Personally I'm just waiting until my new favorite system – OpenBSD – has to put in a backdoor. "Only one (non-government-mandated) remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"
So the way I see it is this – you turn it off, page performance suffers because of lack of cache. You turn it on, page performance suffers because of lack of memory. Ah, choices...
Well, I guess I may as well find a different browser since I obviously can't fit Firefox, KDE, Enlightenment, OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, and not to mention every game on my system into my laptop's 96MB of RAM:-) Nah, just kidding.
Seriously though, a lot of the time if I don't need JavaScript or CSS, I'll just pull up Dillo. So much faster... and Konqueror kicks ass too, especially with the embedded file manager / SSH file transfer client / embedded terminal emulator...
Dann ist es ja gut, dass ich spreche Deutsch und spiele Computerspiele!
Hmm, I wonder if bilingual applies to both spoken and computer languages? Because if you counted all the computer languages I can "speak," it would be insane. Let's see, Python, shell scripting, PHP, some C/C++, *shudder* BASIC... and that's just the ones that can be used for practical purposes! Well, except BASIC that is;-)
Back in the good old days, we used to just use duct tape and superglue to keep people from messing with our machines! (And I guess OpenBSD doesn't hurt either...;-)
but in my humble opinion, I'd say that the GIMP is the best thing since sliced bread. I just can't imagine working on a machine without that amazing program installed – it's done everything I could ever need it to, whether I'm color-correcting a scanned photo, digitally coloring the likes of Erlkönig, or creating proof that J. K. Rowling's been hard at work on the eighth book that everyone knows is coming. In fact, believe it or not, I've never even used PhotoShop in my entire life; all the graphics on my homepage (except the ones taken from elsewhere, of course, like the background image) were created using the GIMP. And, of course, a bit of ImageMagick here and there; I doubt PhotoShop's going to have a handy command line any time soon!
I'd say an SSH tunnel probably wouldn't be a bad idea; if you use Windows (or don't like Linux's command-line SSH interface), grab a copy of PuTTY and set up an SSH tunnel forwarding local port 8000 to "127.0.0.1:80" on the server – or whatever values would be appropriate for your case. I used it for quite a while before my school district finally caught on that I was accessing my Linux box at home:-) And doing an SSH tunnel has the added advantage of not having to use an insecure HTTP connection, and you don't have to deal with setting up SSL on your server if all you need's a simple calendar app.
Oh, and yes, I know you're probably going to flame me for something or other. Linus Torvalds never got any peace during the BitKeeper days, right? But to be completely honest, the few virtualization programs out there are all so radically different, there really just isn't as much to choose from – unlike with, say, operating systems or Web browsers. I have a solution that meets my needs, so I think I'll stick with it unless I see something that's truly worth switching to.
And I have to say, I do appreciate VMware's releasing GSX free. Besides, who knows – I'm willing to bet that if the competition gets strong enough, they'll eventually release their source code. Probably is a long shot, but anything is possible.
Well, even though I've used QEMU quite a while (and even wrote the first version of its Wikipedia article!), I have to say that I prefer VMware myself. For one thing it's a lot faster – very important if you need to test the next version of a Linux system right now without any delays – and I also just like the program better.
And then there's the licensing issue – while I appreciate QEMU being free and all, I don't like how the KQEMU module's proprietary software that can't be freely distributed. I'd much prefer to just have a completely proprietary solution that works than to have a half-free solution that doesn't really do much for me. Although if I knew how to write virtualization software I'd have my own solution anyway;-)
Oh, and remember Bochs, what we used to have before QEMU? I remember spending hours just toying around with that program... ran Windows 95 pretty nicely, and before I switched to Linux it was rather nice to have a virtualization program that ran reliably on Windows 98SE.
Although now I'm a Linux user and addicted to VMware, so why should it matter?;-)
Yeah, I'd say try Berlios – but then again, they declined my project, so I'd say the best way would be to just host it yourself. I'd offer space on my own server, except that it's a bit unreliable and somewhat overloaded at the moment...
I second the notion to just host it yourself on a Linux box, and use BitTorrent to handle stuff. I was in the exact same situation as you once with my own distro, Ultima – and look where it got me. I've had over 8000 downloads now, all running off 384k uplink, a 700MHz Duron, and endless BitTorrent seeding:-)
Couple tips if you're going to be creating a Linux distro:
Tell DistroWatch.com and get yourself famous. That's more or less how I got well-known. I'm not sure if they do the Windows-based distros, but it's worth a shot.
