An Exchange backup using the Windows Backup tool (ewww) will reduce the size of the exchange stores by abour 20-30% in my experience. It must be a transaction log or similar which is cleaned out by the Windows backup program. Saved me a lot of hassle anyway!
I think it's a great article by ONLamp and offers non-developers an insight into what its like to work on a FOSS project. Sure, I've reported many bugs, helped out on community forums and mailing lists - but I've never contributed code in the way highlighted in the article - via peer review with structured rules and processes.
I also find it amusing that the site says its sponsorted by Mircosoft, who must be the single biggest perpetraitor in cutting corners when it comes to writing software. TFA says that peer review is good for the company reputation but bad for personal reputations within a corporate environment. Peoples mistakes get exposed in the board room or to the project manager. The hierarchy in companies is damaging to software development because it lets power override logic and the truth. If they could take their time and develop using similar strict rules and processes without the fear of losing their jobs, being embaressed/defensive or being shown to be bad coders, we'd be sure to see more quality and solid software from the major players.
At the end of the day though, software is becoming such a commodity these days that it's in a companies best interests to make as many releases as possible, with the shortest time possible until its retired and superseeded.
Sorry, but why would you *ever* want to buy into marketing if it interests you? Advertisements are aimed at markets/demographics to have the maximum effect. A generalised advert isn't going to get the same response if it tries to appeal to everyone. You are justifying being marketed too, because you are properly targeted and it works..?
I think one of the biggest disgraces in advertising is how fast food establishments such as KFC and Mc Donalds aim their adverts specifically at childen, on certain TV channels at certain times of the day.
Protecting yourself and your children from marketing is a good thing, and children especially are exceptionally vunerable to influence from people around them, their parents, teachers, other kids and other inputs in their environment such as TV. They are not kept in the dark, they shouldn't gain all of their worldly knowledge from paid-for-advertisements, and if anything they will benefit from being able to make rational and logical thoughts about products put infront of them - rather than depending on the blind faith of marketing people.
To boost my karma, here is the obligatory Bill Hicks quote on marketing:
By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself... borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence. Bill Hicks
Being a UK citizen - and once being happy we got rid of the Conservative goverment with a Labour victory, I've become very annoyed and angry at the situation. I've written numerous letters to my MP, who has made plenty of promises and shown to be good at writting replies to me - perhaps nothing more. It does require a huge amount of effort from an individual to change things, and this combined effort can make a difference.
I was reminded of it tonight watching a satirical comedy current affairs show, when the last demonstration/protests which actually influenced the Goverment into changing a decision - was for lowering the homosexual age of content. [The gag of the story was that it wasn't 16 year olds males demonstrating, rather it was millions of 40+ single men with leather trousers and pierced ears]. Millions of people marched, the goverment listened - and the law was changed. Democracy worked?
The lastest demonstrations were at the G8 summit, whereby the day after the London underground/bus bombings took place - whilst all of the countries security was focused in Gleneagles. Before *that*, up to a million people demonstrated in London against the invasion of Iraq. So many many people were on the streets, a huge turn out which took an enormous amount of effort for people to make - people traveled several hundred miles to be there, which is a mean feat in itself in the UK anyway).
If the goverment won't listen to a few hundred thousand people (minimum, 1 million max) who peacefully demonstrate, execute their primary right to disagree with the goverment decision as strongly as possible - what can be done? How many people does it take to reverse a decision, or to even get a referendum on it?
The control and balance does need to be taken back, but people have too much to lose these days. They aren't directly interested in anything which isn't going to effect their bank balance or routine. Back in the day perhaps, the average family might have a lot less, be more hardup and actually demonstrating and protesting publicaly and peacefuly wouldn't be much more effort than their general hardships. Now-a-days (pipe in mouth, slippers on and reminiscing about the war..) we have it too easy that we order pizza thats cooked less than a mile away, delivered by scooter, and posted through our letterboxes. We are lazy, and we do not care/
What chances do we have while we have it so easy, such an appeased population.:(
I disagree with the examples in your post, but you are actually pointing in the right direction I think. As long as you make a noise, even if it isn't for the right reasons - just at the moment.
if I remember correctly "3" is the 3G brand for O2 (British Telecom)
What silly branding anyway!
