Definitely agreed – while I tend to be almost insanely obsessive about using CSS, there are a few things that I've found are just so much easier with tables; as far as I'm concerned, image galleries are "tabular" enough that it's OK to bend the no-tables-for-non-tabular-data rule just a little bit. And complex pages like the Get Ultima! page (for my distribution – not an ad, just what I feel's a good example) would be hard to implement without tables, either. Personally, I honestly couldn't care how the Web site's implemented – the only thing that I consider important for a "proper" Web site design, other than the design itself of course, is whether or not it validates.
By the way, you can even do without <div>'s if you know what you're doing – that same link's also a good example of that. Other than the actual content, everything's implemented using <ul>'s and <h1>, as well as the <body> tab itself. It's a bit broken in IE, but since it is a Linux site most of the people are probably already somewhat into open-source stuff like Firefox anyway, and honestly, I don't even use Microsoft products so I couldn't care less.
Honestly. I didn't start out with Linux with any sort of training or anything – I just got a copy of Linux for Dummies with a free Red Hat 8.0 CD included, stayed with it not because of technical reasons but because it looked pretty – and now where am I? I'm running my own distribution (Slackware-based, if you're wondering), writing complex shell scripts and even the odd full-blown program, learning all sorts of new and creative programming languages – the only thing keeping me from doing it as a full-time job is the fact that I'm still a high school junior and have to spend as much time slaving over endless amounts of work for IB as I do staring at a glowing screen all day.
And really, the hardest part isn't starting, it's finding when to stop. Of course, you probably would have to keep an open mind and all, but hell – sounds like you're more or less willing to learn, so you should be fine. And if not, we're more than happy to help you join the ranks of the evil penguins in our conspiracy for world domination:-)
Well, can't say that I've ever owned any of their consumer systems, but I'm typing this on an Athlon64-based business-type desktop that I've had a few months now, and that's right now being used to build an AMD64 Linux distribution – probably one of the nicest systems I've ever owned, and so far the only thing I've had to do was add in my CD burner (I got it at an auction, and it only had a CD-ROM) and stick on Linux. And at least some of their printers are really good, too; some of the newer ones have been rather unreliable, I have to admit [i.e., a DeskJet 540 that only lasted about ten years or so], but my fairly beat-up LaserJet 4 Plus – which my friend gave me after getting a couple of them from a local business – and my original HP DeskJet are still running beautifully. So honestly, at least as far as I'm concerned, I see no problems with HP products.
I don't know about you, but I really don't think that the whole automobilse-vs.-movies argument really works very well – the difference being that while an automobile is a physical product, a movie is simply a bunch of pictures which are interpreted by the mind as a single moving image and that have no one, fixed, physical form. And while neither one is strictly necessary to live – there are much more important things like food, water, and shelter – the automobile is at least much more useful than a bunch of guys walking around on stage.
Having said that, I will admit that I do see one connection, though – automobiles depend on oil, which is another fairly unpopular industry which many feel is run by greedy old guys who only care about money. Not that this is necessarily true, of course, just figured I may as well point it out anyway.
Either way, though, as far as the "good" side of the argument goes – nothing there, unless I missed something (and yes, I did RTFA).
Right when I discover my Web site's already acting slow, because of a heavily overworked server, they want to make it run even slower by cutting off my access to it? Look, RoadRunner's already offering probably the slowest, most unreliable broadband connection I can think of – every couple of days I have to restart the cable modem, router, etc. to keep it running, and of course there's no other broadband provider in my area. The last thing I need is for them to make it any slower. In fact, furthermore— CARRIER ERROR hsthth5yu3496345242n4i9pu233e0gjeindggE++
Well, I don't know about you, but I find that I have no problems with my Pentium-233 laptop with 96MB RAM and a 4GB hard disk – and it's running the latest available software. That is, the latest available Linux software. Not trying to promote the virtues of one OS over the other, I'm just pointing out that "low-end" for one system is overkill for another – kind of like one man's trash is another man's treasure. And most of my other machines have 256MB. I just don't need very much more than that.
Some of them do, but not all. I don't know about you, but I happen to be very practical – the whole freedom thing is definitely important, not arguing there, but at the end of the day my main reason for using Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and all that other open-source stuff isn't so much the freedom (well, OK, it is) but the real reason I haven't switched away is because it does what I expect it to. I remember using Windows and IE absolutely forever, but then I found Mozilla – instant addict. And then as soon as I heard about Linux, figured I'd try it out – hell, it looked so much prettier, and worked so much better, I never looked back once. And now I find that I just can't deal with Windows any more – the lack of a usable command line, text editors, and all my favorite command line tools (grep, sed, cut, etc.) just drives me up a wall.