Know the good BitTorrent sites such as mininova, one of my own favorites, and The Linux Mirror Project. There's a ton of people on those sites who will download stuff just because it's there, and trust me, if you want instant fame that can be a very good thing.
If you need FTP, may I humbly suggest telling MadTux.org about your project. I myself heard of them when they e-mailed an offer to host my project for FTP download, and they're very, very friendly people. They do have a fee for downloaders, but to get your distro's ISO's or whatever hosted with them is free. (Tell them that I sent you, they'll know what to do;-)
May be a few other things I've forgotten, but those are the big ones. Good luck!
...which is why I stay out of this whole iTunes battle with my nano and use gnupod. Don't settle for less – or more, or whatever would be the correct comparison here...
Yeah, but you've still payed $250 or however much for Windows, and if you downloaded it you'll eventually be caught. I personally find that Linux is just much better for my needs – it's far less expensive, a great deal more stable, easier to configure (at least I think it is), and I just like Linux so much more anyway because I happen to be a Linux developer.;-)
Right now my own server is a headless whitebox system, AMD Duron 700MHz, with 256MB RAM. [Did I say that already? Mod sentence -1 redundant...] The only things usually connected are the power cable and Ethernet. I only take it offline if I need to do a major upgrade, and for that I set it up on one of my other machine's keyboard/display/mouse/whatever. It right now hosts, among other things:
Ultima Linux, of course
My homepage and blog. I <heart> WordPress...
My friend's homepage
Another friend's computer-store-type-thing
Several other friends' sites
Whatever I happen to be testing at the moment
Most of the sites are running some content management system or other with a Web-based interface, and the few things that require actually logging in to the server itself can easily be handled through SSH. I can also do SSH tunneling through it, which is nice. Since my password's so ridiculous I just keep an SSH key on my laptop that the server will recognize so I can automatically log in without the password.
I think the problem with that analogy is that you're comparing two different categories in one and vendors in the other. Sure, Toyota and Ford may not be Ferrari or Rolls-Royce but the difference is there's actually major competition. I hate having to say this, being a hard-working Linux developer myself, but as far as operating systems go there's not very much competition as far as the masses go. (Although there is a ton within the Linux community, another thing that your analogy doesn't take into account...)
Round red things that fall on Sir Isaac Newton's to citrus fruits that share the same name as their color, anyone?
Sorry I'm replying to myself, but one more thing I remembered:
If done just right, you can set up a Linux server and totally forget about it until the end of time for all anyone cares. My own machine, a 700MHz Duron with 256MB RAM, manages to run Apache, sendmail, VSFTPD, and BitTorrent – and not to mention MySQL and a few other internal-use-only-type things – oh, and OpenSSH as well for remote logins, and the occassional VNC session – without any problems; you just have to know what you do and don't need. I've set it up so that it only allows around 20 or so simultaneous connections, and just about the only time it ever needs tweaking is if there's a new version of Ultima Linux out. (And I should know...)
Another suggestion would be to choose a different program to run the site. I hear that lighttpd is pretty good, and mininova would probably agree with me here... I haven't used it much personally, because I've become overly dependant on Apache's mod_rewrite, but it's worth checking out if you don't want to over-burden the server.
Here's what I say: If you don't mind a slightly slower Internet connections and have no intentions of being/.ed, a home server is perfectly acceptable. I myself used to use GeoCities, Tripod, etc. a lot, but after a while kept having to move over because so-and-so had X feature that I wanted... drove me nuts, trying to find a free host that suited my needs.
Eventually I figured that since we have broadband I may as well set up my own machine as a server. Used to run off my desktop – not a good idea – but now I've got a dedicated machine that's been re-purposed as a server. Everything I need (PHP/Python, MySQL, as much space as I need, NO ADS...) and then some.
And this machine hasn't been too much of a problem even though (1) we've got about six or seven machines online ALL AT ONCE at any given time, including the server, and (2) since it's hosting what's now a fairly well-known Linux distro – my own of course, link to DistroWatch to save me bandwidth – and haven't had a problem.
I think the trick is really to just know what you're doing. Don't over-burden your connection, optimize your site for efficient bandwidth usage, use technologies like BitTorrent if you plan on distributing lots of large files, and things should be just fine.
