"The Bad in Email or (Why Steve Ballmer is the CTO of Microsoft)"
Except the article says : Therefore, we'd like to present The Bad In Email, or Why Ray Ozzie is the CTO of Microsoft.
There's a bug somewhere... maybe bad RAM, or buggy software, maybe between the chair and keyboard (if your chair hasn't been thrown away by Steve, that is):)
I have installed a few machines recently and not once did I have to hunt down drivers to have a functional machine.
I guess that you've got pre-packaged (OEM) MS-Windows XP install CDs, not the official CDs you can purchase separately from hardware (non-OEM). Because the last ones needs you to separately download most of the drivers you need : graphics, sound, network, even some USB (IIRC, native support for USB 1.1 chipsets but not USB 2.0), etc.
Guess what ? If you're buying a computer pre-installed with Linux, you will also get all the drivers needed on the CD/DVD.
If I need drivers they most likely exist for XP.
Because MS-Windows being the main player in the OS field, if you want to sell your hardware, you better have support for it on MS-Windows !
Now I guess you could find mainframe hardware that has no support on MS-Windows side (like SCSI cards ?)
I can also find old hardware that were supported under MS-Win9x but have no WinNT driver. (ISA cards, parallel scanners, most hardware manufactured by companies now defunct or that closed / sold their division manufacturing computer parts.)
So, what do you think: is Schwartz right in giving credit to McNealy for creating 'millions' of jobs? Or has Sun been a company on the decline since the mid-1990s, only temporarily buoyed by the Internet bubble?
Neither ?
These black & white choices are annoying >_<
Re:French pronounciation of w : an open discussion
on
Both Sides of Wii
·
· Score: 1
unless your work is related to trains, you're not going to talk about wagons very often
Except those people usually are talking of voitures:P Well it's the good ol' french for Wagen/wagon, after all...
When we see a W randomly put in a made-up word
Who's that we ? We are French too, my precious !:)
Re:Homonyms are not confusing, mind you...
on
Both Sides of Wii
·
· Score: 1
AFAIK, french wagon comes from english, that itself comes from german Wagen. I gave some links you might find intersting in another post of the thread.
French pronounciation of w : an open discussion...
on
Both Sides of Wii
·
· Score: 1
Aren't you pronouncing wagon like vallée ? And what about words from other languages like wisigoths, or the game of awalé ?
Now I checked because the w is quite uncommon in french, and I agree most words are from english and kept their english pronounciation. W really isn't a french letter;)
Here are scrabble accepted words with w, english people will probably understand most of them...
Now, I think that w should be pronounced v, like we're spelling it "double vé", but it's maybe because I'm native of Alsace, near the German border (and German people are pronouncing w like our v while their v is more like our f):)
Conclusion : it's up to the french people to choose if it will be ouiiii or viiiie:)
Homonyms are not confusing, mind you...
on
Both Sides of Wii
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
it will confuse the French
Probably not. Marketing will probably pronounce it the english way. But people probably not. W in French is pronounced like v. I can't think of a word with two consecutive 'i'. It could be pronounced like vie (life), or maybe a long i.
Probably a long i. Be it pronounced the english or the french way.
Therefore no confusion with yesss or lifffe.
And there are lots of homonyms in every language anyway, people don't get confused, it's just useful for puns...
But an inbound protection does not provide anything behind a NAT right ? And most people having an ADSL connexion currently get a modem-router that provides that NAT functionnality (not always activated by default, granted). So it's mostly redundant.
An outbound protection however has the ability to avoid malware / trojans most people are loading their computer with to "phone home". And once a connection is established, traffic can go both ways...
I now have an RSS feed to OSNews that it seems get the news before Slashdot, and noticed an interesting comment about the "phone home" being the feature that software developers wouldn't like to be blocked. In other words, "Our users should not notice we're verifying updates / checking licence validity so turn that firewall off".
Taking pictures of copyrighted work in France is somewhat like a license agreement when and where you're taking the pictures, implying agreement of not publishing the pictures without the copyright holder agreement. (Should that be declared to the customs ?)