So it has nothing to do with evangelism – I can't stand those bloody evangelists. It works the way I expect it to. What more do I need to say?
Great, so that must mean that Slashdot, Wikipedia, and my homepage are all GHOSTS now! Next thing you know, we're losing BSD, too!
Re:probably on Microsoft's list of next important
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Apache down, IIS up
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· Score: 2, Interesting
And do you know what I've noticed? I may be totally wrong here, but I don't think IIS even has a mod_rewrite-ish function! I don't know about you, but I rely extensively on mod_rewrite every day – almost all my sites are running a custom PHP/MySQL/mod_rewrite-based setup, and without it the entire thing would fall apart.
Hell, after my first few rounds of trial-and-error, I managed to write most of the programs running my site in only a couple days (the first Überpage was written literally overnight, and updated to MySQL in even less time – just to name one example).
We had something like that at home for a year or so, and I'd have to say, it was horrible. The one access point was located on one side of the house, while most of the machines were on the other side – it was only after we got a second one and hardwired in most of the machines that it was tolerable. Even if the machine's right next to the access point, the reliability of the connection can be pretty bad, and trust me, I would know... I'd hate to see what it would be like for an entire office.
(For the record – two NETGEAR wireless-G routers, linked together; right now, four hard-wired machines, plus three or four more wireless ones. Most of them are running Linux, the wireless ones with NdisWrapper. Your mileage may vary.)
Of President Dubya's tax cuts. Seriously! They're giving away this thing for free, but only a tiny portion of today's computer users will be able to use it, because the system requirements lock everyone else out. Big, rich, stupid idiots giving free stuff to big, rich, stupid idiots – that's really what it's all about.
Not sure about existing solutions, but it really shouldn't be that hard to roll your own – for example, if you use PHP, they have a great manual which not only explains everything you need to know, but it also has very useful examples and stuff. I actually learned everything I know about PHP just reading the manual, and copying the occassional tidbit of information – not very hard at all.
Maybe Gallery would work? (Forgot the URL, but it's a popular program, won't help with videos but it looks great for photos, etc.)
I happen to be a Linux developer myself, and other than my own inherent bias towards my own system, I'd have to say that there are a few good reasons I never believe this junk:
Uptime isn't everything, especially as far as security patches are concerned. Sure, the site can run for years on end, but does it have the latest security fixes, especially for low-level kernel and other system stuff that often requires a reboot to finish?
The distribution does matter, at least in my own opinion. Red Hat might be one of the big names, but it's only one of many distributions – and a lot of them, especially ones based on Slackware Linux such as my own, tend to be considerably more stable and reliable (I may be wrong here, but I've used both systems, so I have at least some experience). So don't blame every Linux system just for Red Hat's problems.
History repeats itself, as a lot of previous posts have shown – they always make these extraordinary claims about Windows vs. Linux, but it's always the same people, and they're always proved wrong in the end. Since everyone else has already made this point, I'm just going to leave this one alone, and continue to the next:
UPTIME ISN'T EVERYTHING! I've already said it once, but uptime is only one of many different statistics as far as this type of thing's concerned. Sure, it's important that servers stay running as long as possible, but honestly, there are other important factors to consider as well – I'd rather have a Linux system that's occassionally offline than a Windows one that's always on, because (a) the Linux system would likely do what I need it to with far less work, at least in my opinion; (b) the Linux system would likely be much more secure against outside threats than the Windows one; and (c) face it, I'm biased, and so's everyone else who does this type of thing.
Just remember, there are three types of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I don't think we really need to say anything else. Q.E.D.
Might be a stupid one, but what kind of legitimate peacetime missions would require such stealth? Hopefully this is only for cases with definitively-known criminals or something similar to that, and not an NSA/Big Brother type thing like just about everything else these days is.
At least it isn't Little Sister. Or Average-Size Cousin, for that matter. Although come to think of it, Orwell could probably have made it even worse with Little Sister – she wouldn't need viewscreens, she'd just follow everyone around all day, whining and screaming and never giving anyone any peace!
Yeah, I might – but honestly, I don't need to transfer that many files, so my way works just fine. Might be hard to explain unless you saw the way I've got my network set up, I guess... but it works, so I see no reason to change.