I think O2 were trying to get the same minimalist style as Orange, and to chuck in a random fact about Orange... they have never depicted a mobile phone in any of their TV adverts, only a "sold a lifestyle".
Surely the problem is the ComCast VoIP service you've chosen then? If they are not permitting you to use your codec of choice, then you could should move VoIP providers/ISP.
I guess they have you by the short and curlies when it comes to either Internet or VoIP provisioning.
Why not? It's your choice if you want to pay for free software or not. Most of us do not go out and buy the software on a CD, we're able to download it from the 'net. If your stuck at home on 56k dialup, are you going to spend 2 days connected to the Internet to download that 650mb ISO (charged at £0.01 per min - at best), or would you buy a copy that someone had packaged for you for £5?
Why is it any different depending on the medium you use? We all pay for our internet connections just like people will pay for 100's/1000's of MB of data on a disk.
You may not be able to use the trademark name of the product, reproduce graphics/logos etc - and that could be one area where people are infringing on someone elses copyright/trademark name etc.
'Hicks, how come you're not working.' I'd go, 'There's nothing to do.' 'Well, you pretend like you're working.' 'Well, why don't you pretend I'm working? Yeah, you get paid more than me, you fantasise. Pretend I'm mopping. Knock yourself out. I'll pretend they're buying stuff; we can close up. I'm the boss now, you're fired. How's that? I'm on a fucking roll. We're all millionaires and you're dick. I'm pretending shit, I'm wacky, I can't be stopped.'
I don't know if I have the right attitude for the workplace.
Of course Company B will want to take a slice of the pie by providing the cure, but if like any other industry - they will try and protect their own profit stream by lobbying for the cure to be denied as it is unsafe. My point was that, Company A do not really want there to be a cure for HIV/AIDS - and I bet they'd do everything they could to protect their revenue.
I'm applying the same mentality that all businesses must adopt - they are there to maximise shareholder value and company profits, not to save the world with a wonder cure. If company B can bring to market a drug which cures, then great! But competitors will surely make it as hard as possible to do that.
As difficult as it is to bring to market a new drug, the thing that worries me about the review is that it may be failed for the wrong reasons. The treatment of HIV/AIDS is perfect for the Pharma companies, since the suffering (at least in the West) depend on lots and lots of drugs on a daily basis to give them a slightly better quality of life.
Why would they want to solve the HIV/AIDS problem - since as other posters have mentioned their main concern is making money. It's not a wise business decision to actually solve the problem.
From my pesimistic viewpoint, I'd guess that this is one problem which will not get resolved since saving lives and curing people isn't as profitable as selling them 20+ other drugs to take on a daily basis. Very sad:(
I am also evaluating Asterisk, I have it running at the moment in VMWare (Asterisk@Home) with Sipgate.co.uk
Since I'm in the UK, that gives me an 0845 number which routes directly to the * server, where a digital receptionist prompts for choices 1, 2, 3 etc. It's been useful since I am starting my own small business, and I am able to have semi-professional numbers on my business cards, take voices mails and queue calls up coming in over my ADSL. Sure beats call waiting or investing all my money into a phone system, where really I need it to support me and the business during the early days.
It is truely an amazing product, but it is quite complex and deep in the configuration files. Asterisk@Home provides a great way to slap an install on an old computer or in VMWare and get started with adding extensions. With the original Asterisk product it is very easy to get bogged down installation and basic configuration, when you don't know what your doing.
Highly recommended - I am hoping to sell the Asterisk server rebranded as my own PBX solution to companies, with a support contract. One of the only draw backs I can see is due to codecs, and using thhe G.729 - a royalty must be paid since it is not open source. This is a real shame since it can get right down to 8Kbps (instead of a standard uncompress 64Kbps channel) and here in the UK - upstream bandwidth is expensive - so the more channels you can transcode and pack down the pipe the better.
