Of my friends, I'm the oldest at 24. They're are between 17 and 23. Just about the only games we play are rated M. Like GTA:SA, GTA:VC, True Crime:LA, True Crime:NY, etc. The only games I play that don't have an M rating are some open source games like Dope Wars, Pingus, SuperTux, and Frozen Bubble (damn that game is addicting).
For my home studio I use an M-Audio Delta 1010LT. It has 10 ins, 10 outs, and two balanced xlr inputs. It records 24bit at 96KHz and there is no audible noise. Works great with Ardour. The card itself is around $200. It's best to pick up a decent mixer with Inserts for managing the channels.
Make sure to get some decent speakers for them or a good set of headphones with a flat frequency response. Flat frequency response is important to make sure what you edit sounds good everywhere. When I first started with recording, the headphones I used put a lot of bass in the sound. Guess what my mixes were lacking when played through other setups?
I'm sure they will be supporting the G4 for quite some time as the PowerBooks and iBooks use it. A large part of their user base is still running a G4 or G5.
I agree that WGA is a serious pain in the ass*, but it is a good thing as it pisses off users. I really hope that in Vista it becomes more obnoxious and hopefully require more work to circumvent. Even though people who are using it unlicensed (no one is attacking ships) will find ways around it, the harder they have to try, the better. Hopefully this can drive people to look into alternatives and start to demand companies support more than one platform.
Note, I don't hate Windows. I'm just really, really sick of everything being locked into a single platform and a single vendor. Anything that can help to encourage platform independence is a very good thing.
Wouldn't it be awesome if a user could use the OS of their choice?
*In my situation, as I only have Linux servers I have to manually download all updates and then prepare scripts to deploy them to the clients. It's a pain in the ass. Before WGA, the Unattended project was always up to date with all patches and was fully automatic (just run the script-update script, and the download script and it's done). Every patch Tuesday I have to manually deal with that crap and have to use Windows to do it.
Like many others, I highly reccomend using OpenVPN. It has clients for Linux, *BSD, OS X, and Windows. It's highly configurable and can do just about whatever you want. It also works over proxy servers.
Another thing you could try is using SSH. It's possible to use it as a VPN, but you have to use something like PPTP with it. I'm not sure about Windows support, though. If you use corkscrew, an SSH VPN could also work over a proxy.
Clusty and Scroogle are your friends. (fuck google's data retention policy)
As a longtime KDE user (since 99), Gnome finally has reached a point where it's really nice. The interface is much more consistent and less clutterd, it has better integration with hardware (try using usb drives or an ipod with both, see which is nicer), and is much more friendly for users.
Take for example the proposition of replacing dumb Windows PCs that just stand around all day giving users access to a single application (Why pay a Windows XP license for every one of those PCs?)
Because it's the only thing the application will run on? Unfortunatley it's not always possible to use an alternative.
As a college student, I still steadfastly refuse to use Windows and MS Office. If there are any projects that require me to use them, I will either complain to the lecturer responsible for that piece of work, or just use the machines at college.
I recently graduated, but there were many m$ products I was forced to use. Here's a list:
Microsoft Project Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft Visio
They have an older nvidia card that's not supported by the latest drivers (like a Geforce2/TNT2/whatever). You install the legacy driver from the nvidia website. They perform all the updates that Ubuntu suggests. Next time they reboot, nothing will work
Ubuntu includes many nVidia drivers. I'm not to sure about the older ones, but all of the nVidia cards I've tried work out of the box.
(Ubuntu patches the kernel like once a week or so, and it totally breaks everything).
You're thinking of Fedora which patches everything too damn often. Since I switched to Ubuntu, I haven't had many kernel updates.
Not to mention, they are in for a surprise if they ever want to watch DVDs,
Yeah. Pop in a DVD and have Xine open and play the thing is an extremely difficult concept for any one to comprehend. libdvdcss2 is in Multiverse, btw.
visit a website with Shockwave,
That is a limitation. So is the lack of a decent flash player. Adobe really needs to get off their lazy asses and port that properly. At least they need to get some competent people doing the work unlike now (read the blog, that guy does not come off as a competent Linux programmer).
