Most of the lefties I know value government control/planning. OSS is, arguably, uncontrolled and unplanned. Anyone can start an OSS project. Anyone can contribute. No one's approval or permission is required. You could argue that OSS is freer than closed source commercial development projects (if I'm paying the bills, I call the tune).
The freedom available (not necessarily taken) to the individual via OSS is surely anathema to lefties everywhere.
If you're going that way, why not use a thumb drive for your data? Since 1 or 2 GB drives are (relatively) dirt cheap, unless you have insane amounts of sensitive data, a thumb drive should provide more than enough storage. They're small and light and very compact.
If you could guarantee that sensitive data would be encrypted, partial disk encryption would be fine. However, many programs write sensitive data to temporary files. Those files might not be encrypted and it's very unlikely that the data in those temporary files would be properly deleted. Same thing holds for system swap files. Yes, a system could be properly configured to avoid these pitfalls, but it depends on the computer owner, the OS people, and the application people. Using full disk encryption eliminates all of these pitfalls.
Visual Studio has to run in admin mode. Okay, IFF you want to use the debugging facilities you need to be an admin. But how often would you not want to use the debugging facilities when you're developing code? And how many developers are only going to use admin mode when they need to do some debugging?
Perhaps this will be fixed in the first version of VS for Vista. I wouldn't risk much of my annual income on it.
Even if a WiFi connection is NOT secured, using it without permission is theft.
Analogy: if I leave my bicycle unlocked in front of my house, if you take it without permission, that is theft.
While a person's failure to secure his WiFi connection is unarguably stupid (and likely evidence of someone operating beyond his technical knowledge level), using a resource that is not your own without permission is theft.
Jeff
I wonder if the aging population is a factor in slumping sales. I rarely buy CDs any more. Typically, the retail outlets don't carry much of interest to me and they usually blast noise (ostensibly music) that I find annoying, so I don't browse for long.
As the population gets older, "music" by teenyboppers and (c)rap artists may lose its market.
I do also wonder about cost. I was recently involved in production of a limited run recording (about 5000 CDs). Burned and printed, the CDs ran for $0.48 each (that's Canadian funds). That made me really wonder about CDs that cost nearly $20. Where's all the money going?
FWIW
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Most of the lefties I know value government control/planning. OSS is, arguably, uncontrolled and unplanned. Anyone can start an OSS project. Anyone can contribute. No one's approval or permission is required. You could argue that OSS is freer than closed source commercial development projects (if I'm paying the bills, I call the tune). The freedom available (not necessarily taken) to the individual via OSS is surely anathema to lefties everywhere.
They have the internet on computers now? Who knew?
If you're going that way, why not use a thumb drive for your data? Since 1 or 2 GB drives are (relatively) dirt cheap, unless you have insane amounts of sensitive data, a thumb drive should provide more than enough storage. They're small and light and very compact.
If you could guarantee that sensitive data would be encrypted, partial disk encryption would be fine. However, many programs write sensitive data to temporary files. Those files might not be encrypted and it's very unlikely that the data in those temporary files would be properly deleted. Same thing holds for system swap files. Yes, a system could be properly configured to avoid these pitfalls, but it depends on the computer owner, the OS people, and the application people. Using full disk encryption eliminates all of these pitfalls.
Visual Studio has to run in admin mode. Okay, IFF you want to use the debugging facilities you need to be an admin. But how often would you not want to use the debugging facilities when you're developing code? And how many developers are only going to use admin mode when they need to do some debugging? Perhaps this will be fixed in the first version of VS for Vista. I wouldn't risk much of my annual income on it.
Even if a WiFi connection is NOT secured, using it without permission is theft. Analogy: if I leave my bicycle unlocked in front of my house, if you take it without permission, that is theft. While a person's failure to secure his WiFi connection is unarguably stupid (and likely evidence of someone operating beyond his technical knowledge level), using a resource that is not your own without permission is theft. Jeff
I wonder if the aging population is a factor in slumping sales. I rarely buy CDs any more. Typically, the retail outlets don't carry much of interest to me and they usually blast noise (ostensibly music) that I find annoying, so I don't browse for long. As the population gets older, "music" by teenyboppers and (c)rap artists may lose its market. I do also wonder about cost. I was recently involved in production of a limited run recording (about 5000 CDs). Burned and printed, the CDs ran for $0.48 each (that's Canadian funds). That made me really wonder about CDs that cost nearly $20. Where's all the money going? FWIW