early in the morning), but in general unlike the Simpsons, the show progresses. The characters age, have different birthdays, refer to events in the past. You'll also notice the love between Fry and Leela developing. Take the later episodes like 'The Sting' where Fry takes a giant bee for Leela, and the many loving things they do that continues to bring them closer, as well as the same thing on the Amy side.
PS: best episode ever: Jurassic Bark.... poor Seymour the dog.
As long as they don't try too hard like Family Guy is doing. I have to say, Family Guy these days is boring as anything. First three seasons were mint, but what they're coming out with now is total crap. Previously it was edgy, but funny. Now they just go for offensive for the sake of offensive. The plots are horrible, and just aren't trying.
-M
Raise your hand if you have read any documentation included with any software you purchased in the past five years. Anyone? Anyone?
Okay then- raise your hand if you know that there are 600-odd page gorilla Linux reference books out there which may provide documentation should you need it that will be 100x better than anything included with the software.
Raise your hand if you know where to seek help, such as #linuxhelp and #linux on EFNet.
Case in point. Why not put a properly run linux server against a properly run Windows server- that is what it comes down to. A trained, professional, and experienced admin who has learnt the software they are running and know it well, in a specific purpose. Put Linux as a fileserver against Windows as a fileserver with any optimizations possible and equivalent configurations that are agreed upon beforehand. Put Linux versus Windows as a Web server with a knowledgable admin. This `good at neither` system doesn`t work!
-M
Notice? quick Perl hack? PHP was intended to fill a need of a developer. It's since developed into a much larger language and continues to evolve. Whereas C has remained constant, PHP keeps evolving. C's library functions are pretty static, whereas PHP keeps changing. It keeps meeting needs.
PHP5 redefined much of its class structure and enforced good practices with itterators. It introduced strict error reporting which makes it easier to spot sloppy code and improve it. Keeping with the argument, Basic evolved to interpreted visual basic which involved to the current compiled visual basic- a language now taken seriously by many development firms. PHP similarly keeps evolving. It becomes faster and provides more extensions, more options, more stability, more power, and ease of use.
MySQL too started a bit sloppy up to and including MySQL3. It loosely borrowed from standards, and lacked the robustness seen in many databases. Take a look at MySQL4, and now MySQL 5 and 5.1. No more does it just truncate input without raising an error or warning! No more is its date handling completely improper. No more does it lack key features that other databases have been providing for years. Again- it's come a long way.
Apache? You're telling me that Apache isn't ready? 1.3 apache is still the most popular on the net. 2.0 Apache (and now 2.2) is a huge upgrade to ensure it's success in the future, by enabling different module structures to do more and do it better, as well as provide a more extensible and compatible engine. Some say 2.0/2.2 isn't ready, but if that's true, it sure is on its way to being here- countless big websites use it.
People are so quick to bash other languages. PHP was never a 'learning language'- It's intended to be easy for home user yet powerful enough for a Web developer to make a huge corporate site out of... and it seems to be doing both very well. It's only as good as the programmer at the helm.
-M
Telecom carrier? I'd doubt it. Internet service provider- fine- but they're not a carrier.
Telecom carriers are Long Distance providers, and Ma-Bell providers around the globe. They are the ones that provide power into your home for your phone service as well as the service itself. They are the ones that do switching entirely on closed circuts.
Carrier grade is usually coined as 5-9's (9.9999%) which is friggin amazing. It's what the systems are designed for, and they usually pull it off.
-M
A speadsheet is just like a blank word document or piece of paper. You put stuff on it. Any stuff in fact. Right or wrong, it's just data.
Doing accounting on paper leads to hard-to-read or misread digits, space considerations, inverting numbers, aligning numbers improperly and other key problems. A spreadsheet fixes many of these problems, but when it comes down to it, what's on the spreadsheet is what you put there [or what auto-correct put there]. Same thing- a calculator adds what you enter (or mis-enter). If you entered the wrong thing in a spreadsheet, at least it's easy to spot.
The answer? check your work. Go back and verify the numbers there. Go back and make sure things balance. Have the hard receipts of what you're totalling as a good copy of anything you do.
Why is this even a question on Slashdot? Make a formula to total and check sanity of numbers, which may help. When it comes down to it though, just take care in what you enter and make sure it's right afterwards.
-M