You're supposed to terminate ARCnet? That explains a lot......
OK, so a testament to ARCnet. Our ARCnet implentation looked more like a TV coax set up. Need to add a computer? Just Y the coax off again. Somebody sold a 3 way splitter gizmo, as long as you used it in combination with the repeater/hub it worked. Well, sort of.
I wonder how well it would have worked had we actually terminated it.
Yeah, but I also get to attend the largest hamfest in the state. Not a complete waste of time. Of course the danger is spending the money from step 1 before you reach step 2, which is part of the reason there's so much crap in my basement to begin with:-)
I have a process for getting rid of old crap. The nice thing is I usually break even (or so).
Step 1: Find a local hamfest. Hamfests are held all around the country. Keep an eye out for the bigger ones. There's one in my town once a year, and it's one of the bigger ones around. I nab a table for $10, load it up with old crap, and try to sell it cheap. Minus the cost of the table and gas, I usually make a hundred here. Don't get excited yet. You'll need that money.
Step 2: Find a local recycling program. It just so happens that the county I live in has a recycling facility, and since their focus is not making money as much as it is proper disposal, they're the cheaper option. What I don't sell at hamfest gets taken there. Usually I ring up a good size bill, so financed by option 1 is a good thing.
Step 3: Find food. With the $20 or so left over after all expenses are paid, go eat. Now you just emptied the basement, did so responsibly, and got pizza out of the deal.
Don't forget that $0 is perfectly acceptable, according to the band. That to me would count as previewing. If you like it, you can always go back and "rebuy" for... whatever you see fit.
In terms of previewing songs, one of my friend's bands did something that I wish would catch on. They ripped their entire album is 64K MP3 and posted the MP3s to their website. 64K MP3 is just good enough to hear the music, hear the words, and decide whether you like the band, but not nearly good enough to put on a CD or MP3 player. The sound of a 64K MP3 is worse than nails on a chalkboard, so you don't have to worry about people "stealing" them. For that matter, 96K would also be an acceptable "preview" bitrate.
I used to like "Microsoft Works" as an oxymoron, but after receiving an invitation from Microsoft to hear about "Microsoft Business Intelligence", I couldn't resist.
As I recall, Win2K had some serious problems pre-SP1. I know there was a neat trick with linux + IR port == BSOD'd Win2K laptop.
You're spot on with the rest of your post though. A history, as I can best recall off the top of my head:
Windows 95 - version A was quite unstable and problematic. It sold well because of the new interface, FAT32, IE4, and lots of other neat things. Win95 had enough going for it that people overlooked the initial problems. Win95B was a much needed fix, for those of us that noticed.
Windows NT 4 - Took until SP3 to make it useful.
Windows 98 - The released version was SO BAD they actually called the service pack "Second Edition".
Windows ME - Beyond repair. I go with the theory that it was designed to get customers off the Win9x codebase and the failure may have been intentional*
Windows 2000 - pre-SP1 was junk, SUS-capable update client didn't appear until SP3. Most installs now REQUIRE SP4.
Windows XP - pre-SP1 had some issues, SP1 was a needed fix. SP2 was pretty significant, fixed a lot more than it broke (assuming it installed properly). I still recommend a fresh install of WinXP with SP2 slipstreamed as opposed to upgrading from SP1.
Windows Vista - pre-SP1 is usable, but with so many applications unsupported I can't recommend it. SP1 is shipping to beta testers any day now (and I will be testing!). What bothers me is that from what I can tell, RC1 was a better build than the final product. Hopefully SP1 will be a refreshing fix.
So there you have it. 7 releases in ~12 years, SAME EXACT STORY every release. The only thing that truly surprises me is that Slashdot is still running daily articles about how much it sucks. Of course it does. It will suck until either SP1 or SP2, and even then it will only suck less, as I'm convinced no Windows product will ever stop sucking. If Vista can match the same suck factor as XP, it will be a winning product. Some day.
