Updated Newsguy pricing can be found here: (http://newsguy.com/overview.htm). Executive summary:
Basic newsgroup access (10MB/day download cap): $40/year
Add a couple of email addresses and website/storage: $5.95/month (i.e. $72/year)
Up the daily download cap to 500MB/day: 12.95/month (or pay per year for $80/year)
As far as I can tell, all accounts seem to have access to the binaries groups, but 10MB/day will be frustrating if you want to actually use those newsgroups.
No, I'm not affiliated with Newsguy. Never used their service, so I don't know how good they are (or aren't).
What is the sound quality of those bose headphones though? I mean, compared to, say, some standard GOOD headphones.. like... Grado 60's, or Sennheiser HD330 or HD570's. (All around $60-$150)
I mean with the noise cancelling turned on. What is the response? I ask only because in my experience a great many of the headphones out there are utter crap when it comes to decent sound reproduction. Most Sony headphones are crap until you get into their high end ones, you get 5x the quality from sennheiser or grado for the price. Same with most other brands. I have no experience with Bose, other than their speakers, which, although amazing at first listen, actually butcher the crap out of your audio. It sounds good, but it's not an accurate reproduction.
My understanding is you shouldn't get these headphones if you are looking for state-of-the-art sound response from your fancy stereo. You get these headphones if you want to be able to get understandable voices and/or enjoyable music while surrounded by machinery churning out 100dB of low frequency noise. They probably don't publish the response and fidelity figures because they probably compare poorly with their more traditional headphones.
The technology was originally developed for the military. I would assume they were much more interested in a pilot being able to hear vocal orders and information come in clearly over the radio, than whether or not the timpani sounded perfect in a symphony. Under the circumstances I think a little butchery of the sound is acceptable.
Considering that one of the core principals of spam activists used to be "content doesn't matter", it's quite arguable. Unsolicited bulk email is unsolicited bulk email, whether it is sent to make money, promote a political candidate, solicit donations to a charity,[...]
I'd agree with that
[...]or test if an alleged open relay is, in fact, open.
But not that. An open relay test is neither Unsolicited (AFAIK, ORBZ sends the emails to itself), nor Bulk (AFAIK, ORBZ sends only a few emails to test, and sends them one at a time).
The test email is clearly not authorized to be on the server, but the SMTP protocol was designed to give servers many options for handling misrouted and unauthorized emails. Any SMTP server should expect to get a few mails that aren't supposed to be there, and act accordingly. In this case, a commercial vendor sold SMTP server software for a great deal of money that apparently doesn't know what to do with a simple unauthorized email. Battle Creek should be fuming at their vendor, not at the person who sent the email.
I'm glad to see them calling off the dogs; sadly, I fear that ORBZ is mortally wounded from the bites by now.
My "Windows-only" characterization was ill-informed, I was unaware that Windows Media Player was being distributed for the Macintosh. That still doesn't change the fact that there is better support for MPEG-2 than ASF on the Mac (support is included with the OS), and MPEG-2 support on Windows is as good as ASF support. To my knowledge there is no support for ASF on any platform other than Windows and Macintosh.
Yes, MPlayer and Xine are capable of playing ASF files on many platforms, but as far as I know they are only able to do this by using codec libraries written for Windows. Furthermore, this use of these codecs is generally in violation of software EULA's. I do not call this support.
My point stands without that that single inaccurate phrase. Replace it with "Windows-centric media format", or "Windows Media only format" as the AC suggested.
Way to go there buddy. Kick them for using the most widely supported media format out there. How dare they ensure that the largest number of people can view their stuff!?
Um, the MPEG-2 Video Codec works in Windows Media Player, Real Player, Quicktime Viewer, DVD Players, VCD Players, and dozens of Free Software programs on pretty much any platform with decent processor speed and video specifications. It produces good quality video in a reasonable file size as well, and lets the producer decide just how much to compress the video. By any sane measure, it is the "most widely supported [video] media format out there".
Calling a Windows-only media format that just one program can view "the most widely supported" is either naively ill-informed or a deliberate lie.
Slashdot has been whispering about subscription service coming up where you can pay a nonminal fee to get ad free content. Neat? I don't think so, not the bit about paying, but about losing the cool ads. I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like those ThinkGeek ads and have put together a tidy list of things I'll buy once I have my taxes paid off.
A suggestion, Slashdot used to have a page which would show all the current banner ads and links to where they go. If they return that page then you would be able to pay for the extra speed of an ad-free site, but still have access to the information in the ads. Premium service would mean you could see the ads on your terms rather than ODSN's.
I found that page to be quite useful at times. For example, I wanted a copy of Penguin Computing's banner ad featuring a giant Tux strolling through Redmond, but didn't want to wonder when the banner would appear on my page.
Not just release at the same time, but ideally release on the same CD. Most of the actual contents of these CD's is data anyway, having two binaries and two installers on one CD shouldn't be a big deal.
