The site will churn for a bit and ultimately do nothing. That happens for any of the new Sunfire AMD_64 servers. Hmmmm....I guess their web server is still running on a Sun 3/60. 8-)
At first, I thought having this many versions of the same product would be confusing to customers, but then I realised that M$ has an easy way to determine needs:
Customer: I want to upgrade my Windows 2000 machine to Vista. Which version do I need?
Are you SURE it's blocked? I have colleagues in Shenzhen and HK and just finished a skype conf call with several of them and didn't have any issues getting through.
Granted, it wouldn't surprise me given China's often ham handed attempts to control communications infrastructure. But before we go accusing them of something that wouldn't be so surprising, let's make sure it's actually happening and not some temporary glitch.
Cheers,
For most businesses (at least those that operate globally), that isn't an option.
However, for my home network and home mail server it drastically cut both spam and probes against my network.
Perhaps it just isn't sustainable to live below sea level. At some stage of the game, regardless of *why* the city is sinking, it might be time to say "you know what? It just isn't cost effective to live in this spot" and move on. The sea will eventually have its way.
"From this release on, it is intended that major changes only be merged into the kernel within two weeks after a major release. The rest of the time will be spent fixing bugs, with the goal of both increasing overall stability and decreasing the amount of time between major releases."
I wish Linus would arrive at a policy and just stick with it instead of all these gyrations of "we'll use this method from now on...no wait...we'll use this one from now on...and by the way I want everyone to switch revision control systems now...oh wait...sigh.
On the surface, it seems "cool" or a "so what" situation. However, when you're relying on your PC to do real work rather than just trying to eke out a few more fps in a game, random crashes matter. And that's what these kinds of tweaks will cause. And it will be particularly annoying for people who don't know about the "secret tweaks" since they'll immediately suspect things like the memory or the processor before thinking that the motherboard settings are being quietly manipulated without their knowledge.
So while this might be neat for my game box, I'd want to know about this "feature" so as not to include such a board on a production workstation or server.
Cheers,
I frequently need to call China for business. I stopped in my local 7-11 and bought a Chinese-specific calling card. I've been using the same $20 card for months (I think it costs about 3-4 cents a minute). Simple solution to a simple problem. Eventually the "market will correct" the situation and the wireless carriers will stop charging monopolist rates. As it is, they get away with murder here in the states. You can't even MAKE international calls unless you pass an aggressive credit screening. *shrug*
The point was that if you're a Windows user, you've got to learn the ropes of OSX just like you'd have to do with Linux. UI consistency issues aside (and I agree with you there), it's not a 5 minute or even a 5 hour task to become comfortable with the new way of doing things. Personally, I don't think a lifelong Windows user would find either Linux or OSX that much easier to learn than the other. They're both "different enough" from Windows that you'd have to spend a fair amount of time getting used to things.
if you're coming from M$ Windows. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's not a whole lot easier (if at all) to use than the default "desktop" install of Redhat or Suse Linux. The only advantage you'd have over Linux is the ability to walk into a store and buy shrinkwrapped software and even that's not entirely easy for Mac owners since a lot of stores don't carry Mac titles either.
For my windows systems, the OS install plus all my apps and swap space is usually no more than about 10-15gigs. The remainder of my storage is just data (mp3,mp4,spreadsheets,etc) that isn't terribly speed sensitive...well, within reason. So if I could fit my OS/apps/swap on the fast RAMdrive and then have a 400gig "slow" disk for the rest, I'd be pretty happy if it amounted to a much faster boot and faster response for the OS and applications.
And they're easy to buy. Just go to HP's online shopping kiosk. I've been using a Presario R3240 for about6-7 months (athlon64 3200+) and am quite happy with the performance.
Exactly. For the most part, software that wouldn't run consisted of games (thank goodness) and downloaded silliness like screen savers and other spyware containers. Even the MCSE guys who were digging in their heels prior to the change are now noticing the drastic reduction in support calls. So now the IT group can spend their time improving services and creating new services rather than running around in constant "triage" mode.
Cheers,
Just ask anyone in their 30's who's got striped teeth due to HK's experiementation with flourinating the water. No thanks. Watsons bottled water works just fine for me.
I spend several months a year in China and have lived in HK in the past. Tap water is fine for everything except drinking/cooking.