Re:Not sure about the book...
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User Mode Linux
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· Score: 1
Maybe, although as far as I'm concerned it works well enough – and I've got about ten or fifteen sites all running off that one server, and literally all of them are PHP/MySQL-based. It works well enough for me, and most everyone else who uses it likes it, so I don't see any immedaite danger. Efficiency or otherwise.
I have about three or four machines that I tend to work on regularly, and most of the time what I do to keep up with files is just scp them back and forth between the machines (I run Linux, if you're wondering). As far as revision control, if I need something like that I usually just create separate directories and archive various different revisions in each. Depending on what I need to copy I may also have an NFS share set up for my own local network, usually read-only for reasons clear only to me. Granted, there are a few big differences – my needs are considerably different, and besides that I'm likely half insane – but it tends to work well enough for me.
If it helps, most of the files will either be various documents, especially schoolwork and/or novels I may be attempting to write, mostly never to be published – these tend to be copied between my laptop and desktop machines – or else various stuff for my Linux distribution, which move mostly between my two development boxes – a Duron-700 which does x86 stuff, and an AMD64 which handles the 64-bit version, CD burning, processor-intensive junk, and just about everything else.
Like I said, may not work for you, but it works for me, so may as well share it with the world, even if they don't give a damn:-)
My point exactly. And actually, unlike GP might think, this has nothing to do with promoting OpenOffice.org as better – quite honestly, while I use OpenOffice.org quite frequently, there's a lot of things I just can't stand about it. It's slow, it's bloated, it's unstable as hell; on Linux, especially Slackware-based systems such as my own distribution, you can either build it from source and fry your processor doing so (and your brain cells afterwards, when you realize it failed to build something or other correctly), or you can do what I do and convert their RPM's, which tend to be horribly built and need quite a few fixes to work properly. I think the last decent word processor I used was probably WordPerfect 5.1; as far as the rest of the stuff goes, like spreadsheets and PowerPoints, I really don't need those very much, and I almost never use the things for my own stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Definitely agreed – while I tend to be almost insanely obsessive about using CSS, there are a few things that I've found are just so much easier with tables; as far as I'm concerned, image galleries are "tabular" enough that it's OK to bend the no-tables-for-non-tabular-data rule just a little bit. And complex pages like the Get Ultima! page (for my distribution – not an ad, just what I feel's a good example) would be hard to implement without tables, either. Personally, I honestly couldn't care how the Web site's implemented – the only thing that I consider important for a "proper" Web site design, other than the design itself of course, is whether or not it validates.
By the way, you can even do without <div>'s if you know what you're doing – that same link's also a good example of that. Other than the actual content, everything's implemented using <ul>'s and <h1>, as well as the <body> tab itself. It's a bit broken in IE, but since it is a Linux site most of the people are probably already somewhat into open-source stuff like Firefox anyway, and honestly, I don't even use Microsoft products so I couldn't care less.
Just thought I'd add my two cents.
Well, I know that Amiga has guru meditation or whatever, but... oh, wait, it says mediation, never mind!
Honestly. I didn't start out with Linux with any sort of training or anything – I just got a copy of Linux for Dummies with a free Red Hat 8.0 CD included, stayed with it not because of technical reasons but because it looked pretty – and now where am I? I'm running my own distribution (Slackware-based, if you're wondering), writing complex shell scripts and even the odd full-blown program, learning all sorts of new and creative programming languages – the only thing keeping me from doing it as a full-time job is the fact that I'm still a high school junior and have to spend as much time slaving over endless amounts of work for IB as I do staring at a glowing screen all day.
:-)
And really, the hardest part isn't starting, it's finding when to stop. Of course, you probably would have to keep an open mind and all, but hell – sounds like you're more or less willing to learn, so you should be fine. And if not, we're more than happy to help you join the ranks of the evil penguins in our conspiracy for world domination
Well, can't say that I've ever owned any of their consumer systems, but I'm typing this on an Athlon64-based business-type desktop that I've had a few months now, and that's right now being used to build an AMD64 Linux distribution – probably one of the nicest systems I've ever owned, and so far the only thing I've had to do was add in my CD burner (I got it at an auction, and it only had a CD-ROM) and stick on Linux. And at least some of their printers are really good, too; some of the newer ones have been rather unreliable, I have to admit [i.e., a DeskJet 540 that only lasted about ten years or so], but my fairly beat-up LaserJet 4 Plus – which my friend gave me after getting a couple of them from a local business – and my original HP DeskJet are still running beautifully. So honestly, at least as far as I'm concerned, I see no problems with HP products.