OK, you're dealing from the world of bidding for contracts, I'm dealing with the world of in-house development. That's where our differences seem to lie.
In in-house development, you know who is on staff already, and you can ask people for opinions during the specification phase, and estimate according to the actual skill levels of actual people. These not only aren't dreams, but they're expected.
What you describe as reducing the schedule by 20% I would call increasing the schedule by 25%. Semantics aside, I don't think you are making enough of a jump between the time people say their work would take and the time their work is likely to take in real world conditions.
Yes, people want dates not lengths of time from the IS department. However, within the IS deparment, estimating the length of time a project will take is a critical piece of information to have when figuring out that date to tell people (or when to tell people the date they imposed on you just won't happen).
A problem that seems to come up in scheduling and time estimation is that the people producing the estimates aren't the people doing the actual work.
A good project manager will make sure to ask developers for their own estimates and make use of that information.
Add onto that the customer giving additional requirements, changing requirements mid project,
If you are estimating from a documented specification, then these changing requirements can be estimated and documented. "It will take us six months to complete this specification, if you want to add this feature it will add two months to the schedule, just how important is this feature again?"
putting together a team that doesnt have the skills necessary to produce on time deliverables
Good people are hard to find, but the project manager can be reasonably expected to know who is working on the project and how competant they are, and plan accordingly.
...estimate the amount of time it will take...then reduce that by 20%.
Are you kidding?!? Don't reduce the time estimate, even if everything goes perfectly, the chances of you getting everyone to do what they said in 80% of the time is almost zero. Generally, depending on the complexity of the project, I take my best estimate of how long it would take in a perfect world and increase it by 100-200%. People call in sick, unexpected complications arise, there's all sorts of things that will increase the schedule, and those are the hard to predict parts of estimation.
Why is it that almost every system out there can get a virus? I'm under the opinion that it is the OS's fault, *nix, windows included.
A few reasons:
An increasing number of complex applications have powerful scripting languages that are relatively easy to develop malicious code for
Most operating systems give user-run applications way too much power on the system. Windows is one of the worst offenders here, but many Unix/Linux/*BSD installations have their problems along these lines as well.
The reason for both the above is simple. Users want to be able to do nifty things with their machines, and they don't think about whether or not other people can do nifty things to their machines until it's too late.
Good security takes a lot of work and planning, even given an OS that offers good security features. Most people (including most software companies) don't care to go through this work. Hence we have security holes, viruses, trojans, worms and so on.
I have no credentials beyond being a professional programmer who is involved in the interview process where I work, and someone keeps my eyes open. The following is the computer degree situation.
There are two benefits to going to school for a degree:
You meet people who might be able to help you find employment, you get this more in a college with a "name". The private colleges with biggest names are MIT, Stanford and CMU. The public ones are University of Michigan and UC Berkeley.
Completing a Bachelor's degree proves to any employer that you are willing to put up with four years of bullshit to achieve a goal, a Masters means even more. This is very important to prove to the business world, because they expect you to wade through more bullshit, this is why they call it work.
From my point of view, none of the academic computing programs teach enough job skills to be able to say "ok, anyone with a BS in Computer Science can do this job", so it really doesn't matter what the degree is in. A B.S. holds more weight with me than a B.A., since a B.S. from a College Board accredited school means that you can do math and put together a lab manual, both of which show skills that are useful (but not essential) in a typical IT job (yes, I know lab manuals are not standard in computing, I'm talking about the skill of being able to write down what you are doing, which is important).
Beyond that, Physics is as good as Computer Science, Philosophy as good as Scuplture. Don't skimp on learning computing skills, and experience on real computer projects, that's essential, just not the name on the degree.
The bottom line for me, a degree means the person has a small edge over the competition, everyone has to prove to me that they can learn, but college grads don't have to prove as much that they can put up with crap, the degree says so. The edge is a small one, at least in my book.
Now, I know that there are plenty of jobs that won't even give you an interview unless you have letters after your name. If they are more interested in your degree status than what skills you can offer a company, that's their loss, are you sure it's a company you want to work for anyway? If you really do want to work for such a company, find out what degree they prefer (call them up and ask them), and go for that one. While you are in school, make sure you seek an internship with your desired employer as well, you cannot beat knowing your potential employer when it comes to finding a job.
1. Linux Kernel 2.4 will be released, and will trounce Windows in the benchmarks Half right. 2.4.0 was released, performance was good, but not as good as it could have been. It's gotten better since. Nobody that I know of has done comprehensive benchmarking. I'll give this one a half point.
2. MS Findings of Law overturned, Findings of Fact stand. Ordered back to lower court. DOJ loses zeal for case Almost perfect. The Conclusions of Law stood, but the Final Judgement was overturned. Everything else was on the nose. I'll give this one a full point.
