Yeah, Its called reading comprehension. Don't be sad. Far too many people in the USA aren't able to read at this level either. It's how I knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, how I got a 750 Verbal SAT score despite lousy grades in high school, and how I know you are full of shit. In the land of the blind...
meh, I don't find a need to explain MS introducting its own web browser in a service pack just as the internet was getting big. Its their product, their right. Did you whine this bad when MS introduced WIFI software with a service pack? And how the hell am I supposed to even download other software without a fucking web browser anyway??
whatever. Call me a shill.
I have already told you the one thing which all companies successfully competing against Microsoft have in common - superior products. Thats really all I had to say.
Bill Gates : "No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.
And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future."
He was calling people who call for reform of our IP laws to make them more like the GPL communists. Thats FSF, not Open Source. I hope you know difference. Notice how he doesn't call people who use, modify, distribute open source software communists. Tee people who he is describing as communists want to dictate the license I release my own software that I can release my own software with. They (not you) are communists in my eyes as well. I agree with IP reform, but lets just say I don't want Richard Stallman creating the new laws.
So Bill Gates never called YOU a communist, dipshit.
"MS is sleazy, but the people who sued them on the premise that MS's superior products were beating them due to unfair competition are far sleazyer."
That's the standard MS shill line. You can keep saying it but I don't think you are going to convince anybody. If the netscape and real products were truly inferior MS would not have resorted to threating companies who installed them by default. The fact that they strong armed companies is proof that they knew people would not use their product voluntarily. Same with making you install IE when you installed to service pack to NT. If it was great they would not have shoved it down people's throats.
Wow, some slashtard has called me and MS shill. Where do I go from here? I think I will insult you. You know what your problem is? You are a fucking moronic groupthink compliant slashtard. Almost everything you say is worthless. You are stupid, and you do not think for yourself.
There are plenty of software companies out there competing agains microsoft who are able to succeed thanks to their superior software. Windows XP already burns CDs. Why do I need Nero? Because it is better than Microsoft's cd burning software. Why do I need the Opera web browser? Because it is better than MS's software. These two companies did not sue Microsoft, and they got plent of users thanks to their superior software. Netscape did suck more than IE since version 4. Same or worst goes for Real Player. Its just the way it is.
MS has done some sleazy stuff (especially threatening companies who want to installl 3rd party software on pcs they produce, often in exchange for money). That said, I can't even remember the last name brand computer that didn't come so loaded from the factory with so much crapware that it is already more or less ruined. Is this also an MS shill line? Please tell me. your opinion is important to me.
The ability to transmit information from one member to another and from one generation to another is what separates us from animals. MS is attacking the very thing that makes us human. They are building a world where information is no longer permanent and may not be transmitted without their permission. This is much worse then polluting or even killing people. This is killing humanity, denying you the right to read and write is a crime far worse then murder.
Uhhuh. I guess that you are referring to DRM. You know the AUTHOR of content decides the level of comp
Well I did get the whole forum part of the webapp working with MySQL. If you mean figuring out a way to use named parameters then I'm affraid I have looked and not found a way to use them. In getting stuff to work I have found plenty of ways of getting around this missing feature.
I want to make clear that the reason I even used MySQL was to be able to use it if I ever needed to, specifically to save on licensing fees. I read plenty of documentation, and got a decent handle on how MySQL works. I wanted to replace MS SQL with it. I made it work before I decided the workarounds just weren't worth it.
If you know of some way to use named parameters then please tell me here and now. I have looked through many pages of documentation and found nothing. I find named parameters so usefull because they save me a ton of time and make my code more readable.
Do other open source databases have named parameters? If so which ones do?
Bill Gates never called you a communist. I'm pretty sure he never said that "people who use Linux are communist". If Bill Gates is going to call you anything, he should really call you a dipshit.
MS is amongst the top of the sleaziest corporations.
The sleaziest corporations in the US pollute without remorse resulting in thousands of illnesses and deaths. They buy off politicians so that they may continue to pollute and kill unabated. Get some perspective before you start making wild accusation.
about "ethics": a quick summary of the MS monopoly trial
Netscape and Real Networks each made a product which was inferior to Microsoft's. IE was superior to Netscape Navigator since version 4 or so, and WMP has been superior to Real Player ever since Real Networks became a scumware company. Hell it was harder to find the free version of real player on real's own website than it is to find it on a computer where it was installed.
Rather than compete on features these companies chose to try to force MS to stop bundleing its superior products with its popular OS. Is it just me, or shouldn't a $140 OS come with a web browser and media player?
Both companies were instrumental in anti-trust lawsuits against MS. Considering that Real "Check out how we spam you from your system tray" Player is often the first thing I uninstall after a system restore and Netscape never managed to be nearly as fast as IE or Opera the motives for such a letigious strategy should be clear.
MS is sleazy, but the people who sued them on the premise that MS's superior products were beating them due to unfair competition are far sleazyer.
I can't help but lol when someone walks up to a closed minded group of people and tells them that everything they believe is wrong. The only thing better is when he follows this up by undeniably proving them to be completely wrong in every sense of the word. I just with I could see the look on their faces.
You rule and your pornographic website is awesome (if you use a secure browser and turn off plugins, java, and javascript).