I'm not sure about Shockwave, but Firefox and Flash 9 work well under Wine. Not ideal, but it works. Just install a user-agent switcher to make it say it's running Linux, though.
Wow, that's difficult. The person who sets up the machine should take the 5 seconds to type that in.
or use their ipod/other music player.
Yep. It takes a PhD in Computer Science and 15+ years of Unix hacking skills to be able to plug in an iPod and have GTKPod pop up ready to copy files to/from the device. How could anyone ever do something so incredibly difficult?
For non-iPod devices, just plug in and the drive will open in a new window, as well as having an icon on the desktop and the left of all file dialogs. Just copy your files to the drive and you're done. Wow. That's so difficult to comprehend.
If the above things don't happen for you, you're probably using KDE. Don't ever give that to a n00b. Try Gnome 2.14. It's really, really nice. I used KDE since 99 and after a week of Gnome 2.14, I've completely dropped KDE. The level of integration in Gnome is awesome, as is the consistency. In many ways it surpasses OS X (I use it heavily, btw) and Windows.
I've given up on trying to convert people to Linux, though. It will always come down to them buying some PoS hardware or download random Windows software and then blaming Linux for it not working. In terms of a desktop experience, though, Linux is there. Package management issues really need to be fixed, though. (Synaptic is terrible for someone who is not a geek).
Since the Mac Mini's been released, I've been pushing that. So far I've been getting over a 50% conversion rate. With a Mac people seem to be able to grasp the concept they're not running Windows and stop trying to run Windows software on it (I think this is one area where Wine does more harm than good). They also seem to be able to properly buy new hardware since most compatible devices have an "Mac Compatible" logo on them unlike with Linux.
2. IE Only Sites. There's nothing more than I'd love than to put Firefox and remove IE from people's desktop. In fact, I do at every chance I get. But telling someone that if they come across a site that FF doesn't work with - the site isn't worth it for them, and it turns out their BANKING or STOCK site doesn't work... well your credibility just got shot down.
There is a way to work around that. Here's what I do.
Install the "IE Tab" extension. Extensions are fairly easy to deploy with WPKG, but I'm not getting into that here. In it's options (also easy to deploy) just set the sites that only work with IE to use the IE engine.
To prevent people from just using that for everything (or plain IE), I set up Squid like this:
To do that, you need to create a ERR_BAD_BROWSER file for Squid or it won't start. This method will block IE from accessing anything other than allowed sites. Just add allowed sites to "/etc/squid/msie_approved_sites".
If you disable changing of proxy settings it's not avoidable (not easily).
Set the proxy settings in Firefox, and a user need only go Tools | Options | General | Connection Settings to turn them off. No way to disable the menu, without going in and re-writing the XUL code.
It's actually pretty easy to disable anything in Firefox/Mozilla.
1. Open Firefox and set the options you want to preconfigure/lock such as the proxy settings.
2. Look in Firefox's config directory for a file called "prefs.js". Under Linux this is in "~/.mozilla/*.default/". Under Windows, this is in "Application Settings\Mozilla\*.default\". On OS X it's in "Library/Mozilla/Firefox/*.default/".
3. Copy the file to lock.js and open it in a text editor.
4. Leave the first line as is (the # line). For any option you want to lock, set "user_pref" to "lockPref". For example:
# this line is required. don't remove lockPref("network.proxy.ftp", "proxy.somemachine.org"); lockPref("network.proxy.ftp_port", 3128); lockPref("network.proxy.http", "proxy.somemachine.org"); lockPref("network.proxy.http_port", 3128); lockPref("network.proxy.ssl", "proxy.somemachine.org"); lockPref("network.proxy.ssl_port", 3128);
6. Copy the mozilla.cfg file to the root of the Firefox install directory. This is "/usr/lib/firefox/" on most Linux distros, and "c:\windows\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\" on Windows. On OS X it's in the "Firefox.app" directory.
7. Inside of the Firefox install directory, open the file "greprefs/all.js" and add this line to thee bottom:
pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");
The user can no longer change the proxy settings, or any other setting you choose to lock.