3. Consolidation and attrition of Linux companies. Fewer distributions. RedHat & VA merge. SuSE & Atipa merge. Didn't happen. There were some mergers, but no big ones. There was much attrition, but primarily on the fringes of the Linux world, the rest of the computer industry was much harder hit attrition-wise. There are more distributions than ever. There are no superdistributions, in fact, I'd say more people realize today that RedHat != Linux than a year ago. No points.
4. KDE and GNOME continue as separate projects. Easy point.
5. Linus stops heavy kernel hacking, focuses on community leadership. You've got to be joking. No points.
6. One of the big five computer retailers offers a Linux boot (or dual boot) for a retail desktop machine. Nope, didn't happen.
7. Widespread government desktop adoption of Linux Nope, didn't happen. More servers tho.
8. Bruce Perens shakes up HP. If it happened, it was completely behind the scenes. From out here, it looks like Compaq's pleading to be eaten had much more effect on HP's management than Bruce did. He has had some effect, and he's still there, so there's always next year. No point.
9. Linux stocks will thrive. Ha. Hahahaha. Hahahahahaha. Seriously, they didn't do badly compared to the rest of the tech stocks, but I would hardly call it "thriving". No point.
10. Another great year for Linux Easy point.
So, last year, he got three and a half out of ten. One was a complete giveaway (#10), and most people would say #4 was a giveaway too. Not the most impressive set of predictions.
when Ive had a NT/2000 or MSSQL issues I've paid my $200 bucks and got it worked out... everytime.
If everytime I've had an issue with a Microsoft product, I've paid the $200 to open a trouble ticket with the dialup support, the non-profit organization for which I work would have gone broke. To that end, I haven't tried their phone support.
I have tried other companies phone support (iPlanet, Network Associates, FICS, off the top of my head), and generally found phone support to be a useless waste of time and money. Often I find I know more about the product than the person I'm paying to help me with it. I avoid it whenever I can.
On the other end of tech support, their manuals and documentation, I do have a MSDN Unlimited subscription, which gives me access to a large quantity of their technical documentation both on and offline. I have to say their documentation has some good parts, more than I had expected. I also have to say that the indexing(offline) and searching(online) features of their library are very very poor, and often inaccurate. This makes their documentation much harder to use.
Likewise, I have never tried Linuxcare or any of the other Linux telephone support people. I have found documentation for a typical Free Software package more complete (with a few exceptions) and much better organized (with a few exceptions). Also, with a Free Software package, you have the ultimate canonical documentation, the source code.
Anytime I've had a Linux issue I have basically been told to RTFM.
If you haven't read the manual, you shouldn't be asking on the lists/IRC chanels/newsgroups/whatever, nobody is on the list to read the manual for you. If you are looking for someone to hold your hand so you don't have to read documentation, hire a consultant.
Whenever I've made sure to read the existing documentation first, and made sure to ask a mailing list having something to do with the package I'm having trouble with, I've often gotten higher quality help faster than I've ever gotten with any corporate phone support.
Roughly 85% of people surfing are using Internet Explorer. With computer software, there's alot to be said for "It's preinstalled so I don't have to do anything to get it". Otherwise, I'm positive their share would be much smaller.
In the Pink Hello Kitty Laptop article, it recommends going to FAO Schwartz for the appropriate volume of Hello Kitty merchandise. For those of you in or near New York City, Sanrio (makers of Hello Kitty) has an entire store on 42nd street (they even carry the Hello Kitty coffee maker!).
For the definitive list of places which carry Hello Kitty Stuff, try here.
Okay, so I have an iPod filled with 4G or so of music, and they want me to rent music that I can play on my PC (or Mac) only, and not carry around with me woth the rest of the tunes?
That brings up an important point. People want to be able to listen to the music they like as they travel. This is one of the big reasons that, despite predictions, radio hasn't died. They also don't want to fiddle with the music much, they want to point to it and have it go without any further intervention.
The only ways I can see of renting time-limited digital music that would meet this key consumer demand are insecure trusted client solutions or massive wireless authentication networks. One won't work as soon as someone cracks it, the other is prohibitively expensive, at least for the next five years, and limits the customer base to the cities and well-traveled areas.
Re:Business as usual in the judicial system
on
Felten vs. RIAA Hearing
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Part of the "chilling effect" point in Felten v RIAA is that Professor Felten has limited control over whether he gets to publish his paper. Universities, publishers, and so on all get intimidated when an organization like the RIAA threatens to sue them if they give Felten a venue to present his research. The 2600 case shows that the threat to publishers is quite real.
It doesn't matter if Felton is willing to martyr himself to present his research (considering his website and this lawsuit I think it's clear that he is willing to go through quite a lot in the name of Free Speech). It doesn't matter because the traditional venues of presenting his speech have been restricted because of a vague law and the RIAA's legal threats.