Now of course you could also forbid to take pictures of such shows (except for the allowed photographers...). It sometimes happen that it is forbidden to take pictures in some museum or public show, but I don't know if such prohibitions have legal value. But linked "articles" lack that information too !
We're getting a discussion about a case without having accurate info on the facts:(
French copyright laws do not allow publication of copyrighted work. If pictures were taken in France, French law should prevail.
Now if the pictures were taken in the U.S.A., US laws should apply.
In other words, when you're doing something in a foreign country, that country laws are applying, and consequences/implications of what you did should also be bound to that country's laws.
However, neither of the links is providing where the pictures were taken. It's a shame, as a I think it's the crux of the matter.
Who allowed that wikipedia guy, Akhristov it seems, to install Vista on my main home computer ? I'm Alex, I have a P4 2.4C, with a Radeon 9500Pro, Manufacturer and Model Unknown as I assembled it myself, it's clearly my computer !
Of course, on a uniprocessor system only one task can run at a time. However, (GNU) ps and (GNU) top report R as Running or Ready to Run, so there may be more than one at any time. Average of runnable tasks count get you the load.
Nota : I put the GNU because BSD equivalent behaves differently, I just checked and I get details like "select" where I guess I would only get "Sleep" on GNU/Linux.
If the US defaulted (not bloody likely, but speaking theoretically), they would be the ones left holding the bag.
If the US defaulted, I bet the most immediate impact would be that the dollar would immediately be worth nothing, like everything based on it like capitalization (huge crash in Wall Street...).
Software is explicitely excluded from patentability by article 52-2c of the 1973 European Patent Convention, as are games and mathematics.
Therefore, there are no software patents in any of the member countries.
Besides, the action MS takes is against EU as a whole, and not in a specific country of Europe. I'm from EU (France) and not US, and am not aware of all subtilities of the US legal system, but it would seem logical that when a case is handled by a federal court, federal law prevails state law, right ?
Now if the European Patent Office could stop to grant software patents - against its own rules ! - that have no legal value and aren't enforceable >_<...
I agree with the sibling AC : LaTeX is the perfect tool to write scientific publications. And if you don't like the "coding style" of LaTeX, you can use LyX.
The third reason patents don't seem to matter very much in software is public opinion-- or rather, hacker opinion. In a recent interview, Steve Ballmer coyly left open the possibility of attacking Linux on patent grounds. But I doubt Microsoft would ever be so stupid. They'd face the mother of all boycotts. And not just from the technical community in general; a lot of their own people would rebel.
Good hackers care a lot about matters of principle, and they are highly mobile. If a company starts misbehaving, smart people won't work there. For some reason this seems to be more true in software than other businesses. I don't think it's because hackers have intrinsically higher principles so much as that their skills are easily transferrable. Perhaps we can split the difference and say that mobility gives hackers the luxury of being principled.
Microsoft commiting copyright infringements (Stacker comes in mind), using illegal or nearly illegal or illegal when a monopoly practices, using objectionable PR practices (FUD) don't forbid them to make lots of money. Some bright people are quitting because of bad management, but most people are following the money. What about those guys at Microsoft Research working on things that won't ever make their way to the product ? And there's nothing special misbehaving about patents.
Do they need bright people at all ? They just need offensive commercial practices and maybe a little PR. Employees are getting their check, "consumers" have almost no choice...
Slashdot Mirror
Some great quotes :
Email is NOT Secure (Part 1)
[...]
(Anyone using cryptographic e-mail is in the minority and the exception to the rule.)
Anyone needing secure e-mail is in the minority and the exception to the rule.
there is no way to 'retract' your email.
And how are you retracting your mail ?
Email is Prone to Viruses
There is no need to elaborate here.
You should make an effort. I do not understand.
"The Bad in Email or (Why Steve Ballmer is the CTO of Microsoft)"
:)
Except the article says :
Therefore, we'd like to present The Bad In Email, or Why Ray Ozzie is the CTO of Microsoft.
