I'm a PC / Linux guy myself adn I've never been a supporter of Apple and their dumb (imo) decisions, but that was the best arguement for using Apple products I've ever read. Unfortunately for them, you probably don't work in Apple's marketing department. This means that instead of getting the word out on how pratical this product is when used inconjunction with Apple computers, they're going to slap pictures of Jim Henson and Ghandi ont he walls of their new stores and let the public come to the conclusion on their own.
Maybe Apple's new retail outlets should merge with Sharper Image so they can sell all sorts of high priced, cool, but ultimately impractical stuff.
I agree with you 100%. Being a good sys admin is like being a lawyer: you're not taught every laugh in law school, but you are taught how to find and apply the case law that is relevent to case you're working on. Particularly on extremely complex network OSes like UNIX, linux, Win2K, etc... I think it would be damn near impossible to have an encylopedic knowledge of they work and the syntax of every command you may need at one time or another. A good sys admin has the fundamentals down cold, knows how to do the fancier stuff required of him in his job and knows how to get answers to the tough stuff that comes up. It's one thing to know how to run your network as it is today, but a good sys admin will know how to be able to run the network as it will be in the future as the company's needs dictate.
Chris
What new OS?
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 2, Interesting
From the third paragraph of the NY times article:
"the acquisition amounts to a renewed bet on the computer business and particularly a new operating system for computer servers that was developed by Intel and Hewlett-Packard."
Are they really talking about the Itanium CPU or did I miss a big announcment?
Reasonable is a pretty relative term here I suppose. From a purely business standpoint, it's very reasonable given the way the law is at the moment. This sort of situation exposes the real problem with the DCMA though: If a user of their service is pirating movies, THE USER SHOULD BE SOLELY RESPONSABLE. If I drink, drive and kill someone in a car crash, Ford does not get blamed. If I make obscene phone calls from home, Ameritech is not to blame. If I buy a can of gas, then use it to set fire to my neighbor's house, the gas station does not get blamed. Someone please explain to me how holding the ISP responsable for the actions of its users is fair and reasonable!
"ISP was just doing what they felt was right in trying to resolve a problem..."
OK, now you can give *me* a break.
From the salon article in question:
"I later learned that under the provisions of the DMCA, an ISP does indeed have to take action immediately when it is told about a case of copyright infringement. Doing so protects the ISP from liability for the transgression. "
There was no question of what was right or what was wrong on the part of Time-Warner Cable here. The people at Time-Warner Cable don't wake up in the morning and ask themselves how they can make the world a better place, then decide that tracking down movie pirates would be the way to do it. They were covering their ass PERIOD. This is exactly the reason why the DCMA is such a bad piece of legislation. By centering liability on the ISP, they effectively draft the ISP into their Gestapo police force because if they don't fully cooperate, the ISP gets sued. Making the ISP liable for the actions of its users is just dumb. To the best of my knowledge, if I make an obscene phone call, Ameritech isn't at fault or an accessory. There's no reason why an ISP should be either. Making the ISP liable is bully tactics.
The point isn't whether or not Apple is violating the BSD license, it's that Apple is taking from the open source community and not returning anything to them. NO, under the letter of the BSD license, it isn't necessary, but it would be A Good Thing to do. Apple wouldn't have their beautiful OSX without that open source BSD code. It's not inapropriate to expect Apple to give back to the community as a thank you. IBM has entered the open source community through Linux, benefitted from the hard work of open source programmers and then returned the favor by devoting programmers to help develop particular projects. Not only that, but IBM has in no way dominated the open source community despite the fact that they easily could due to their girth. Apple could learn from their example.
Chris
Good security runs counter to the Apple philosophy
on
Cracking OSX
·
· Score: 3
Apple pushes their products ease of use, but good security practices on a *NIX OS are not easy sometimes. Well, they might be if you're a *NIX guru, but they certainly won't be if you're the average Apple user. I wonder how Apple is going to address these (potential, if not real at the moment) security issues with their customers and not scare them away from OSX. That would be unfortunate because OSX really is a nice piece of work, but, I feel, having the ease of use of a classic Mac and the power of UNIX are two goals that run counter to each other. Maybe Apple will make an effort to educate it's customers...