Free software - no problem. Probably a great idea for somethings. All software being free - not so great. The problem is that it means you can't have a software business.
You fail to understand the software development business. The vast majority of professional programmers (most estimates I've seen have put it at between 90% and 95%) are employed developing custom software that is seldom distributed beyond the company that employs them (or the company that hired them as consultants). Most web programmers would also fall into this category, their work is visible, but not distributed.
For most programmers, copyright protection is meaningless. It doesn't affect whether or not they make a living. It has no bearing on the software industry as a whole. On the flip side, wide availablilty of high quality Free software makes our jobs easier, and improves our profit margin (if a client refrains from spending $50,000 on Oracle licenses, but instead spends $20,000 on implementing a custom feature in PostgreSQL, both the client and the developer are better off).
There is only one segment of the industry (small in number of programmers, but highly visible) that counts on copyright for survival: The off-the-shelf software producers. Most of these companies are producing bad code at the expense of users. I won't shed a tear if the Microsofts or the Adobes of the world fail to make a profit.
Re:O'Reilley : RMS :: Libertarianism : Socialism
on
Freedom or Power Redux
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Walter Bell writes:
O'Reilley : RMS:: Libertarianism : Socialism
O'Reilley supports the rule of copyright law over software. This is not libertarianism. RMS argues against copyright law covering software, this is a much more libertarian viewpoint than O'Reilly's. Socialism recommends government ownership and control of key means of production. This has nothing to do with what RMS is arguing for.
I would redo the analogy as
O'Reilly : RMS:: Regulated Captialism : Laissez-faire Captialism or
O'Reilly : RMS:: Status Quo : Libertarian
Unfortunately, the two viewpoints are irreconcilable. One values the rights of the individual over the needs of the Free Software world, and one values the needs of the Free Software world over the rights of the individual.
Not quite right. Both of them feel they have the best interests of the Free Software world in mind.
The irreconcileable difference in viewpoints is simple:
* Tim O'Reilly values the rights of the developer over the rights of the user.
* RMS values the rights of the user over the rights of the developer.
I, as a developer, feel that RMS's viewpoint is the healthier one in the long run. Many developers understandably disagree. What baffles me is how many non-developers seem to prefer the rights of developers over the rights of users.
So, to these men, I say: drop it. Let the chips fall where they may.
It is unlikely that either will drop it. RMS advocates Free Software both as a living and as an ethical calling. Tim O'Reilly has fears for his personal livelihood and those of the people whose books he publishes.
[Disclaimer, I haven't read Tim O'Reilly's web log, it is slashdotted]
Michael writes:
...all licensing, including the GPL, is an expression of power over what other people can do with the software.
I disagree. Copyright Law is an expression of power of the copyright holder over the users of the media. Many licenses (eg, the typical Microsoft EULA) make use of the power of Copyright and Contract Law to claim even more power over the users. It makes sense to say that these licenses are an expression of power.
The GPL, and other Free Software licenses take no additional power over users beyond those already exerted by copyright laws. In fact, they give users additional freedoms that they would not otherwise have. I would call these licenses expressions of freedom, not power.
I take issue with O'Reilly's description of copyright law as a compromise between creators and users. There's absolutely no evidence that the rights of users are considered when copyright laws are made.
Historically, yes, copyright law has had much more to do with balancing the rights of creators with the rights of publishers. In the US, the rights of users are brought into the equation by the doctorine of Fair Use, which is a matter of legal precident in the court system, not by creation of laws.
Fundamentally, however, any law is an agreement between "The People" (being those who permit the government to exist by following the rules and refraining from revolting), and those particular people governed by the law. Copyright law is no exception.
The basis of Copyright Law in the US is in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have the power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" Congress is supposed to legislate according to the will of the people, or at least the people who voted for them.
So basically, Copyright Law as it now stands in the US is a compromise between the users (via their representatives in Congress), and the creators (via their lobbyists in Washington). Yes, it is a one-sided compromse (observe that the lengths of copyright have always been set so that Mickey Mouse stays out of the public domain).
If you want a different balance, make sure your will is known to your representatives. If your representatives ignore your will, vote for someone else. If enough people get involved, our government still won't be perfect, but at least it will better represent the will of people, and look less like the will of lobbyists.
For those of you in other nations, the basic theory is the same, the mechanisms are different.
I have found web server based authentication systems limited, weak, and hard to integrate into authorization systems (to determine whether the given user is allowed to access the given information). Granted, my experience is limited to Apache and Netscape Enterprise Server.
In addition, the client-based authentication scheme that is triggered by web server based authentication doesn't allow for logging out in a manner that is consistant across browsers. Having the ability to log out is critically important for a good security system.