So does MySQL do named query parameters? I wrote a webapp in asp.net 1.1 using mysql to see if I could really replace MS SQL with MySQL. The first thing I noticed is that
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = @ForumID;
no longer works and must be changed to:
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = ?;
Now this my be fine for really simple queries, but alot of more complex queries are a real pain in the ass to write without named parameters.
Sorry, but any DB that can't handle named parameters feels more like a toy than even Access.
Btw, check out the QueryAnalyzer built into Visual Studio 2005. It actually does syntax checking for whatever DB you are using (even MySQL) and when used with datsets can eliminate *alot* of DB related code.
When I rewrote my webapp using asp.net 2.0 / MS SQL express and I felt like I had just traded in a Huffy for a real mountain bike.
1. Don't be so sure about the quality of the education. It is easy to get stuck in classes that don't teach anything. A few professor names you may wan't to keep in mind when choosing classes: "Ozbirn" and "Lacambra". Those are the only two off the top of my head whose classes actually require you to learn the material.
2. If you can get away with not programming in a class, you will not learn anything. Do not think that you know the subject matter. Go off and learn it on your own. (there are exceptions to this rule, but not that many)
3. Assign yourself projects that you thing professors should have assigned. That way what you learn in class is not a complete loss.
I have had some really good classes at utd and some really useless classes. If the professor name isn't listed it is a total crapshoot as to whether you will actually learn anything useful. A high diagram/source-code ratio is a sure sign of trouble.
If the Comnputer Networks professor says, "Your final project will be a c++ simulation of sending data over a network. No, you will at no time in this class write a program that sends data over a network." $1000 -> Toilet.
I hate to badmouth the school I'm about to get a diploma from but this shit is rediculous. Maby this assesment is a bit harsh but I really resent my time and money being wasted on useless classes.
BTW everyone please stop bragging about your scholarship at every possible moment. I was taking Physics 2 at Richland this summer and my class had like 3 4 UTD students. Me, an overachiever (who was totally cool in my book btw), and two others. Those other two spent at least 10 minutes on several occasions describing the terms of their scholarship. These guys were like already Juniors and still going on and on. Given the high quantity of scholarships given to utd students these ahem 'size comparisons' are annoyingly common. Why don't you just whip out your laptops and settle it once and for all (by running code of course).
While I'm on the subject. You know who really cracks me up. Freshmen EE majors who are always lording the fact that their degree has harder classes than a CS degree only to drop out of EE and do business or MIS or something lol.
Good to see you posting like a mere mortal. I'll try to keep this as respectful as I can.
It's not like Blizzard decided to change gameplay dynamics. I spend a lot of time working on the Slashdot moderation system, and I never have any problem changing any "Rule" in the system if I believe it will improve the overall functionality of the whole system.
Please stop banning me from posting. Please stop banning others from posting. More valuble contributers than I have been banned for as few as 2 'bad' comments. Meanwhile the system for determining what is a bad comment is completely broken (I'm sure by now you will have looked at my posting history. Im not the greatest poster on/. but I think an ip ban is a bit over the top).
I logged in, I stood by my words, and I was banned for what I said. When I read you pontificating on free speech and the evil of arbitrary restrictions it makes me want to laugh and cry. To someone who has been banned from your site you sound like Bill Oreilly yelling about the need to carefully analyze the issues before jumping to conclusions.
I understand ip banning is necessary among other reasons to prevent crapfloods, but a quick check of the trolltalk sid shows that people who want to crapflood can still do so at will.
ps: Please don't ban the ip that I am posting this from. I had to ssh to my school to do it and I would feel really bad if I managed to ban my entire college from posting. And you should feel really bad about banning my entire college from posting if that is what you choose to do.
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "6de13b5040b79597b363652c6cec030b" and "cfd86e10a6bebf3998a2745ac3aeeb05" and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "*.*.*.*" and your username "bit trollent".
Congratulations! Slashdot has one less user who doesn't take your illogical ramblings as the sacred word of God. I raised my voice in protest one time too many and now I have been silenced (for a while anyways). This is not the first time our censorship overlords have flagged me for muzzeling, and it probably won't be the last.
Before I am finally banned I would like to say that the people who make this site a reptetative craphole of halfassed regurgitated opinions are utterly worthless. The vast majority of you unoriginal shitheads could drop dead with no noticeible impact on this site. Who would make my unsjustified posts defending/condeming $topic? Some other shithead with too much time on his hands and a penchant for the uninispired, thats who. Trust me, someone will be here berate us on the difference between free and gnu/free. It goes without saying that the same is true of praising Apple, reguardless of how sleazy they many behave, how onerous their vendor lockin is compared to say Microsoft, or anything else which may irk real geeks. Someone will still be here to explain why they are still the next best thing to Open Source. It goes without saying that anyone failing to reprimand Microsoft for existing and objectively weighing the cost and benefit of their software will be instantly explained away as a paid shill. No need to worry, Applesexuals. Shilling accusations inexplicably don't apply to you. Anyway, to all the people who make slashdot suck, here is a big 'up yours' from me to you.
In my last post before my forced posting sabbatical I would also like to say something to the people I have argued with over the years with my two accounts. (the other one has excellent karma. yeah I know how to play the game.) This specifically goes out to the people who have exposed my ignorance with style and aplomb. You guys rule. When others point to the moderation system as the true judge of truth you are not satisfied. You use evidence and genuine logic to make your point and in the process expand our minds and challenge us to think critically. I may not have always agreed with what you said, but I often learned something new. There have also been times when you genuinely changed my mind.