Out of curiosity, how long does it generally take Ximian to update to the latest Gnome? I'd like to update it if only because I'd like to get Nautilis on my Debian system. Yes, I could probably compile from source, but I'd prefer to wait until I can find an installation method that I can screw up less easiy:)
" Among the other problems with the March release, sources said, is that it won?t take full advantage of multiprocessing systems or new video accelerators, such as Nvidia?s recently announced GeForce 3 or ATI?s Radeon. People who have systems containing these new graphics cards may not see a speed-up of 3D or 2D graphics until support is introduced with Puma."
I find this, on top of the lack of DVD support to be hugely funny. Apple makes themselves out to be focused on video production, then don't deliver DVD support. They claim to be focused on making their computers easy and fun to use, tout GeForce3 as evidence that they're a good entertainment platform, and then fail to deliver accelerator support. Apple's fanbase is like an abused wife that gets smacked around by her husband and then believes his apologies. Apple drops the ball again and again and again, then delievers something as dumb as a computer in a colored case and their fans have their own Mardi Gras to celebrate the "innovation." How's this for innovation: incomplete SMP support, incomplete 3D acceleration support, and NO DVD support at all from a BRAND NEW "modern" OS. Gee, I hope they were able toincluded support for QWERTY keyboards too...
With all due respect to a formerly great company, who cares what happens to Netscape? Netscape isn't Netscape anymore, they're AOL with all the trappings that accompany the title. Mozilla is a GREAT browser. Netscape/AOL takes a great browser and buries it in commercial crap. Netscape WAS a groundbreaking company who's time, like many companies in the computer industry, has come and gone.
It's news because it's such an unusual event. Jobs and Apple generally don't do a lot of face to face dialog with their vendors. And when was the last time you read anything about Jobs admitting that he fucked up? Apple usually cruises along with it's head in the sand, ignoring the simplest requests from it's users and vendors. The second round of I-mac releases (the first time they released the Imac in multiple colors) was a disaster for them, vendor relations wise. They wanted to sell the machines to retailers in packs, one of each color to a purchase unit. It was great for Apple becuase they got to move a lot of units and shitty for the vendors because the had to slash prices on yellow Imacs that no one wanted. I'm glad to see that Apple is at least talking to its dealers instead of creating some dumb plan that works solely to Apple's advantage and telling the resellers to take it or leave it.
While I think that the smart card reader is a kinda dumb idea (sorry, Jeff:) the subject of the message got me to thinking: does Microsoft have any outlet for keeping in contact with its customers? Linux has/. and a million other sites, Creative Labs use news groups to keep their ear to the ground, iD keeps an eye on game sites... Does MS do anything like this? Do they survive totally on marketing studies? Everytime I hear a BillG speech, he says something to the effect of "Our customers asked for X and we gave it to them..." and I think, "I wonder what assylum they found that guy in..." I would really love to see one of MS's project managers consistantly interact with a bunch of serious computer users like on/. and see how/if it influences any of the OS features. Even if MS continued doing what they're doing, I would just like to be able to interact with some of their developers to hear why they decided to focus on, say, voice operation and shirk things like stability.
They do that kind of thing closer to release. Obviously nothing is set in stone yet. The information MS gave them on the beta group is probably as accurate as gets at the moment.
I work for a company that sold a custom accounting / logistics package for Unix. Our license work like Microsoft's plan for Whistler. We tie the machine license to the CPU. If the customer upgrades the server it runs on, they have to buy a replacement license from us to reactivate the software. Of course, our software package costs several thousand dollars, uses a custom developed programing language and shields the user from the Unix command line. It's a little more "special" than an MS OS. Plus, or replacement license fee is pretty nominal (under $200) compared to the cost of the software.
From what I've read, tying to the CPU is typical of a machine tied license. Maybe Microsoft's new license plan is linked to Intel's P3 cpu internal serial number? That would be a wicked conspiracy, wouldn't it?