Slashdot Mirror
Updated Newsguy pricing can be found here: (http://newsguy.com/overview.htm). Executive summary:
Basic newsgroup access (10MB/day download cap): $40/year
Add a couple of email addresses and website/storage: $5.95/month (i.e. $72/year)
Up the daily download cap to 500MB/day: 12.95/month (or pay per year for $80/year)
As far as I can tell, all accounts seem to have access to the binaries groups, but 10MB/day will be frustrating if you want to actually use those newsgroups.
No, I'm not affiliated with Newsguy. Never used their service, so I don't know how good they are (or aren't).
mindstrm writes:
What is the sound quality of those bose headphones though? I mean, compared to, say, some standard GOOD headphones.. like...
Grado 60's, or Sennheiser HD330 or HD570's.
(All around $60-$150)
I mean with the noise cancelling turned on. What is the response? I ask only because in my experience a great many of the headphones out there are utter crap when it comes to decent sound reproduction. Most Sony headphones are crap until you get into their high end ones, you get 5x the quality from sennheiser or grado for the price. Same with most other brands.
I have no experience with Bose, other than their speakers, which, although amazing at first listen, actually butcher the crap out of your audio. It sounds good, but it's not an accurate reproduction.
My understanding is you shouldn't get these headphones if you are looking for state-of-the-art sound response from your fancy stereo. You get these headphones if you want to be able to get understandable voices and/or enjoyable music while surrounded by machinery churning out 100dB of low frequency noise. They probably don't publish the response and fidelity figures because they probably compare poorly with their more traditional headphones.
The technology was originally developed for the military. I would assume they were much more interested in a pilot being able to hear vocal orders and information come in clearly over the radio, than whether or not the timpani sounded perfect in a symphony. Under the circumstances I think a little butchery of the sound is acceptable.
StenD writes:
Considering that one of the core principals of spam activists used to be "content doesn't matter", it's quite arguable. Unsolicited bulk email is unsolicited bulk email, whether it is sent to make money, promote a political candidate, solicit donations to a charity,[...]
I'd agree with that
[...]or test if an alleged open relay is, in fact, open.
But not that. An open relay test is neither Unsolicited (AFAIK, ORBZ sends the emails to itself), nor Bulk (AFAIK, ORBZ sends only a few emails to test, and sends them one at a time).
The test email is clearly not authorized to be on the server, but the SMTP protocol was designed to give servers many options for handling misrouted and unauthorized emails. Any SMTP server should expect to get a few mails that aren't supposed to be there, and act accordingly. In this case, a commercial vendor sold SMTP server software for a great deal of money that apparently doesn't know what to do with a simple unauthorized email. Battle Creek should be fuming at their vendor, not at the person who sent the email.
I'm glad to see them calling off the dogs; sadly, I fear that ORBZ is mortally wounded from the bites by now.
Consume:
www.metreon.com/dining/index.html
As long as there are blogs, I think Google will have plenty of links to work from.
They may also start factoring in "The number of times people used a link on google" into the equation to make up for fewer links to work from.
My "Windows-only" characterization was ill-informed, I was unaware that Windows Media Player was being distributed for the Macintosh. That still doesn't change the fact that there is better support for MPEG-2 than ASF on the Mac (support is included with the OS), and MPEG-2 support on Windows is as good as ASF support. To my knowledge there is no support for ASF on any platform other than Windows and Macintosh.
Yes, MPlayer and Xine are capable of playing ASF files on many platforms, but as far as I know they are only able to do this by using codec libraries written for Windows. Furthermore, this use of these codecs is generally in violation of software EULA's. I do not call this support.
My point stands without that that single inaccurate phrase. Replace it with "Windows-centric media format", or "Windows Media only format" as the AC suggested.
Sinjun trolls:
Way to go there buddy. Kick them for using the most widely supported media format out there. How dare they ensure that the largest number of people can view their stuff!?
Um, the MPEG-2 Video Codec works in Windows Media Player, Real Player, Quicktime Viewer, DVD Players, VCD Players, and dozens of Free Software programs on pretty much any platform with decent processor speed and video specifications. It produces good quality video in a reasonable file size as well, and lets the producer decide just how much to compress the video. By any sane measure, it is the "most widely supported [video] media format out there".
Calling a Windows-only media format that just one program can view "the most widely supported" is either naively ill-informed or a deliberate lie.
ackthpt writes:
Slashdot has been whispering about subscription service coming up where you can pay a nonminal fee to get ad free content. Neat? I don't think so, not the bit about paying, but about losing the cool ads. I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like those ThinkGeek ads and have put together a tidy list of things I'll buy once I have my taxes paid off.
A suggestion, Slashdot used to have a page which would show all the current banner ads and links to where they go. If they return that page then you would be able to pay for the extra speed of an ad-free site, but still have access to the information in the ads. Premium service would mean you could see the ads on your terms rather than ODSN's.
I found that page to be quite useful at times. For example, I wanted a copy of Penguin Computing's banner ad featuring a giant Tux strolling through Redmond, but didn't want to wonder when the banner would appear on my page.
