Most distros package firefox. You should have said more people need to switch to Linux.
But I agree that Firefox needs to get more needs mainstream attention before it can grow substantially. I recommend it to EVERYBODY. I package it and set it as the default browser on the computers I sell (which unfortunately aren't that many). If the only reason to switch to firefox was tabb-ed browsing, that would still be enough reason for me to recommend it.
Unfortunately, tabbed browsing is a bit ahead of its time in terms of website coding. If you click a link that doesn't open in the parent tab, it opens in a new window. When I can have all my "new window" links open in a new tab instead, firefox will be more of a force.
I RTFA, and don't see how they are providing a new version of Firefox. They're just providing more extensions for it. Also, I have an issue with reporting "to swipe considerable market share from Microsoft." The link in that sentance links to a page that reports Firefox has 8.3% marketshare. When Firefox reaches 20% I'll call it considerable. But 8.3% is small. Personally, I hope they reach 40%+ with other non-IE browsers taking up enough to knock IE under 50%
Read my prior post where I reported that in 2001, Microsoft sent its developers for intensive security training.
Of course Windows has been compromised many times, receives more viri and malware, it has 90%+ of the desktop market. If Apple or Linux had 90% of the market, you could be sure that they'd get many viri, malware, and other security concerns.
I'm just saying you write hundreds of thousands of lines of code for an OS, put it on 90% of the desktop computers (operated primarily buy people who don't have any real idea of what their doing) and see how well yours works.
SP2 has a lot of patches and bugfixes (about 60), but it's a lot more than that.
The firewall isn't just turned on by default, it was improved. It has an advantage over a third party software firewall in that its turned on before the ethernet device and turned off after the ethernet device, so its on the entire time your connected.
Security Center is a centralized location to check status of firewall, anti-virus, and windows updates.
IE6 now has an add-on manager, blocks pop-ups, and monitors downloads to protect against downloading malware
Outlook Express has updated spam-blocking features
"out of the box" wireless support
Support for the NX bit. The NX bit has only very recently been available on a x86 platform.
Since most of these cover things that weren't around yet or problems 10 years ago, it's disingenous saying that they should have been resolved 10 years ago.
Or see that there are no cars on the road, so you can speed as fast as you want.
You mean like what people use RADAR detectors for?
I'm sure there will be patrol cars "running silent" every so often to shake things up. Most criminals aren't that tech-saavy. The ones that are, are already tracking cars through means of scanners and taking note of when cops go by usually.
In fact, if data communicated to and from patrol cars in encrypted, you might know if a cop is coming, but, unlike radio and a scanner, you wouldn't know if they are responding to a report of you commiting a crime (in which you need to get out immediately), or just driving by (in which case you just have to hide).
WiFi started with 801.11b 801.11a isn't WiFi. 801.11g is WiFi and backwards compatable with "b" There is work for a new WiFi standard 801.11n which will be backwards compatable with "b" and "g" devices. As long as IEEE sticks with WiFi compatability (and considering the huge infrastucture already inplace for WiFi networks, they will), then backwards compatability will be along for a very, very long time.
Will a city with 801.11g WiFi be considered inferior to a city with 801.11n WiFi? I don't think so.
Not to be a troll, but in 2001 after XP was finalized, MS sent all of it's developers for intensive security training, which can be seen in SP2. From what I saw of the alpha release that got leaked a few years ago, Longhorn is going to a very major update in the way Windows works.
And is it really a bad thing that Microsoft has gone 4 years without foisting another OS on the public. XP has received a lot of updates in security and usability in that time, and they've all been free to anyone with a properly licensed copy of XP. Apple has released 4 versions of OS X in roughly the same time.
Don't get me wrong, I think of Apple in a postive light generally. While it might not be the next computer I buy, a G5 PowerMac will be within the next three.
I support Apple and love innovation, but what is wrong with issuing service packs?
The day of receiving unsolicited coupons for your next latte as you walk by a Starbucks is one step closer.
Ughhh. How? The Google SMS is a service where YOU request information, and Google provides information. It's a "dumb service" Google doesn't know any more about where you are than what you tell them. If your sitting in Philadelphia and do a Googble Mobile Local search for Thai in Vegas, Google will think your in Vegas and have no clue your in Philly.