I'm also looking for technical information on how to link Asterisk up to UK ISDN30, I am assuming at the moment that it is a PRI connection on the ISDN30 which uses a PRI interface?
If anyone knows any solutions or better codecs to use I would be most interested!
If you think back to the outsourcing situation which started a few years ago, companies started moving offices/staff/call centers to other countries to save themselves money. This gave them the edge on the competition, who soon had to start making the same out sourcing decisions to stay competitive in the market. The more companies that move, the more pressure there is on all companies in that market to do the same thing.
Open Source Software might be able to follow in similar footsteps - because it will start giving the competitive advantage to a few companies, others will be "forced" to compete in that market. Apply the same logic as above, and you have the opportunity to phase out proprietary software.
One of the stigmas attached to outsourcing though is that while costs may go down, so does the quality and the service. In some cases "its good enough" is fine, but as we know in some areas OSS has the advantage of being superior in terms of quality, functionality and reliability. It's almost like outsourcing from Asia to the US/UK and getting a cheaper, better and more free service/solution.
Your way of working is becoming out dated though. Music doens't need to be pressed to CD for distribution, so if you are paying that cost you are choosing to ignore the internet as a distribution medium.
Sure you have the cost of producing in the studio - but this is all based on the now out dated business model as they expect the recording label to stump up lots of money to record there. How about you start your open Open Studio, whereby people can record for free as long as you can to distribute their music via your web site.
The law shouldn't stiffle technology to keep an industry alive. The entire industry has to adapt not because people are thieves, but people will always use their easiest convienience - ironically that is something the megacorps/retail chains have been drilling into peoples heads for many years. Trying to resist, or trying to maximise your work in the current business model is foolish because it's only a matter of time before it is superseeded by the Internet. In the future - the 'net for distribution will probably be superseeded by something else, maybe the much touted Personal Area Network where people can share music between iPods sat on the train.
Not only that, bit there have been at least 8 vunerability warnings for OpenSSL 0.9.6b to the current known stable version. How ironic that the web admin at Mensa doesn't know how to update his redhat box. Also, and I just checked - you can SSH straight into the box as there isnt any firewall or port restrictions on their crappy Redhat server. idiots!
WriteToThem really does work work! I've sent my MP many emails through the WriteToThem form, and now receive official typed replies to my questions and ongoing issues. My MP seems interested to help resolve problems such as this, copyright and patents, chipping an xbox etc - and has replied with enthusiasm and good intent.
Its a lot more than i expected! It does work, you can get through to the people who matter.
You wouldn't happen to be using an Intel onboard graphics device would you? I've seen this happen before with Intel desktop motherboards.
Use control+alt and then left/right arrow keys to rotate the screen. Ctl+alt and up/down arrow mirrors/inverts the screen. After that, you can set the preferences for the Intel software which sits in the system tray - and disable the hotkeys.
So if the concept doesn't work for Cialis, Viagra, Prozac and whatever they are called (I'm just citing from the spam I get), why would this suddenly work with heroin, crack and cannabis ?
Would spam still be economically viable to send if any one of us could get it for free from their Doctor - if you could demonstrate an addiction? To make illegal drugs cheaper rules out any illegal activity. Why would a heroin user go to the hassle of smashing a car window and stealing a CD player to sell for his next hit - when he can walk into his Doctors - get some advice and receive the drugs they are dependant on? The real fuckers here are the dealers - and they need to be cut off, and put out of a job by providing these treatments for free - rather than not at all.
Sure, I don't think there is any single solution to the drug problem - but I believe that this is a strong step in the right direction. We've been approaching the entire problem from the wrong perspective for a long time.
I'd also like to hear other alternatives we have to tackle the problem in the short term. The War of Drugs has run for how long now? Decade or 2? And we are no closer to solving the social problems associated with it - we just have more people in prison. The deterant doesn't work for the dealer, and for the addicted user - there is no deterant strong enough to stop them seeking a way to finance their next hit.
One excellent argument I have heard regarding the decriminalisation of drugs was from Howard Marks while he was giving a talk at the Glastonbury Festival.
