If the techie gene runs strong with this one, you'd best shred the porn files or you will be kick-starting his porn collection (yes, he will have one someday, techie and all...).
Yes, this is why I'm going to market a high-potency placebo that I call Mayfixya (tm). It is simply amazing the spectrum of ailments that Mayfixya (tm) can treat! This will soon be the drug to beat in clinical trials.
I work on a commercial application and getting paid for doing it does not make criticism any easier to take. Probably it makes it worse because it still sucks, _and_ I have an obligation to give it consideration because this customer has paid their money for something. And, there's no winning either, you can have the crappiest of applications and someone will make a suggestion for something simple like, "This button would make more sense if it were located here." So, you move the button. Well, there's going to be someone out there who's good opinion of your software for some reason was based entirely on where that button was originally located who is now going to complain that it has been moved on them.
Anyways, I wouldn't be swayed by any of the arguments I've seen here. Oh, you're not a craftsman. Oh, you're not a good programmer. Oh, you're not a nice guy. FLOSS is going to die. Total BS. You're not obligated, and you've already given them something for free, and they're being ungrateful and just trying to pursuade you to do more for them for free. I say stick to your guns and do only the work that you enjoy and feel like doing as you have the time to do it. If people can't appreciate the fruits of your labor such as it is, that's their problem.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 530 in January to put Kubuntu on it as I had been running it on my then current PC. Much to my dismay, I found that I really liked Vista, and I kept it and am now using it full time instead of Kubuntu. You can check my old posts here, I have been a harsh critic of Microsoft in the past, but I haven't had any problems with Vista. Probably because the hardware is new and built for it. Now, I liked Kubuntu a lot too, but I cannot say the same thing about it it. I always had one thing or another that I had to fix on it. The last thing was when I moved the PC it's on to a different table so my wife and son can use it, I switched its network cable to a different port on my router. After that, Kubuntu fails to retain the DNS IP for more than a day or so. I found a handful of others who had the same problem, but none who found a way to fix it. That's just an example, I'm not slamming Kubuntu for it, but if it was occuring on Vista, you can bet there'd be an outcry and rebellion over it.
Different strokes for different folks. As for sweeping generalizations, I am 40+, and I program for a living and keep up with technology. Anyways, there are other people out there who do not find technology as compelling as you (or I) do. I would say that they have appreciation for a lot of things that you do not care for too. Their lives can be as rich and fulfilling as your's. Some of them would probably be happy for you to be as thrilled with technology as you are and are not saddened that you probably don't give a crap about things they are interested in.
Yeah, I got them originally to show off with on Slashdot, but found they have better uses.;^) I was a working programmer prior to earning any degrees. I mention my background to demonstrate that I'm not a n00b. Actually, I'm not in the habit of ever defending Microsoft, so I guess I'm a n00b in that regard.
I spent $800 for a new computer at WalMart (Dell Inspiron 530 with 22" monitor, 2.2 Ghz dual-core Intel CPU, 2GB RAM, 500GB HD), and it came with Vista. I was going to replace it with Kubuntu which I have run for about a year and a half on my old PC after dropping XP. I thought I'd have a look at Vista before I did so. I liked it a lot and have decided to keep it. $800 is cheap for what I got (I could have gotten more probably by shopping around more), and Vista runs great on it. It consumes about a gig of RAM with Outlook and FeedDemon always running and Aero on (never tried turning it off), but so did Kubuntu on my old machine with Kontact and Akkregator going with plain old graphics going (various attempts at Compiz/Beryl provided flakey results). Anyways, I'm a professional programmer with an MS and MBA, and I know what I'm doing in both Unix environments and Windows (and environments that I can't run at home), and I know about lock-in and all the other pitfalls of proprietary software, and I don't give a crap about that. I'm using what's easiest. Vista has been a breeze so far, and I haven't had any problems at all with it. There are ways to get around the dreaded DRM overhead and other things that give people pause about using Vista, and the tired arguments of learning curve don't matter to me because its the same old thing in Linux land. You gotta know what your doing to effectively run either, and so far, I've found Vista to be less hassle to use now in comparison to Kubuntu at this point in its development. YMMV and all that, but if all it takes is one bad experience with an OS to knock it, then it should only take one good experience for me to post what I've found too.
If you read my post, you will find that I did indeed download it and was not saying that it wasn't there. I was posting as a public service to let other MSDN subscribers know that they may experience trouble if they install it on a Dell Inspiron 530.
I got Vista Home Premium with a new Dell Inspiron 530 I bought the other day, and I found that I liked it a lot (and I've been an MS basher around here too-I'm astounded myself). I have not had any problems with Vista running any of my old Windows software and it has worked with all of my hardware. So, I'm keeping it on here rather than dicking with Kubuntu and getting that up and running. I'll just keep that on my old machine.
