usb host. this means any keyboard, and many other usb devices. the battery life is great on them, the built in keyboard is pretty good too.
the screen (at least on sl-6000) is much nicer than ive seen on pocketpc/wince/palm devices. the device itself is pretty sturdy too.
unlike any palm app, you can use keys, and even ssh-agent (on bash, but it works nicely) (this might be possible with putty on a windows handheld, never tried)
i got mine just to use as an ssh terminal. ive found it does so much now that i often dont bother with the laptop (external keyboard does nicely) the fact that i dont have to ask anyones permission to make it work however i want is a nice contrast to sony who will keep locking down thier systems or microsoft who will threaten/sue you over it. (and, yes that does influence my purchasing descision)
if users are using free software(1) on windows, the network lockin effect (.doc, wmp, html) would no longer be a problem. of course vendors would have to really be allowed(2) to install firefox and mplayer for example. this is really a better situation than killing microsoft in theory because its closer to people choosing whatever platform they want seperately from choosing the software they use.
but microsoft cant have that. they are hell bent on destroying anything thats "in thier way", thus if we want any choice in the matter, we are forced into a conflict.
(1) by this i mean free as in speech, including openly documented protocols. (2) without having thier bussineses destroyed at the whim of gates. of course MS will still do things like require IE for updates, when any other vendor on the planet can make a standalone program (see apple), or (horrors!) actually let it be done through an open protocol...
of course they could see a buissiness problem if people stop wanting to use email, and thus thier exchange servers, or maybe even they are tired of it...
to distribute large files, specifically OS distributions. even if 99% of its use is movies or whatever, that doesnt change the fact that nothing in its design shows any illegal motovation.
I don't know, but I have never seen anyone do it. I know that some people will chime in and say they use it at school or at work or they are a musician themselves, but these are in the vast minority.
heres a clue: not everyone on the internet is downloading movies. some of us have legitmate reasons.
heres a chime in, every use of bittorrent i have done has been for os distribution, and i know several others who have done the same. when fedora came out, almost all of us (LUG in the valley in Los Angeles) used bittorrent to get it.
it really is a good method. even commercial entities are using it.
heres hoping some os distribution makes a p2p update protocol. maybe one like ubuntu or gentoo...
pocket ssh terminal with a few extras
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
·
· Score: 1
i seek a portable/programmable terminal, with some local functionality
80x24, ssh (with keys) open source (preferably linux/bsd, but run it in ram) (a key buffer for sensitive text would be really cool too)
some form of volitile memmory (for storing said ssh key)
decent net connection (>=56k,good latency, again, for ssh)
decent web browser (maybe gecko based, dont know about khtml and would rather a free one than opera)
multi tasking (unlike the treo supposedly is)
built in pda stuff (text editor, calender, simple sync protocol so you can add that to whatever you use)
cf card slot.
ability to easily make your own software for it.
fits easily in pocket.
other than the above, my biggest concerns are reliability battery life.
oqo and zaurus probably fits (using cell phone for said net connection)
mini projector or fold out touch typing keyboard would be really cool (or just a plug in one) also some option for a serial console would be nice too.
i wouldnt think twice about forking over a few hundred usd for a cell phone with the above features and good battery life. (not counting the projector, but with the keyboard option)
80 colums is fine for code on many terminals, but some are even smaller, like the treo (which i am thankfully not an owner of) which has a 40 colum wide terminal. at that length, at least for web/email etc its easier to line wrap. obviously you dont want to do this for code.
horizontal scrolling? that would be a pain but i cant see any other way. vi with line wrapping could get painfull pretty quickly. think of those long functions indented more than 5 levels. maybe an editor/display that simply has a number counting the tabs or whitespace. could go well with python....
patent rant mode on
p.s. heres publishing before some dooky head goes running off to the patent office! yes, its trivial, but the patent office seems to be pretty brain dead these days as to whats obvious...
#!/usr/bin/perl while (<>) {
if (/^\s+/) {
$wspace=length($&);
print "$wspace $'\n";
} else {
print "0 $_";
} }
and yes, using a color instead of line is also obvious.
stop buying crap from the MPAA or RIAA (ive been boycotting them for years, its not hard) dont support companies that support the DMCA. spread the word about it. even if you cant make a differnce, at least youll know your not another contributor to the problem.
try independant film, music, and/or software. theres some good stuff out there.
cant install linux, open an included web browser, and watch a movie off a web site like you can on a mac (and probalby windows) on some, you cant even listen to your mp3 collection without stepping into some legal grey area meaning joe sixpack cant just buy a machine off the shelf at walmart and watch a dvd on it. hopefully realplayer (helix) and the xiphorus project will help this, cant think of anyone else who could (except apple).