Oh, and one more suggestion: Go with Linux... yes, I'm saying that partially because I'm a Linux developer and therefore would be somewhat biased, partially because it's better optimized for that type of thing, and partially because spending $1000+ on Windows Server for a tiny personal site [or even a large one like mine...] is just overkill.:-)
I think the only time I've ever been able to tolerate a cell phone's Web browser (or a cell phone, for that matter) was during the summer when I used it to hack an MSN connection on my laptop. Long story short, it didn't really involve anything illegal, I just had to Google for a nameserver that would work. After that things were perfect, or at least as perfect as things can be on a dial-up connection...:-)
Since then the most mobile Internet-accessible device I've put up with is my slightly newer Dell Latitude CP with a NETGEAR 802.11b adapter – which is now replacing my old Micron XPE that I've had for years and years and years and years... don't get me started on all the horror stories I have of hacking Internet connections with that thing!
I remember them! I used to be addicted to WindowBlinds when I was still stuck with 98SE (the last version I ever owned). Although then again, these days I tend to prefer KDE mixed with Enlightenment myself...
Everyone else here seems to be saying "reformat the computer," and I'd have to second that nomination. (Third? Fourth? Fifth?) I remember that I had to do that once with our family's only Windows XP machine – the rest are all Linux boxes, with maybe one or two 98SE installs – not just because of the spyware and stuff loaded up, but also just because of that stupid junk Dell pre-installs. There's a good reason I'm a Linux guy!
Of course, now no one at my place worries much about spyware or viruses anyway, because that was over a year ago, and I've converted everyone to Linux by now!
Mod redundant if you want but I have to second NdisWrapper. I remember downloading it back during the 0.x days so that I could get a NETGEAR PCI card working... now I've got that, about two tons of USB adapters, and who knows what else.
And there's also Prism54, although I couldn't really find the downloads or whatever because I have to admit they have a pretty miserably-organized site. And there are a few others as well that I can't remember of the top of my head – the RA-whatever ones come to mind.
So wireless support really isn't that much of a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I'm just waiting until my new favorite system – OpenBSD – has to put in a backdoor. "Only one (non-government-mandated) remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"
So the way I see it is this – you turn it off, page performance suffers because of lack of cache. You turn it on, page performance suffers because of lack of memory. Ah, choices...
:-) Nah, just kidding.
Well, I guess I may as well find a different browser since I obviously can't fit Firefox, KDE, Enlightenment, OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, and not to mention every game on my system into my laptop's 96MB of RAM
Seriously though, a lot of the time if I don't need JavaScript or CSS, I'll just pull up Dillo. So much faster... and Konqueror kicks ass too, especially with the embedded file manager / SSH file transfer client / embedded terminal emulator...
Donkey Kong (all of 'em), all the Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man style games, Zelda, Mario, and among my absolute favorites – King's Quest!
...They have been touched by His Noodly Appendage.
Dann ist es ja gut, dass ich spreche Deutsch und spiele Computerspiele!
;-)
Hmm, I wonder if bilingual applies to both spoken and computer languages? Because if you counted all the computer languages I can "speak," it would be insane. Let's see, Python, shell scripting, PHP, some C/C++, *shudder* BASIC... and that's just the ones that can be used for practical purposes! Well, except BASIC that is
Back in the good old days, we used to just use duct tape and superglue to keep people from messing with our machines! (And I guess OpenBSD doesn't hurt either... ;-)
but in my humble opinion, I'd say that the GIMP is the best thing since sliced bread. I just can't imagine working on a machine without that amazing program installed – it's done everything I could ever need it to, whether I'm color-correcting a scanned photo, digitally coloring the likes of Erlkönig, or creating proof that J. K. Rowling's been hard at work on the eighth book that everyone knows is coming. In fact, believe it or not, I've never even used PhotoShop in my entire life; all the graphics on my homepage (except the ones taken from elsewhere, of course, like the background image) were created using the GIMP. And, of course, a bit of ImageMagick here and there; I doubt PhotoShop's going to have a handy command line any time soon!