I'll think about the Mac option when the new Macs are actually available for purchase. I certainly wouldn't stick my neck out (or other body parts) today and buy a current generation Mac knowing that Apple is going to leave the PPC behind. In spite of all the "don't worry, we'll support you" warm and fuzzies from Apple, I still remember the 680X0 --> PPC switch and many companies dropped the old architecture like a hot rock soon after the new machines were available.
Cheers,
Most office drones that I know and work with seem to have rather simple needs on their business PC. They use Word for documents, Excel for spreadsheets, Outlook for email and IE for surfing the Web.
As long as those programs work and the navigation is similar to Windows, they're happy. The fact that they don't have to worry about virus infections, spyware, random crashes is a bonus.
From the CIO standpoint, it's a win (as long as all your core applications work and people can transition easily to the new "look and feel." The CIO/CFO are now off the forced upgrade merry-go-round each time Microsoft decides to foist "upgrades" on their customers.
I have converted my company to the following:
CentOS 3 (clone of RHEL 3)
OpenOffice
Thunderbird for email
Firefox for web browsing
We have a few people with Compaq presario laptops that didn't seem to mix well with Linux (driver issues) so we're swapping in Linux friendly notebooks and donating the Compaq units to charity. The tax credit for the charitable donation makes the purchase of the new notebooks pretty much a wash. We also had to punt a couple of printers and replace them with Linux friendly postscript networked printers. That was rather painless and surprisingly cheap. (Again, we donated them to charity and took the tax credit.)
The next step is to migrate all our servers off of Win2K server. That includes office file servers and web servers. We migrated mail and DNS to Linux a few years ago so that will be a painless move (to CentOS). So every system in the company will be running the same OS and we'll maintain our own internal yum repository to keep things in sync and up to date.
Prior to this, we were probably spending a few hundred thousand dollars a year just in software licensing fees. The IT folks are pretty happy about the change since it makes their life easier in terms of support (we sent the entire group for "RH linux certification" as an incentive to be good sports about the change. After some initial grumbling from the hard core MCSE guys, the overall mood seems to be one of relief...both from the "guys on the ground" and from the "guys who pay the bills."
The fact that this might make people continue to buy current G5 powermacs is PRECISELY the reason this product was announced. Years from now, when some unrelated litigation forces discovery of IBM internal emails, we'll find out that Apple spearheaded this initiative as a stopgap between announcing their move to Intel and actual production of those machines. In the meantime, they still have to sell Macs and nobody is going to buy into a new G5 without at least some HOPE of upgradability.
Cheers,
for the RBOCs. I've moved twice in the last 3 years and haven't felt the need for a copper phone line in either location. Both had cable TV so I was able to get a cablemodem for Internet and phone service and the few times that I wasn't able to use those (power outage) I simply used my cell phone. Considering that the local telephone company charges over $30/month for a plain old phone line (that's if you don't ever actually use it), I don't see myself ever being a customer again.
I know...I know...they say you can't edit it. But if you're only going to be listening in the snuggly comfort of your own home, who will know/care?
Any audio editing program will allow you to chop the commentary with ease.
Unfortunately, it's only a 128k encode. Fine for casual use, but the audio quality isn't that great. I'm sure they had little choice because of bandwidth issues. Oh well. The 9th recording sounds pretty good.
Cheers,
Believe what you will. Google initially approached us by email and then followed up with a number of phone calls. I got the impression from their representative (a fellow named Cliff) that they were making lots of these calls.
Google approached my company about uploading our content. We ultimately decided against it since they couldn't tell us what the terms were going to be. For example:
Me: How are you going to protect copyrighted material from being copied?
Google: We're working on that.
Me: You say video can be free or fee based. How does that work?
Google: We'd prefer free content, but you can also charge a fee. We will have a payment mechanism in place.
Me: In a fee-based scenario, what "cut" does Google want?
Google: We haven't decided.
Me: What if I upload free content and a LOT of people like/view it? How does Google make money?
Google: We reserve the right to charge the uploader if the content becomes "very popular."
Me: Define "very popular".
Google: We don't know yet.
Me: Why should I upload content if you can't answer these basic questions?
Google: You just should.
So unless they're just planning to get lots of home videos, I didn't see any real incentive for a content provider to participate. It costs real money to produce content so companies aren't going to just give it away.
Slashdot Mirror
The site will churn for a bit and ultimately do nothing. That happens for any of the new Sunfire AMD_64 servers. Hmmmm....I guess their web server is still running on a Sun 3/60. 8-)
At first, I thought having this many versions of the same product would be confusing to customers, but then I realised that M$ has an easy way to determine needs:
Customer: I want to upgrade my Windows 2000 machine to Vista. Which version do I need?