The main argument was that Heroin and other Class A drugs should be made freely available to addicted abusers. At first I was stunned, and thought "Why the hell should we?" However, when explained further it made perfect sense. Any heroin addict who can register for free with his Doctor/GP and can get his hit on time 7 days a week - isn't going to go out stealing from homes and robbing people in the streets. Without the need for money to fuel their addiction, there would be less minor crime. Since the addict wouldn't be paying 100x the real price for the drug from a drug dealer - there would be less organised crime. There wouldn't be as many gangs who control distribution of drugs throughout areas, there would be less money to go around and they would have to find some other way to make their money illegitimately. There should be less of an insurance premium to pay on cars, houses and personal property because of the reduction of crime. There was some statistic thrown about that around 40% of crime is due to drug addiction.
In the end, regardless of the details - we have a choice to make for society as a whole. People will become try and become addicted to substances no matter how illegal we make them or how severe the punishment. So given the choice - who would you like to see sell drugs? A regulated goverment controlled industry? Or drug dealing gangs who use violence and crime to achieve their control over the drug abusers? Us, or them? - so to speak.
And of course, to give away hard drugs like heroin doesn't mean that you should give a 12 year old girl a bag full of crack if she happens to want to try it for the first time. Addicts need treatment by professionals, and getting them to the Doctors to get their hit would allow for control, monitoring and hopefully treatment in the future. With less dealers, there should be less of a temptation for first time users to become entangled in that lifestyle.
Most people I have tried to "sell" this idea too think I am crazy, and that drug addicts should all be shot and removed from the planet - until it's their son/daughter/brother/sister who is laying in a heap in the middle of the road, eyes rolling into the back of their heads and dribbling vomit onto their dirty clothes. When that hits, and you hear of an alternative to their destructive lifestyle - you wonder why we don't change societies ways.
I have bought and installed several Cisco 837 ADSL routers for use with UK ISPs, and they have all been superb compared to the typical cheap ADSL and Cable routers made by the likes of Belkin, Linksys, SMC, Negear etc.
Don't get me wrong - with most of these other routers now there isn't anything really wrong with them, it's just the Cisco 837 is exceptionally stable and never requires a reset or a poke to awaken it, like some others I have mentioned above. YMMV.
Look out for the Cisco 837 SOHO version, and save a large wedge of money too! Expect to pay around £350 for the non-soho.
(I don't work, nor am I associated with Cisco:P Just a happy customer, for once)
Anyone slightly informed about the US economy would know that it isn't in a good state at the moment, that there is a massive deficit due to the expenditure that you rightly mention. However you did also forget Iraq which is costing the US (tax payers) billions of dollars as well.
There are major cut backs on the horizon, google for the Republican (sponspored) report on this which shows all of the national services (mostly provided to the poor, elderly or environmental projects) being cut back by billions and billions to compensate for the frivolous spending by the current administration.
The US only has good economic stability due to its influences in IMF, World bank, etc - where it gets to control most of the world trade and economic policies. I don't claim to be knowledgable in economics, but Sir, I know that you are posting nonsense.
But what has any of this got to do with the EU and control of the Internet? It's these international practices of the US goverment(s) which have made people wary of dealing with the US.
To be honest, I found it difficult enough to find an article on this story at all - even though its less than a month old. The noise in a search for "BBC advertising" is enormous!
Every UK paper has it's bias towards the political parties - perhaps the AC would like to provide some links towards some other stories from different perspectives
And yet we were only talking the other day about how the US has control over the Internet root DNS, and also is home to the majority of these root DNS servers (except for 3: 1 in the UK, 1 in Japan and 1 somewhere sle in Europe).
A nuclear strike to the US could cripple the Internet root DNS servers for everyone worldwide and add massive pressure to the ones outside of the US, but I am sure it wouldn't be the most important loss at the time if a device was to go off in the US.
However with more evidence of the commercialisation and decentralisation of the Internet - maybe it is time to add and distribute those root DNS servers around the world a lot more effectively - for everybodys benefit - rather than for political and control reasons
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, my CEO was disgusted with the name "Microsoft". Why the hell would we want any computer clicky icon things which are both small and soft??!!