Not just release at the same time, but ideally release on the same CD. Most of the actual contents of these CD's is data anyway, having two binaries and two installers on one CD shouldn't be a big deal.
OK, you're dealing from the world of bidding for contracts, I'm dealing with the world of in-house development. That's where our differences seem to lie.
In in-house development, you know who is on staff already, and you can ask people for opinions during the specification phase, and estimate according to the actual skill levels of actual people. These not only aren't dreams, but they're expected.
What you describe as reducing the schedule by 20% I would call increasing the schedule by 25%. Semantics aside, I don't think you are making enough of a jump between the time people say their work would take and the time their work is likely to take in real world conditions.
Yes, people want dates not lengths of time from the IS department. However, within the IS deparment, estimating the length of time a project will take is a critical piece of information to have when figuring out that date to tell people (or when to tell people the date they imposed on you just won't happen).
trb001 writes:
...estimate the amount of time it will take...then reduce that by 20%.
A problem that seems to come up in scheduling and time estimation is that the people producing the estimates aren't the people doing the actual work.
A good project manager will make sure to ask developers for their own estimates and make use of that information.
Add onto that the customer giving additional requirements, changing requirements mid project,
If you are estimating from a documented specification, then these changing requirements can be estimated and documented. "It will take us six months to complete this specification, if you want to add this feature it will add two months to the schedule, just how important is this feature again?"
putting together a team that doesnt have the skills necessary to produce on time deliverables
Good people are hard to find, but the project manager can be reasonably expected to know who is working on the project and how competant they are, and plan accordingly.
Are you kidding?!? Don't reduce the time estimate, even if everything goes perfectly, the chances of you getting everyone to do what they said in 80% of the time is almost zero. Generally, depending on the complexity of the project, I take my best estimate of how long it would take in a perfect world and increase it by 100-200%. People call in sick, unexpected complications arise, there's all sorts of things that will increase the schedule, and those are the hard to predict parts of estimation.
Why is it that almost every system out there can get a virus? I'm under the opinion that it is the OS's fault, *nix, windows included.
A few reasons:
- An increasing number of complex applications have powerful scripting languages that are relatively easy to develop malicious code for
- Most operating systems give user-run applications way too much power on the system. Windows is one of the worst offenders here, but many Unix/Linux/*BSD installations have their problems along these lines as well.
The reason for both the above is simple. Users want to be able to do nifty things with their machines, and they don't think about whether or not other people can do nifty things to their machines until it's too late.Good security takes a lot of work and planning, even given an OS that offers good security features. Most people (including most software companies) don't care to go through this work. Hence we have security holes, viruses, trojans, worms and so on.
There are two benefits to going to school for a degree:
- You meet people who might be able to help you find employment, you get this more in a college with a "name". The private colleges with biggest names are MIT, Stanford and CMU. The public ones are University of Michigan and UC Berkeley.
- Completing a Bachelor's degree proves to any employer that you are willing to put up with four years of bullshit to achieve a goal, a Masters means even more. This is very important to prove to the business world, because they expect you to wade through more bullshit, this is why they call it work.
From my point of view, none of the academic computing programs teach enough job skills to be able to say "ok, anyone with a BS in Computer Science can do this job", so it really doesn't matter what the degree is in. A B.S. holds more weight with me than a B.A., since a B.S. from a College Board accredited school means that you can do math and put together a lab manual, both of which show skills that are useful (but not essential) in a typical IT job (yes, I know lab manuals are not standard in computing, I'm talking about the skill of being able to write down what you are doing, which is important).Beyond that, Physics is as good as Computer Science, Philosophy as good as Scuplture. Don't skimp on learning computing skills, and experience on real computer projects, that's essential, just not the name on the degree.
The bottom line for me, a degree means the person has a small edge over the competition, everyone has to prove to me that they can learn, but college grads don't have to prove as much that they can put up with crap, the degree says so. The edge is a small one, at least in my book.
Now, I know that there are plenty of jobs that won't even give you an interview unless you have letters after your name. If they are more interested in your degree status than what skills you can offer a company, that's their loss, are you sure it's a company you want to work for anyway? If you really do want to work for such a company, find out what degree they prefer (call them up and ask them), and go for that one. While you are in school, make sure you seek an internship with your desired employer as well, you cannot beat knowing your potential employer when it comes to finding a job.
Joe Barr did a similar article for 2001. Here's how he did:
1. Linux Kernel 2.4 will be released, and will trounce Windows in the benchmarks
Half right. 2.4.0 was released, performance was good, but not as good as it could have been. It's gotten better since. Nobody that I know of has done comprehensive benchmarking. I'll give this one a half point.
2. MS Findings of Law overturned, Findings of Fact stand. Ordered back to lower court. DOJ loses zeal for case
Almost perfect. The Conclusions of Law stood, but the Final Judgement was overturned. Everything else was on the nose. I'll give this one a full point.