(its too bad real media pissed off thier windows users with that crappy client that kept bugging the user, what idiot came up with that?)
it only going to be optional untill they get enough people on it. if they didnt make it optional they would scare away users like the pentium cpu id did (yey for AMD)
when its no longer optional, things will be alot harder for free software.
fortunately some other countrys are begenning to see bill for what he is. so the US may end up being the only country in the subtle orwellian nightmare. (maybe more huxly like, our chains will be golden)
unfortunately apple is too expensive for most people
assuming they want the same level of protection DVDs gave...
keep it in the hardware, make it as platform/os independant as possible. for example, as a cd drive can output directly to the sound card, let a dvd output to the framebuffer and sound to the card. in this example the driver would need little more than a transformation matrix, position in stream(s) and some settins. theoretically, it could be built so the OS doesnt even see the image.
easier development, less driver/intergration issues
less software dependance give hardware makers some much needed leverage microsoft
better PR, for example you wont have the ill will of collage professors or the ACM
possible issues
analog hole. but you can make it annoying, like filtering the video and sound through a lossy codec and back to make it hard to recompress.
fair use. the user could still take a screenshot, attach a camera etc. or just copy it since thats supposedly allowed.
filesystem for the media. FAT32 is out due to license restrictions that leave out free software. UDF should work, or any of the free filesystems.
most can read ext2 now and support wouldnt be hard
to add to any others.
licence. make it freely available. history has shown that open standards (that can be freely implemented usually win out over propriatary ones, espeically on the net.(1)
MS and mpaa/riaa and similar organizations wouldnt like it because they would only the control what theyre supposed to and couldnt use this to create an artificial barrier of entry(2). but thats better for the hardware makers, probably sony (3), and the users. and they wouldnt be able to use thier copying excuse(4)
(1) time to market is, of course, the other, and possibly bigger factor
(2) lock out competition
(3) i suspect sony makes more money from technology than entertainment. either way would be interesting to know
(4) they could complain about it being easy to crack, but given thier past, thats a pretty pathetic. of course the legal people they complain to/buy off wouldnt know or care...
i was going to trace this to drm is not a good idea, but will have to save that for later
someone could break into your machine and share from it, someone could break your wep encryption and share from your network. so you put access controls on your router, but someone could compramise your router. i have a feeling a jury would side with the defendant.
nope. linux is lacking two things before the software can support that.
1) profile support for the display
while an app alone could concievably be calibrated at the mercy of the display device, its better to have this in the X server since that can adjust the hardware (gamma etc)
2) support for calibration hardware
(spyder,ione etc) after that were just a cinepaint plug in away.
we do have scanner calibration thanks to scarse, and thus, theorectially we can calibrate a printer depending on the quality of the scanner, but that still leaves the monitor out.
its silly to make microsoft port, and only allows for thier app monopoly to continue, even if that does take care of the OS one. if the browser *is* ie, then its easier for microsoft to make the server have to be IIS. they could easily make a "mistake" in the spec and drag thier feet about fixing it. instead there are two things to do.
the first would be to support a well documented format that they did not write(since we obviously cant trust them), and is open for anyone to use and/or develop with. (not"reasonable licencing" since that leaves out free(as in open source) software). openoffice.org comes to mind, or OASIS, which will probably be the same thing.
the other is forcing microsoft to open thier protocols for free as the paper mentioned. whats important is that the protocols and formats really are free (again, instead of "resonably licenced") if they have to hide behind the "security" defence, then that software could simply be declared unfit for use. open source software has already proved itself viable.
this way, we dont have the same software on different platforms, we have both differnt software and different platforms, reducing the monoculture and allowing for more competition. having multiple platforms and apps has the side effect of making the whole more adaptable to changing conditions.
its not microsofts way to give you choice. theyll make it the mark of the beast if they can. in that i mean youll have to play thier game to do bussiness with anyone. remember they have the office market, and the upgrade threadmill, and will default to DRM so people who dont know any better will use it, forcing anyone who works with them to use or try to explain otherwise to them. unfortunatly these are the same people who have trouble exporting to RTF and thats exactly the ignorance MS is banking on to spread drm, and thus marginalize free/open software. this is called vendor lock in and is what MS excels at.