This works everywhere and options are identical across platforms (except when they include file paths). The only place I haven't had it work is Ubuntu, which apparently does something to break the feature. The method they provide to provide the functionality does not appear to work (I spent a few days googling and trying everything before just disabling the built-in and installing the official build).
Deploying is easy. All you have to do is copy the greprefs/all.js and mozilla.cfg files to the clients. With WPKG this is trivial. Just make sure only the administrator can write to all.js and mozilla.cfg, also make sure that all users can read the file.
Here, I'll even help you out with WPKG. Just save "mozilla.cfg" and "greprefs/all.js" as a self-extracting file with 7-Zip:
I know, I know, it doesn't always work out that way. But MS is taking on an established leader -- make that icon -- in the portable music player world. In doing so, MS is offering far less, not more, to the consumer./boggle
Yep. That's why Netscape is still the most popular browser...
I can't for the life of me figure out what makes people hate software patents more than other types of patents...
For one thing, software already has copyright. Why does it also need patents?
Say I write a song with a I-IV-V progression. I have copyright on that song now. Should I also be able to patent the I-IV-V progression and begin suing everyone over it?
Get Dish Network. I have the basic plan, Top 60, and get Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and MTV2 (for Headbanger's Ball) for $29.99/mo. It's $39.99/mo if you want to get FX and Animal Planet (amoung many other channels). What's nice, too, is when the networks try to force them to carry more channels and raise the price, Dish actually stands up to them. This cost me about two weeks without Comedy Central, but Viacom caved and my rates didn't go up like all my Comcast-using friends rates did.
I actually think this is a good thing. Hopefully Microsoft will decide to make their DRM so restrictive and unsuable that even the most pro-Microsoft people will begin to get pissed off. The same with WGA and activation, both should be made as obnoxious and in-your-face as possible. That will probably be the only chance alternatives OS's and software will begin to be considered as serious alternatives. Unless Microsoft activley tries to piss off it's users the users will blindy continue their addiction and further intensify it.
If a law is going to be passed on data retention, it should be passed in the opposite direction. Data retention past 30 days (ie, a billing cycle) should be illegal. Search engine results that link any personally identifying information should be illegal (this includes you, Google). Etc. Punishment should be $1000 per log entry older than 30 days.
I've been in that situation (trying to get something modern on Win98-era computers). It's not worth the effort. Most modern distros will run pretty awful on it. You could strip it down and run IceWM, but just don't expect to be able to do anything else (and users will hate it). Firefox? Will crawl. Opera? Will crawl. OpenOffice? Unbearably slow. Abiword? Crawls but usable, but it's formatting is terrible so it's not worth bothering with.
If you absolutely cannot get somewhat reasonable computers like Athlon's and Pentium III's above 550 MHz (avoid k6-2s and especially Celerons), don't waste the effort (450's (p2) run somewhat decently). Find out the maximum memory those systems can handle and put that in. Ubuntu seems to run the fastest on lower-end machines, but you have to the remove the large amount of services it starts up by default and boost the system memory. Don't even try running with less than 256 if you want usable apps to run.
If you really have to use those Win95-era machines, you're best off with Win95 on them. Same with older Win98 machines. Both use much less ram and can still run somewhat modern apps. The other option would be to install a old version of Linux there, but that's not an attractive option (wtf will run on that? No decent browsers (Netscape 4, eww, rather use 'telnet 80'), word processors, etc).
Working well on lower-end systems should really become a focus. There are so many computers out there that could be useful, but software bloat turns them into garbage.
Slashdot Mirror
Of my friends, I'm the oldest at 24. They're are between 17 and 23. Just about the only games we play are rated M. Like GTA:SA, GTA:VC, True Crime:LA, True Crime:NY, etc. The only games I play that don't have an M rating are some open source games like Dope Wars, Pingus, SuperTux, and Frozen Bubble (damn that game is addicting).
