One problem with the "Google" approach is that it's often taken as a search for THE solution, not a pointer towards the solution.
As an example, in a case where I have to try and make new-piece-of-software-X work with old-piece-of-software-Y Google / Usenet / whatever won't have the answer, because literally no-one has done it before - but may be useful by throwing up examples of where people have tried something similar.
The big thing that I was taught at Cambridge (2 years of Computer Science, following on from 1 year of Natural Science - so I remember physics practicals too!) was HOW TO THINK. It really wasn't "how to pass exams" - I think that they figured that we'd work that bit out ourselves. The tutorial system worked too - the downside of that being that it's incredibly expensive.
Surely that's what the firehose is for? I'd have thought that the Powers That Be (tm) would know by now roughly how long typos and other errors take to get spotted there, and would wait that long before sticking stuff on the front page?
Actually using a spellchecker would, of course, also be an option...
When you connect it to your computer, it's a *drive* I've just bought an 8Gb MP3 flash player and that was exactly the criterion for buying what I did rather than soemthing else. How can "having to install some software to be able to use a device" be easier for me than "not having to install any software"? I can understand why it's in the music vendors' interest to coerce me to use such an application but I can't see how it's in mine.
BlackBerry and Sidekick users may have heard that their communications are encrypted "end to end," but e-mail and other communications are encrypted only from the phone to the phone company or service provider's servers. Beyond that point, e-mail, instant messages and file transfers may be transmitted unencrypted over the public Internet by default. I neither know nor care about the Sidekick, but in the Blackberry case "end to end" means between the device and the BES server on the customer's site. Whilst it would be possible to allow web browsing directly from the device, in most cases companies configure them to go via the server, subject to the usual restrictions. It's also possible (but optional) to allow random dodgy downloads to the device, but citing that as a security problem would be like saying that there is a security problem with my car because I parked it in the centre of town with the keys in the ignition and it got nicked.
With Windows Mobile you're essentially dealing with an SSL or VPN connection from the device to the company server. There are security issues to consider, but being "transmitted unencrypted over the public Internet by default" isn't one of them.
The choice of installable applications ought to be from a whitelist -- or no list. It is, depending on the service and devices that a company rolls out. From my experience many if not most large companies do enforce restrictions like this.
There's a serious article to be written somewhere asking why companies should make security a higher priority BEFORE something goes wrong, and why they don't use what security measures are available, or allow secure communications to take place over device (e.g. employee-owned ones) that they have no control over, but this isn't it.
You know, the stuff that is categorized as "Other" and not even counted in such surveys According to http://www.last.fm/explore/, one of the most popular genres for the users of that service is "alternative". Not sure what this means for civilisation in general, but there you go.
Journal looks high quality: Springer published Springer Verlag also publishes Bild-Zeitung, so that doesn't necessarily clinch it (although I wouldn't disregard everything in the Times because its proprietor is also responsible for the Sun and Fox News).
Any practicing biologists or toxicologists care to comment about the journal?
If you're carrying everything around on your back for a while it'll soon feel a lot heavier than it did to start with. There's no way I'd consider a laptop, and I'd leave the iPod behind too. These days I'd take a phone though (but if you're staying anywhere for a while check out the cost of a local SIM card). If you're taking a camera I'd definitely consider how big and how heavy it is, but if you've got a cameraphone and a cost-effective way of getting the pictures off it you may not need that. Don't bother taking a use-once camera with you, buy it if you need one.
I do a fair bit of hiking, and so would take a handheld (waterproof!) GPS as well, but unless you're going off the beaten track you don't really need one.
In the unlikely event that money is no object how about getting a phone with a camera, GPS, and the ability to play music and send and receive email and built in?
Absolutely. When I filled in Dell's survey yesterday, that's pretty much what I said too. The community already does a better job of supporting a lot of hardware and software (not just with regards to Linux) than the manufacturers. To be fair to Dell the work that I had to do (on a Dell Latitude D810, a couple of years old) was pretty minimal. All the hardware autodetected; almost the only bit that wasn't completely automatic was the screen configuration.
The sort of thing that I object to (which happened with another PC supplier - not Dell) was that they don't accept that a problem is a hardware issue rather than a software one when it happens in both Windows and Linux on a dual-boot machine - I was told that "we don't support Linux" and to use some other means to prove that it was a hardware problem. The issue seemed to be that the support rep didn't really understand what an operating system was.