I'd say an SSH tunnel probably wouldn't be a bad idea; if you use Windows (or don't like Linux's command-line SSH interface), grab a copy of PuTTY and set up an SSH tunnel forwarding local port 8000 to "127.0.0.1:80" on the server – or whatever values would be appropriate for your case. I used it for quite a while before my school district finally caught on that I was accessing my Linux box at home :-) And doing an SSH tunnel has the added advantage of not having to use an insecure HTTP connection, and you don't have to deal with setting up SSL on your server if all you need's a simple calendar app.
Oh, and yes, I know you're probably going to flame me for something or other. Linus Torvalds never got any peace during the BitKeeper days, right? But to be completely honest, the few virtualization programs out there are all so radically different, there really just isn't as much to choose from – unlike with, say, operating systems or Web browsers. I have a solution that meets my needs, so I think I'll stick with it unless I see something that's truly worth switching to.
And I have to say, I do appreciate VMware's releasing GSX free. Besides, who knows – I'm willing to bet that if the competition gets strong enough, they'll eventually release their source code. Probably is a long shot, but anything is possible.
Whatever the case though, VMware still kicks ass.
Well, even though I've used QEMU quite a while (and even wrote the first version of its Wikipedia article!), I have to say that I prefer VMware myself. For one thing it's a lot faster – very important if you need to test the next version of a Linux system right now without any delays – and I also just like the program better.
;-)
;-)
And then there's the licensing issue – while I appreciate QEMU being free and all, I don't like how the KQEMU module's proprietary software that can't be freely distributed. I'd much prefer to just have a completely proprietary solution that works than to have a half-free solution that doesn't really do much for me. Although if I knew how to write virtualization software I'd have my own solution anyway
Oh, and remember Bochs, what we used to have before QEMU? I remember spending hours just toying around with that program... ran Windows 95 pretty nicely, and before I switched to Linux it was rather nice to have a virtualization program that ran reliably on Windows 98SE.
Although now I'm a Linux user and addicted to VMware, so why should it matter?
Yeah, I'd say try Berlios – but then again, they declined my project, so I'd say the best way would be to just host it yourself. I'd offer space on my own server, except that it's a bit unreliable and somewhat overloaded at the moment...
I second the notion to just host it yourself on a Linux box, and use BitTorrent to handle stuff. I was in the exact same situation as you once with my own distro, Ultima – and look where it got me. I've had over 8000 downloads now, all running off 384k uplink, a 700MHz Duron, and endless BitTorrent seeding :-)
;-)
Couple tips if you're going to be creating a Linux distro:
Tell DistroWatch.com and get yourself famous. That's more or less how I got well-known. I'm not sure if they do the Windows-based distros, but it's worth a shot.
Know the good BitTorrent sites such as mininova, one of my own favorites, and The Linux Mirror Project. There's a ton of people on those sites who will download stuff just because it's there, and trust me, if you want instant fame that can be a very good thing.
If you need FTP, may I humbly suggest telling MadTux.org about your project. I myself heard of them when they e-mailed an offer to host my project for FTP download, and they're very, very friendly people. They do have a fee for downloaders, but to get your distro's ISO's or whatever hosted with them is free. (Tell them that I sent you, they'll know what to do
May be a few other things I've forgotten, but those are the big ones. Good luck!
...which is why I stay out of this whole iTunes battle with my nano and use gnupod. Don't settle for less – or more, or whatever would be the correct comparison here...
...memo to me, preview comments before posting, otherwise /. will mess up the formatting...
Right now my own server is a headless whitebox system, AMD Duron 700MHz, with 256MB RAM. [Did I say that already? Mod sentence -1 redundant...] The only things usually connected are the power cable and Ethernet. I only take it offline if I need to do a major upgrade, and for that I set it up on one of my other machine's keyboard/display/mouse/whatever. It right now hosts, among other things:
Most of the sites are running some content management system or other with a Web-based interface, and the few things that require actually logging in to the server itself can easily be handled through SSH. I can also do SSH tunneling through it, which is nice. Since my password's so ridiculous I just keep an SSH key on my laptop that the server will recognize so I can automatically log in without the password.
I think the problem with that analogy is that you're comparing two different categories in one and vendors in the other. Sure, Toyota and Ford may not be Ferrari or Rolls-Royce but the difference is there's actually major competition. I hate having to say this, being a hard-working Linux developer myself, but as far as operating systems go there's not very much competition as far as the masses go. (Although there is a ton within the Linux community, another thing that your analogy doesn't take into account...)