YOU'RE FIRED!
An Exchange backup using the Windows Backup tool (ewww) will reduce the size of the exchange stores by abour 20-30% in my experience. It must be a transaction log or similar which is cleaned out by the Windows backup program. Saved me a lot of hassle anyway!
I think it's a great article by ONLamp and offers non-developers an insight into what its like to work on a FOSS project. Sure, I've reported many bugs, helped out on community forums and mailing lists - but I've never contributed code in the way highlighted in the article - via peer review with structured rules and processes.
I also find it amusing that the site says its sponsorted by Mircosoft, who must be the single biggest perpetraitor in cutting corners when it comes to writing software. TFA says that peer review is good for the company reputation but bad for personal reputations within a corporate environment. Peoples mistakes get exposed in the board room or to the project manager. The hierarchy in companies is damaging to software development because it lets power override logic and the truth.
If they could take their time and develop using similar strict rules and processes without the fear of losing their jobs, being embaressed/defensive or being shown to be bad coders, we'd be sure to see more quality and solid software from the major players.
At the end of the day though, software is becoming such a commodity these days that it's in a companies best interests to make as many releases as possible, with the shortest time possible until its retired and superseeded.
Sorry, but why would you *ever* want to buy into marketing if it interests you? Advertisements are aimed at markets/demographics to have the maximum effect. A generalised advert isn't going to get the same response if it tries to appeal to everyone. You are justifying being marketed too, because you are properly targeted and it works..?
I think one of the biggest disgraces in advertising is how fast food establishments such as KFC and Mc Donalds aim their adverts specifically at childen, on certain TV channels at certain times of the day.
Protecting yourself and your children from marketing is a good thing, and children especially are exceptionally vunerable to influence from people around them, their parents, teachers, other kids and other inputs in their environment such as TV. They are not kept in the dark, they shouldn't gain all of their worldly knowledge from paid-for-advertisements, and if anything they will benefit from being able to make rational and logical thoughts about products put infront of them - rather than depending on the blind faith of marketing people.
To boost my karma, here is the obligatory Bill Hicks quote on marketing:
Being a UK citizen - and once being happy we got rid of the Conservative goverment with a Labour victory, I've become very annoyed and angry at the situation. I've written numerous letters to my MP, who has made plenty of promises and shown to be good at writting replies to me - perhaps nothing more. It does require a huge amount of effort from an individual to change things, and this combined effort can make a difference.
:(
I was reminded of it tonight watching a satirical comedy current affairs show, when the last demonstration/protests which actually influenced the Goverment into changing a decision - was for lowering the homosexual age of content. [The gag of the story was that it wasn't 16 year olds males demonstrating, rather it was millions of 40+ single men with leather trousers and pierced ears]. Millions of people marched, the goverment listened - and the law was changed. Democracy worked?
The lastest demonstrations were at the G8 summit, whereby the day after the London underground/bus bombings took place - whilst all of the countries security was focused in Gleneagles. Before *that*, up to a million people demonstrated in London against the invasion of Iraq. So many many people were on the streets, a huge turn out which took an enormous amount of effort for people to make - people traveled several hundred miles to be there, which is a mean feat in itself in the UK anyway).
If the goverment won't listen to a few hundred thousand people (minimum, 1 million max) who peacefully demonstrate, execute their primary right to disagree with the goverment decision as strongly as possible - what can be done? How many people does it take to reverse a decision, or to even get a referendum on it?
The control and balance does need to be taken back, but people have too much to lose these days. They aren't directly interested in anything which isn't going to effect their bank balance or routine. Back in the day perhaps, the average family might have a lot less, be more hardup and actually demonstrating and protesting publicaly and peacefuly wouldn't be much more effort than their general hardships. Now-a-days (pipe in mouth, slippers on and reminiscing about the war..) we have it too easy that we order pizza thats cooked less than a mile away, delivered by scooter, and posted through our letterboxes. We are lazy, and we do not care/
What chances do we have while we have it so easy, such an appeased population.