The Exchange server can be accessed via Outlook Web Access. Also, last I checked, you can configure Exchange to handle IMAP connections. I'm not sure that I'd wish OWA on my worst enemy - an email client it isn't. IMAP works (ish*), providing that it's turned on on the server. Many corporates don't turn on IMAP on Exchange because "everyone" uses Outlook on the PC and has Blackberries or Windows Mobile 5 devices to access it with remotely.
However, it seems a bit unfair to criticise Apple**, since the iPhone hasn't even been released yet. For example, Blackberry Connect's available fro the Treo, but how do we know that it won't be for the iPhone?
*the bits that you miss are most bits other than email.
Do people not even read the/. summary any more? What do you mean "any more"?...
To actually answer the question though, the answer for me (in the UK) would be "none of the above" - with a web browser and RSS reader in the phone, the need for many of these sort of services goes away (OK, not the likes of "identify this tune for me", but I've never really felt the need).
To my mind any email in a web browser sucks! I was talking about IMAP access via kmail and Thunderbird; the point that I was trying to make was that there can be many (often historical) reasons why a company is using MS Exchange, but email access to that doesn't need to force you to use MS Outlook. There are things that companies use Exchange for that you won't get at without Outlook (I seem to remember a recent story about someone trying and failing to use Evolution to access Exchange public folders), but access to email needn't be one of them.
last.fm works for me - and it's a surprisingly good alternative to the "real human doing the filtering" (e.g. John Peel, as mentioned above).
To take an example - one of the few radio music shows that I listen to is John Kelly's on RTE (http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/thejkensemble/). There's a lot of crossover between the stuff that he plays that I haven't heard before and like and the stuff that last.fm plays (and I haven't heard before and like). How John Kelly chose to put out Keith Jarrett's Cologne concert a few weeks back is understandable, but how last.fm matched it to me I've no idea - but it worked.
I would love for our admins to get a clue and switch to a real IMAP server that is not MS Exchange so that our email client is not forced on us. Actually, Exchange 2003 is surprisingly good as an IMAP server - provided that IMAP is enabled on it. I'm guessing that you mean direct access from Outlook to Exchange, which isn't IMAP (and isn't like anything else on the planet, and hence does force you to use Outlook, if no other access is allowed).
They could start with the Independent. You could almost see the "will this do?" comment at the end to the sub and hear the door clang as he ran for the local pub.
I don't know if Pentaplex still has a business model. Dunno if they've "got a business model"* but they've still got a web site: http://www.pentaplex.com/aboutus/
* I've now got an image in my head of Graham Chapman charging into a room and shouting "There's trouble wi' t'business model"...
Charlie Brooker's show is made by Zeppotron (part of Endemol), though, so the BBC probably aren't losing any "DVD Sales" (not that it's likely to be an issue in this case) as a result.
Re:7 centuries isn't feasible for humans
on
Interstellar Ark
·
· Score: 1
Or imagine trying to talk to someone from the 1300s I can't imagine that it would be that hard. The language of Chaucer (from the end of the 1300s) isn't that difficult for a modern English speaker to understand - certainly it seems easier than say (Dano-) Norwegian and Dutch, which are probably among the easiest for English-only speakers to pick up unaided. Even more important than that, the ideas being communicated are familiar to any human who's lived since.
I'm sure you have a good reason for wanting to do that, but none immediately comes to mind to me I can think of any number of reasons - exactly the same ones why you'd want to run versions of Windows, or versions of Linux, or versions of Netware, or anything else. It's just an operating system.
I can't see any of them being particularly good at "representing my interest", never mind the rest of the public. At first glace they just looks like a bunch of serial qango-hoppers.
It'd be interesting to know how many have non-exec positions with other broadcasting and content-producing organisations?
Slashdot Mirror
I assumed it was from the Guardian / Observers' long established April 1st tradition until I saw this (from March 29th):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6505691.stm
One problem with the "Google" approach is that it's often taken as a search for THE solution, not a pointer towards the solution.
As an example, in a case where I have to try and make new-piece-of-software-X work with old-piece-of-software-Y Google / Usenet / whatever won't have the answer, because literally no-one has done it before - but may be useful by throwing up examples of where people have tried something similar.
The big thing that I was taught at Cambridge (2 years of Computer Science, following on from 1 year of Natural Science - so I remember physics practicals too!) was HOW TO THINK. It really wasn't "how to pass exams" - I think that they figured that we'd work that bit out ourselves. The tutorial system worked too - the downside of that being that it's incredibly expensive.
Surely that's what the firehose is for? I'd have thought that the Powers That Be (tm) would know by now roughly how long typos and other errors take to get spotted there, and would wait that long before sticking stuff on the front page?
Actually using a spellchecker would, of course, also be an option...
You're the one afraid of posting using your real name. Is that free?