For my home studio I use an M-Audio Delta 1010LT. It has 10 ins, 10 outs, and two balanced xlr inputs. It records 24bit at 96KHz and there is no audible noise. Works great with Ardour. The card itself is around $200. It's best to pick up a decent mixer with Inserts for managing the channels.
Make sure to get some decent speakers for them or a good set of headphones with a flat frequency response. Flat frequency response is important to make sure what you edit sounds good everywhere. When I first started with recording, the headphones I used put a lot of bass in the sound. Guess what my mixes were lacking when played through other setups?
I'm sure they will be supporting the G4 for quite some time as the PowerBooks and iBooks use it. A large part of their user base is still running a G4 or G5.
What would be the point of copy protection on Open Source software? The licenses encourage people to copy and distribute the software.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/
I agree that WGA is a serious pain in the ass*, but it is a good thing as it pisses off users. I really hope that in Vista it becomes more obnoxious and hopefully require more work to circumvent. Even though people who are using it unlicensed (no one is attacking ships) will find ways around it, the harder they have to try, the better. Hopefully this can drive people to look into alternatives and start to demand companies support more than one platform.
Note, I don't hate Windows. I'm just really, really sick of everything being locked into a single platform and a single vendor. Anything that can help to encourage platform independence is a very good thing.
Wouldn't it be awesome if a user could use the OS of their choice?
*In my situation, as I only have Linux servers I have to manually download all updates and then prepare scripts to deploy them to the clients. It's a pain in the ass. Before WGA, the Unattended project was always up to date with all patches and was fully automatic (just run the script-update script, and the download script and it's done). Every patch Tuesday I have to manually deal with that crap and have to use Windows to do it.
Yeah, sure. A single guy can really afford to go against a multi-billion dollar corporation.
Why are you trying to update SP1 to SP2? If it's for new installations, you really should learn about Slipstreaming. It's really easy to do.
In fact, here is a script that will not only splipstream in SP2, but all critical updates automatically:
http://smithii.com/?q=node/12
It's more likley that they found a way to use the exploit to bypass their DRM, which gives it more of a priority...
Like many others, I highly reccomend using OpenVPN. It has clients for Linux, *BSD, OS X, and Windows. It's highly configurable and can do just about whatever you want. It also works over proxy servers.
Another thing you could try is using SSH. It's possible to use it as a VPN, but you have to use something like PPTP with it. I'm not sure about Windows support, though. If you use corkscrew, an SSH VPN could also work over a proxy.
Clusty and Scroogle are your friends. (fuck google's data retention policy)
As a longtime KDE user (since 99), Gnome finally has reached a point where it's really nice. The interface is much more consistent and less clutterd, it has better integration with hardware (try using usb drives or an ipod with both, see which is nicer), and is much more friendly for users.
From my understanding (reading other posts in the thread) it's KDE 3.5 on Debian. Why they didn't go with Ubuntu+Gnome, I don't know.
Because it's the only thing the application will run on? Unfortunatley it's not always possible to use an alternative.
The bastards raised the price of gas -$0.60 since June!
(it was around 2.89 then and was 2.29 this morning, the cheapest I've seen in a long time)
I recently graduated, but there were many m$ products I was forced to use. Here's a list:
Microsoft Project
Microsoft Visual Studio 2003
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Microsoft Visio
Ubuntu includes many nVidia drivers. I'm not to sure about the older ones, but all of the nVidia cards I've tried work out of the box.
You're thinking of Fedora which patches everything too damn often. Since I switched to Ubuntu, I haven't had many kernel updates.
Yeah. Pop in a DVD and have Xine open and play the thing is an extremely difficult concept for any one to comprehend. libdvdcss2 is in Multiverse, btw.
That is a limitation. So is the lack of a decent flash player. Adobe really needs to get off their lazy asses and port that properly. At least they need to get some competent people doing the work unlike now (read the blog, that guy does not come off as a competent Linux programmer).
I'm not sure about Shockwave, but Firefox and Flash 9 work well under Wine. Not ideal, but it works. Just install a user-agent switcher to make it say it's running Linux, though.
apt-get install mozilla-plugin-vlc realplay w32codecs
Wow, that's difficult. The person who sets up the machine should take the 5 seconds to type that in.