I disagree with the examples in your post, but you are actually pointing in the right direction I think. As long as you make a noise, even if it isn't for the right reasons - just at the moment.
if I remember correctly "3" is the 3G brand for O2 (British Telecom)
What silly branding anyway!
I think O2 were trying to get the same minimalist style as Orange, and to chuck in a random fact about Orange... they have never depicted a mobile phone in any of their TV adverts, only a "sold a lifestyle".
Surely the problem is the ComCast VoIP service you've chosen then? If they are not permitting you to use your codec of choice, then you could should move VoIP providers/ISP.
I guess they have you by the short and curlies when it comes to either Internet or VoIP provisioning.
Why not? It's your choice if you want to pay for free software or not. Most of us do not go out and buy the software on a CD, we're able to download it from the 'net. If your stuck at home on 56k dialup, are you going to spend 2 days connected to the Internet to download that 650mb ISO (charged at £0.01 per min - at best), or would you buy a copy that someone had packaged for you for £5?
Why is it any different depending on the medium you use? We all pay for our internet connections just like people will pay for 100's/1000's of MB of data on a disk.
You may not be able to use the trademark name of the product, reproduce graphics/logos etc - and that could be one area where people are infringing on someone elses copyright/trademark name etc.
Ob. Bill Hicks Quote:
'Hicks, how come you're not working.'
I'd go, 'There's nothing to do.'
'Well, you pretend like you're working.'
'Well, why don't you pretend I'm working? Yeah, you get paid more than me, you fantasise. Pretend I'm mopping. Knock yourself out. I'll pretend they're buying stuff; we can close up. I'm the boss now, you're fired. How's that? I'm on a fucking roll. We're all millionaires and you're dick. I'm pretending shit, I'm wacky, I can't be stopped.'
I don't know if I have the right attitude for the workplace.
Of course Company B will want to take a slice of the pie by providing the cure, but if like any other industry - they will try and protect their own profit stream by lobbying for the cure to be denied as it is unsafe. My point was that, Company A do not really want there to be a cure for HIV/AIDS - and I bet they'd do everything they could to protect their revenue.
I'm applying the same mentality that all businesses must adopt - they are there to maximise shareholder value and company profits, not to save the world with a wonder cure. If company B can bring to market a drug which cures, then great! But competitors will surely make it as hard as possible to do that.
As difficult as it is to bring to market a new drug, the thing that worries me about the review is that it may be failed for the wrong reasons. The treatment of HIV/AIDS is perfect for the Pharma companies, since the suffering (at least in the West) depend on lots and lots of drugs on a daily basis to give them a slightly better quality of life.
:(
Why would they want to solve the HIV/AIDS problem - since as other posters have mentioned their main concern is making money. It's not a wise business decision to actually solve the problem.
From my pesimistic viewpoint, I'd guess that this is one problem which will not get resolved since saving lives and curing people isn't as profitable as selling them 20+ other drugs to take on a daily basis. Very sad
I am also evaluating Asterisk, I have it running at the moment in VMWare (Asterisk@Home) with Sipgate.co.uk
Since I'm in the UK, that gives me an 0845 number which routes directly to the * server, where a digital receptionist prompts for choices 1, 2, 3 etc. It's been useful since I am starting my own small business, and I am able to have semi-professional numbers on my business cards, take voices mails and queue calls up coming in over my ADSL. Sure beats call waiting or investing all my money into a phone system, where really I need it to support me and the business during the early days.
It is truely an amazing product, but it is quite complex and deep in the configuration files. Asterisk@Home provides a great way to slap an install on an old computer or in VMWare and get started with adding extensions. With the original Asterisk product it is very easy to get bogged down installation and basic configuration, when you don't know what your doing.
Highly recommended - I am hoping to sell the Asterisk server rebranded as my own PBX solution to companies, with a support contract. One of the only draw backs I can see is due to codecs, and using thhe G.729 - a royalty must be paid since it is not open source. This is a real shame since it can get right down to 8Kbps (instead of a standard uncompress 64Kbps channel) and here in the UK - upstream bandwidth is expensive - so the more channels you can transcode and pack down the pipe the better.
