That'll work until Target or Walmart open a grocery store down the street. Neither of them are union, and when they open shop your local grocer will stop hiring in a desperate attempt to stay in business. What we need is a healthcare system that doesn't punish companies when their employees receive health benefits.
I spent a few years off of corporate health coverage for a while in Minnesota. We're a great healthcare state, but even here, if you have any kind of income, there is no way to buy affordable health insurance. In my case, my only option was to drop coverage, pool the over $1200 per month that I would have spent on health insurance to take care of doctor visits as they came up, and pray nobody in my family got cancer. It was either that or sell the house. Our system is broken and there is currently no way to be self-employed, pay a mortgage, and buy health insurance all at the same time.
I can't see things getting better any time soon. The only thing you can do is vote for people who are actually going to try to fix this. There is a clear track record of political parties that have resisted meaningful healthcare overhaul for over a decade, and political parties that have tried and are trying even now to get healthcare fixed in the U.S.
In the short term, you can try the few scant options mentioned here. In the long term, it is pretty clear who to vote for to finally get healthcare fixed in this country.
Oracle distributes Linux under the GPL. The software has no cost. You can download it yourself here. (It is actually just re-branded Red Hat). Oracle does charge for supporting Linux, but section 508 does not apply to services, only to products. Since Oracle is not selling Linux software, they have no legal obligation to make it accessible.
Of course U.S. schools and government offices still have to make their computers accessible, under 508 and under the ADA. But Oracle is more than happy to re-sell Windows desktops and sell Windows support to that market, where Microsoft has already funded the development to make Windows accessible
Sorry for the double post. This crazy javascripted interface means that things don't end up where you expect. And there is no way to delete a post after it is posted.
So someone else should subsidize accessibility development for the US government?
That is basically the point. Although it is not so much a subsidy for the government, as it is a subsidy for people. The U.S. has decided that whenever possible, technology should be developed in a way that is accessible to people with disabilities. The U.S. accomplishes this by requiring that software sold to the government be accessible. Microsoft subsidizes this development for Windows. For many years Sun carried the water for Gnome. Now someone else will have to step up to the plate if they want Linux to be viable on the desktop.
As long as Oracle is not selling Linux, Oracle has no legal obligation under 508 to make Linux accessible.
A lot of Linux gets deployed in government settings, not because somebody sells it, but because a local agency, school or office picks it up and realizing it is useful and free. This was possible as long as Sun was doing the heavy lifting of developing access tools that are required in government settings, under section 508 and ADA.
If accessibility development for Linux goes away, U.S. government offices and schools won't be able to use Linux. Oracle isn't mandated to do accessibility development in this situation, because they aren't selling anything. Somebody's going to have to pick this up if they want Linux to be viable in U.S. government and public schools.
As long as Oracle is not selling Linux, Oracle has no legal obligation under 508 to make Linux accessible.
A lot of Linux gets deployed in government settings, not because somebody sells it, but because a local agency, school or office picks it up and realizing it is useful and free. This was possible as long as Sun was doing the heavy lifting of developing access tools that are required in government settings, under section 508 and ADA.
If accessibility development for Linux goes away, U.S. government offices and schools won't be able to use Linux. Oracle isn't mandated to do accessibility development in this situation, because they aren't selling anything. Somebody's going to have to pick this up if they want Linux to be viable in U.S. government and public schools.
The tape player used by blind people for decades to read books on tape don't have text-to-speech functionality for its menu and navigational controls either, yet blind people have managed with them just fine.
The premise of the argument is that blind students should be given the tools to read independently, just as their sighted counterparts are given. But the secret that nobody will admit is that no blind person is a fully independent reader.
Browsing any text by a blind person, whether in braille or audio format, is inherently inefficient compared to browsing it visually. Most blind people, particularly at the college level, work together with a sighted "reader" to sort through the huge volume of reading material. Once the desired material is found, it is then, hopefully, available in braille or audio form to read and review as needed. But the entire process is dependent on working with a sighted reader to filter the material down to a manageable size that can be dealt with in a non-visual format like audio or braille.
Banning e-readers on the grounds that blind people cannot use them independently represents a gross misunderstanding of the reading process used by blind students. No blind student is a fully-independent reader, so it is unreasonable to insist that all reading technology be independently operable by a blind person.
If you do end up stuck with a printer, or printers, you might want to see if you are, or if you know, any electronics/robotics hobbyists. Even cheap and ghastly printers contain a reasonable supply of motors(some conventional DC, some steppers) and gears and optointerrupters and other fun little gizmos. The larger and more sophisticated printers can contain pretty impressive quantities of such.