Even if a next generation of this service was "smart" and used the GPS on your phone to know where you are, there's an accuracy limit of ~150 feet, IIRC. If your in Time Square in NYC, do you have any idea how many retail businesses are within 50 yards of you? It would overwhelm users who would complain in huge numbers and it would be dropped. Despite all the grassroots FUD on this issue, it's not going to happen. To get 10 foot resolution, you need to triangulate with 12 GPS satellites. To have any chance at getting line of sight with 12 satellites, you need to be a pretty open area. GPS tracking in urban areas is always going to be pretty useless
Geeks and nerds may be ahead of the times in technology, but way, way behind in trends and culture. In '99 we had a disco ball hanging in the middle of my Physics II classroom. Push all the lab tables together and we had an elevated dance floor to boogie!
Not to ask a stupid question (I know there are no stupid questions, just stupid questioners), but:
Exactly how many open source licenses are there? When I first started looking at open source, I only knew of GPL. Then I learned of BSD. Up till now, I was under the impression that those two were the only open source licenses.
I've been experiencing this problem trying to teach my grandparents basic computer usage. I think it's an issue of "object-oriented" learning and "proccess-oriented" learning. If your learning is object-oriented, you learn which buttons to click in a specific application to get your desired result. When my grandfather got a new computer, I set him up with OOo. He had trouble with the adjustment from MS Office 97. The same when he switched from AOL to Verizon DSL. I had to show him how to do everything from checking his email to IMing people (with gaim).
Most people (especially when dealling with something complex) learn what to do instead of howto do it.
600GHz is in the middle of microwave. Microwave is 3GHz-3THz. At 3THz you cross over into infrared. By 400THz your near-infrared, and at 430THz, your in visible light. Of course at 750THz you're into UV-A. And at 300PHertz (picoHertz), your transistor is emmiting X-Rays.:)
In 20 years, will you you be able to say: I remember what I was doing when I first read on slashdot about the first transistor to break teh 600GHz barrier?
But seriously, a previous poster had a point, what's the relationship between the speed of a transitor and the speed of a proccessor? Because 600GHz is a HUGE jump over 3.4GHz. If there's a 1:1 ratio, then a proccsoor of with 600GHz transistors would have 176 tiems the proccessing power over the current breed. A Beowolf cluster in a single chip!
The list just keeps getting longer of the things I have no interest in buying. I'm not really a console person in general, but I dispise XBox. I mean, that controller is just huge. I'm also the kind of n00b that moves the controller around, I've just never been able to kick the habit not since I was a kid playing on the Atari 2600. With the Xbox controller's heft, I might accidently kill somebody.
Okay, how about this example. Should you have to use a seperate computer to access different parts of the internet? One to read blogs and another to surf pr0n? How about having to buy a car to drive to work, and another car for other trips.
Or to bring it back to radio. A different radio for AM and for FM.
Could someone please explain the error in my logic?
PearPC accuses CherryOS of stealing its open source code and using it in their proprietary project. There is some proof of this./.ers vilify CherryOS creator and exult PearPC creator.
Bitkeeper accuses Tridge of using their propriety code to reverse-engineer an open-source project. To best of my knowledge, only circumstantial evidence as yet supports this./.ers complain about BK's tactics and praise Tridge.
So when open source take advantage of closed source, it's a Good Thing (tm), but when closed sources takes advantage of open source, it's a Bad Thing (tm). Did I get that right?
Maybe because self-preservation is a fundamental concept to living things. Humans (47% of the people are women, you insensitive clod have been able to abstract it to self-preservation of the species.
Second, just because humanity hasn't done anything universally important doesn't mean it won't. Homo Sapiens Sapiens have been around for ~0.00625% of the time the universe has existed. That's roughly equivilent of 4 hrs of a 75 year life-span. Had you done anything important in the first 4 hours of your life? Have you done anything Important in the last 4 hrs? Look at it from this example. The US, since founded as colonies, has been around for ~400 years (398 to be exact). What did the US contribute in.00625% of it's life? That's 9 days. Let's give things a chance here.