3. Consolidation and attrition of Linux companies. Fewer distributions. RedHat & VA merge. SuSE & Atipa merge.
Didn't happen. There were some mergers, but no big ones. There was much attrition, but primarily on the fringes of the Linux world, the rest of the computer industry was much harder hit attrition-wise. There are more distributions than ever. There are no superdistributions, in fact, I'd say more people realize today that RedHat != Linux than a year ago. No points.
4. KDE and GNOME continue as separate projects.
Easy point.
5. Linus stops heavy kernel hacking, focuses on community leadership.
You've got to be joking. No points.
6. One of the big five computer retailers offers a Linux boot (or dual boot) for a retail desktop machine.
Nope, didn't happen.
7. Widespread government desktop adoption of Linux
Nope, didn't happen. More servers tho.
8. Bruce Perens shakes up HP.
If it happened, it was completely behind the scenes. From out here, it looks like Compaq's pleading to be eaten had much more effect on HP's management than Bruce did. He has had some effect, and he's still there, so there's always next year. No point.
9. Linux stocks will thrive.
Ha. Hahahaha. Hahahahahaha. Seriously, they didn't do badly compared to the rest of the tech stocks, but I would hardly call it "thriving". No point.
10. Another great year for Linux
Easy point.
So, last year, he got three and a half out of ten. One was a complete giveaway (#10), and most people would say #4 was a giveaway too. Not the most impressive set of predictions.
nam37 writes:
when Ive had a NT/2000 or MSSQL issues I've paid my $200 bucks and got it worked out... everytime.
If everytime I've had an issue with a Microsoft product, I've paid the $200 to open a trouble ticket with the dialup support, the non-profit organization for which I work would have gone broke. To that end, I haven't tried their phone support.
I have tried other companies phone support (iPlanet, Network Associates, FICS, off the top of my head), and generally found phone support to be a useless waste of time and money. Often I find I know more about the product than the person I'm paying to help me with it. I avoid it whenever I can.
On the other end of tech support, their manuals and documentation, I do have a MSDN Unlimited subscription, which gives me access to a large quantity of their technical documentation both on and offline. I have to say their documentation has some good parts, more than I had expected. I also have to say that the indexing(offline) and searching(online) features of their library are very very poor, and often inaccurate. This makes their documentation much harder to use.
Likewise, I have never tried Linuxcare or any of the other Linux telephone support people. I have found documentation for a typical Free Software package more complete (with a few exceptions) and much better organized (with a few exceptions). Also, with a Free Software package, you have the ultimate canonical documentation, the source code.
Anytime I've had a Linux issue I have basically been told to RTFM.
If you haven't read the manual, you shouldn't be asking on the lists/IRC chanels/newsgroups/whatever, nobody is on the list to read the manual for you. If you are looking for someone to hold your hand so you don't have to read documentation, hire a consultant.
Whenever I've made sure to read the existing documentation first, and made sure to ask a mailing list having something to do with the package I'm having trouble with, I've often gotten higher quality help faster than I've ever gotten with any corporate phone support.
stew77 asks:
who's using IE anyway?
Roughly 85% of people surfing are using Internet Explorer. With computer software, there's alot to be said for "It's preinstalled so I don't have to do anything to get it". Otherwise, I'm positive their share would be much smaller.
In the Pink Hello Kitty Laptop article, it recommends going to FAO Schwartz for the appropriate volume of Hello Kitty merchandise. For those of you in or near New York City, Sanrio (makers of Hello Kitty) has an entire store on 42nd street (they even carry the Hello Kitty coffee maker!).
:-)
For the definitive list of places which carry Hello Kitty Stuff, try here.
Hello Kitty, Destroyer Of Worlds
sulli writes:
Okay, so I have an iPod filled with 4G or so of music, and they want me to rent music that I can play on my PC (or Mac) only, and not carry around with me woth the rest of the tunes?
That brings up an important point. People want to be able to listen to the music they like as they travel. This is one of the big reasons that, despite predictions, radio hasn't died. They also don't want to fiddle with the music much, they want to point to it and have it go without any further intervention.
The only ways I can see of renting time-limited digital music that would meet this key consumer demand are insecure trusted client solutions or massive wireless authentication networks. One won't work as soon as someone cracks it, the other is prohibitively expensive, at least for the next five years, and limits the customer base to the cities and well-traveled areas.
Part of the "chilling effect" point in Felten v RIAA is that Professor Felten has limited control over whether he gets to publish his paper. Universities, publishers, and so on all get intimidated when an organization like the RIAA threatens to sue them if they give Felten a venue to present his research. The 2600 case shows that the threat to publishers is quite real.