There's a bug somewhere... maybe bad RAM, or buggy software, maybe between the chair and keyboard (if your chair hasn't been thrown away by Steve, that is)
I have installed a few machines recently and not once did I have to hunt down drivers to have a functional machine.
I guess that you've got pre-packaged (OEM) MS-Windows XP install CDs, not the official CDs you can purchase separately from hardware (non-OEM). Because the last ones needs you to separately download most of the drivers you need : graphics, sound, network, even some USB (IIRC, native support for USB 1.1 chipsets but not USB 2.0), etc.
Guess what ? If you're buying a computer pre-installed with Linux, you will also get all the drivers needed on the CD/DVD.
If I need drivers they most likely exist for XP.
Because MS-Windows being the main player in the OS field, if you want to sell your hardware, you better have support for it on MS-Windows !
Now I guess you could find mainframe hardware that has no support on MS-Windows side (like SCSI cards ?)
I can also find old hardware that were supported under MS-Win9x but have no WinNT driver.
(ISA cards, parallel scanners, most hardware manufactured by companies now defunct or that closed / sold their division manufacturing computer parts.)
So, what do you think: is Schwartz right in giving credit to McNealy for creating 'millions' of jobs? Or has Sun been a company on the decline since the mid-1990s, only temporarily buoyed by the Internet bubble?
Neither ?
These black & white choices are annoying >_<
unless your work is related to trains, you're not going to talk about wagons very often
:P
:)
Except those people usually are talking of voitures
Well it's the good ol' french for Wagen/wagon, after all...
When we see a W randomly put in a made-up word
Who's that we ? We are French too, my precious !
AFAIK, french wagon comes from english, that itself comes from german Wagen.
I gave some links you might find intersting in another post of the thread.
Aren't you pronouncing wagon like vallée ?
;)
:)
:)
And what about words from other languages like wisigoths, or the game of awalé ?
Now I checked because the w is quite uncommon in french, and I agree most words are from english and kept their english pronounciation. W really isn't a french letter
Here are scrabble accepted words with w, english people will probably understand most of them...
Now, I think that w should be pronounced v, like we're spelling it "double vé", but it's maybe because I'm native of Alsace, near the German border (and German people are pronouncing w like our v while their v is more like our f)
Also found that discussion.
Conclusion : it's up to the french people to choose if it will be ouiiii or viiiie
it will confuse the French
Probably not.
Marketing will probably pronounce it the english way.
But people probably not. W in French is pronounced like v.
I can't think of a word with two consecutive 'i'.
It could be pronounced like vie (life), or maybe a long i.
Probably a long i. Be it pronounced the english or the french way.
Therefore no confusion with yesss or lifffe.
And there are lots of homonyms in every language anyway, people don't get confused, it's just useful for puns...
In related news Microsoft has fired 60,994 employees leaving 6 people working at the company...
Which are Bill Gate, Steve Ballmer, Jim Allchin, Brian Valentine, Will Poole and Chris Jones
(sources : minimsft, microsoft)
I can't wait for the MS Vista relase ! How impressive it will be !
But an inbound protection does not provide anything behind a NAT right ? And most people having an ADSL connexion currently get a modem-router that provides that NAT functionnality (not always activated by default, granted). So it's mostly redundant.
An outbound protection however has the ability to avoid malware / trojans most people are loading their computer with to "phone home". And once a connection is established, traffic can go both ways...
I now have an RSS feed to OSNews that it seems get the news before Slashdot, and noticed an interesting comment about the "phone home" being the feature that software developers wouldn't like to be blocked. In other words, "Our users should not notice we're verifying updates / checking licence validity so turn that firewall off".
Pressing 6...
Oops ! My phone BSOD'ed !
...that Microsoft is playing catch up these days.
:P
You mean, like, the 31 last years ?
Well, they don't when they can afford not to...
> Let's start with Vista. Fine, so it got delayed by a few months.
:)
Gosh, that's the worst mispelling of six years I've ever seen!
It's not a mispelling, it's a twist. Vista only got delayed by a few months. Longhorn on the other hand...
Let me reword that, the way I understand it.