I don't know about you, but I really don't think that the whole automobilse-vs.-movies argument really works very well – the difference being that while an automobile is a physical product, a movie is simply a bunch of pictures which are interpreted by the mind as a single moving image and that have no one, fixed, physical form. And while neither one is strictly necessary to live – there are much more important things like food, water, and shelter – the automobile is at least much more useful than a bunch of guys walking around on stage.
Having said that, I will admit that I do see one connection, though – automobiles depend on oil, which is another fairly unpopular industry which many feel is run by greedy old guys who only care about money. Not that this is necessarily true, of course, just figured I may as well point it out anyway.
Either way, though, as far as the "good" side of the argument goes – nothing there, unless I missed something (and yes, I did RTFA).
Right when I discover my Web site's already acting slow, because of a heavily overworked server, they want to make it run even slower by cutting off my access to it? Look, RoadRunner's already offering probably the slowest, most unreliable broadband connection I can think of – every couple of days I have to restart the cable modem, router, etc. to keep it running, and of course there's no other broadband provider in my area. The last thing I need is for them to make it any slower. In fact, furthermore— CARRIER ERROR hsthth5yu3496345242n4i9pu233e0gjeindggE++
Well, I don't know about you, but I find that I have no problems with my Pentium-233 laptop with 96MB RAM and a 4GB hard disk – and it's running the latest available software. That is, the latest available Linux software. Not trying to promote the virtues of one OS over the other, I'm just pointing out that "low-end" for one system is overkill for another – kind of like one man's trash is another man's treasure. And most of my other machines have 256MB. I just don't need very much more than that.
Listening to your iPod while drinking beer has to be the best, popular or not – right?
Some of them do, but not all. I don't know about you, but I happen to be very practical – the whole freedom thing is definitely important, not arguing there, but at the end of the day my main reason for using Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and all that other open-source stuff isn't so much the freedom (well, OK, it is) but the real reason I haven't switched away is because it does what I expect it to. I remember using Windows and IE absolutely forever, but then I found Mozilla – instant addict. And then as soon as I heard about Linux, figured I'd try it out – hell, it looked so much prettier, and worked so much better, I never looked back once. And now I find that I just can't deal with Windows any more – the lack of a usable command line, text editors, and all my favorite command line tools (grep, sed, cut, etc.) just drives me up a wall.
So it has nothing to do with evangelism – I can't stand those bloody evangelists. It works the way I expect it to. What more do I need to say?
Great, so that must mean that Slashdot, Wikipedia, and my homepage are all GHOSTS now! Next thing you know, we're losing BSD, too!
And do you know what I've noticed? I may be totally wrong here, but I don't think IIS even has a mod_rewrite-ish function! I don't know about you, but I rely extensively on mod_rewrite every day – almost all my sites are running a custom PHP/MySQL/mod_rewrite-based setup, and without it the entire thing would fall apart.
Hell, after my first few rounds of trial-and-error, I managed to write most of the programs running my site in only a couple days (the first Überpage was written literally overnight, and updated to MySQL in even less time – just to name one example).
We had something like that at home for a year or so, and I'd have to say, it was horrible. The one access point was located on one side of the house, while most of the machines were on the other side – it was only after we got a second one and hardwired in most of the machines that it was tolerable. Even if the machine's right next to the access point, the reliability of the connection can be pretty bad, and trust me, I would know... I'd hate to see what it would be like for an entire office.
(For the record – two NETGEAR wireless-G routers, linked together; right now, four hard-wired machines, plus three or four more wireless ones. Most of them are running Linux, the wireless ones with NdisWrapper. Your mileage may vary.)
Of President Dubya's tax cuts. Seriously! They're giving away this thing for free, but only a tiny portion of today's computer users will be able to use it, because the system requirements lock everyone else out. Big, rich, stupid idiots giving free stuff to big, rich, stupid idiots – that's really what it's all about.
Not sure about existing solutions, but it really shouldn't be that hard to roll your own – for example, if you use PHP, they have a great manual which not only explains everything you need to know, but it also has very useful examples and stuff. I actually learned everything I know about PHP just reading the manual, and copying the occassional tidbit of information – not very hard at all.