Well, geez... Where's the fun in that?;) Seriously, although I recognize that this attitude doesn't work well in a business situation where you need the machine to run no questions asked, but "fiddle fiddle experiment curse try again read up try again" is part of the reason I like Linux. Linux sows the seeds of relative self sufficiency in its users which may be part of the reason why the PPC share of the linux market is probably comparable to Apple's share of the desktop market. Apple's typical user isn't as technically savey as a typical windows (ie X86) user. IMO, a typical Apple user would find the learning curve for linux MUCH steeper than a windows/x86 user. Which is a shame, because linux offers a user so much more than either windows or apple ever will.
I signed up with Flashcom about six months. Here, near Chicago, when you sign up with Flashcom, Covads leases the lines that Ameritech owns. Let me say right off the bat that dealing with Flashcom's reps was great. They were very nice, very sympathetic, and very knowledgable. They are also between a rock and a hard place. Everything was cool at first. They told me that it would take about 4 weeks to get out and do the install and that it would take two trips: on the first, Ameritech had to come out and light up the second set of wires, on the second, Covads comes out and finishes the connection from Ameritech's circuit to my condo. Well, Ameritech came out and did their thing, then a few days later Covads came out to finish. I live in a 13 story building with around 280 unit. It took Covads 4 hours to figure out that Ameritech activated the wrong circuit and that one of my neighbors actually had the line with my DSL tone. SO, they had to file a work order with Flashcom, who in turn had to file it Ameritech... the local phone company who was rolling out their own DSL service in six months. Obviously they wouldn't be in any hurry to give a potentil customer to Flashcom. It took them TWO MONTHS to SCHEDULE a service call to fix their mistake. Ironicly, the week they were supposed to come out and fix the line, Mediaone finished wiring our building for digital services:) I had a cable modem installed three days before Ameritech was due to arrive. I don't blame Flashcom or Covads for the problems, but I do think that they're stupid to run a highly service oriented business while allowing themselves to be at the mercy of the local phone company who has NO vested interest in seeing them succeed... Chris
Yeah, and Fugazi runs their own record label and distribution system. Which is INCREDIBLY tough for a band to do AND still make money. Ask the guys in Fugazi how long they've been touring in a van, sleeping in roach motels and living on corndogs. I feel that they're nearly masocistic in their ideals, but that's fine for them. Some bands like to eat. Chris
Let me preface this by making it clear thatI am NOT a fan of Metallica. BUT, I can see that they are generally pretty good to their fans. Their fan club gives out backstage passes and first dibs on rare CDs and things like that. They've even tried to meet people half way by allowing taping at their concerts and allowing *trading* of THOSE tapes. They're not even against trading MP3s of those concert tapes. They've just drawn the line between the concert recordings and their legitimate releases. Is that unreasonable? Due to the way Napster is put together, I realize that pulling JUST Metallica songs off the Napster networks is impossible, but does anyone out there anyone out there that honestly feel that Metallica DOESN'T have the right to say "Please don't give away our legitimately released musics"? You can already have all the live versions of any of their songs that you could ever want... A lot of bands have run their relations with fans in a similar fashion: the Grateful Dead, Phish, and a bunch of other improv rock bands leap to mind. Their fans predominately understand what is and isn't an acceptable use of their music because the bands do a very good job of consistantly communicating The cool thing is that the bands don't have to get inmvolved with the policing issues all that much because the fans (by and large) respect the band's wish and their music. Back in the day, rec.music.gdead debated these sort of distribution issues until we were all sick to death of it:) BUT, at the end of the discussion, the people in the wrong new where that line was drawn and the people who were previously unaware of the band's policy knew how it worked. Self maintanence of a community is a wonderful thing to see in action. My feelings about Napster have been going back and forth for a while. On the one hand, it's exhilerating to see a new technology with so many posabilities emerge and catch fire. It's like being on the sidelines witnessing the big bang:) On the other hand, the way it's run right now, I can't see anyway that Napster could be used for anything other than the massive exchange of MP3s of legitimately released songs. As a fan of music, I have a moral problem with that. I've been thinking about it quite a bit and I can't arrive at any conclusion other than the feelign that Napster is too free for it's own good. I don't buy the "we just provide the venue, we don't tell people how to use it" arguement. Even the handgun industry now understands that they're going to be in big trouble if they don't start making trigger locks and other sorts of safety devices for their products. I'm not sure that I totally buy Lars's figures of 48billion Metallica copywrite violations (or what ever it was) vs. ONE unsigned band download. You could stumble across more unsigned band MP3s than that by accident on a Napster search. Napster's biggest problem is that you can't find music unless you know a title or artist name. This makes it impossible for them to use Napster as a forum for unsigned bands. By nature, an independant band is unknown to the masses and therefore nearly impossible to find on Napster. My feeling is that Napster needs to institute some restrictions and get things organized by genre or whatever. This would make it easier to police for copywrite violations and open up the service to unsigned bands a la MP3.com. Maybe MP3.COM should buy Napster and provide some organizational (and legally defendable) structure for the software. Chris