Round red things that fall on Sir Isaac Newton's to citrus fruits that share the same name as their color, anyone?
Accept no substitute! 'Nuff said.
Sorry I'm replying to myself, but one more thing I remembered:
If done just right, you can set up a Linux server and totally forget about it until the end of time for all anyone cares. My own machine, a 700MHz Duron with 256MB RAM, manages to run Apache, sendmail, VSFTPD, and BitTorrent – and not to mention MySQL and a few other internal-use-only-type things – oh, and OpenSSH as well for remote logins, and the occassional VNC session – without any problems; you just have to know what you do and don't need. I've set it up so that it only allows around 20 or so simultaneous connections, and just about the only time it ever needs tweaking is if there's a new version of Ultima Linux out. (And I should know...)
Another suggestion would be to choose a different program to run the site. I hear that lighttpd is pretty good, and mininova would probably agree with me here... I haven't used it much personally, because I've become overly dependant on Apache's mod_rewrite, but it's worth checking out if you don't want to over-burden the server.
Configuration, configuration, configuration!
Here's what I say: If you don't mind a slightly slower Internet connections and have no intentions of being /.ed, a home server is perfectly acceptable. I myself used to use GeoCities, Tripod, etc. a lot, but after a while kept having to move over because so-and-so had X feature that I wanted... drove me nuts, trying to find a free host that suited my needs.
:-)
Eventually I figured that since we have broadband I may as well set up my own machine as a server. Used to run off my desktop – not a good idea – but now I've got a dedicated machine that's been re-purposed as a server. Everything I need (PHP/Python, MySQL, as much space as I need, NO ADS...) and then some.
And this machine hasn't been too much of a problem even though (1) we've got about six or seven machines online ALL AT ONCE at any given time, including the server, and (2) since it's hosting what's now a fairly well-known Linux distro – my own of course, link to DistroWatch to save me bandwidth – and haven't had a problem.
I think the trick is really to just know what you're doing. Don't over-burden your connection, optimize your site for efficient bandwidth usage, use technologies like BitTorrent if you plan on distributing lots of large files, and things should be just fine.
Oh, and one more suggestion: Go with Linux... yes, I'm saying that partially because I'm a Linux developer and therefore would be somewhat biased, partially because it's better optimized for that type of thing, and partially because spending $1000+ on Windows Server for a tiny personal site [or even a large one like mine...] is just overkill.
I think the only time I've ever been able to tolerate a cell phone's Web browser (or a cell phone, for that matter) was during the summer when I used it to hack an MSN connection on my laptop. Long story short, it didn't really involve anything illegal, I just had to Google for a nameserver that would work. After that things were perfect, or at least as perfect as things can be on a dial-up connection... :-)
Since then the most mobile Internet-accessible device I've put up with is my slightly newer Dell Latitude CP with a NETGEAR 802.11b adapter – which is now replacing my old Micron XPE that I've had for years and years and years and years... don't get me started on all the horror stories I have of hacking Internet connections with that thing!
I remember them! I used to be addicted to WindowBlinds when I was still stuck with 98SE (the last version I ever owned). Although then again, these days I tend to prefer KDE mixed with Enlightenment myself...
Everyone else here seems to be saying "reformat the computer," and I'd have to second that nomination. (Third? Fourth? Fifth?) I remember that I had to do that once with our family's only Windows XP machine – the rest are all Linux boxes, with maybe one or two 98SE installs – not just because of the spyware and stuff loaded up, but also just because of that stupid junk Dell pre-installs. There's a good reason I'm a Linux guy!
;-)
Of course, now no one at my place worries much about spyware or viruses anyway, because that was over a year ago, and I've converted everyone to Linux by now!
Oh, by the way, CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT RE-FORMATTING A COMPUTER! COMES WITH FREE SCREENSAVER AND RINGTONE!
Yeah, I think Wikipedia already has them :-)
Mod redundant if you want but I have to second NdisWrapper. I remember downloading it back during the 0.x days so that I could get a NETGEAR PCI card working... now I've got that, about two tons of USB adapters, and who knows what else.
And there's also Prism54, although I couldn't really find the downloads or whatever because I have to admit they have a pretty miserably-organized site. And there are a few others as well that I can't remember of the top of my head – the RA-whatever ones come to mind.
So wireless support really isn't that much of a problem.
Two words. Ford Edsel.