its control over your own computer, with the ability to control changes to it, and verify them. one way is to use mtree to verify everything on your system, to/from an encrypted spec file. boot from a cdrom to check / remake the spec file (the encryption is only to prevent the spec file from being tampered with) encrypting/usr/var/home etc helps too (im doing the above on my laptop in openbsd, works nicely) unlike palladium, the above actually can protect your computer with real control. (for runtime protection, dont use cappy software (ie, outlook etc) and look into systrace, proper file permissions, etc. its hard now, but also new. what we really need are recursive sub users with definable permissions) openbsd also has kernel extensions to check things before running them, look up the trojan proof kernel papers. linux has similar mechanism in the NSA version. and a little creativity can add more to it too. for example have your login scripts owned by root and not writable by you (or any run time program acting as you) (didnt microsoft put a stop to that nsa version, or at least try to?)
theres very little in palladium (as far as i can gather from the web) that actually protects you from things like viruses, worms, buffer over runs etc. as you can see from the above, you do not need tcpa to get the protection they are advertising. (actually, its much better protection. esp. if said CD has backups of what people will try to trojan)
DRM is for content and is little more than another lock in scheme from microsoft and the "content providers" who have similar goals. (especially that of locking out anyone they dont like. in the content industries case, thats anyone theyre not making money from, in microsofts case, thats anyone else) that crap about making an email "only the recipient can read, but give to anyone else is nonsense, use pgp for that, again, its in YOUR control. that crap about content "only certain programs" can read is blatantly about vendor lock in. (and disneys blatant evil, but dont get me started on them)
fight them any way you can. our future and those of our children depend on it. microsofts biggest holds are in the browser and office software market. spread mozilla and openoffice.org like wildfire. help independant film and music if you can. educate others...
it prevents one malfunctioning application from impacting other applications - even on Unix this is a serious problem, since one process can devour the CPU, memory, disk space, etc.
not to dtract from the original statement, but these things can be done from the shell. for example see ulimit (in bash(1))
there are, or course other ways to limit a process (ie. bash -r, chroot) but none as thorough or flexible as a properly manageable VM
they want to control the channels of distribution, and/or distroy the potential of ones they cant control, like the internet and our computers that we contol (thats why they and microsoft play nice, since its also in microsofts interest that they, not us, control the net and our computers)
i dont like the idea of a ruthless meglomaniac and a bunch of short sighted assholes controlling the means to collaborate thought. thus, the thought of going to the MPAA movies or buying from the riaa sickens me.
and yes, i help/support independant movies and music where i can. thankfully there are many "content producers" who also give thier finger to the **AA
Slashdot Mirror
usb host. this means any keyboard, and many other usb devices. the battery life is great on them, the built in keyboard is pretty good too.
the screen (at least on sl-6000) is much nicer than ive seen on pocketpc/wince/palm devices. the device itself is pretty sturdy too.
unlike any palm app, you can use keys, and even ssh-agent (on bash, but it works nicely) (this might be possible with putty on a windows handheld, never tried)
i got mine just to use as an ssh terminal. ive found it does so much now that i often dont bother with the laptop (external keyboard does nicely) the fact that i dont have to ask anyones permission to make it work however i want is a nice contrast to sony who will keep locking down thier systems or microsoft who will threaten/sue you over it. (and, yes that does influence my purchasing descision)
if users are using free software(1) on windows, the network lockin effect (.doc, wmp, html) would no longer be a problem. of course vendors would have to really be allowed(2) to install firefox and mplayer for example. this is really a better situation than killing microsoft in theory because its closer to people choosing whatever platform they want seperately from choosing the software they use.
but microsoft cant have that. they are hell bent on destroying anything thats "in thier way", thus if we want any choice in the matter, we are forced into a conflict.
(1) by this i mean free as in speech, including openly documented protocols.
(2) without having thier bussineses destroyed at the whim of gates. of course MS will still do things like require IE for updates, when any other vendor on the planet can make a standalone program (see apple), or (horrors!) actually let it be done through an open protocol...
from the second paragraph,
"My beef with Yankee started April 1. That's when I got an advance look at the press release announcing the study..."
just a wild guess...
what happend with the senderid thing?
of course they could see a buissiness problem if people stop wanting to use email, and thus thier exchange servers, or maybe even they are tired of it...
but really, i smell another patent grab...
MS doesnt play by the rules. they change the rules. DO NOT underestimate them.
after all, is there really a technical reason many FF places couldn't be automated today in a cost effective manner?
because i wanted that well done and without the mayo
you know that stuff in cereal box toys from the 80s. saves light to glow later....
yes its a greenish / yellow light, but makes a great night light.just time it when its in the tubes.
encrypted root fs howto. note where you can boot from cdrom or whatever.
the easiest way from there is to set kdm to automatically log you in.
to distribute large files, specifically OS distributions. even if 99% of its use is movies or whatever, that doesnt change the fact that nothing in its design shows any illegal motovation.