I always hear about how an old inkjet would a great starting point for a robotics project, but I can never find any practical examples. A Google search yields nothing. It sounds like a great idea, but does anyone have pointers to a real project that can be built with old printer parts?
Its great if you have the choice. In my neighborhood, broadband internet is only available through my local cable company. If I sign up for internet and drop cable -- I still have cable! The U.S. feels more like a third world country every day.
I understand that people with disabilities have computer input needs too. But I don't understand why the fact that we are all differently-abled should prevent people from using their abilities to their fullest capacity.
Does the fact that some people are missing a digit or have paralysis in one arm mean that no one should propose playing a piano with ten fingers? Does that fact that some people don't have feet mean that pianos should not have foot pedals? Of course not.
While we should move forward with good interface designs for people with disabilities, I don't see why we should stand in the way of people using the abilities they do have in a novel, more productive way.
Check out the Mac management software from JAMF software. It pretty much covers it all, from package management to image deployment to remote desktop to inventory. Used in many mac-based school districts and Universities.
I'm tired of this attitude of "It's okay to lie because the other guy is lying too. In fact, I can lie louder than him". That is exactly what has our government so polarized and dysfunctional. We've gotten to the point of saying nothing is true, there is two sides to everything, and we need to hear both sides, no matter how untrue their arguments are. Telling the truth doesn't seem to count for anything anymore.
Some of these items Microsoft are just flat lies. Selling a netbook as a gaming machine. Saying Windows is easier to upgrade (I can upgrade ALL of my applications on Ubuntu with one click, for a price of $0.00). They are lies and we should call them out as lies. And if you see a Linux vendor lying, we'll call them out for their lies too. But saying all points of view are equally valid and it is okay to lie because the other side lies is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
The days when you buy one computer for everything are over.
I have four PCs in my house that run Linux for ease of maintenance and security on the internet. One for each kid and one for me and my wife
I have one Mac that I bought for iLife -- for photos and to make home movies. It is nice but I'm not sure if I'll replace it when the time comes.
I have one XP box -- P4, 2Ghz, 1 GB RAM -- that the kids can play thier $5 bargain bin junk games on if they want to. Occasionally they use XP to play a web game that requires shockwave. But they usually get bored with those games pretty fast and would rather play on their Wii.
I can find more than enough web-based games that work in Linux to keep the kids busy for ever, and they like playing their games on their own computer, rather than having to share it with their brothers. I can afford to give each kid their own computer since the Linux computers are free. I couldn't do that (legally) with Windows.
Add in a couple smart phones and MP3 players. The days of one computer to do everything are over, and Linux can easily compete as one part of a multi-computer household
Nice idea. But your "Software Freedom Day" is two weeks away, and you don't even have a proper website? That is why Windows and Mac will always win over Linux, they both have some concept of marketing. Linux struggles with marketing. Not that marketing has anything to do with the quality of software. But marketing has everything to do with people knowing about it.
As far as I can tell, Android is open and people can develop all they want on it, without needing to jailbreak their devices and risk bricking their handset. Why don't frustrated IPhone developers just switch to Android?
In my lovely city of Bloomington, MN, the only way I can get broadband internet is through the cable companies. No writing on the wall for Comcast around here!
You are close. "Druppel" does mean "drop" in Dutch. But the original developer came across the name "drop" by mistake. He was trying to name his first site www.dorp.org. It was an online community site, and "dorp" is Dutch for "village", so dorp was an appropriate name. But he made a typo in his domain registration and registered drop.org by mistake. The site became popular and the name "drop" stuck. Later he changed it to Drupal, which is derived from "druppel" -- the Dutch word for "drop". cite
Last year the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that the Minneapolis red-light camera program was illegal because it assigned liability for red-light violations to the owner of the car, even though there was no way for the camera to prove that the owner was driving. Red-light violations are moving violations and count against the driver's auto insurance. Unlike parking violations, you cannot hold the owner of the car responsible for the driver's behavior.
Your choice -- Zend, Drupal, whatever. Active frameworks are constantly being reviewed and patched for security holes. Building your sites on top of a framework will insure that those issues are taken care of for your sites as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Drupal has been providing open-source community plumbing for years.
In gopher, everthing is either a link or text. There is no way to embed a link into a body of text -- what is now called "hypertext".