Maybe Gallery would work? (Forgot the URL, but it's a popular program, won't help with videos but it looks great for photos, etc.)
I happen to be a Linux developer myself, and other than my own inherent bias towards my own system, I'd have to say that there are a few good reasons I never believe this junk:
Uptime isn't everything, especially as far as security patches are concerned. Sure, the site can run for years on end, but does it have the latest security fixes, especially for low-level kernel and other system stuff that often requires a reboot to finish?
The distribution does matter, at least in my own opinion. Red Hat might be one of the big names, but it's only one of many distributions – and a lot of them, especially ones based on Slackware Linux such as my own, tend to be considerably more stable and reliable (I may be wrong here, but I've used both systems, so I have at least some experience). So don't blame every Linux system just for Red Hat's problems.
History repeats itself, as a lot of previous posts have shown – they always make these extraordinary claims about Windows vs. Linux, but it's always the same people, and they're always proved wrong in the end. Since everyone else has already made this point, I'm just going to leave this one alone, and continue to the next:
UPTIME ISN'T EVERYTHING! I've already said it once, but uptime is only one of many different statistics as far as this type of thing's concerned. Sure, it's important that servers stay running as long as possible, but honestly, there are other important factors to consider as well – I'd rather have a Linux system that's occassionally offline than a Windows one that's always on, because (a) the Linux system would likely do what I need it to with far less work, at least in my opinion; (b) the Linux system would likely be much more secure against outside threats than the Windows one; and (c) face it, I'm biased, and so's everyone else who does this type of thing.
Just remember, there are three types of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I don't think we really need to say anything else. Q.E.D.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was afraid of...
Might be a stupid one, but what kind of legitimate peacetime missions would require such stealth? Hopefully this is only for cases with definitively-known criminals or something similar to that, and not an NSA/Big Brother type thing like just about everything else these days is.
Just thought I'd ask.
At least it isn't Little Sister. Or Average-Size Cousin, for that matter. Although come to think of it, Orwell could probably have made it even worse with Little Sister – she wouldn't need viewscreens, she'd just follow everyone around all day, whining and screaming and never giving anyone any peace!
Yep, I guess 1984 really could have been worse.
One... two... TEN!
Oops, I guess you're locked in!
Hey, it only took me about ten months of practice before I could paint without scratching up the walls – I say a screwdriver's just fine!
Yeah, I might – but honestly, I don't need to transfer that many files, so my way works just fine. Might be hard to explain unless you saw the way I've got my network set up, I guess... but it works, so I see no reason to change.
Maybe, although as far as I'm concerned it works well enough – and I've got about ten or fifteen sites all running off that one server, and literally all of them are PHP/MySQL-based. It works well enough for me, and most everyone else who uses it likes it, so I don't see any immedaite danger. Efficiency or otherwise.
I have about three or four machines that I tend to work on regularly, and most of the time what I do to keep up with files is just scp them back and forth between the machines (I run Linux, if you're wondering). As far as revision control, if I need something like that I usually just create separate directories and archive various different revisions in each. Depending on what I need to copy I may also have an NFS share set up for my own local network, usually read-only for reasons clear only to me. Granted, there are a few big differences – my needs are considerably different, and besides that I'm likely half insane – but it tends to work well enough for me.
:-)
If it helps, most of the files will either be various documents, especially schoolwork and/or novels I may be attempting to write, mostly never to be published – these tend to be copied between my laptop and desktop machines – or else various stuff for my Linux distribution, which move mostly between my two development boxes – a Duron-700 which does x86 stuff, and an AMD64 which handles the 64-bit version, CD burning, processor-intensive junk, and just about everything else.
Like I said, may not work for you, but it works for me, so may as well share it with the world, even if they don't give a damn
My point exactly. And actually, unlike GP might think, this has nothing to do with promoting OpenOffice.org as better – quite honestly, while I use OpenOffice.org quite frequently, there's a lot of things I just can't stand about it. It's slow, it's bloated, it's unstable as hell; on Linux, especially Slackware-based systems such as my own distribution, you can either build it from source and fry your processor doing so (and your brain cells afterwards, when you realize it failed to build something or other correctly), or you can do what I do and convert their RPM's, which tend to be horribly built and need quite a few fixes to work properly. I think the last decent word processor I used was probably WordPerfect 5.1; as far as the rest of the stuff goes, like spreadsheets and PowerPoints, I really don't need those very much, and I almost never use the things for my own stuff.