I don't know, but I have never seen anyone do it. I know that some people will chime in and say they use it at school or at work or they are a musician themselves, but these are in the vast minority.
heres a clue: not everyone on the internet is downloading movies. some of us have legitmate reasons.
heres a chime in, every use of bittorrent i have done has been for os distribution, and i know several others who have done the same. when fedora came out, almost all of us (LUG in the valley in Los Angeles) used bittorrent to get it.
it really is a good method. even commercial entities are using it.
heres hoping some os distribution makes a p2p update protocol. maybe one like ubuntu or gentoo...
heres the link
i seek a portable/programmable terminal, with some local functionality
80x24, ssh (with keys)
open source (preferably linux/bsd, but run it in ram) (a key buffer for sensitive text would be really cool too)
some form of volitile memmory (for storing said ssh key)
decent net connection (>=56k,good latency, again, for ssh)
decent web browser (maybe gecko based, dont know about khtml and would rather a free one than opera)
multi tasking (unlike the treo supposedly is)
built in pda stuff (text editor, calender, simple sync protocol so you can add that to whatever you use)
cf card slot.
ability to easily make your own software for it.
fits easily in pocket.
other than the above, my biggest concerns are reliability battery life.
oqo and zaurus probably fits (using cell phone for said net connection)
mini projector or fold out touch typing keyboard would be really cool (or just a plug in one) also some option for a serial console would be nice too.
i wouldnt think twice about forking over a few hundred usd for a cell phone with the above features and good battery life. (not counting the projector, but with the keyboard option)
horizontal scrolling? that would be a pain but i cant see any other way. vi with line wrapping could get painfull pretty quickly. think of those long functions indented more than 5 levels. maybe an editor/display that simply has a number counting the tabs or whitespace. could go well with python....
patent rant mode on
p.s. heres publishing before some dooky head goes running off to the patent office! yes, its trivial, but the patent office seems to be pretty brain dead these days as to whats obvious...and yes, using a color instead of line is also obvious.
stop buying crap from the MPAA or RIAA (ive been boycotting them for years, its not hard) dont support companies that support the DMCA. spread the word about it. even if you cant make a differnce, at least youll know your not another contributor to the problem.
try independant film, music, and/or software. theres some good stuff out there.
cant install linux, open an included web browser, and watch a movie off a web site like you can on a mac (and probalby windows) on some, you cant even listen to your mp3 collection without stepping into some legal grey area meaning joe sixpack cant just buy a machine off the shelf at walmart and watch a dvd on it. hopefully realplayer (helix) and the xiphorus project will help this, cant think of anyone else who could (except apple).
(its too bad real media pissed off thier windows users with that crappy client that kept bugging the user, what idiot came up with that?)
it only going to be optional untill they get enough people on it. if they didnt make it optional they would scare away users like the pentium cpu id did (yey for AMD)
when its no longer optional, things will be alot harder for free software.
fortunately some other countrys are begenning to see bill for what he is. so the US may end up being the only country in the subtle orwellian nightmare. (maybe more huxly like, our chains will be golden)
unfortunately apple is too expensive for most people
and then its even easier for someone else to read your email.
note the bottom section "Some Questions".
assuming they want the same level of protection DVDs gave...
keep it in the hardware, make it as platform/os independant as possible. for example, as a cd drive can output directly to the sound card, let a dvd output to the framebuffer and sound to the card. in this example the driver would need little more than a transformation matrix, position in stream(s) and some settins. theoretically, it could be built so the OS doesnt even see the image.
- easier development, less driver/intergration issues
- less software dependance give hardware makers some much needed leverage microsoft
- better PR, for example you wont have the ill will of collage professors or the ACM
possible issuesMS and mpaa/riaa and similar organizations wouldnt like it because they would only the control what theyre supposed to and couldnt use this to create an artificial barrier of entry(2). but thats better for the hardware makers, probably sony (3), and the users. and they wouldnt be able to use thier copying excuse(4)
(1) time to market is, of course, the other, and possibly bigger factor
(2) lock out competition
(3) i suspect sony makes more money from technology than entertainment. either way would be interesting to know
(4) they could complain about it being easy to crack, but given thier past, thats a pretty pathetic. of course the legal people they complain to/buy off wouldnt know or care...
i was going to trace this to drm is not a good idea, but will have to save that for later
what cheap linux/unix friendly dial ups work well?
which ones to avoid? cheap meaning $10/month or less.
any have linux friendly tech support?
someone could break into your machine and share from it, someone could break your wep encryption and share from your network. so you put access controls on your router, but someone could compramise your router. i have a feeling a jury would side with the defendant.
nope. linux is lacking two things before the software can support that.