:(
Taking pictures of copyrighted work in France is somewhat like a license agreement when and where you're taking the pictures, implying agreement of not publishing the pictures without the copyright holder agreement. (Should that be declared to the customs ?)
Now of course you could also forbid to take pictures of such shows (except for the allowed photographers...). It sometimes happen that it is forbidden to take pictures in some museum or public show, but I don't know if such prohibitions have legal value.
But linked "articles" lack that information too !
We're getting a discussion about a case without having accurate info on the facts
I think you missed the first two points.
French copyright laws do not allow publication of copyrighted work. If pictures were taken in France, French law should prevail.
Now if the pictures were taken in the U.S.A., US laws should apply.
In other words, when you're doing something in a foreign country, that country laws are applying, and consequences/implications of what you did should also be bound to that country's laws.
However, neither of the links is providing where the pictures were taken. It's a shame, as a I think it's the crux of the matter.
Who allowed that wikipedia guy, Akhristov it seems, to install Vista on my main home computer ?
I'm Alex, I have a P4 2.4C, with a Radeon 9500Pro, Manufacturer and Model Unknown as I assembled it myself, it's clearly my computer !
Think about all the cool katamaris we would do with all these objects sticking to you. And the supreme honour of becoming a star !
Of course, on a uniprocessor system only one task can run at a time. However, (GNU) ps and (GNU) top report R as Running or Ready to Run, so there may be more than one at any time. Average of runnable tasks count get you the load.
Nota : I put the GNU because BSD equivalent behaves differently, I just checked and I get details like "select" where I guess I would only get "Sleep" on GNU/Linux.
First-time Windows users?
:)
Isn't that an oxymoron?
Some Slashdotters have no window in their basement
If the US defaulted (not bloody likely, but speaking theoretically), they would be the ones left holding the bag.
If the US defaulted, I bet the most immediate impact would be that the dollar would immediately be worth nothing, like everything based on it like capitalization (huge crash in Wall Street...).
Software is explicitely excluded from patentability by article 52-2c of the 1973 European Patent Convention, as are games and mathematics.
...
Therefore, there are no software patents in any of the member countries.
Besides, the action MS takes is against EU as a whole, and not in a specific country of Europe.
I'm from EU (France) and not US, and am not aware of all subtilities of the US legal system, but it would seem logical that when a case is handled by a federal court, federal law prevails state law, right ?
Now if the European Patent Office could stop to grant software patents - against its own rules ! - that have no legal value and aren't enforceable >_<
I agree with the sibling AC : LaTeX is the perfect tool to write scientific publications.
And if you don't like the "coding style" of LaTeX, you can use LyX.
the Commission's demands threaten Microsoft's intellectual-property rights.
What intellectual property rights ? The EU Commision didn't ask for the source code (copyright), and software patents have no legal value in Europe...
I agree.
Another piece of idealism in TFA :
The third reason patents don't seem to matter very much in software is public opinion-- or rather, hacker opinion. In a recent interview, Steve Ballmer coyly left open the possibility of attacking Linux on patent grounds. But I doubt Microsoft would ever be so stupid. They'd face the mother of all boycotts. And not just from the technical community in general; a lot of their own people would rebel.
Good hackers care a lot about matters of principle, and they are highly mobile. If a company starts misbehaving, smart people won't work there. For some reason this seems to be more true in software than other businesses. I don't think it's because hackers have intrinsically higher principles so much as that their skills are easily transferrable. Perhaps we can split the difference and say that mobility gives hackers the luxury of being principled.
Microsoft commiting copyright infringements (Stacker comes in mind), using illegal or nearly illegal or illegal when a monopoly practices, using objectionable PR practices (FUD) don't forbid them to make lots of money. Some bright people are quitting because of bad management, but most people are following the money. What about those guys at Microsoft Research working on things that won't ever make their way to the product ? And there's nothing special misbehaving about patents.
Do they need bright people at all ? They just need offensive commercial practices and maybe a little PR. Employees are getting their check, "consumers" have almost no choice...
So, is this the year of Desktop Linux?
Of course ! Like every other year !