M$: Oh that's easy. How much money do you have?
Are you SURE it's blocked? I have colleagues in Shenzhen and HK and just finished a skype conf call with several of them and didn't have any issues getting through. Granted, it wouldn't surprise me given China's often ham handed attempts to control communications infrastructure. But before we go accusing them of something that wouldn't be so surprising, let's make sure it's actually happening and not some temporary glitch. Cheers,
Since when is it ICANN's job to decide whether or not a sovereign government is "legitimate" or not? Is this just another ICANN power trip?
The only byproduct of combustion is gold dust out of the tailpipe and the aroma of lavender.
Fortunately, those parasites are only found on Seti Alpha V.
For most businesses (at least those that operate globally), that isn't an option. However, for my home network and home mail server it drastically cut both spam and probes against my network.
Perhaps it just isn't sustainable to live below sea level. At some stage of the game, regardless of *why* the city is sinking, it might be time to say "you know what? It just isn't cost effective to live in this spot" and move on. The sea will eventually have its way.
"From this release on, it is intended that major changes only be merged into the kernel within two weeks after a major release. The rest of the time will be spent fixing bugs, with the goal of both increasing overall stability and decreasing the amount of time between major releases."
I wish Linus would arrive at a policy and just stick with it instead of all these gyrations of "we'll use this method from now on...no wait...we'll use this one from now on...and by the way I want everyone to switch revision control systems now...oh wait...sigh.
On the surface, it seems "cool" or a "so what" situation. However, when you're relying on your PC to do real work rather than just trying to eke out a few more fps in a game, random crashes matter. And that's what these kinds of tweaks will cause. And it will be particularly annoying for people who don't know about the "secret tweaks" since they'll immediately suspect things like the memory or the processor before thinking that the motherboard settings are being quietly manipulated without their knowledge. So while this might be neat for my game box, I'd want to know about this "feature" so as not to include such a board on a production workstation or server. Cheers,
I frequently need to call China for business. I stopped in my local 7-11 and bought a Chinese-specific calling card. I've been using the same $20 card for months (I think it costs about 3-4 cents a minute). Simple solution to a simple problem. Eventually the "market will correct" the situation and the wireless carriers will stop charging monopolist rates. As it is, they get away with murder here in the states. You can't even MAKE international calls unless you pass an aggressive credit screening. *shrug*
The point was that if you're a Windows user, you've got to learn the ropes of OSX just like you'd have to do with Linux. UI consistency issues aside (and I agree with you there), it's not a 5 minute or even a 5 hour task to become comfortable with the new way of doing things. Personally, I don't think a lifelong Windows user would find either Linux or OSX that much easier to learn than the other. They're both "different enough" from Windows that you'd have to spend a fair amount of time getting used to things.
Cheers,
if you're coming from M$ Windows. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's not a whole lot easier (if at all) to use than the default "desktop" install of Redhat or Suse Linux. The only advantage you'd have over Linux is the ability to walk into a store and buy shrinkwrapped software and even that's not entirely easy for Mac owners since a lot of stores don't carry Mac titles either.
For my windows systems, the OS install plus all my apps and swap space is usually no more than about 10-15gigs. The remainder of my storage is just data (mp3,mp4,spreadsheets,etc) that isn't terribly speed sensitive...well, within reason. So if I could fit my OS/apps/swap on the fast RAMdrive and then have a 400gig "slow" disk for the rest, I'd be pretty happy if it amounted to a much faster boot and faster response for the OS and applications.
And they're easy to buy. Just go to HP's online shopping kiosk. I've been using a Presario R3240 for about6-7 months (athlon64 3200+) and am quite happy with the performance.
Cheers,
Exactly. For the most part, software that wouldn't run consisted of games (thank goodness) and downloaded silliness like screen savers and other spyware containers. Even the MCSE guys who were digging in their heels prior to the change are now noticing the drastic reduction in support calls. So now the IT group can spend their time improving services and creating new services rather than running around in constant "triage" mode. Cheers,
I guess my sarcasm wasn't overt enough....
Just ask anyone in their 30's who's got striped teeth due to HK's experiementation with flourinating the water. No thanks. Watsons bottled water works just fine for me.