OK, so what is the difference between Darwin and OS X? Is it like Redhat Linux in that Darwin is really just the command prompt / kernel and Redhat is that and all the other utilities and other odds and ends? And how does Aqua relate to all of this? Is is like the windows manager for OS X? Will someone please summarize the differences between parts so the issues will make a bit more sense to the non-programming non-kernel hacking readers out there. I'm having trouble keeping the whole thing straight:) Chris
OK, I know this is off topic, but can someone answer a question for me that was spurred by this post? What the heck is a "real time" OS? And how does it differ froma Linux or Windows? just curious, Chris
I'm pretty pissed about this information. I've been hearing on the news all week that SW:TPM sold a bazillion copies in the first two days of release (yes, that's an exact figure:), of those some 500,000 copies were the Widescreen special edition (seriously, that's the figure they been tossing around). How many of those "special editions" would have been sold had the DVD been available? He supposedly made it clear that there would be no DVD before the end of this second trilogy which HAD to have infuluenced the VHS sales... Of course, we don't know when the DVD is coming out, but still this on again, off again, on again after we've made a mountain of VHS money thing is gettign really OLD. Chris
Actually, I thought that the credo was "early and often.":) Marketing or no marketing, getting this (highly usable) alpha into the hands of more people, *MORE TESTERS*, is definitely a Good Thing (tm). If the use a press release to flush out a few thousand more beta testers, more power to them. I've been using the latest Mozilla since it was released and it's nice enough now, destined for greatness certainly. It already runs faster than IE does in a lot of respects. When Navigator 6.0 hits the streets, it'll be a mofo:) Chris
We service DVD players at the company I work for and I can tell you from personal experience that the *majority* of standalone DVD players are region programable, so this situation with the PS2 doesn't surprise me at all. I'm not sure if all DVD players are reprogramable, but I'm certain of Philips, Sony and Panasonic. For example, on Philips DVD players, if you start it with no DVD in the drive and holding down a certain key pattern on the remote, it sets it up for program mode. Then, by entering certain key combonations on the remote, you can change it's region designation. It's fairly hush hush info. Philips refuses to send us the manuals to program it, but, due to some reoccuring problems with a certain model, we've had to do it over the over the phone with then so many times that several of the guys have have written down the instructions. Again, what's *ALWAYS* the weakest link to your security? Yes, the human beings involved:) Not only is DVD encryption useless, but the region encoding anti-piracy protection is also VERY easily compromised. Chris
Putting aside the debt over the accuracy and/or truth to this rumor, let's say that MS is porting office to Linux: Would you use it? Since the rumor about MS porting their Windows Media Player to Linux, I've been giving this a lot of though. Would I use MS software on my Linux boxes or not? I admit that the prospect of FINALLY getting streaming media on my Linux machines was very tempting. Thanks god Red Hat and Real Networks made that announcement:) Temptation aside, I really think that allowing Microsoft to gain a toe-hold on our Linux machines is a really bad idea. Remember the Halloween memo? "Embrace and extend..." The thought of MS gaining entry to our machines and slowly spreading one app at a time is really scary. We've managed to wrestle our desktops from MS and regain CHOICE. I'd like to see MS port Office to Linux. Then I'd like to see it fail miserably:) I know that the more the community grow, the less discriminating it will become in it's choices of software (newbies would see the MS name as attractive possibly...) but I'd like to think that if Office2K Linux was released tomorrow, we'd know better:^) Chris
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I'm a PC / Linux guy myself adn I've never been a supporter of Apple and their dumb (imo) decisions, but that was the best arguement for using Apple products I've ever read. Unfortunately for them, you probably don't work in Apple's marketing department. This means that instead of getting the word out on how pratical this product is when used inconjunction with Apple computers, they're going to slap pictures of Jim Henson and Ghandi ont he walls of their new stores and let the public come to the conclusion on their own.