* I've heard the same theory about Vista, but if it's true, the only real alternative is linux. If MS is pushing a bad product to move linux ahead, I am thoroughly confused. MS isn't working a market ploy here, it really is a lousy OS.
In the original article (sorry, don't have the link handy) it specifically mentioned that WSUS servers/clients did NOT receive the update. If you were thinking of running WSUS at home, here's another good reason:-)
Sounds like Anycast is similar to a service advertisement though. Wouldn't it make more sense to use a challenge-response mechanism like DHCP instead of a multicast? DHCP can take a bit of bandwidth, yes, but it only transmits when asked. That's why you see less and less service advertisement kind of stuff coming from Novell and Microsoft.
Autoconfig is nice for home networks and such. For the corporate world, DHCPv6 is far more useful.
Most people think of DHCP as just giving an IP address, mask, gateway, and DNS. DHCP can do SO much more. We're talking HUNDREDS of pieces of data, including custom strings. Want to tell your IP phone where the call manager is? DHCP. Want to tell your Netware clients where the nearest replica server is? DHCP. Still using WINS for some strange reason? DHCP.
Autoconfig is nice for the lazy admin, but for folks who want to keep track of where their IPs are going and want to deploy additional features, DHCP is the better option.
You can try contacting Toshiba, but there a couple considerations:
Did you actually boot Vista and accept the EULA? By accepting the EULA you can no longer use the refund clause in the license, and therefore are not entitled to a refund.
Second, where is the license for your copy of XP? It is permissible to install XP on a Vista licensed machine, however you are now using the Vista license. You can't install an unlicensed OS on the laptop and then claim you're not using the license that came with it.
Good luck to you if you decide to contact Toshiba. I'm sure many of us here would like to know if refunds are available for Vista.
Novell has plenty of options here. They are in the same position as SCO right now. Novell holds the UNIX copyrights, and has a linux distro that is gaining market share. They could very easily start up the infringement train and force everyone to use SuSE linux as not to infringe on their IP. They could even sell indemnification licenses, at, oh, say $699 a pop.
BUT THEY DIDN'T. Even though Novell is losing money left and right, and the target of much hostility in the community (for which I really don't understand), they have opted not to sue. They have the UNIX copyrights and have promised not to use them, in the best interest of the community. That's HUGE. Unlike the SCO case, Novell actually has the resources to put a stranglehold on the community. BUT THEY DIDN'T.
So why is it that I couldn't find a free solution to ripping and re-encoding DVDs?
K9copy? On Debian I found K9copy very easy to install, very easy to use, and almost flawless at ripping and encoding. I have yet to find a mis-sync in my backed up DVDs. The hardest part is you have to add the contrib and non-free repos into Debian so it'll grab DeCSS. That's not very hard:-). If you're using Ubuntu, multiverse is the equivalent. I'm guessing on Fedora you can add livna and get the same results, though I haven't tried.
I have seen problems on many distros in having to build things together, and I agree, DVD playback and encoding has been painful until recently. K9Copy + [recent well supported distro] seems to be the quickest fix.
I like the comment that Wired "tried to build an open social network, and failed". Makes me think that Wired doesn't have a clue about Social networking in the first place (and why would they?)
The crux of the complaint here is that in order to view someone's profile on Myspace/Facebook, you need to create an account. I guess I fail to see what's difficult about creating an account on a free service. Concerned about privacy? It's easy enough to set up bogus info. I guess I don't see the argument here.
Is this just an advertisement for a new social network? Trying to create buzz around something that may fail for the sole reason that we we have is good enough?
Comcast doesn't hate Firefox. They probably don't see a need to support it. I remember 5+ years ago, running my linux boxes on Charter. They didn't support it, but that didn't mean they had a problem with me doing it.
Here's a hint to the idiot who posted this: DON'T INSTALL THEIR SOFTWARE. YOU DON'T NEED IT. Plug your router/linux box into the cable modem, DHCP, viola, internet connection. Easy as that.