It doesn't matter if Felton is willing to martyr himself to present his research (considering his website and this lawsuit I think it's clear that he is willing to go through quite a lot in the name of Free Speech). It doesn't matter because the traditional venues of presenting his speech have been restricted because of a vague law and the RIAA's legal threats.
tc writes:
Free software - no problem. Probably a great idea for somethings. All software being free - not so great. The problem is that it means you can't have a software business.
You fail to understand the software development business. The vast majority of professional programmers (most estimates I've seen have put it at between 90% and 95%) are employed developing custom software that is seldom distributed beyond the company that employs them (or the company that hired them as consultants). Most web programmers would also fall into this category, their work is visible, but not distributed.
For most programmers, copyright protection is meaningless. It doesn't affect whether or not they make a living. It has no bearing on the software industry as a whole. On the flip side, wide availablilty of high quality Free software makes our jobs easier, and improves our profit margin (if a client refrains from spending $50,000 on Oracle licenses, but instead spends $20,000 on implementing a custom feature in PostgreSQL, both the client and the developer are better off).
There is only one segment of the industry (small in number of programmers, but highly visible) that counts on copyright for survival: The off-the-shelf software producers. Most of these companies are producing bad code at the expense of users. I won't shed a tear if the Microsofts or the Adobes of the world fail to make a profit.
Walter Bell writes:
:: Libertarianism : Socialism
:: Regulated Captialism : Laissez-faire Captialism or
:: Status Quo : Libertarian
O'Reilley : RMS
O'Reilley supports the rule of copyright law over software. This is not libertarianism. RMS argues against copyright law covering software, this is a much more libertarian viewpoint than O'Reilly's. Socialism recommends government ownership and control of key means of production. This has nothing to do with what RMS is arguing for.
I would redo the analogy as
O'Reilly : RMS
O'Reilly : RMS
Unfortunately, the two viewpoints are irreconcilable. One values the rights of the individual over the needs of the Free Software world, and one values the needs of the Free Software world over the rights of the individual.
Not quite right. Both of them feel they have the best interests of the Free Software world in mind.
The irreconcileable difference in viewpoints is simple:
* Tim O'Reilly values the rights of the developer over the rights of the user.
* RMS values the rights of the user over the rights of the developer.
I, as a developer, feel that RMS's viewpoint is the healthier one in the long run. Many developers understandably disagree. What baffles me is how many non-developers seem to prefer the rights of developers over the rights of users.
So, to these men, I say: drop it. Let the chips fall where they may.
It is unlikely that either will drop it. RMS advocates Free Software both as a living and as an ethical calling. Tim O'Reilly has fears for his personal livelihood and those of the people whose books he publishes.
[Disclaimer, I haven't read Tim O'Reilly's web log, it is slashdotted]
...all licensing, including the GPL, is an expression of power over what other people can do with the software.
... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" Congress is supposed to legislate according to the will of the people, or at least the people who voted for them.
Michael writes:
I disagree. Copyright Law is an expression of power of the copyright holder over the users of the media. Many licenses (eg, the typical Microsoft EULA) make use of the power of Copyright and Contract Law to claim even more power over the users. It makes sense to say that these licenses are an expression of power.
The GPL, and other Free Software licenses take no additional power over users beyond those already exerted by copyright laws. In fact, they give users additional freedoms that they would not otherwise have. I would call these licenses expressions of freedom, not power.
I take issue with O'Reilly's description of copyright law as a compromise between creators and users. There's absolutely no evidence that the rights of users are considered when copyright laws are made.
Historically, yes, copyright law has had much more to do with balancing the rights of creators with the rights of publishers. In the US, the rights of users are brought into the equation by the doctorine of Fair Use, which is a matter of legal precident in the court system, not by creation of laws.
Fundamentally, however, any law is an agreement between "The People" (being those who permit the government to exist by following the rules and refraining from revolting), and those particular people governed by the law. Copyright law is no exception.
The basis of Copyright Law in the US is in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have the power
So basically, Copyright Law as it now stands in the US is a compromise between the users (via their representatives in Congress), and the creators (via their lobbyists in Washington). Yes, it is a one-sided compromse (observe that the lengths of copyright have always been set so that Mickey Mouse stays out of the public domain).
If you want a different balance, make sure your will is known to your representatives. If your representatives ignore your will, vote for someone else. If enough people get involved, our government still won't be perfect, but at least it will better represent the will of people, and look less like the will of lobbyists.
For those of you in other nations, the basic theory is the same, the mechanisms are different.
Nextel phones have a Direct Connect feature that bypasses the Cell masts.
I have found web server based authentication systems limited, weak, and hard to integrate into authorization systems (to determine whether the given user is allowed to access the given information). Granted, my experience is limited to Apache and Netscape Enterprise Server.
In addition, the client-based authentication scheme that is triggered by web server based authentication doesn't allow for logging out in a manner that is consistant across browsers. Having the ability to log out is critically important for a good security system.
Your mileage may vary.