Maybe Apple's new retail outlets should merge with Sharper Image so they can sell all sorts of high priced, cool, but ultimately impractical stuff.
Chris
Chris
I agree with you 100%. Being a good sys admin is like being a lawyer: you're not taught every laugh in law school, but you are taught how to find and apply the case law that is relevent to case you're working on. Particularly on extremely complex network OSes like UNIX, linux, Win2K, etc... I think it would be damn near impossible to have an encylopedic knowledge of they work and the syntax of every command you may need at one time or another. A good sys admin has the fundamentals down cold, knows how to do the fancier stuff required of him in his job and knows how to get answers to the tough stuff that comes up. It's one thing to know how to run your network as it is today, but a good sys admin will know how to be able to run the network as it will be in the future as the company's needs dictate.
Chris
From the third paragraph of the NY times article:
"the acquisition amounts to a renewed bet on the computer business and particularly a new operating system for computer servers that was developed by Intel and Hewlett-Packard."
Are they really talking about the Itanium CPU or did I miss a big announcment?
Chris
"I think the ISP did a fairly reasonable thing."
Reasonable is a pretty relative term here I suppose. From a purely business standpoint, it's very reasonable given the way the law is at the moment. This sort of situation exposes the real problem with the DCMA though: If a user of their service is pirating movies, THE USER SHOULD BE SOLELY RESPONSABLE. If I drink, drive and kill someone in a car crash, Ford does not get blamed. If I make obscene phone calls from home, Ameritech is not to blame. If I buy a can of gas, then use it to set fire to my neighbor's house, the gas station does not get blamed. Someone please explain to me how holding the ISP responsable for the actions of its users is fair and reasonable!
Chris
"ISP was just doing what they felt was right in trying to resolve a problem..."
OK, now you can give *me* a break.
From the salon article in question:
"I later learned that under the provisions of the DMCA, an ISP does indeed have to take action immediately when it is told about a case of copyright infringement. Doing so protects the ISP from liability for the transgression. "
There was no question of what was right or what was wrong on the part of Time-Warner Cable here. The people at Time-Warner Cable don't wake up in the morning and ask themselves how they can make the world a better place, then decide that tracking down movie pirates would be the way to do it. They were covering their ass PERIOD. This is exactly the reason why the DCMA is such a bad piece of legislation. By centering liability on the ISP, they effectively draft the ISP into their Gestapo police force because if they don't fully cooperate, the ISP gets sued. Making the ISP liable for the actions of its users is just dumb. To the best of my knowledge, if I make an obscene phone call, Ameritech isn't at fault or an accessory. There's no reason why an ISP should be either. Making the ISP liable is bully tactics.
Chris
The point isn't whether or not Apple is violating the BSD license, it's that Apple is taking from the open source community and not returning anything to them. NO, under the letter of the BSD license, it isn't necessary, but it would be A Good Thing to do. Apple wouldn't have their beautiful OSX without that open source BSD code. It's not inapropriate to expect Apple to give back to the community as a thank you. IBM has entered the open source community through Linux, benefitted from the hard work of open source programmers and then returned the favor by devoting programmers to help develop particular projects. Not only that, but IBM has in no way dominated the open source community despite the fact that they easily could due to their girth. Apple could learn from their example.
Chris
Apple pushes their products ease of use, but good security practices on a *NIX OS are not easy sometimes. Well, they might be if you're a *NIX guru, but they certainly won't be if you're the average Apple user. I wonder how Apple is going to address these (potential, if not real at the moment) security issues with their customers and not scare them away from OSX. That would be unfortunate because OSX really is a nice piece of work, but, I feel, having the ease of use of a classic Mac and the power of UNIX are two goals that run counter to each other. Maybe Apple will make an effort to educate it's customers...