I'm also looking for technical information on how to link Asterisk up to UK ISDN30, I am assuming at the moment that it is a PRI connection on the ISDN30 which uses a PRI interface?
If anyone knows any solutions or better codecs to use I would be most interested!
If you think back to the outsourcing situation which started a few years ago, companies started moving offices/staff/call centers to other countries to save themselves money. This gave them the edge on the competition, who soon had to start making the same out sourcing decisions to stay competitive in the market. The more companies that move, the more pressure there is on all companies in that market to do the same thing.
Open Source Software might be able to follow in similar footsteps - because it will start giving the competitive advantage to a few companies, others will be "forced" to compete in that market. Apply the same logic as above, and you have the opportunity to phase out proprietary software.
One of the stigmas attached to outsourcing though is that while costs may go down, so does the quality and the service. In some cases "its good enough" is fine, but as we know in some areas OSS has the advantage of being superior in terms of quality, functionality and reliability. It's almost like outsourcing from Asia to the US/UK and getting a cheaper, better and more free service/solution.
Your way of working is becoming out dated though. Music doens't need to be pressed to CD for distribution, so if you are paying that cost you are choosing to ignore the internet as a distribution medium.
Sure you have the cost of producing in the studio - but this is all based on the now out dated business model as they expect the recording label to stump up lots of money to record there. How about you start your open Open Studio, whereby people can record for free as long as you can to distribute their music via your web site.
The law shouldn't stiffle technology to keep an industry alive. The entire industry has to adapt not because people are thieves, but people will always use their easiest convienience - ironically that is something the megacorps/retail chains have been drilling into peoples heads for many years. Trying to resist, or trying to maximise your work in the current business model is foolish because it's only a matter of time before it is superseeded by the Internet. In the future - the 'net for distribution will probably be superseeded by something else, maybe the much touted Personal Area Network where people can share music between iPods sat on the train.
Not only that, bit there have been at least 8 vunerability warnings for OpenSSL 0.9.6b to the current known stable version. How ironic that the web admin at Mensa doesn't know how to update his redhat box. Also, and I just checked - you can SSH straight into the box as there isnt any firewall or port restrictions on their crappy Redhat server. idiots!
Superkaramba has been included into KDE 3.5.x series I believe, which is still considered unstable/beta.
WriteToThem really does work work! I've sent my MP many emails through the WriteToThem form, and now receive official typed replies to my questions and ongoing issues. My MP seems interested to help resolve problems such as this, copyright and patents, chipping an xbox etc - and has replied with enthusiasm and good intent.
Its a lot more than i expected! It does work, you can get through to the people who matter.
You wouldn't happen to be using an Intel onboard graphics device would you? I've seen this happen before with Intel desktop motherboards.
Use control+alt and then left/right arrow keys to rotate the screen. Ctl+alt and up/down arrow mirrors/inverts the screen. After that, you can set the preferences for the Intel software which sits in the system tray - and disable the hotkeys.
HTH!
Isn't that the number of servers required just to power /.?
I smell a rat!
Would spam still be economically viable to send if any one of us could get it for free from their Doctor - if you could demonstrate an addiction? To make illegal drugs cheaper rules out any illegal activity. Why would a heroin user go to the hassle of smashing a car window and stealing a CD player to sell for his next hit - when he can walk into his Doctors - get some advice and receive the drugs they are dependant on? The real fuckers here are the dealers - and they need to be cut off, and put out of a job by providing these treatments for free - rather than not at all.
Sure, I don't think there is any single solution to the drug problem - but I believe that this is a strong step in the right direction. We've been approaching the entire problem from the wrong perspective for a long time.
I'd also like to hear other alternatives we have to tackle the problem in the short term. The War of Drugs has run for how long now? Decade or 2? And we are no closer to solving the social problems associated with it - we just have more people in prison. The deterant doesn't work for the dealer, and for the addicted user - there is no deterant strong enough to stop them seeking a way to finance their next hit.
One excellent argument I have heard regarding the decriminalisation of drugs was from Howard Marks while he was giving a talk at the Glastonbury Festival.