1) profile support for the display
while an app alone could concievably be calibrated at the mercy of the display device, its better to have this in the X server since that can adjust the hardware (gamma etc)
2) support for calibration hardware
(spyder,ione etc) after that were just a cinepaint plug in away.
we do have scanner calibration thanks to scarse, and thus, theorectially we can calibrate a printer depending on the quality of the scanner, but that still leaves the monitor out.
its silly to make microsoft port, and only allows for thier app monopoly to continue, even if that does take care of the OS one. if the browser *is* ie, then its easier for microsoft to make the server have to be IIS. they could easily make a "mistake" in the spec and drag thier feet about fixing it. instead there are two things to do.
the first would be to support a well documented format that they did not write(since we obviously cant trust them), and is open for anyone to use and/or develop with. (not"reasonable licencing" since that leaves out free(as in open source) software). openoffice.org comes to mind, or OASIS, which will probably be the same thing.
the other is forcing microsoft to open thier protocols for free as the paper mentioned. whats important is that the protocols and formats really are free (again, instead of "resonably licenced") if they have to hide behind the "security" defence, then that software could simply be declared unfit for use. open source software has already proved itself viable.
this way, we dont have the same software on different platforms, we have both differnt software and different platforms, reducing the monoculture and allowing for more competition. having multiple platforms and apps has the side effect of making the whole more adaptable to changing conditions.
its not microsofts way to give you choice. theyll make it the mark of the beast if they can. in that i mean youll have to play thier game to do bussiness with anyone. remember they have the office market, and the upgrade threadmill, and will default to DRM so people who dont know any better will use it, forcing anyone who works with them to use or try to explain otherwise to them. unfortunatly these are the same people who have trouble exporting to RTF and thats exactly the ignorance MS is banking on to spread drm, and thus marginalize free/open software. this is called vendor lock in and is what MS excels at.
you have to fight it before you lose your choice.
its control over your own computer, with the ability to control changes to it, and verify them. one way is to use mtree to verify everything on your system, to/from an encrypted spec file. boot from a cdrom to check / remake the spec file (the encryption is only to prevent the spec file from being tampered with) encrypting /usr /var /home etc helps too (im doing the above on my laptop in openbsd, works nicely) unlike palladium, the above actually can protect your computer with real control. (for runtime protection, dont use cappy software (ie, outlook etc) and look into systrace, proper file permissions, etc. its hard now, but also new. what we really need are recursive sub users with definable permissions) openbsd also has kernel extensions to check things before running them, look up the trojan proof kernel papers. linux has similar mechanism in the NSA version. and a little creativity can add more to it too. for example have your login scripts owned by root and not writable by you (or any run time program acting as you) (didnt microsoft put a stop to that nsa version, or at least try to?)
theres very little in palladium (as far as i can gather from the web) that actually protects you from things like viruses, worms, buffer over runs etc. as you can see from the above, you do not need tcpa to get the protection they are advertising. (actually, its much better protection. esp. if said CD has backups of what people will try to trojan)
DRM is for content and is little more than another lock in scheme from microsoft and the "content providers" who have similar goals. (especially that of locking out anyone they dont like. in the content industries case, thats anyone theyre not making money from, in microsofts case, thats anyone else) that crap about making an email "only the recipient can read, but give to anyone else is nonsense, use pgp for that, again, its in YOUR control. that crap about content "only certain programs" can read is blatantly about vendor lock in. (and disneys blatant evil, but dont get me started on them)
fight them any way you can. our future and those of our children depend on it. microsofts biggest holds are in the browser and office software market. spread mozilla and openoffice.org like wildfire. help independant film and music if you can. educate others...
not to dtract from the original statement, but these things can be done from the shell. for example see ulimit (in bash(1))
there are, or course other ways to limit a process (ie. bash -r, chroot) but none as thorough or flexible as a properly manageable VM
they want to control the channels of distribution, and/or distroy the potential of ones they cant control, like the internet and our computers that we contol (thats why they and microsoft play nice, since its also in microsofts interest that they, not us, control the net and our computers)
i dont like the idea of a ruthless meglomaniac and a bunch of short sighted assholes controlling the means to collaborate thought. thus, the thought of going to the MPAA movies or buying from the riaa sickens me.
and yes, i help/support independant movies and music where i can. thankfully there are many "content producers" who also give thier finger to the **AA