Chris
Out of curiosity, how long does it generally take Ximian to update to the latest Gnome? I'd like to update it if only because I'd like to get Nautilis on my Debian system. Yes, I could probably compile from source, but I'd prefer to wait until I can find an installation method that I can screw up less easiy :)
Chris
" Among the other problems with the March release, sources said, is that it won?t take full advantage of multiprocessing systems or new video accelerators, such as Nvidia?s recently announced GeForce 3 or ATI?s Radeon. People who have systems containing these new graphics cards may not see a speed-up of 3D or 2D graphics until support is introduced with Puma."
I find this, on top of the lack of DVD support to be hugely funny. Apple makes themselves out to be focused on video production, then don't deliver DVD support. They claim to be focused on making their computers easy and fun to use, tout GeForce3 as evidence that they're a good entertainment platform, and then fail to deliver accelerator support. Apple's fanbase is like an abused wife that gets smacked around by her husband and then believes his apologies. Apple drops the ball again and again and again, then delievers something as dumb as a computer in a colored case and their fans have their own Mardi Gras to celebrate the "innovation." How's this for innovation: incomplete SMP support, incomplete 3D acceleration support, and NO DVD support at all from a BRAND NEW "modern" OS. Gee, I hope they were able toincluded support for QWERTY keyboards too...
Chris
"in one interview, Jackson linked Microsoft to drug gangs "
Be careful there Katz, there's a huge distinction between LINKING Microsoft to drug gangs and COMPARING then to a drug gang.
chris
With all due respect to a formerly great company, who cares what happens to Netscape? Netscape isn't Netscape anymore, they're AOL with all the trappings that accompany the title. Mozilla is a GREAT browser. Netscape/AOL takes a great browser and buries it in commercial crap. Netscape WAS a groundbreaking company who's time, like many companies in the computer industry, has come and gone.
Chris
It's news because it's such an unusual event. Jobs and Apple generally don't do a lot of face to face dialog with their vendors. And when was the last time you read anything about Jobs admitting that he fucked up? Apple usually cruises along with it's head in the sand, ignoring the simplest requests from it's users and vendors. The second round of I-mac releases (the first time they released the Imac in multiple colors) was a disaster for them, vendor relations wise. They wanted to sell the machines to retailers in packs, one of each color to a purchase unit. It was great for Apple becuase they got to move a lot of units and shitty for the vendors because the had to slash prices on yellow Imacs that no one wanted. I'm glad to see that Apple is at least talking to its dealers instead of creating some dumb plan that works solely to Apple's advantage and telling the resellers to take it or leave it.
Chris
While I think that the smart card reader is a kinda dumb idea (sorry, Jeff :) the subject of the message got me to thinking: does Microsoft have any outlet for keeping in contact with its customers? Linux has /. and a million other sites, Creative Labs use news groups to keep their ear to the ground, iD keeps an eye on game sites... Does MS do anything like this? Do they survive totally on marketing studies? Everytime I hear a BillG speech, he says something to the effect of "Our customers asked for X and we gave it to them..." and I think, "I wonder what assylum they found that guy in..." I would really love to see one of MS's project managers consistantly interact with a bunch of serious computer users like on /. and see how/if it influences any of the OS features. Even if MS continued doing what they're doing, I would just like to be able to interact with some of their developers to hear why they decided to focus on, say, voice operation and shirk things like stability.
Chris
They do that kind of thing closer to release. Obviously nothing is set in stone yet. The information MS gave them on the beta group is probably as accurate as gets at the moment.
Chris
I work for a company that sold a custom accounting / logistics package for Unix. Our license work like Microsoft's plan for Whistler. We tie the machine license to the CPU. If the customer upgrades the server it runs on, they have to buy a replacement license from us to reactivate the software. Of course, our software package costs several thousand dollars, uses a custom developed programing language and shields the user from the Unix command line. It's a little more "special" than an MS OS. Plus, or replacement license fee is pretty nominal (under $200) compared to the cost of the software.
From what I've read, tying to the CPU is typical of a machine tied license. Maybe Microsoft's new license plan is linked to Intel's P3 cpu internal serial number? That would be a wicked conspiracy, wouldn't it?