Yep. It takes a PhD in Computer Science and 15+ years of Unix hacking skills to be able to plug in an iPod and have GTKPod pop up ready to copy files to/from the device. How could anyone ever do something so incredibly difficult?
For non-iPod devices, just plug in and the drive will open in a new window, as well as having an icon on the desktop and the left of all file dialogs. Just copy your files to the drive and you're done. Wow. That's so difficult to comprehend.
If the above things don't happen for you, you're probably using KDE. Don't ever give that to a n00b. Try Gnome 2.14. It's really, really nice. I used KDE since 99 and after a week of Gnome 2.14, I've completely dropped KDE. The level of integration in Gnome is awesome, as is the consistency. In many ways it surpasses OS X (I use it heavily, btw) and Windows.
I've given up on trying to convert people to Linux, though. It will always come down to them buying some PoS hardware or download random Windows software and then blaming Linux for it not working. In terms of a desktop experience, though, Linux is there. Package management issues really need to be fixed, though. (Synaptic is terrible for someone who is not a geek).
Since the Mac Mini's been released, I've been pushing that. So far I've been getting over a 50% conversion rate. With a Mac people seem to be able to grasp the concept they're not running Windows and stop trying to run Windows software on it (I think this is one area where Wine does more harm than good). They also seem to be able to properly buy new hardware since most compatible devices have an "Mac Compatible" logo on them unlike with Linux.
Stephen Colbert has been doing a parody of the Star Wars kid. Also pretty funny, but he actually asked for it unlike SWK.
There is a way to work around that. Here's what I do.
Install the "IE Tab" extension. Extensions are fairly easy to deploy with WPKG, but I'm not getting into that here. In it's options (also easy to deploy) just set the sites that only work with IE to use the IE engine.
To prevent people from just using that for everything (or plain IE), I set up Squid like this:
acl msie browser MSIE
acl msie_approved_sites url_regex "/etc/squid/msie_approved_sites"
acl windowsupdate dstdomain
deny_info ERR_BAD_BROWSER msie
http_access allow msie windowsupdate
http_access allow msie msie_approved_sites
http_access deny msie
To do that, you need to create a ERR_BAD_BROWSER file for Squid or it won't start. This method will block IE from accessing anything other than allowed sites. Just add allowed sites to "/etc/squid/msie_approved_sites".
If you disable changing of proxy settings it's not avoidable (not easily).
Set the proxy settings in Firefox, and a user need only go Tools | Options | General | Connection Settings to turn them off. No way to disable the menu, without going in and re-writing the XUL code.
/> />r ictions.exe -o"%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\" -y' />
It's actually pretty easy to disable anything in Firefox/Mozilla.
1. Open Firefox and set the options you want to preconfigure/lock such as the proxy settings.
2. Look in Firefox's config directory for a file called "prefs.js". Under Linux this is in "~/.mozilla/*.default/". Under Windows, this is in "Application Settings\Mozilla\*.default\". On OS X it's in "Library/Mozilla/Firefox/*.default/".
3. Copy the file to lock.js and open it in a text editor.
4. Leave the first line as is (the # line). For any option you want to lock, set "user_pref" to "lockPref". For example:
# this line is required. don't remove
lockPref("network.proxy.ftp", "proxy.somemachine.org");
lockPref("network.proxy.ftp_port", 3128);
lockPref("network.proxy.http", "proxy.somemachine.org");
lockPref("network.proxy.http_port", 3128);
lockPref("network.proxy.ssl", "proxy.somemachine.org");
lockPref("network.proxy.ssl_port", 3128);
5. Download moz-byteshift.pl and run it like this:
moz-byteshift.pl -s13 < lock.js > mozilla.cfg
6. Copy the mozilla.cfg file to the root of the Firefox install directory. This is "/usr/lib/firefox/" on most Linux distros, and "c:\windows\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\" on Windows. On OS X it's in the "Firefox.app" directory.
7. Inside of the Firefox install directory, open the file "greprefs/all.js" and add this line to thee bottom:
pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");
The user can no longer change the proxy settings, or any other setting you choose to lock.