Musicmatch 6.0 or so was an awesome player. It tied media into a nice clean interface, gave options to rip CDs, managed your library, etc. Fantastic piece of software.
When Musicmatch 7 rolled around, it was obvious that it was turning into bloatware. The interface was getting bloated and cumbersome, and as I recall it went from annoying (would you like to upgrade?) to flat out nagware (do you want to buy album? Do you want to download music like this for $xx?, etc). Beyond that, I haven't touched the software because once it started sporting the Yahoo! banner I knew it was complete garbage.
So, in my search for a Windows based music player, I happened across musikCube. It's a music player with most of the features of MusicMatch, 100% free, BSD licensed, and even supports ogg vorbis. Here's the Sourceforge page.
Screw Musicmatch, Winamp, Windows Media Player. Give me musikCube!
Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to get USB support for Windows 95. Or run into the fat32 2Gb file size limit.
Again, not a COMPELLING reason. Sure, there are those who need USB support and support for large files in a corporate environment, but not many. Is Windows 95 inferior now? Yes. Did it happen overnight? Not by a long shot. Does Win95 still provide 95% of the things "normal" people need? Absolutely.
Btw, WinME was Microsoft's way of forcing people off the 9x codebase and onto NT. It was really a springboard to make Win2000 look that much better. I can't see them doing the same with Vista, since there's no pathway off Vista (well, at least a Microsoft provided one:-).
I'm hard-pressed to think of ANY reason for companies to "upgrade" to Vista.
Support. Hardware manufacturers, 3rd party software developers, and Microsoft themselves will stop supporting XP at some point. I have personally been in this trap before with MS OS's in a corporate environment, you eventually have to move.
What does it offer to businesses?
Support. Sorry, it's a big deal.
The improved security is irrelevant in a corporate environment, because companies have everything locked-down pretty tightly already.
True, but it can always be tighter. Better tools with more granularity mean less support calls due to malware/intrusions/etc. Of course, the support calls relating to "I can't do this" can outweigh the former, so it's a balancing act. Regardless, new tools are always welcome. Not to mention, new tools in the OS mean less 3rd party products to buy.
Beyond that, there isn't much Vista does better than XP
That's not new. I don't recall an OS since Windows 95 that offered a compelling reason to upgrade. Minor bug fixes, better hardware support, etc, but nothing that would make it worth shelling out cash to upgrade. In the past, it's been a case of new hardware just plain not booting the old OS, so we have to move.
At some point, businesses will HAVE to upgrade, of course
Of course? So you wrote this rant about how businesses don't need to upgrade, then followed it up with this? Huh?
but didn't Microsoft say that Vista's successor is only 2 years away?
2 years? Where did you hear THAT? Considering the amount of engineering that went into Vista, I suspect that the next OS is quite a ways off. WinFS is nowhere near ready, and I can't see MS shipping their next OS without it. Even if it is true that the next OS is 2 years off, that really means 3, plus the time needed for SP1, so minimum 4 years from now to the next usable OS. Plenty of time for XP to fall off the support map.
I imagine most businesses are just going to stick with XP until they just can't make it work on new hardware anymore.
This is what I've done in the past, and I've learned my lesson the hard way. One day, you get a new shipment of laptops to find a minor chipset tweak and, oh crap, XP won't boot. Now I have to QUICKLY figure out Vista and start deploying? No way, not any more. Embracing Vista now, testing Vista, and identifying its critical flaws is very important to businesses. I'm already working on the Vista rollout plan, even though the OS isn't ready. These are the woes of working in a Windows shop.
Slashdot Mirror
I save my resume as 'resume.odf,' so there!
That would imply that you're smarter than the average P2P'er, and probably don't have your entire user folder (or disk!) shared to the world.
Terminators on both ends
You're supposed to terminate ARCnet? That explains a lot......
OK, so a testament to ARCnet. Our ARCnet implentation looked more like a TV coax set up. Need to add a computer? Just Y the coax off again. Somebody sold a 3 way splitter gizmo, as long as you used it in combination with the repeater/hub it worked. Well, sort of.