With Windows Mobile you're essentially dealing with an SSL or VPN connection from the device to the company server. There are security issues to consider, but being "transmitted unencrypted over the public Internet by default" isn't one of them. The choice of installable applications ought to be from a whitelist -- or no list. It is, depending on the service and devices that a company rolls out. From my experience many if not most large companies do enforce restrictions like this.
There's a serious article to be written somewhere asking why companies should make security a higher priority BEFORE something goes wrong, and why they don't use what security measures are available, or allow secure communications to take place over device (e.g. employee-owned ones) that they have no control over, but this isn't it.
...I'll be blaming Rupert Murdoch for the LA Times next!
Any practicing biologists or toxicologists care to comment about the journal?
If you're carrying everything around on your back for a while it'll soon feel a lot heavier than it did to start with. There's no way I'd consider a laptop, and I'd leave the iPod behind too. These days I'd take a phone though (but if you're staying anywhere for a while check out the cost of a local SIM card). If you're taking a camera I'd definitely consider how big and how heavy it is, but if you've got a cameraphone and a cost-effective way of getting the pictures off it you may not need that. Don't bother taking a use-once camera with you, buy it if you need one.
I do a fair bit of hiking, and so would take a handheld (waterproof!) GPS as well, but unless you're going off the beaten track you don't really need one.
In the unlikely event that money is no object how about getting a phone with a camera, GPS, and the ability to play music and send and receive email and built in?
Absolutely. When I filled in Dell's survey yesterday, that's pretty much what I said too. The community already does a better job of supporting a lot of hardware and software (not just with regards to Linux) than the manufacturers. To be fair to Dell the work that I had to do (on a Dell Latitude D810, a couple of years old) was pretty minimal. All the hardware autodetected; almost the only bit that wasn't completely automatic was the screen configuration.
The sort of thing that I object to (which happened with another PC supplier - not Dell) was that they don't accept that a problem is a hardware issue rather than a software one when it happens in both Windows and Linux on a dual-boot machine - I was told that "we don't support Linux" and to use some other means to prove that it was a hardware problem. The issue seemed to be that the support rep didn't really understand what an operating system was.
...or if they bought hardware for which non-Windows drivers were available.
However, it seems a bit unfair to criticise Apple**, since the iPhone hasn't even been released yet. For example, Blackberry Connect's available fro the Treo, but how do we know that it won't be for the iPhone?
*the bits that you miss are most bits other than email.
**I never expected to see myself typing that...
To actually answer the question though, the answer for me (in the UK) would be "none of the above" - with a web browser and RSS reader in the phone, the need for many of these sort of services goes away (OK, not the likes of "identify this tune for me", but I've never really felt the need).
To my mind any email in a web browser sucks! I was talking about IMAP access via kmail and Thunderbird; the point that I was trying to make was that there can be many (often historical) reasons why a company is using MS Exchange, but email access to that doesn't need to force you to use MS Outlook. There are things that companies use Exchange for that you won't get at without Outlook (I seem to remember a recent story about someone trying and failing to use Evolution to access Exchange public folders), but access to email needn't be one of them.
last.fm works for me - and it's a surprisingly good alternative to the "real human doing the filtering" (e.g. John Peel, as mentioned above).
To take an example - one of the few radio music shows that I listen to is John Kelly's on RTE (http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/thejkensemble/). There's a lot of crossover between the stuff that he plays that I haven't heard before and like and the stuff that last.fm plays (and I haven't heard before and like). How John Kelly chose to put out Keith Jarrett's Cologne concert a few weeks back is understandable, but how last.fm matched it to me I've no idea - but it worked.
They could start with the Independent. You could almost see the "will this do?" comment at the end to the sub and hear the door clang as he ran for the local pub.
http://www.pentaplex.com/aboutus/
* I've now got an image in my head of Graham Chapman charging into a room and shouting "There's trouble wi' t'business model"...
Charlie Brooker's show is made by Zeppotron (part of Endemol), though, so the BBC probably aren't losing any "DVD Sales" (not that it's likely to be an issue in this case) as a result.
The obligatory Wikipedia page has a side-by-side translation and the usual bunch of links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer
I'm posting this from about 1 degree West of Greenwich...
...and their spelling is terrible!
...and unfortunately, they don't seem to be a very inspiring list:o ries/2006/10_october/12/trustees.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/st
I can't see any of them being particularly good at "representing my interest", never mind the rest of the public. At first glace they just looks like a bunch of serial qango-hoppers.
It'd be interesting to know how many have non-exec positions with other broadcasting and content-producing organisations?