There are very different in scope. 2) To live is a personal reason, like moving to, say, Montana. 3) To survive is a universal (pun unintended) reason.
The reason to move to a colony on Mars in the viewpoint of reason 2 is not very different than the reason for moving to Montana. Go there because there is more space (again pun unintended) available, more freedom, a chance to start anew, etc. But the fate of humanity isn't much affected if you move to Montana. Similarly, if 500 people live on Mars, the fate of humanity isn't very affected either.
Reason 3 is different. If we can get several thousand (a couple million would be better) to start colonies on other celestial bodies like Mars, Earth's moon, other planet's moons, and asteroids, then if another asteroid like the 10 km one that killed the dinosaurs or some other Bad Thing(tm) like the Permian-Triassic exticnction where ~90% of all life on earth died. About 70,000 years ago a supervolcano erupted and nearly caused the extinction of people. DNA analysis suggests that the human population was as low as 2,000. There's a supervolcano underneath Yellowstone, in Wyoming. It has a 600,000 year eruption cycle, and the next one is about 50,000 years overdue. So it is definately a GoodThing(tm) to get some population of planet.
When I got DSL from Verizon, one of the filters was DOA. I called Tech Support and told them that I had a dead DSL filter from the DSL package that I just ordered. I explained that I that I tested it against another filter, phone, and jack. Then the tech support told me: "It sounds like your filter might not work." I wanted to do like that one Snickers commercial where they guy flies across country to destroy the telemarketer'c computer with a bat. He then told me he was going to transfer me to Customer Service so they could send me a new filter. (It was the wall-mount filter, and the wall mount phone is the only corded-phone in my house, so it's a priority to have plugged in) However, he didn't send me to Customer Service. He sent me to Tech Support for the other half of the country. I had to argue with that tech for 30 minutes to convince her I needed to talk to Customer Service, not East Coast Tech Support.
I think the fundamental problem the grandparent has is that XM and Sirius use different hardware. It would be like HBO & Showtime being available only on DirectTV and TMC being available only on Dish Network. Of course, it isn't that way in Satellite TV, and it is a bit rediculous for it to be that way for Satellite radio.
Thank god it's not actually going to happen. Dell manufactures some of the biggest peices of shit on the market. If Dell started shipping AMD proccessors, More people would associate AMD with their Dell-related problems and the reputation of AMD would suffer.
AMD is better off for not having the proccessors in Dell's computers. It would mean more sales, but it would mean more people would have problems with computers built with AMD proccessors. In the end, AMD wins without Dell
Six Flags locations use these also. If you play a game, you give your dollar to the kid working the game, and the kid puts a one dollar coin in the machine. Supposed to stop theft and such, but it makes the kid's life a lot easier since it's quicker and easier to count $250 in rolled coins then it is in $1 bills, especially through the smock because the money isn't supposed to be out of the smock
Slashdot Mirror
But I agree that Firefox needs to get more needs mainstream attention before it can grow substantially. I recommend it to EVERYBODY. I package it and set it as the default browser on the computers I sell (which unfortunately aren't that many). If the only reason to switch to firefox was tabb-ed browsing, that would still be enough reason for me to recommend it.
Unfortunately, tabbed browsing is a bit ahead of its time in terms of website coding. If you click a link that doesn't open in the parent tab, it opens in a new window. When I can have all my "new window" links open in a new tab instead, firefox will be more of a force.
I RTFA, and don't see how they are providing a new version of Firefox. They're just providing more extensions for it. Also, I have an issue with reporting "to swipe considerable market share from Microsoft." The link in that sentance links to a page that reports Firefox has 8.3% marketshare. When Firefox reaches 20% I'll call it considerable. But 8.3% is small. Personally, I hope they reach 40%+ with other non-IE browsers taking up enough to knock IE under 50%
- Read my prior post where I reported that in 2001, Microsoft sent its developers for intensive security training.
- Of course Windows has been compromised many times, receives more viri and malware, it has 90%+ of the desktop market. If Apple or Linux had 90% of the market, you could be sure that they'd get many viri, malware, and other security concerns.