These genuine insights are rarely rewarded with modpoints, but I know you don't care. I'm sure some of you have been censored as well. But at the end of the day when the modpoints are tallied and the people who once again repeated the popular oppinion have moved on to repeating the popular opinion on some other subject, the minds you opened, challenged, or enfuriated remain.
Be proud free thinkers of slashdot, you are the real winners.
A couple years ago I read that a school which I had applied had its admissions database hacked in to. Everyone who applied gave more than enough information to make identity theft a breeze. I don't think my info has been used yet, but I know that whoever has it can use it whenever they want.
The 'verification' banks use now to confirm your identity is a joke. It is negligent to issue credit or anything else based on this information but they do it anyway. Sure they take a loss, which is insignificant compared to what they make in profit. The person whose information is used has his credit ruined. They are impacted much more than the bank which recklessly put credit in their name. This is not right.
Given that the government is owned and operated by a greedy corporate conglomerate, I doubt any significant consumer protection will be passed any time soon anyway.
Now, if you're upset that you can't drag from your desktop to the iPod, well.. it's intentionally designed that way.. for 2 reasons. 1.) to discourage piracy..
If you could just drag/copy several thousand tracks in the way you describe, the labels wouldn't have allowed the iPod or the iTMS to exist.
Other mp3 players allow faster, more direct ways of transfering files. They are allowed to exist. This has nothing to do with iTMS other than maybe RIAA politics, but the RIAA is not Apple's customer. My needs should surely be placed over some music industry jerk who would be insane to cut off iTMS for the sake of preventing this feature. Music is piracy is not prevented in the least anyway. The only thing this decision actually achieves is a poor user experience.
To the extent to which Apple has to lock down their files with DRM I can totally understand. It is a simple fact of life that no label will license you music unless you lock it down with DRM. It is also the reason that I would rather buy a CD(nonDRM) or pirate than buy from iTMS. I mean the free product is better than what the labels are trying to sell. I didn't buy my first dvd until someone cracked the DRM and made it easy to copy. The day I again can't copy movies, is the day I stop buying them
2.) to simplify organization (using a database). It's not suppposed to work like a floppy disk.
That is not a legitimate reason. I understand that it uses a database, but there is no reason that the iPod itself can not do the database organization. All it would have to do is update iPod the database after the files are added. This is not difficult in any way. I mean I could personally write software that would emulate the iPod interface perfectly, while allowing mp3s and anything else to be copied on the fly, usb-drive style.
Most people would rather just dock it and have their iTunes stuff 'magically' appear.. that's why apple designed that way. That's how nearly everyone wants it to work.. and several million iPods and hundreds of millions of iTMS songs appear to validate that. It wasn't designed specifically to piss you off. If you have a particular need, give apple some feedback and/or find some shareware to accomplish what you're asking.
The thing is what I'm asking for, and what iTunes already does are not mutually exclusive in the least. I already use iTunes to do this. It's just much more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. They could have easily added this feature but chose not to. They knew what they were doing. It was a calculated decision made for reasons other than providing the best possible software. They want iTunes to be 'the' music player on people's computers and they intentionally and unnecessarily crippled the iPod to achieve this goal. It doesn't get more sleazy than that. I love my iPod but there is a good chance I won't ever buy another one.
I didn't buy an iPod so I could use iTunes, and most of the millions of people who bought one didn't either. Alot of them may be using iTunes now, but I'll bet a good amount have sworn off Apple for good.
I think if you read my posts carefully, you will find than apart from saying that I dislike iTunes, I explain why.
Thats right, WHY you petulent little shit.
It is called evidence. I attempt to buid the case that iTunes sucks by providing evidence of its deficiencies.
When I say something, I justify it. Others can then examine the evidence that I use to justify my conclusions. They can show me where I am wrong, or why my evidence does not lead to the conclusions I have drawn. If a person makes me believe that I have not sufficiently justified my case, I will attempt to justify it better, by providing additional evidence. I try to make each post original by including different evidence or reasoning, and explaining why it bolsters my assertion.
Unfortunately, many people on slashdot do not engage in honest debate.
Windows Sucks
iTunes is awesome
Real programmers use Linux
These statements are made with no justification, whatsoever. People with small minds mod them up. A post which utterly disproves them is meaningless in this crowd, where the most groupthink complient comment is modded up.
There are, however, people on this site who wish to engage in honest debate, and sometimes they find eachother. These are the people I post here to interact with. They are what make this site more than a collection of opinions. A well argued AC post at -1 is worth more than a weeks worth of +5s.
If you don't like it, fine. Read it or don't. Hell, flame me again if you feel up to it. I really could care less.
In conclusion, your inability to understand the difference between repeating an opinion and better justifying an opinion demonstrates to me that you are a worthless sniveling shit.
iTMS does not sell you a physical, sellable, loseable, breakable item.
What they sell is more akin to what Opera used to sell(btw thanks for giving it away free now), that is computer data. When you purchase Opera, you are given a user key. If your computer dies for whatever reason you do not lose your copy of Opera. You simply go back to Opera.com, download it again, and enter your key.
This is good customer service applied to the internet.
The way people talk about iTMS I would expect batter from them.