I wonder how well it would have worked had we actually terminated it.
I don't want to be the boob that gets seen in this thing.
Yeah, but I also get to attend the largest hamfest in the state. Not a complete waste of time. Of course the danger is spending the money from step 1 before you reach step 2, which is part of the reason there's so much crap in my basement to begin with :-)
95, 98, 98SE, ME - version 4.x (open up command, run ver)
2000 - version 5.0 (cmd, ver)
XP - version 5.1 (cmd, ver)
Vista - version 5.2 (cmd, ver)
The real question is, what happened to Windows 6?
I have a process for getting rid of old crap. The nice thing is I usually break even (or so).
Step 1: Find a local hamfest. Hamfests are held all around the country. Keep an eye out for the bigger ones. There's one in my town once a year, and it's one of the bigger ones around. I nab a table for $10, load it up with old crap, and try to sell it cheap. Minus the cost of the table and gas, I usually make a hundred here. Don't get excited yet. You'll need that money.
Step 2: Find a local recycling program. It just so happens that the county I live in has a recycling facility, and since their focus is not making money as much as it is proper disposal, they're the cheaper option. What I don't sell at hamfest gets taken there. Usually I ring up a good size bill, so financed by option 1 is a good thing.
Step 3: Find food. With the $20 or so left over after all expenses are paid, go eat. Now you just emptied the basement, did so responsibly, and got pizza out of the deal.
Does that include the cost of Windows licenses?
Don't forget that $0 is perfectly acceptable, according to the band. That to me would count as previewing. If you like it, you can always go back and "rebuy" for... whatever you see fit.
In terms of previewing songs, one of my friend's bands did something that I wish would catch on. They ripped their entire album is 64K MP3 and posted the MP3s to their website. 64K MP3 is just good enough to hear the music, hear the words, and decide whether you like the band, but not nearly good enough to put on a CD or MP3 player. The sound of a 64K MP3 is worse than nails on a chalkboard, so you don't have to worry about people "stealing" them. For that matter, 96K would also be an acceptable "preview" bitrate.
I used to like "Microsoft Works" as an oxymoron, but after receiving an invitation from Microsoft to hear about "Microsoft Business Intelligence", I couldn't resist.
We have a winner folks!
Government Accountability? That's almost as bad as "Microsoft Business Intelligence".
As far as we're concerned from now on you can just point at things
Can't do that either, not without a license.
-Guy who invented the foam finger
As I recall, Win2K had some serious problems pre-SP1. I know there was a neat trick with linux + IR port == BSOD'd Win2K laptop.
You're spot on with the rest of your post though. A history, as I can best recall off the top of my head:
Windows 95 - version A was quite unstable and problematic. It sold well because of the new interface, FAT32, IE4, and lots of other neat things. Win95 had enough going for it that people overlooked the initial problems. Win95B was a much needed fix, for those of us that noticed.
Windows NT 4 - Took until SP3 to make it useful.
Windows 98 - The released version was SO BAD they actually called the service pack "Second Edition".
Windows ME - Beyond repair. I go with the theory that it was designed to get customers off the Win9x codebase and the failure may have been intentional*
Windows 2000 - pre-SP1 was junk, SUS-capable update client didn't appear until SP3. Most installs now REQUIRE SP4.
Windows XP - pre-SP1 had some issues, SP1 was a needed fix. SP2 was pretty significant, fixed a lot more than it broke (assuming it installed properly). I still recommend a fresh install of WinXP with SP2 slipstreamed as opposed to upgrading from SP1.
Windows Vista - pre-SP1 is usable, but with so many applications unsupported I can't recommend it. SP1 is shipping to beta testers any day now (and I will be testing!). What bothers me is that from what I can tell, RC1 was a better build than the final product. Hopefully SP1 will be a refreshing fix.