I got a work email from Microsoft saying that Vista SP1 was available now on MSDN. So, I downloaded it last night. Just to be sure before I took the plunge, I chatted with Dell customer support who told me not to install SP1 yet and to wait until it comes out over Windows Update. I couldn't quite get it out of them, but it sounds like Dell is still working with Microsoft on some things. More than once I was told to not install SP1 on my machine. So, I'm waiting it out.
Why can't they make the system connect you with their support staff? Seems to me that'd be better than a cathartic session with another frustrated user. Now, so I'm not accused of missing the obvious, matching you up with someone other than them is cheaper to them and if they can sucker a user into believing that this is helpful, they've killed two birds with one stone. They would probaby try to use this as a way to make idiots out there believe that they are more like FLOSS software--"This is how you get help in the FLOSS world but better because we automatically find that other party to help you!" Microsoft "innovation" at work.
The reason they haven't seen the uptake of Silverlight they would have liked is due to the same phenomenon that's keeping Windows on the desktop--Inertia. Why would I jump to rewrite a perfectly good website to "take advantage" of Silverlight just because Microsoft releases it. I think it may be a nice tool in the chest for when the time to look at updating the site may come along, but I probably wouldn't waste my time taking a working website or Flash program and rewriting it for Silverlight.
Also, to help prepare them for the disappointment, they may hype on how much more people like Microsoft.com after they release the new Silverlight version, but don't expect the hoped for uptake of Silverlight because of that. Microsoft.com is an abysmally designed and maintained website for such a prominent technology company to have--Anything will be an improvement.
Nowadays, Microsoft likes to boast that they have always produced the most secure version of Windows yet. Well, whoopdidoo. You will notice how they will never say they have produced a secure version of Windows. This helps them prevent lawsuits.
If this bothers you, then you are seriously setting yourself up for a career full of grief and misery. If you report everyone you see doing this, 1) you'll be reporting everyone except yourself and 2) management will get tired of hearing it. There are other practical implications to this too. If you are a lily white purist about this, it is going to take you longer to write equivalent code from scratch than your peers and you will provide less value to any employer. I would even think you are probably going to worry that code you have written yourself with no outside aid may resemble other code made available on the Internet or in books.
The trouble with copyright on code is that copyright is meant to protect an author's original work, and an author will, say, write a story using a set of given words. You too may write a story and even use an entirely different set of words, but if your story ends up telling the same tale, you are in violation of the author's copyright. How I see that this applies to code is that it is a tool (set of words) to accomplish a task (tell a story) and the set of tasks which programmers accomplish is a lot more narrow in scope than all the possibilities that one could come up with when telling a story, so it greatly increases the odds that someone out there has written code that will appear similar to yours and if the whole point of copyright is to protect the story, then you already start out in hot water because to accomplish the task you necessarily will be telling the same story! Essentially, copyright does not lend itself well to computer code. And software trends also complicate matters because the big idea with OO programming (and top-down programming to a lesser extent) is code reuse!
Goodness me! Did that wrong! Here're the revised tally's with the correct parties as patent Assignees:
Microsoft: 6,690
IBM: 46,657
Oracle: 951
Just replace my numbers above with these and try to excuse my goof...
Querying the USPTO Patent Database returns 37,131 patents with Microsoft's name on them. So, with 235 alleged infringements, Linux allegedly infringes on less than 1% of Microsoft's patents. The way they make out that FLOSS programmers are thieves running rough-shod over their intellectual property, I would have expected more than that.
Querying for IBM, turns up 91,006 patents with IBM's name on them. My guess is that Microsoft probably infringes on more than 1% of IBM's patents. Oracle has 5,584 with their name on them (I threw that one in as a bonus just for reading this far!).
So, for Microsoft, it's either tell what patents are infringed on to allow the alleged infringing parties to mitigate Microsoft's damages and have them proved obvious, prior-art'ed or simply worked around OR don't tell and have them invalidated for failure to protect them. Hmm, nothing works very well. Also, this activity will generate a lot of negative press. But, they have to protect the value of their IP as embodied by US patents or risk lawsuits by their shareholders. What a shame... Live by the sword, die by the sword, huh?
Someone should sue Microsoft to force them to reveal which patents of theirs they think Linux infringes on. If Microsoft fights the suit, they don't want to defend their patents and they are then rendered worthless. If they reveal the patents that they allege are infringing, then Linux can be changed to work around them and they are then rendered worthless. If Microsoft does nothing to allow Linux the opportunity to fix things, then their case is harmed a la SCO's antics. The only way Microsoft wins is if the FLOSS community does nothing.
I like Indian food, and they seem to be hoarding almost the whole world's supply of it over there. What little that gets out you have to go to a restaurant to get!
So, when I'm on a call with an Indian, I am seething mad because I know whoever I'm talking to probably has a churning belly full of vindaloo and here I am with barely a hint of onion on my breath...