Chris
Well, geez... Where's the fun in that? ;) Seriously, although I recognize that this attitude doesn't work well in a business situation where you need the machine to run no questions asked, but "fiddle fiddle experiment curse try again read up try again" is part of the reason I like Linux. Linux sows the seeds of relative self sufficiency in its users which may be part of the reason why the PPC share of the linux market is probably comparable to Apple's share of the desktop market. Apple's typical user isn't as technically savey as a typical windows (ie X86) user. IMO, a typical Apple user would find the learning curve for linux MUCH steeper than a windows/x86 user. Which is a shame, because linux offers a user so much more than either windows or apple ever will.
Chris
I signed up with Flashcom about six months. Here, near Chicago, when you sign up with Flashcom, Covads leases the lines that Ameritech owns. Let me say right off the bat that dealing with Flashcom's reps was great. They were very nice, very sympathetic, and very knowledgable. They are also between a rock and a hard place. Everything was cool at first. They told me that it would take about 4 weeks to get out and do the install and that it would take two trips: on the first, Ameritech had to come out and light up the second set of wires, on the second, Covads comes out and finishes the connection from Ameritech's circuit to my condo. Well, Ameritech came out and did their thing, then a few days later Covads came out to finish. I live in a 13 story building with around 280 unit. It took Covads 4 hours to figure out that Ameritech activated the wrong circuit and that one of my neighbors actually had the line with my DSL tone. SO, they had to file a work order with Flashcom, who in turn had to file it Ameritech... the local phone company who was rolling out their own DSL service in six months. Obviously they wouldn't be in any hurry to give a potentil customer to Flashcom. It took them TWO MONTHS to SCHEDULE a service call to fix their mistake. Ironicly, the week they were supposed to come out and fix the line, Mediaone finished wiring our building for digital services :) I had a cable modem installed three days before Ameritech was due to arrive. I don't blame Flashcom or Covads for the problems, but I do think that they're stupid to run a highly service oriented business while allowing themselves to be at the mercy of the local phone company who has NO vested interest in seeing them succeed... Chris
Yeah, and Fugazi runs their own record label and distribution system. Which is INCREDIBLY tough for a band to do AND still make money. Ask the guys in Fugazi how long they've been touring in a van, sleeping in roach motels and living on corndogs. I feel that they're nearly masocistic in their ideals, but that's fine for them. Some bands like to eat. Chris
Let me preface this by making it clear thatI am NOT a fan of Metallica. BUT, I can see that they are generally pretty good to their fans. Their fan club gives out backstage passes and first dibs on rare CDs and things like that. They've even tried to meet people half way by allowing taping at their concerts and allowing *trading* of THOSE tapes. They're not even against trading MP3s of those concert tapes. They've just drawn the line between the concert recordings and their legitimate releases. Is that unreasonable? Due to the way Napster is put together, I realize that pulling JUST Metallica songs off the Napster networks is impossible, but does anyone out there anyone out there that honestly feel that Metallica DOESN'T have the right to say "Please don't give away our legitimately released musics"? You can already have all the live versions of any of their songs that you could ever want... A lot of bands have run their relations with fans in a similar fashion: the Grateful Dead, Phish, and a bunch of other improv rock bands leap to mind. Their fans predominately understand what is and isn't an acceptable use of their music because the bands do a very good job of consistantly communicating The cool thing is that the bands don't have to get inmvolved with the policing issues all that much because the fans (by and large) respect the band's wish and their music. Back in the day, rec.music.gdead debated these sort of distribution issues until we were all sick to death of it :) BUT, at the end of the discussion, the people in the wrong new where that line was drawn and the people who were previously unaware of the band's policy knew how it worked. Self maintanence of a community is a wonderful thing to see in action. My feelings about Napster have been going back and forth for a while. On the one hand, it's exhilerating to see a new technology with so many posabilities emerge and catch fire. It's like being on the sidelines witnessing the big bang :) On the other hand, the way it's run right now, I can't see anyway that Napster could be used for anything other than the massive exchange of MP3s of legitimately released songs. As a fan of music, I have a moral problem with that. I've been thinking about it quite a bit and I can't arrive at any conclusion other than the feelign that Napster is too free for it's own good. I don't buy the "we just provide the