What did I inturrupt your stream of +5 glowing reviews about iTunes which all say the same thing?
I already use ephpod. It is better than iTunes, but in my opinion not good enough. I bought an iPod after reading on slashdot how great iTunes was and how it would make transfering files so easy and painless. I based my purchasing decisions on what was said on this site. Nobody mentioned that it was actually a pain in the ass to use if it wasnt your main mp3 player.
I get home, start up iTunes, and expect to be blown away by what described as a beautiful interface. I'm sure you have already read what I discovered when I actually used the program. It turns out that slashdot hivemind was wrong. This comes as no surprise, but usually there is at least one person here to explain why the hivemind is wrong, even if he will doubtlessly be modded down and flamed. When I read about iTunes there was no such person.
If I save one person from buying a $300 iPod based on flawed information it will be worth it.
The files play fine in Winamp and every other media player I have ever used. If an mp3 only has a problem in one of the dozens of programs which play it is that a flaw in the file or a flaw in the program which fails to propperly play it?
I wouldn't even be that bothered if it just skipped them. But it doesn't. It freezes up and drains the battery at an alarming rate.
A portable mp3 player should NEVER freeze up while reading the hard drive under any circumstances. Never. I blame the iPod for behaving in a way that is simply inexcusable under any circumstances.
My point is many people don't like iTunes. Look, I wouldnt be here writing this if I wasn't extremely pissed off about the general lousiness and unnecessary extra steps required to load mp3s on to my iPod.
How hard would it be to let you drag an mp3 from your hard drive to an iPod icon? Not hard. Why doesn't iTunes have this simple, emmensely useful feature? Because it is lousy software. It lacks features users want which would be easy to implement.
It should require exactly two clicks to put an mp3 on an iPod: RightClick. SendToIpod. Done. If you want to use some program that manages your mp3s or all the other stuff that iTunes does which I don't need since I use Winamp (a far better mp3 player) fine.
But putting an mp3 on a portable mp3 player should not have to be as complicated and time consuming as iTunes makes it. Every time that I see an mp3 that I want on my iPod should I have to start iTunes and find it or import it there also? No! I have created folders so when I find an mp3 I want on my iPod I can copy it to the folder rather than stop what I'm doing so I can screw around with iTunes.
It's hardly the case that most people look for a 3rd party application to replace iTunes for their iPod... since it's out of the box compatible with all major formats with the exception of WMA and some less common codecs like ogg. Might I suggest getting your facts straight... oh wait, this is Slashdot. Never mind, continue blathering:)
If people like iTunes so much then why did anyone bother writing an application to replace it? Why did several groups write several applications, some of them costing money, to replace a piece of software that everybody loves and can get for free? Answer that, numbnuts.
You want to get your facts straight, how about this fact: I hate iTunes. I find it to be a pain in the ass to use. Many other people hate iTunes as well. This hatred of iTunes has created a market for third party applications which replace it.
My iPod (about 1 year old) doesn't play all mp3s. With several mp3 in my collection it freezes while continuing to read the hard drive. Every time this happens I lose 30 minutes to one hour of batterly life. If I leave it playing rather than hitting next for 30 seconds it will completely drain my battery while trying to play this one song.
That would be annoying enough, but there is really no way to delete a song from your iPod, at least without hooking it up to something so you are pretty much stuck with it. Every time my iPod hits one of these song I just want to throw that piece of shit out the window.
I have downloaded firmware upgrades, but the problem remains.
The reason should be obvious. People do not like iTunes. They use it for the first time and realize that it didn't load their iPod with mp3 like it looks like it should have. Then they screw around with iTunes for a while, trying to figure out how you trick this application in to actually putting mp3s on your iPod.
Then they look for a different program to load mp3s on to their iPod.
So a person drops $300 on an iPod after hearing among other things that iTunes is in itself enough reason to buy one. Then they look for a 3rd party application to replace iTunes, which their iPod purchase essentially paid for.
I had always assumed that iTunes did what you are suggesting. I have an iPod, but have not bought a single song of iTines, and now I'm glad I didn't even if only on principle.
Thank you for telling us about this gaping flaw.
The iTunes appologists who lecture you about backing up your data are hilarious. iTunes doesn't implement a reasonable, I would say vital feature in their product, which you paid money for, and they have the gall to act like you are the one who screwed up.
I have always thought that Apple appologists have their heads up their asses and these guys have proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Hey geniuses, why do you think there are a dozen 3rd party applications for loading mp3s on to an iPod?
These machines don't just detect what you have on you. They detect what you have been around. I'm just imagining the conversation at the security checkpoint.
Fat Black Woman: "Sir, the Sniffer2000 has detected Marijuana and Cocain."
Me (stoned): "Yeah, I don't know why that is. Has the machine been acting up lately or something? This comes as a complete shock to me!"
Fat Black Woman: "Sir, we are going to have to check your Colon for Controband. Tyrone! Come here! We got an asshole for you to check!"
Slashdot Mirror
...or how to make a projection TV from an old overhead projector and a laptop from eBay.
Dude you just blew my mind. I'm so trying this.
I think I hear Bill Gates calling you a Communist.
You better go bitch on slashdot.
Damn, your really are dense.
I am not loyal to any company. I am loyal to myself. I am loyal to the rules of logic.