So there you have it. 7 releases in ~12 years, SAME EXACT STORY every release. The only thing that truly surprises me is that Slashdot is still running daily articles about how much it sucks. Of course it does. It will suck until either SP1 or SP2, and even then it will only suck less, as I'm convinced no Windows product will ever stop sucking. If Vista can match the same suck factor as XP, it will be a winning product. Some day.
* I've heard the same theory about Vista, but if it's true, the only real alternative is linux. If MS is pushing a bad product to move linux ahead, I am thoroughly confused. MS isn't working a market ploy here, it really is a lousy OS.
In the original article (sorry, don't have the link handy) it specifically mentioned that WSUS servers/clients did NOT receive the update. If you were thinking of running WSUS at home, here's another good reason :-)
Wow... that's a lot of petafiles *rimshot*
Hmmm... I will need to check that out.
Sounds like Anycast is similar to a service advertisement though. Wouldn't it make more sense to use a challenge-response mechanism like DHCP instead of a multicast? DHCP can take a bit of bandwidth, yes, but it only transmits when asked. That's why you see less and less service advertisement kind of stuff coming from Novell and Microsoft.
Autoconfig is nice for home networks and such. For the corporate world, DHCPv6 is far more useful.
Most people think of DHCP as just giving an IP address, mask, gateway, and DNS. DHCP can do SO much more. We're talking HUNDREDS of pieces of data, including custom strings. Want to tell your IP phone where the call manager is? DHCP. Want to tell your Netware clients where the nearest replica server is? DHCP. Still using WINS for some strange reason? DHCP.
Autoconfig is nice for the lazy admin, but for folks who want to keep track of where their IPs are going and want to deploy additional features, DHCP is the better option.
You can try contacting Toshiba, but there a couple considerations:
Did you actually boot Vista and accept the EULA? By accepting the EULA you can no longer use the refund clause in the license, and therefore are not entitled to a refund.
Second, where is the license for your copy of XP? It is permissible to install XP on a Vista licensed machine, however you are now using the Vista license. You can't install an unlicensed OS on the laptop and then claim you're not using the license that came with it.
Good luck to you if you decide to contact Toshiba. I'm sure many of us here would like to know if refunds are available for Vista.
Perhaps they had no option
Novell has plenty of options here. They are in the same position as SCO right now. Novell holds the UNIX copyrights, and has a linux distro that is gaining market share. They could very easily start up the infringement train and force everyone to use SuSE linux as not to infringe on their IP. They could even sell indemnification licenses, at, oh, say $699 a pop.
BUT THEY DIDN'T. Even though Novell is losing money left and right, and the target of much hostility in the community (for which I really don't understand), they have opted not to sue. They have the UNIX copyrights and have promised not to use them, in the best interest of the community. That's HUGE. Unlike the SCO case, Novell actually has the resources to put a stranglehold on the community. BUT THEY DIDN'T.
Stop bashing Novell already. PLEASE.
So why is it that I couldn't find a free solution to ripping and re-encoding DVDs?
:-). If you're using Ubuntu, multiverse is the equivalent. I'm guessing on Fedora you can add livna and get the same results, though I haven't tried.
K9copy? On Debian I found K9copy very easy to install, very easy to use, and almost flawless at ripping and encoding. I have yet to find a mis-sync in my backed up DVDs. The hardest part is you have to add the contrib and non-free repos into Debian so it'll grab DeCSS. That's not very hard
I have seen problems on many distros in having to build things together, and I agree, DVD playback and encoding has been painful until recently. K9Copy + [recent well supported distro] seems to be the quickest fix.
I like the comment that Wired "tried to build an open social network, and failed". Makes me think that Wired doesn't have a clue about Social networking in the first place (and why would they?)
The crux of the complaint here is that in order to view someone's profile on Myspace/Facebook, you need to create an account. I guess I fail to see what's difficult about creating an account on a free service. Concerned about privacy? It's easy enough to set up bogus info. I guess I don't see the argument here.
Is this just an advertisement for a new social network? Trying to create buzz around something that may fail for the sole reason that we we have is good enough?
MST3K without Joel isn't any MST3K at all.