venue, we don't tell people how to use it" arguement. Even the handgun industry now understands that they're going to be in big trouble if they don't start making trigger locks and other sorts of safety devices for their products. I'm not sure that I totally buy Lars's figures of 48billion Metallica copywrite violations (or what ever it was) vs. ONE unsigned band download. You could stumble across more unsigned band MP3s than that by accident on a Napster search. Napster's biggest problem is that you can't find music unless you know a title or artist name. This makes it impossible for them to use Napster as a forum for unsigned bands. By nature, an independant band is unknown to the masses and therefore nearly impossible to find on Napster. My feeling is that Napster needs to institute some restrictions and get things organized by genre or whatever. This would make it easier to police for copywrite violations and open up the service to unsigned bands a la MP3.com. Maybe MP3.COM should buy Napster and provide some organizational (and legally defendable) structure for the software. Chris
OK, so what is the difference between Darwin and OS X? Is it like Redhat Linux in that Darwin is really just the command prompt / kernel and Redhat is that and all the other utilities and other odds and ends? And how does Aqua relate to all of this? Is is like the windows manager for OS X? Will someone please summarize the differences between parts so the issues will make a bit more sense to the non-programming non-kernel hacking readers out there. I'm having trouble keeping the whole thing straight :) Chris
OK, I know this is off topic, but can someone answer a question for me that was spurred by this post? What the heck is a "real time" OS? And how does it differ froma Linux or Windows? just curious, Chris
I'm pretty pissed about this information. I've been hearing on the news all week that SW:TPM sold a bazillion copies in the first two days of release (yes, that's an exact figure :), of those some 500,000 copies were the Widescreen special edition (seriously, that's the figure they been tossing around). How many of those "special editions" would have been sold had the DVD been available? He supposedly made it clear that there would be no DVD before the end of this second trilogy which HAD to have infuluenced the VHS sales... Of course, we don't know when the DVD is coming out, but still this on again, off again, on again after we've made a mountain of VHS money thing is gettign really OLD. Chris
Actually, I thought that the credo was "early and often." :) Marketing or no marketing, getting this (highly usable) alpha into the hands of more people, *MORE TESTERS*, is definitely a Good Thing (tm). If the use a press release to flush out a few thousand more beta testers, more power to them. I've been using the latest Mozilla since it was released and it's nice enough now, destined for greatness certainly. It already runs faster than IE does in a lot of respects. When Navigator 6.0 hits the streets, it'll be a mofo :) Chris
We service DVD players at the company I work for and I can tell you from personal experience that the *majority* of standalone DVD players are region programable, so this situation with the PS2 doesn't surprise me at all. I'm not sure if all DVD players are reprogramable, but I'm certain of Philips, Sony and Panasonic. For example, on Philips DVD players, if you start it with no DVD in the drive and holding down a certain key pattern on the remote, it sets it up for program mode. Then, by entering certain key combonations on the remote, you can change it's region designation. It's fairly hush hush info. Philips refuses to send us the manuals to program it, but, due to some reoccuring problems with a certain model, we've had to do it over the over the phone with then so many times that several of the guys have have written down the instructions. Again, what's *ALWAYS* the weakest link to your security? Yes, the human beings involved :) Not only is DVD encryption useless, but the region encoding anti-piracy protection is also VERY easily compromised. Chris
Putting aside the debt over the accuracy and/or truth to this rumor, let's say that MS is porting office to Linux: Would you use it? Since the rumor about MS porting their Windows Media Player to Linux, I've been giving this a lot of though. Would I use MS software on my Linux boxes or not? I admit that the prospect of FINALLY getting streaming media on my Linux machines was very tempting. Thanks god Red Hat and Real Networks made that announcement :) Temptation aside, I really think that allowing Microsoft to gain a toe-hold on our Linux machines is a really bad idea. Remember the Halloween memo? "Embrace and extend..." The thought of MS gaining entry to our machines and slowly spreading one app at a time is really scary. We've managed to wrestle our desktops from MS and regain CHOICE. I'd like to see MS port Office to Linux. Then I'd like to see it fail miserably :) I know that the more the community grow, the less discriminating it will become in it's choices of software (newbies would see the MS name as attractive possibly...) but I'd like to think that if Office2K Linux was released tomorrow, we'd know better :^) Chris