The main argument was that Heroin and other Class A drugs should be made freely available to addicted abusers. At first I was stunned, and thought "Why the hell should we?" However, when explained further it made perfect sense. Any heroin addict who can register for free with his Doctor/GP and can get his hit on time 7 days a week - isn't going to go out stealing from homes and robbing people in the streets. Without the need for money to fuel their addiction, there would be less minor crime. Since the addict wouldn't be paying 100x the real price for the drug from a drug dealer - there would be less organised crime. There wouldn't be as many gangs who control distribution of drugs throughout areas, there would be less money to go around and they would have to find some other way to make their money illegitimately. There should be less of an insurance premium to pay on cars, houses and personal property because of the reduction of crime. There was some statistic thrown about that around 40% of crime is due to drug addiction.
In the end, regardless of the details - we have a choice to make for society as a whole. People will become try and become addicted to substances no matter how illegal we make them or how severe the punishment. So given the choice - who would you like to see sell drugs? A regulated goverment controlled industry? Or drug dealing gangs who use violence and crime to achieve their control over the drug abusers? Us, or them? - so to speak.
And of course, to give away hard drugs like heroin doesn't mean that you should give a 12 year old girl a bag full of crack if she happens to want to try it for the first time. Addicts need treatment by professionals, and getting them to the Doctors to get their hit would allow for control, monitoring and hopefully treatment in the future. With less dealers, there should be less of a temptation for first time users to become entangled in that lifestyle.
Most people I have tried to "sell" this idea too think I am crazy, and that drug addicts should all be shot and removed from the planet - until it's their son/daughter/brother/sister who is laying in a heap in the middle of the road, eyes rolling into the back of their heads and dribbling vomit onto their dirty clothes. When that hits, and you hear of an alternative to their destructive lifestyle - you wonder why we don't change societies ways.
I have bought and installed several Cisco 837 ADSL routers for use with UK ISPs, and they have all been superb compared to the typical cheap ADSL and Cable routers made by the likes of Belkin, Linksys, SMC, Negear etc.
:P Just a happy customer, for once)
Don't get me wrong - with most of these other routers now there isn't anything really wrong with them, it's just the Cisco 837 is exceptionally stable and never requires a reset or a poke to awaken it, like some others I have mentioned above. YMMV.
Look out for the Cisco 837 SOHO version, and save a large wedge of money too! Expect to pay around £350 for the non-soho.
(I don't work, nor am I associated with Cisco
This has to be a troll right?
Anyone slightly informed about the US economy would know that it isn't in a good state at the moment, that there is a massive deficit due to the expenditure that you rightly mention. However you did also forget Iraq which is costing the US (tax payers) billions of dollars as well.
There are major cut backs on the horizon, google for the Republican (sponspored) report on this which shows all of the national services (mostly provided to the poor, elderly or environmental projects) being cut back by billions and billions to compensate for the frivolous spending by the current administration.
The US only has good economic stability due to its influences in IMF, World bank, etc - where it gets to control most of the world trade and economic policies. I don't claim to be knowledgable in economics, but Sir, I know that you are posting nonsense.
But what has any of this got to do with the EU and control of the Internet? It's these international practices of the US goverment(s) which have made people wary of dealing with the US.
To be honest, I found it difficult enough to find an article on this story at all - even though its less than a month old. The noise in a search for "BBC advertising" is enormous!
Every UK paper has it's bias towards the political parties - perhaps the AC would like to provide some links towards some other stories from different perspectives
And yet we were only talking the other day about how the US has control over the Internet root DNS, and also is home to the majority of these root DNS servers (except for 3: 1 in the UK, 1 in Japan and 1 somewhere sle in Europe).
A nuclear strike to the US could cripple the Internet root DNS servers for everyone worldwide and add massive pressure to the ones outside of the US, but I am sure it wouldn't be the most important loss at the time if a device was to go off in the US.
However with more evidence of the commercialisation and decentralisation of the Internet - maybe it is time to add and distribute those root DNS servers around the world a lot more effectively - for everybodys benefit - rather than for political and control reasons