What has happened to Slashdot?
Comcast doesn't hate Firefox. They probably don't see a need to support it. I remember 5+ years ago, running my linux boxes on Charter. They didn't support it, but that didn't mean they had a problem with me doing it.
Here's a hint to the idiot who posted this: DON'T INSTALL THEIR SOFTWARE. YOU DON'T NEED IT. Plug your router/linux box into the cable modem, DHCP, viola, internet connection. Easy as that.
Musicmatch 6.0 or so was an awesome player. It tied media into a nice clean interface, gave options to rip CDs, managed your library, etc. Fantastic piece of software.
When Musicmatch 7 rolled around, it was obvious that it was turning into bloatware. The interface was getting bloated and cumbersome, and as I recall it went from annoying (would you like to upgrade?) to flat out nagware (do you want to buy album? Do you want to download music like this for $xx?, etc). Beyond that, I haven't touched the software because once it started sporting the Yahoo! banner I knew it was complete garbage.
So, in my search for a Windows based music player, I happened across musikCube. It's a music player with most of the features of MusicMatch, 100% free, BSD licensed, and even supports ogg vorbis. Here's the Sourceforge page.
Screw Musicmatch, Winamp, Windows Media Player. Give me musikCube!
Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to get USB support for Windows 95. Or run into the fat32 2Gb file size limit.
:-).
Again, not a COMPELLING reason. Sure, there are those who need USB support and support for large files in a corporate environment, but not many. Is Windows 95 inferior now? Yes. Did it happen overnight? Not by a long shot. Does Win95 still provide 95% of the things "normal" people need? Absolutely.
Btw, WinME was Microsoft's way of forcing people off the 9x codebase and onto NT. It was really a springboard to make Win2000 look that much better. I can't see them doing the same with Vista, since there's no pathway off Vista (well, at least a Microsoft provided one
I'm hard-pressed to think of ANY reason for companies to "upgrade" to Vista.
Support. Hardware manufacturers, 3rd party software developers, and Microsoft themselves will stop supporting XP at some point. I have personally been in this trap before with MS OS's in a corporate environment, you eventually have to move.
What does it offer to businesses?
Support. Sorry, it's a big deal.
The improved security is irrelevant in a corporate environment, because companies have everything locked-down pretty tightly already.
True, but it can always be tighter. Better tools with more granularity mean less support calls due to malware/intrusions/etc. Of course, the support calls relating to "I can't do this" can outweigh the former, so it's a balancing act. Regardless, new tools are always welcome. Not to mention, new tools in the OS mean less 3rd party products to buy.
Beyond that, there isn't much Vista does better than XP
That's not new. I don't recall an OS since Windows 95 that offered a compelling reason to upgrade. Minor bug fixes, better hardware support, etc, but nothing that would make it worth shelling out cash to upgrade. In the past, it's been a case of new hardware just plain not booting the old OS, so we have to move.
At some point, businesses will HAVE to upgrade, of course
Of course? So you wrote this rant about how businesses don't need to upgrade, then followed it up with this? Huh?
but didn't Microsoft say that Vista's successor is only 2 years away?
2 years? Where did you hear THAT? Considering the amount of engineering that went into Vista, I suspect that the next OS is quite a ways off. WinFS is nowhere near ready, and I can't see MS shipping their next OS without it. Even if it is true that the next OS is 2 years off, that really means 3, plus the time needed for SP1, so minimum 4 years from now to the next usable OS. Plenty of time for XP to fall off the support map.
I imagine most businesses are just going to stick with XP until they just can't make it work on new hardware anymore.
This is what I've done in the past, and I've learned my lesson the hard way. One day, you get a new shipment of laptops to find a minor chipset tweak and, oh crap, XP won't boot. Now I have to QUICKLY figure out Vista and start deploying? No way, not any more. Embracing Vista now, testing Vista, and identifying its critical flaws is very important to businesses. I'm already working on the Vista rollout plan, even though the OS isn't ready. These are the woes of working in a Windows shop.