I'm just saying you write hundreds of thousands of lines of code for an OS, put it on 90% of the desktop computers (operated primarily buy people who don't have any real idea of what their doing) and see how well yours works.- The firewall isn't just turned on by default, it was improved. It has an advantage over a third party software firewall in that its turned on before the ethernet device and turned off after the ethernet device, so its on the entire time your connected.
- Security Center is a centralized location to check status of firewall, anti-virus, and windows updates.
- IE6 now has an add-on manager, blocks pop-ups, and monitors downloads to protect against downloading malware
- Outlook Express has updated spam-blocking features
- "out of the box" wireless support
- Support for the NX bit. The NX bit has only very recently been available on a x86 platform.
Since most of these cover things that weren't around yet or problems 10 years ago, it's disingenous saying that they should have been resolved 10 years ago.I'm sure there will be patrol cars "running silent" every so often to shake things up. Most criminals aren't that tech-saavy. The ones that are, are already tracking cars through means of scanners and taking note of when cops go by usually.
In fact, if data communicated to and from patrol cars in encrypted, you might know if a cop is coming, but, unlike radio and a scanner, you wouldn't know if they are responding to a report of you commiting a crime (in which you need to get out immediately), or just driving by (in which case you just have to hide).
WiFi started with 801.11b 801.11a isn't WiFi. 801.11g is WiFi and backwards compatable with "b" There is work for a new WiFi standard 801.11n which will be backwards compatable with "b" and "g" devices. As long as IEEE sticks with WiFi compatability (and considering the huge infrastucture already inplace for WiFi networks, they will), then backwards compatability will be along for a very, very long time.
Will a city with 801.11g WiFi be considered inferior to a city with 801.11n WiFi? I don't think so.
And is it really a bad thing that Microsoft has gone 4 years without foisting another OS on the public. XP has received a lot of updates in security and usability in that time, and they've all been free to anyone with a properly licensed copy of XP. Apple has released 4 versions of OS X in roughly the same time.
Don't get me wrong, I think of Apple in a postive light generally. While it might not be the next computer I buy, a G5 PowerMac will be within the next three.
I support Apple and love innovation, but what is wrong with issuing service packs?
Ughhh. How? The Google SMS is a service where YOU request information, and Google provides information. It's a "dumb service" Google doesn't know any more about where you are than what you tell them. If your sitting in Philadelphia and do a Googble Mobile Local search for Thai in Vegas, Google will think your in Vegas and have no clue your in Philly.
Even if a next generation of this service was "smart" and used the GPS on your phone to know where you are, there's an accuracy limit of ~150 feet, IIRC. If your in Time Square in NYC, do you have any idea how many retail businesses are within 50 yards of you? It would overwhelm users who would complain in huge numbers and it would be dropped. Despite all the grassroots FUD on this issue, it's not going to happen. To get 10 foot resolution, you need to triangulate with 12 GPS satellites. To have any chance at getting line of sight with 12 satellites, you need to be a pretty open area. GPS tracking in urban areas is always going to be pretty useless
Geeks and nerds may be ahead of the times in technology, but way, way behind in trends and culture. In '99 we had a disco ball hanging in the middle of my Physics II classroom. Push all the lab tables together and we had an elevated dance floor to boogie!
Not to ask a stupid question (I know there are no stupid questions, just stupid questioners), but:
Exactly how many open source licenses are there? When I first started looking at open source, I only knew of GPL. Then I learned of BSD. Up till now, I was under the impression that those two were the only open source licenses.
Most people (especially when dealling with something complex) learn what to do instead of howto do it.
It just doesn't sit comfortably in my hands. I find the PS2 and N64 controllers much more comfortable
Yes, your right, I did mean Peta. To be exact peta is 10^15 and pico is 10^-9 1pHz would be 1 billion seconds per cycle!
600GHz is in the middle of microwave. Microwave is 3GHz-3THz. At 3THz you cross over into infrared. By 400THz your near-infrared, and at 430THz, your in visible light. Of course at 750THz you're into UV-A. And at 300PHertz (picoHertz), your transistor is emmiting X-Rays. :)
But seriously, a previous poster had a point, what's the relationship between the speed of a transitor and the speed of a proccessor? Because 600GHz is a HUGE jump over 3.4GHz. If there's a 1:1 ratio, then a proccsoor of with 600GHz transistors would have 176 tiems the proccessing power over the current breed. A Beowolf cluster in a single chip!