To me, a poorly argued position that I agree with is worst than a well argued position that I disagree with.
your arguments are total BULLSHIT.
Yeah, Its called reading comprehension. Don't be sad. Far too many people in the USA aren't able to read at this level either. It's how I knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, how I got a 750 Verbal SAT score despite lousy grades in high school, and how I know you are full of shit. In the land of the blind...
meh, I don't find a need to explain MS introducting its own web browser in a service pack just as the internet was getting big. Its their product, their right. Did you whine this bad when MS introduced WIFI software with a service pack? And how the hell am I supposed to even download other software without a fucking web browser anyway??
whatever. Call me a shill.
I have already told you the one thing which all companies successfully competing against Microsoft have in common - superior products. Thats really all I had to say.
Bill Gates : "No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.
And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future."
He was calling people who call for reform of our IP laws to make them more like the GPL communists. Thats FSF, not Open Source. I hope you know difference. Notice how he doesn't call people who use, modify, distribute open source software communists. Tee people who he is describing as communists want to dictate the license I release my own software that I can release my own software with. They (not you) are communists in my eyes as well. I agree with IP reform, but lets just say I don't want Richard Stallman creating the new laws.
So Bill Gates never called YOU a communist, dipshit.
"MS is sleazy, but the people who sued them on the premise that MS's superior products were beating them due to unfair competition are far sleazyer."
That's the standard MS shill line. You can keep saying it but I don't think you are going to convince anybody. If the netscape and real products were truly inferior MS would not have resorted to threating companies who installed them by default. The fact that they strong armed companies is proof that they knew people would not use their product voluntarily. Same with making you install IE when you installed to service pack to NT. If it was great they would not have shoved it down people's throats.
Wow, some slashtard has called me and MS shill. Where do I go from here? I think I will insult you. You know what your problem is? You are a fucking moronic groupthink compliant slashtard. Almost everything you say is worthless. You are stupid, and you do not think for yourself.
There are plenty of software companies out there competing agains microsoft who are able to succeed thanks to their superior software. Windows XP already burns CDs. Why do I need Nero? Because it is better than Microsoft's cd burning software. Why do I need the Opera web browser? Because it is better than MS's software. These two companies did not sue Microsoft, and they got plent of users thanks to their superior software. Netscape did suck more than IE since version 4. Same or worst goes for Real Player. Its just the way it is.
MS has done some sleazy stuff (especially threatening companies who want to installl 3rd party software on pcs they produce, often in exchange for money). That said, I can't even remember the last name brand computer that didn't come so loaded from the factory with so much crapware that it is already more or less ruined. Is this also an MS shill line? Please tell me. your opinion is important to me.
The ability to transmit information from one member to another and from one generation to another is what separates us from animals. MS is attacking the very thing that makes us human. They are building a world where information is no longer permanent and may not be transmitted without their permission. This is much worse then polluting or even killing people. This is killing humanity, denying you the right to read and write is a crime far worse then murder.
Uhhuh. I guess that you are referring to DRM. You know the AUTHOR of content decides the level of comp
Well I did get the whole forum part of the webapp working with MySQL. If you mean figuring out a way to use named parameters then I'm affraid I have looked and not found a way to use them. In getting stuff to work I have found plenty of ways of getting around this missing feature.
I want to make clear that the reason I even used MySQL was to be able to use it if I ever needed to, specifically to save on licensing fees. I read plenty of documentation, and got a decent handle on how MySQL works. I wanted to replace MS SQL with it. I made it work before I decided the workarounds just weren't worth it.
If you know of some way to use named parameters then please tell me here and now. I have looked through many pages of documentation and found nothing. I find named parameters so usefull because they save me a ton of time and make my code more readable.
Do other open source databases have named parameters? If so which ones do?
Bill Gates never called you a communist. I'm pretty sure he never said that "people who use Linux are communist". If Bill Gates is going to call you anything, he should really call you a dipshit.
MS is amongst the top of the sleaziest corporations.
The sleaziest corporations in the US pollute without remorse resulting in thousands of illnesses and deaths. They buy off politicians so that they may continue to pollute and kill unabated. Get some perspective before you start making wild accusation.
about "ethics": a quick summary of the MS monopoly trial
Netscape and Real Networks each made a product which was inferior to Microsoft's. IE was superior to Netscape Navigator since version 4 or so, and WMP has been superior to Real Player ever since Real Networks became a scumware company. Hell it was harder to find the free version of real player on real's own website than it is to find it on a computer where it was installed.
Rather than compete on features these companies chose to try to force MS to stop bundleing its superior products with its popular OS. Is it just me, or shouldn't a $140 OS come with a web browser and media player?
Both companies were instrumental in anti-trust lawsuits against MS. Considering that Real "Check out how we spam you from your system tray" Player is often the first thing I uninstall after a system restore and Netscape never managed to be nearly as fast as IE or Opera the motives for such a letigious strategy should be clear.
MS is sleazy, but the people who sued them on the premise that MS's superior products were beating them due to unfair competition are far sleazyer.
I can't help but lol when someone walks up to a closed minded group of people and tells them that everything they believe is wrong. The only thing better is when he follows this up by undeniably proving them to be completely wrong in every sense of the word. I just with I could see the look on their faces.
You rule and your pornographic website is awesome (if you use a secure browser and turn off plugins, java, and javascript).