That'll work until Target or Walmart open a grocery store down the street. Neither of them are union, and when they open shop your local grocer will stop hiring in a desperate attempt to stay in business. What we need is a healthcare system that doesn't punish companies when their employees receive health benefits.
I spent a few years off of corporate health coverage for a while in Minnesota. We're a great healthcare state, but even here, if you have any kind of income, there is no way to buy affordable health insurance. In my case, my only option was to drop coverage, pool the over $1200 per month that I would have spent on health insurance to take care of doctor visits as they came up, and pray nobody in my family got cancer. It was either that or sell the house. Our system is broken and there is currently no way to be self-employed, pay a mortgage, and buy health insurance all at the same time.
I can't see things getting better any time soon. The only thing you can do is vote for people who are actually going to try to fix this. There is a clear track record of political parties that have resisted meaningful healthcare overhaul for over a decade, and political parties that have tried and are trying even now to get healthcare fixed in the U.S.
In the short term, you can try the few scant options mentioned here. In the long term, it is pretty clear who to vote for to finally get healthcare fixed in this country.
Oracle distributes Linux under the GPL. The software has no cost. You can download it yourself here. (It is actually just re-branded Red Hat). Oracle does charge for supporting Linux, but section 508 does not apply to services, only to products. Since Oracle is not selling Linux software, they have no legal obligation to make it accessible.
Of course U.S. schools and government offices still have to make their computers accessible, under 508 and under the ADA. But Oracle is more than happy to re-sell Windows desktops and sell Windows support to that market, where Microsoft has already funded the development to make Windows accessible
Sorry for the double post. This crazy javascripted interface means that things don't end up where you expect. And there is no way to delete a post after it is posted.
So someone else should subsidize accessibility development for the US government?
That is basically the point. Although it is not so much a subsidy for the government, as it is a subsidy for people. The U.S. has decided that whenever possible, technology should be developed in a way that is accessible to people with disabilities. The U.S. accomplishes this by requiring that software sold to the government be accessible. Microsoft subsidizes this development for Windows. For many years Sun carried the water for Gnome. Now someone else will have to step up to the plate if they want Linux to be viable on the desktop.
As long as Oracle is not selling Linux, Oracle has no legal obligation under 508 to make Linux accessible.
A lot of Linux gets deployed in government settings, not because somebody sells it, but because a local agency, school or office picks it up and realizing it is useful and free. This was possible as long as Sun was doing the heavy lifting of developing access tools that are required in government settings, under section 508 and ADA.
If accessibility development for Linux goes away, U.S. government offices and schools won't be able to use Linux. Oracle isn't mandated to do accessibility development in this situation, because they aren't selling anything. Somebody's going to have to pick this up if they want Linux to be viable in U.S. government and public schools.
As long as Oracle is not selling Linux, Oracle has no legal obligation under 508 to make Linux accessible.
A lot of Linux gets deployed in government settings, not because somebody sells it, but because a local agency, school or office picks it up and realizing it is useful and free. This was possible as long as Sun was doing the heavy lifting of developing access tools that are required in government settings, under section 508 and ADA.
If accessibility development for Linux goes away, U.S. government offices and schools won't be able to use Linux. Oracle isn't mandated to do accessibility development in this situation, because they aren't selling anything. Somebody's going to have to pick this up if they want Linux to be viable in U.S. government and public schools.
The tape player used by blind people for decades to read books on tape don't have text-to-speech functionality for its menu and navigational controls either, yet blind people have managed with them just fine.
The premise of the argument is that blind students should be given the tools to read independently, just as their sighted counterparts are given. But the secret that nobody will admit is that no blind person is a fully independent reader.
Browsing any text by a blind person, whether in braille or audio format, is inherently inefficient compared to browsing it visually. Most blind people, particularly at the college level, work together with a sighted "reader" to sort through the huge volume of reading material. Once the desired material is found, it is then, hopefully, available in braille or audio form to read and review as needed. But the entire process is dependent on working with a sighted reader to filter the material down to a manageable size that can be dealt with in a non-visual format like audio or braille.
Banning e-readers on the grounds that blind people cannot use them independently represents a gross misunderstanding of the reading process used by blind students. No blind student is a fully-independent reader, so it is unreasonable to insist that all reading technology be independently operable by a blind person.
If you do end up stuck with a printer, or printers, you might want to see if you are, or if you know, any electronics/robotics hobbyists. Even cheap and ghastly printers contain a reasonable supply of motors(some conventional DC, some steppers) and gears and optointerrupters and other fun little gizmos. The larger and more sophisticated printers can contain pretty impressive quantities of such.