This works everywhere and options are identical across platforms (except when they include file paths). The only place I haven't had it work is Ubuntu, which apparently does something to break the feature. The method they provide to provide the functionality does not appear to work (I spent a few days googling and trying everything before just disabling the built-in and installing the official build).
Deploying is easy. All you have to do is copy the greprefs/all.js and mozilla.cfg files to the clients. With WPKG this is trivial. Just make sure only the administrator can write to all.js and mozilla.cfg, also make sure that all users can read the file.
Here, I'll even help you out with WPKG. Just save "mozilla.cfg" and "greprefs/all.js" as a self-extracting file with 7-Zip:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<packages>
<package id="firefox_restrictions" name="Firefox restrictions" revision="20060922" reboot="false" priority="1">
<depends package-id="firefox"
<check type="file" condition="exists" path="%PROGRAMFILES%\mozilla.cfg"
<install cmd='%SOFTWARE%\firefox_restrictions\firefox_rest
</package>
</packages>
Any time you need to push new updates out, just change the revision to the current date.
I know, I know, it doesn't always work out that way. But MS is taking on an established leader -- make that icon -- in the portable music player world. In doing so, MS is offering far less, not more, to the consumer. /boggle
Yep. That's why Netscape is still the most popular browser...
I can't for the life of me figure out what makes people hate software patents more than other types of patents...
For one thing, software already has copyright. Why does it also need patents?
Say I write a song with a I-IV-V progression. I have copyright on that song now. Should I also be able to patent the I-IV-V progression and begin suing everyone over it?
Get Dish Network. I have the basic plan, Top 60, and get Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and MTV2 (for Headbanger's Ball) for $29.99/mo. It's $39.99/mo if you want to get FX and Animal Planet (amoung many other channels). What's nice, too, is when the networks try to force them to carry more channels and raise the price, Dish actually stands up to them. This cost me about two weeks without Comedy Central, but Viacom caved and my rates didn't go up like all my Comcast-using friends rates did.
I actually think this is a good thing. Hopefully Microsoft will decide to make their DRM so restrictive and unsuable that even the most pro-Microsoft people will begin to get pissed off. The same with WGA and activation, both should be made as obnoxious and in-your-face as possible. That will probably be the only chance alternatives OS's and software will begin to be considered as serious alternatives. Unless Microsoft activley tries to piss off it's users the users will blindy continue their addiction and further intensify it.
Legalize gambling. The chips will clog the tubes preventing porn from passing though them.
If a law is going to be passed on data retention, it should be passed in the opposite direction. Data retention past 30 days (ie, a billing cycle) should be illegal. Search engine results that link any personally identifying information should be illegal (this includes you, Google). Etc. Punishment should be $1000 per log entry older than 30 days.
I've been in that situation (trying to get something modern on Win98-era computers). It's not worth the effort. Most modern distros will run pretty awful on it. You could strip it down and run IceWM, but just don't expect to be able to do anything else (and users will hate it). Firefox? Will crawl. Opera? Will crawl. OpenOffice? Unbearably slow. Abiword? Crawls but usable, but it's formatting is terrible so it's not worth bothering with.
If you absolutely cannot get somewhat reasonable computers like Athlon's and Pentium III's above 550 MHz (avoid k6-2s and especially Celerons), don't waste the effort (450's (p2) run somewhat decently). Find out the maximum memory those systems can handle and put that in. Ubuntu seems to run the fastest on lower-end machines, but you have to the remove the large amount of services it starts up by default and boost the system memory. Don't even try running with less than 256 if you want usable apps to run.
If you really have to use those Win95-era machines, you're best off with Win95 on them. Same with older Win98 machines. Both use much less ram and can still run somewhat modern apps. The other option would be to install a old version of Linux there, but that's not an attractive option (wtf will run on that? No decent browsers (Netscape 4, eww, rather use 'telnet 80'), word processors, etc).
Working well on lower-end systems should really become a focus. There are so many computers out there that could be useful, but software bloat turns them into garbage.