So does MySQL do named query parameters? I wrote a webapp in asp.net 1.1 using mysql to see if I could really replace MS SQL with MySQL. The first thing I noticed is that
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = @ForumID;
no longer works and must be changed to:
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = ?;
Now this my be fine for really simple queries, but alot of more complex queries are a real pain in the ass to write without named parameters.
Sorry, but any DB that can't handle named parameters feels more like a toy than even Access.
Btw, check out the QueryAnalyzer built into Visual Studio 2005. It actually does syntax checking for whatever DB you are using (even MySQL) and when used with datsets can eliminate *alot* of DB related code.
When I rewrote my webapp using asp.net 2.0 / MS SQL express and I felt like I had just traded in a Huffy for a real mountain bike.
I go to UTD also.
1. Don't be so sure about the quality of the education. It is easy to get stuck in classes that don't teach anything. A few professor names you may wan't to keep in mind when choosing classes: "Ozbirn" and "Lacambra". Those are the only two off the top of my head whose classes actually require you to learn the material.
2. If you can get away with not programming in a class, you will not learn anything. Do not think that you know the subject matter. Go off and learn it on your own. (there are exceptions to this rule, but not that many)
3. Assign yourself projects that you thing professors should have assigned. That way what you learn in class is not a complete loss.
I have had some really good classes at utd and some really useless classes. If the professor name isn't listed it is a total crapshoot as to whether you will actually learn anything useful. A high diagram/source-code ratio is a sure sign of trouble.
If the Comnputer Networks professor says, "Your final project will be a c++ simulation of sending data over a network. No, you will at no time in this class write a program that sends data over a network." $1000 -> Toilet.
I hate to badmouth the school I'm about to get a diploma from but this shit is rediculous. Maby this assesment is a bit harsh but I really resent my time and money being wasted on useless classes.
BTW everyone please stop bragging about your scholarship at every possible moment. I was taking Physics 2 at Richland this summer and my class had like 3 4 UTD students. Me, an overachiever (who was totally cool in my book btw), and two others. Those other two spent at least 10 minutes on several occasions describing the terms of their scholarship. These guys were like already Juniors and still going on and on. Given the high quantity of scholarships given to utd students these ahem 'size comparisons' are annoyingly common. Why don't you just whip out your laptops and settle it once and for all (by running code of course).
While I'm on the subject. You know who really cracks me up. Freshmen EE majors who are always lording the fact that their degree has harder classes than a CS degree only to drop out of EE and do business or MIS or something lol.
Are you people trying to mess up? Gahh!
Hi cmdrtaco,
/. but I think an ip ban is a bit over the top).
Good to see you posting like a mere mortal. I'll try to keep this as respectful as I can.
It's not like Blizzard decided to change gameplay dynamics. I spend a lot of time working on the Slashdot moderation system, and I never have any problem changing any "Rule" in the system if I believe it will improve the overall functionality of the whole system.
Please stop banning me from posting. Please stop banning others from posting. More valuble contributers than I have been banned for as few as 2 'bad' comments. Meanwhile the system for determining what is a bad comment is completely broken (I'm sure by now you will have looked at my posting history. Im not the greatest poster on
I logged in, I stood by my words, and I was banned for what I said. When I read you pontificating on free speech and the evil of arbitrary restrictions it makes me want to laugh and cry. To someone who has been banned from your site you sound like Bill Oreilly yelling about the need to carefully analyze the issues before jumping to conclusions.
I understand ip banning is necessary among other reasons to prevent crapfloods, but a quick check of the trolltalk sid shows that people who want to crapflood can still do so at will.
ps: Please don't ban the ip that I am posting this from. I had to ssh to my school to do it and I would feel really bad if I managed to ban my entire college from posting. And you should feel really bad about banning my entire college from posting if that is what you choose to do.
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "6de13b5040b79597b363652c6cec030b" and "cfd86e10a6bebf3998a2745ac3aeeb05" and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "*.*.*.*" and your username "bit trollent".
Congratulations! Slashdot has one less user who doesn't take your illogical ramblings as the sacred word of God. I raised my voice in protest one time too many and now I have been silenced (for a while anyways). This is not the first time our censorship overlords have flagged me for muzzeling, and it probably won't be the last.
Before I am finally banned I would like to say that the people who make this site a reptetative craphole of halfassed regurgitated opinions are utterly worthless. The vast majority of you unoriginal shitheads could drop dead with no noticeible impact on this site. Who would make my unsjustified posts defending/condeming $topic? Some other shithead with too much time on his hands and a penchant for the uninispired, thats who. Trust me, someone will be here berate us on the difference between free and gnu/free. It goes without saying that the same is true of praising Apple, reguardless of how sleazy they many behave, how onerous their vendor lockin is compared to say Microsoft, or anything else which may irk real geeks. Someone will still be here to explain why they are still the next best thing to Open Source. It goes without saying that anyone failing to reprimand Microsoft for existing and objectively weighing the cost and benefit of their software will be instantly explained away as a paid shill. No need to worry, Applesexuals. Shilling accusations inexplicably don't apply to you. Anyway, to all the people who make slashdot suck, here is a big 'up yours' from me to you.