I was talking about the smaller controller. I've never even tried the "full size" one.
The list just keeps getting longer of the things I have no interest in buying. I'm not really a console person in general, but I dispise XBox. I mean, that controller is just huge. I'm also the kind of n00b that moves the controller around, I've just never been able to kick the habit not since I was a kid playing on the Atari 2600. With the Xbox controller's heft, I might accidently kill somebody.
Or to bring it back to radio. A different radio for AM and for FM.
PearPC accuses CherryOS of stealing its open source code and using it in their proprietary project. There is some proof of this.
Bitkeeper accuses Tridge of using their propriety code to reverse-engineer an open-source project. To best of my knowledge, only circumstantial evidence as yet supports this.
So when open source take advantage of closed source, it's a Good Thing (tm), but when closed sources takes advantage of open source, it's a Bad Thing (tm). Did I get that right?
Second, just because humanity hasn't done anything universally important doesn't mean it won't. Homo Sapiens Sapiens have been around for ~0.00625% of the time the universe has existed. That's roughly equivilent of 4 hrs of a 75 year life-span. Had you done anything important in the first 4 hours of your life? Have you done anything Important in the last 4 hrs? Look at it from this example. The US, since founded as colonies, has been around for ~400 years (398 to be exact). What did the US contribute in .00625% of it's life? That's 9 days. Let's give things a chance here.
The reason to move to a colony on Mars in the viewpoint of reason 2 is not very different than the reason for moving to Montana. Go there because there is more space (again pun unintended) available, more freedom, a chance to start anew, etc. But the fate of humanity isn't much affected if you move to Montana. Similarly, if 500 people live on Mars, the fate of humanity isn't very affected either. Reason 3 is different. If we can get several thousand (a couple million would be better) to start colonies on other celestial bodies like Mars, Earth's moon, other planet's moons, and asteroids, then if another asteroid like the 10 km one that killed the dinosaurs or some other Bad Thing(tm) like the Permian-Triassic exticnction where ~90% of all life on earth died. About 70,000 years ago a supervolcano erupted and nearly caused the extinction of people. DNA analysis suggests that the human population was as low as 2,000. There's a supervolcano underneath Yellowstone, in Wyoming. It has a 600,000 year eruption cycle, and the next one is about 50,000 years overdue. So it is definately a GoodThing(tm) to get some population of planet.
When I got DSL from Verizon, one of the filters was DOA. I called Tech Support and told them that I had a dead DSL filter from the DSL package that I just ordered. I explained that I that I tested it against another filter, phone, and jack. Then the tech support told me: "It sounds like your filter might not work." I wanted to do like that one Snickers commercial where they guy flies across country to destroy the telemarketer'c computer with a bat. He then told me he was going to transfer me to Customer Service so they could send me a new filter. (It was the wall-mount filter, and the wall mount phone is the only corded-phone in my house, so it's a priority to have plugged in) However, he didn't send me to Customer Service. He sent me to Tech Support for the other half of the country. I had to argue with that tech for 30 minutes to convince her I needed to talk to Customer Service, not East Coast Tech Support.
I think the fundamental problem the grandparent has is that XM and Sirius use different hardware. It would be like HBO & Showtime being available only on DirectTV and TMC being available only on Dish Network. Of course, it isn't that way in Satellite TV, and it is a bit rediculous for it to be that way for Satellite radio.
AMD is better off for not having the proccessors in Dell's computers. It would mean more sales, but it would mean more people would have problems with computers built with AMD proccessors. In the end, AMD wins without Dell
Six Flags locations use these also. If you play a game, you give your dollar to the kid working the game, and the kid puts a one dollar coin in the machine. Supposed to stop theft and such, but it makes the kid's life a lot easier since it's quicker and easier to count $250 in rolled coins then it is in $1 bills, especially through the smock because the money isn't supposed to be out of the smock