I spend several months a year in China and have lived in HK in the past. Tap water is fine for everything except drinking/cooking.
Cheers,
I'll think about the Mac option when the new Macs are actually available for purchase. I certainly wouldn't stick my neck out (or other body parts) today and buy a current generation Mac knowing that Apple is going to leave the PPC behind. In spite of all the "don't worry, we'll support you" warm and fuzzies from Apple, I still remember the 680X0 --> PPC switch and many companies dropped the old architecture like a hot rock soon after the new machines were available. Cheers,
Most office drones that I know and work with seem to have rather simple needs on their business PC. They use Word for documents, Excel for spreadsheets, Outlook for email and IE for surfing the Web.
As long as those programs work and the navigation is similar to Windows, they're happy. The fact that they don't have to worry about virus infections, spyware, random crashes is a bonus.
From the CIO standpoint, it's a win (as long as all your core applications work and people can transition easily to the new "look and feel." The CIO/CFO are now off the forced upgrade merry-go-round each time Microsoft decides to foist "upgrades" on their customers.
I have converted my company to the following:
CentOS 3 (clone of RHEL 3)
OpenOffice
Thunderbird for email
Firefox for web browsing
We have a few people with Compaq presario laptops that didn't seem to mix well with Linux (driver issues) so we're swapping in Linux friendly notebooks and donating the Compaq units to charity. The tax credit for the charitable donation makes the purchase of the new notebooks pretty much a wash. We also had to punt a couple of printers and replace them with Linux friendly postscript networked printers. That was rather painless and surprisingly cheap. (Again, we donated them to charity and took the tax credit.)
The next step is to migrate all our servers off of Win2K server. That includes office file servers and web servers. We migrated mail and DNS to Linux a few years ago so that will be a painless move (to CentOS). So every system in the company will be running the same OS and we'll maintain our own internal yum repository to keep things in sync and up to date.
Prior to this, we were probably spending a few hundred thousand dollars a year just in software licensing fees. The IT folks are pretty happy about the change since it makes their life easier in terms of support (we sent the entire group for "RH linux certification" as an incentive to be good sports about the change. After some initial grumbling from the hard core MCSE guys, the overall mood seems to be one of relief...both from the "guys on the ground" and from the "guys who pay the bills."
Cheers,
The fact that this might make people continue to buy current G5 powermacs is PRECISELY the reason this product was announced. Years from now, when some unrelated litigation forces discovery of IBM internal emails, we'll find out that Apple spearheaded this initiative as a stopgap between announcing their move to Intel and actual production of those machines. In the meantime, they still have to sell Macs and nobody is going to buy into a new G5 without at least some HOPE of upgradability. Cheers,
for the RBOCs. I've moved twice in the last 3 years and haven't felt the need for a copper phone line in either location. Both had cable TV so I was able to get a cablemodem for Internet and phone service and the few times that I wasn't able to use those (power outage) I simply used my cell phone. Considering that the local telephone company charges over $30/month for a plain old phone line (that's if you don't ever actually use it), I don't see myself ever being a customer again.
I know...I know...they say you can't edit it. But if you're only going to be listening in the snuggly comfort of your own home, who will know/care? Any audio editing program will allow you to chop the commentary with ease. Unfortunately, it's only a 128k encode. Fine for casual use, but the audio quality isn't that great. I'm sure they had little choice because of bandwidth issues. Oh well. The 9th recording sounds pretty good. Cheers,
Believe what you will. Google initially approached us by email and then followed up with a number of phone calls. I got the impression from their representative (a fellow named Cliff) that they were making lots of these calls.
Cheers,
Google approached my company about uploading our content. We ultimately decided against it since they couldn't tell us what the terms were going to be. For example:
Me: How are you going to protect copyrighted material from being copied?
Google: We're working on that.
Me: You say video can be free or fee based. How does that work?
Google: We'd prefer free content, but you can also charge a fee. We will have a payment mechanism in place.
Me: In a fee-based scenario, what "cut" does Google want?
Google: We haven't decided.
Me: What if I upload free content and a LOT of people like/view it? How does Google make money?
Google: We reserve the right to charge the uploader if the content becomes "very popular."
Me: Define "very popular".
Google: We don't know yet.
Me: Why should I upload content if you can't answer these basic questions?
Google: You just should.
So unless they're just planning to get lots of home videos, I didn't see any real incentive for a content provider to participate. It costs real money to produce content so companies aren't going to just give it away.
Cheers,