In my last post before my forced posting sabbatical I would also like to say something to the people I have argued with over the years with my two accounts. (the other one has excellent karma. yeah I know how to play the game.) This specifically goes out to the people who have exposed my ignorance with style and aplomb. You guys rule. When others point to the moderation system as the true judge of truth you are not satisfied. You use evidence and genuine logic to make your point and in the process expand our minds and challenge us to think critically. I may not have always agreed with what you said, but I often learned something new. There have also been times when you genuinely changed my mind.
These genuine insights are rarely rewarded with modpoints, but I know you don't care. I'm sure some of you have been censored as well. But at the end of the day when the modpoints are tallied and the people who once again repeated the popular oppinion have moved on to repeating the popular opinion on some other subject, the minds you opened, challenged, or enfuriated remain.
Be proud free thinkers of slashdot, you are the real winners.
more like developers.slashdot.org
amicorrect?
A couple years ago I read that a school which I had applied had its admissions database hacked in to. Everyone who applied gave more than enough information to make identity theft a breeze. I don't think my info has been used yet, but I know that whoever has it can use it whenever they want.
The 'verification' banks use now to confirm your identity is a joke. It is negligent to issue credit or anything else based on this information but they do it anyway. Sure they take a loss, which is insignificant compared to what they make in profit. The person whose information is used has his credit ruined. They are impacted much more than the bank which recklessly put credit in their name. This is not right.
Given that the government is owned and operated by a greedy corporate conglomerate, I doubt any significant consumer protection will be passed any time soon anyway.
Now, if you're upset that you can't drag from your desktop to the iPod, well.. it's intentionally designed that way.. for 2 reasons. 1.) to discourage piracy..
If you could just drag/copy several thousand tracks in the way you describe, the labels wouldn't have allowed the iPod or the iTMS to exist.
Other mp3 players allow faster, more direct ways of transfering files. They are allowed to exist. This has nothing to do with iTMS other than maybe RIAA politics, but the RIAA is not Apple's customer. My needs should surely be placed over some music industry jerk who would be insane to cut off iTMS for the sake of preventing this feature. Music is piracy is not prevented in the least anyway. The only thing this decision actually achieves is a poor user experience.
To the extent to which Apple has to lock down their files with DRM I can totally understand. It is a simple fact of life that no label will license you music unless you lock it down with DRM. It is also the reason that I would rather buy a CD(nonDRM) or pirate than buy from iTMS. I mean the free product is better than what the labels are trying to sell. I didn't buy my first dvd until someone cracked the DRM and made it easy to copy. The day I again can't copy movies, is the day I stop buying them
2.) to simplify organization (using a database). It's not suppposed to work like a floppy disk.
That is not a legitimate reason. I understand that it uses a database, but there is no reason that the iPod itself can not do the database organization. All it would have to do is update iPod the database after the files are added. This is not difficult in any way. I mean I could personally write software that would emulate the iPod interface perfectly, while allowing mp3s and anything else to be copied on the fly, usb-drive style.
Most people would rather just dock it and have their iTunes stuff 'magically' appear.. that's why apple designed that way. That's how nearly everyone wants it to work.. and several million iPods and hundreds of millions of iTMS songs appear to validate that. It wasn't designed specifically to piss you off. If you have a particular need, give apple some feedback and/or find some shareware to accomplish what you're asking.
The thing is what I'm asking for, and what iTunes already does are not mutually exclusive in the least. I already use iTunes to do this. It's just much more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. They could have easily added this feature but chose not to. They knew what they were doing. It was a calculated decision made for reasons other than providing the best possible software. They want iTunes to be 'the' music player on people's computers and they intentionally and unnecessarily crippled the iPod to achieve this goal. It doesn't get more sleazy than that. I love my iPod but there is a good chance I won't ever buy another one.
I didn't buy an iPod so I could use iTunes, and most of the millions of people who bought one didn't either. Alot of them may be using iTunes now, but I'll bet a good amount have sworn off Apple for good.
I think if you read my posts carefully, you will find than apart from saying that I dislike iTunes, I explain why.
Thats right, WHY you petulent little shit.
It is called evidence. I attempt to buid the case that iTunes sucks by providing evidence of its deficiencies.
When I say something, I justify it. Others can then examine the evidence that I use to justify my conclusions. They can show me where I am wrong, or why my evidence does not lead to the conclusions I have drawn. If a person makes me believe that I have not sufficiently justified my case, I will attempt to justify it better, by providing additional evidence. I try to make each post original by including different evidence or reasoning, and explaining why it bolsters my assertion.
Unfortunately, many people on slashdot do not engage in honest debate.
Windows Sucks
iTunes is awesome
Real programmers use Linux
These statements are made with no justification, whatsoever. People with small minds mod them up. A post which utterly disproves them is meaningless in this crowd, where the most groupthink complient comment is modded up.
There are, however, people on this site who wish to engage in honest debate, and sometimes they find eachother. These are the people I post here to interact with. They are what make this site more than a collection of opinions. A well argued AC post at -1 is worth more than a weeks worth of +5s.
If you don't like it, fine. Read it or don't. Hell, flame me again if you feel up to it. I really could care less.
In conclusion, your inability to understand the difference between repeating an opinion and better justifying an opinion demonstrates to me that you are a worthless sniveling shit.
Ok, Here is why that analogy is flawed.
iTMS does not sell you a physical, sellable, loseable, breakable item.