I always hear about how an old inkjet would a great starting point for a robotics project, but I can never find any practical examples. A Google search yields nothing. It sounds like a great idea, but does anyone have pointers to a real project that can be built with old printer parts?
Its great if you have the choice. In my neighborhood, broadband internet is only available through my local cable company. If I sign up for internet and drop cable -- I still have cable! The U.S. feels more like a third world country every day.
I understand that people with disabilities have computer input needs too. But I don't understand why the fact that we are all differently-abled should prevent people from using their abilities to their fullest capacity.
Does the fact that some people are missing a digit or have paralysis in one arm mean that no one should propose playing a piano with ten fingers? Does that fact that some people don't have feet mean that pianos should not have foot pedals? Of course not.
While we should move forward with good interface designs for people with disabilities, I don't see why we should stand in the way of people using the abilities they do have in a novel, more productive way.
Check out the Mac management software from JAMF software. It pretty much covers it all, from package management to image deployment to remote desktop to inventory. Used in many mac-based school districts and Universities.
I'm tired of this attitude of "It's okay to lie because the other guy is lying too. In fact, I can lie louder than him". That is exactly what has our government so polarized and dysfunctional. We've gotten to the point of saying nothing is true, there is two sides to everything, and we need to hear both sides, no matter how untrue their arguments are. Telling the truth doesn't seem to count for anything anymore.
Some of these items Microsoft are just flat lies. Selling a netbook as a gaming machine. Saying Windows is easier to upgrade (I can upgrade ALL of my applications on Ubuntu with one click, for a price of $0.00). They are lies and we should call them out as lies. And if you see a Linux vendor lying, we'll call them out for their lies too. But saying all points of view are equally valid and it is okay to lie because the other side lies is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
The days when you buy one computer for everything are over.
I have four PCs in my house that run Linux for ease of maintenance and security on the internet. One for each kid and one for me and my wife
I have one Mac that I bought for iLife -- for photos and to make home movies. It is nice but I'm not sure if I'll replace it when the time comes.
I have one XP box -- P4, 2Ghz, 1 GB RAM -- that the kids can play thier $5 bargain bin junk games on if they want to. Occasionally they use XP to play a web game that requires shockwave. But they usually get bored with those games pretty fast and would rather play on their Wii.
I can find more than enough web-based games that work in Linux to keep the kids busy for ever, and they like playing their games on their own computer, rather than having to share it with their brothers. I can afford to give each kid their own computer since the Linux computers are free. I couldn't do that (legally) with Windows.
Add in a couple smart phones and MP3 players. The days of one computer to do everything are over, and Linux can easily compete as one part of a multi-computer household
Nice idea. But your "Software Freedom Day" is two weeks away, and you don't even have a proper website? That is why Windows and Mac will always win over Linux, they both have some concept of marketing. Linux struggles with marketing. Not that marketing has anything to do with the quality of software. But marketing has everything to do with people knowing about it.
Not Minneapolis.
As far as I can tell, Android is open and people can develop all they want on it, without needing to jailbreak their devices and risk bricking their handset. Why don't frustrated IPhone developers just switch to Android?
In my lovely city of Bloomington, MN, the only way I can get broadband internet is through the cable companies. No writing on the wall for Comcast around here!
You are close. "Druppel" does mean "drop" in Dutch. But the original developer came across the name "drop" by mistake. He was trying to name his first site www.dorp.org. It was an online community site, and "dorp" is Dutch for "village", so dorp was an appropriate name. But he made a typo in his domain registration and registered drop.org by mistake. The site became popular and the name "drop" stuck. Later he changed it to Drupal, which is derived from "druppel" -- the Dutch word for "drop". cite
Yeah, kinda like "Google". The public will never accept a name like that.
Anyone who has ever used or administered a mail server has experienced a mail server going down. This is not news.
What is news is that Google Mail has been up for so long until now. And current accounts seem to indicate the outage lasted about one hour.
One hour of down time after five years of steady service is good enough for me. It is better than any other mail server I have ever used.
Last year the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that the Minneapolis red-light camera program was illegal because it assigned liability for red-light violations to the owner of the car, even though there was no way for the camera to prove that the owner was driving. Red-light violations are moving violations and count against the driver's auto insurance. Unlike parking violations, you cannot hold the owner of the car responsible for the driver's behavior.
Your choice -- Zend, Drupal, whatever. Active frameworks are constantly being reviewed and patched for security holes. Building your sites on top of a framework will insure that those issues are taken care of for your sites as well.