What they sell is more akin to what Opera used to sell(btw thanks for giving it away free now), that is computer data. When you purchase Opera, you are given a user key. If your computer dies for whatever reason you do not lose your copy of Opera. You simply go back to Opera.com, download it again, and enter your key.
This is good customer service applied to the internet.
The way people talk about iTMS I would expect batter from them.
Fuck You.
What did I inturrupt your stream of +5 glowing reviews about iTunes which all say the same thing?
I already use ephpod. It is better than iTunes, but in my opinion not good enough. I bought an iPod after reading on slashdot how great iTunes was and how it would make transfering files so easy and painless. I based my purchasing decisions on what was said on this site. Nobody mentioned that it was actually a pain in the ass to use if it wasnt your main mp3 player.
I get home, start up iTunes, and expect to be blown away by what described as a beautiful interface. I'm sure you have already read what I discovered when I actually used the program. It turns out that slashdot hivemind was wrong. This comes as no surprise, but usually there is at least one person here to explain why the hivemind is wrong, even if he will doubtlessly be modded down and flamed. When I read about iTunes there was no such person.
If I save one person from buying a $300 iPod based on flawed information it will be worth it.
The files play fine in Winamp and every other media player I have ever used. If an mp3 only has a problem in one of the dozens of programs which play it is that a flaw in the file or a flaw in the program which fails to propperly play it?
I wouldn't even be that bothered if it just skipped them. But it doesn't. It freezes up and drains the battery at an alarming rate.
A portable mp3 player should NEVER freeze up while reading the hard drive under any circumstances. Never. I blame the iPod for behaving in a way that is simply inexcusable under any circumstances.
My point is many people don't like iTunes. Look, I wouldnt be here writing this if I wasn't extremely pissed off about the general lousiness and unnecessary extra steps required to load mp3s on to my iPod.
:)
How hard would it be to let you drag an mp3 from your hard drive to an iPod icon? Not hard. Why doesn't iTunes have this simple, emmensely useful feature? Because it is lousy software. It lacks features users want which would be easy to implement.
It should require exactly two clicks to put an mp3 on an iPod: RightClick. SendToIpod. Done. If you want to use some program that manages your mp3s or all the other stuff that iTunes does which I don't need since I use Winamp (a far better mp3 player) fine.
But putting an mp3 on a portable mp3 player should not have to be as complicated and time consuming as iTunes makes it. Every time that I see an mp3 that I want on my iPod should I have to start iTunes and find it or import it there also? No! I have created folders so when I find an mp3 I want on my iPod I can copy it to the folder rather than stop what I'm doing so I can screw around with iTunes.
It's hardly the case that most people look for a 3rd party application to replace iTunes for their iPod... since it's out of the box compatible with all major formats with the exception of WMA and some less common codecs like ogg. Might I suggest getting your facts straight... oh wait, this is Slashdot. Never mind, continue blathering
If people like iTunes so much then why did anyone bother writing an application to replace it? Why did several groups write several applications, some of them costing money, to replace a piece of software that everybody loves and can get for free? Answer that, numbnuts.
You want to get your facts straight, how about this fact: I hate iTunes. I find it to be a pain in the ass to use. Many other people hate iTunes as well. This hatred of iTunes has created a market for third party applications which replace it.
My iPod (about 1 year old) doesn't play all mp3s. With several mp3 in my collection it freezes while continuing to read the hard drive. Every time this happens I lose 30 minutes to one hour of batterly life. If I leave it playing rather than hitting next for 30 seconds it will completely drain my battery while trying to play this one song.
That would be annoying enough, but there is really no way to delete a song from your iPod, at least without hooking it up to something so you are pretty much stuck with it. Every time my iPod hits one of these song I just want to throw that piece of shit out the window.
I have downloaded firmware upgrades, but the problem remains.
Apple makes lousy software.
The reason should be obvious. People do not like iTunes. They use it for the first time and realize that it didn't load their iPod with mp3 like it looks like it should have. Then they screw around with iTunes for a while, trying to figure out how you trick this application in to actually putting mp3s on your iPod.
Then they look for a different program to load mp3s on to their iPod.
So a person drops $300 on an iPod after hearing among other things that iTunes is in itself enough reason to buy one. Then they look for a 3rd party application to replace iTunes, which their iPod purchase essentially paid for.
Do these sound like satisfied consumers?
I had always assumed that iTunes did what you are suggesting. I have an iPod, but have not bought a single song of iTines, and now I'm glad I didn't even if only on principle.
Thank you for telling us about this gaping flaw.
The iTunes appologists who lecture you about backing up your data are hilarious. iTunes doesn't implement a reasonable, I would say vital feature in their product, which you paid money for, and they have the gall to act like you are the one who screwed up.
I have always thought that Apple appologists have their heads up their asses and these guys have proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Hey geniuses, why do you think there are a dozen 3rd party applications for loading mp3s on to an iPod?
These machines don't just detect what you have on you. They detect what you have been around. I'm just imagining the conversation at the security checkpoint.
Fat Black Woman: "Sir, the Sniffer2000 has detected Marijuana and Cocain."
Me (stoned): "Yeah, I don't know why that is. Has the machine been acting up lately or something? This comes as a complete shock to me!"
Fat Black Woman: "Sir, we are going to have to check your Colon for Controband. Tyrone! Come here! We got an asshole for you to check!"