Your tone suggests you try to use your computers to run Windows software. That's better left to Windows than to Linux. As I mentioned though, if industry were to get behind Linux in the form of Linux software, Linux has enough capability to assume the role of de facto desktop operating system that Windows currently occupies.
The bar for when Linux is ready for the desktop is constantly on the rise. About all the people who keep raising that bar have left to complain about is compatability/interoperability with Windows software and file formats. Linux is in a state that it could very quickly assume Windows' desktop position if there was a sea change in industry preference. I don't think we will see a change of that magnitude, but I think its adoption rate keeps it very much on Microsoft's radar.
Yup, a friend of mine had one. He wore it under his clothes in school during class. I don't remember him having it around for very long though. Must not have been comfortable. He was the only person I ever saw with one. So, I guess they didn't sell very well.
That page you point out has a 1972 Gruen Teletime LCD Watch. I think they have the year wrong. Those things came along after LED watches. Real cool site though. Brings back memories...
Slashdot Mirror
If the techie gene runs strong with this one, you'd best shred the porn files or you will be kick-starting his porn collection (yes, he will have one someday, techie and all...).
Yes, this is why I'm going to market a high-potency placebo that I call Mayfixya (tm). It is simply amazing the spectrum of ailments that Mayfixya (tm) can treat! This will soon be the drug to beat in clinical trials.
I work on a commercial application and getting paid for doing it does not make criticism any easier to take. Probably it makes it worse because it still sucks, _and_ I have an obligation to give it consideration because this customer has paid their money for something. And, there's no winning either, you can have the crappiest of applications and someone will make a suggestion for something simple like, "This button would make more sense if it were located here." So, you move the button. Well, there's going to be someone out there who's good opinion of your software for some reason was based entirely on where that button was originally located who is now going to complain that it has been moved on them.
Anyways, I wouldn't be swayed by any of the arguments I've seen here. Oh, you're not a craftsman. Oh, you're not a good programmer. Oh, you're not a nice guy. FLOSS is going to die. Total BS. You're not obligated, and you've already given them something for free, and they're being ungrateful and just trying to pursuade you to do more for them for free. I say stick to your guns and do only the work that you enjoy and feel like doing as you have the time to do it. If people can't appreciate the fruits of your labor such as it is, that's their problem.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 530 in January to put Kubuntu on it as I had been running it on my then current PC. Much to my dismay, I found that I really liked Vista, and I kept it and am now using it full time instead of Kubuntu. You can check my old posts here, I have been a harsh critic of Microsoft in the past, but I haven't had any problems with Vista. Probably because the hardware is new and built for it. Now, I liked Kubuntu a lot too, but I cannot say the same thing about it it. I always had one thing or another that I had to fix on it. The last thing was when I moved the PC it's on to a different table so my wife and son can use it, I switched its network cable to a different port on my router. After that, Kubuntu fails to retain the DNS IP for more than a day or so. I found a handful of others who had the same problem, but none who found a way to fix it. That's just an example, I'm not slamming Kubuntu for it, but if it was occuring on Vista, you can bet there'd be an outcry and rebellion over it.
Different strokes for different folks. As for sweeping generalizations, I am 40+, and I program for a living and keep up with technology. Anyways, there are other people out there who do not find technology as compelling as you (or I) do. I would say that they have appreciation for a lot of things that you do not care for too. Their lives can be as rich and fulfilling as your's. Some of them would probably be happy for you to be as thrilled with technology as you are and are not saddened that you probably don't give a crap about things they are interested in.
Yeah, I got them originally to show off with on Slashdot, but found they have better uses. ;^) I was a working programmer prior to earning any degrees. I mention my background to demonstrate that I'm not a n00b. Actually, I'm not in the habit of ever defending Microsoft, so I guess I'm a n00b in that regard.
I spent $800 for a new computer at WalMart (Dell Inspiron 530 with 22" monitor, 2.2 Ghz dual-core Intel CPU, 2GB RAM, 500GB HD), and it came with Vista. I was going to replace it with Kubuntu which I have run for about a year and a half on my old PC after dropping XP. I thought I'd have a look at Vista before I did so. I liked it a lot and have decided to keep it. $800 is cheap for what I got (I could have gotten more probably by shopping around more), and Vista runs great on it. It consumes about a gig of RAM with Outlook and FeedDemon always running and Aero on (never tried turning it off), but so did Kubuntu on my old machine with Kontact and Akkregator going with plain old graphics going (various attempts at Compiz/Beryl provided flakey results). Anyways, I'm a professional programmer with an MS and MBA, and I know what I'm doing in both Unix environments and Windows (and environments that I can't run at home), and I know about lock-in and all the other pitfalls of proprietary software, and I don't give a crap about that. I'm using what's easiest. Vista has been a breeze so far, and I haven't had any problems at all with it. There are ways to get around the dreaded DRM overhead and other things that give people pause about using Vista, and the tired arguments of learning curve don't matter to me because its the same old thing in Linux land. You gotta know what your doing to effectively run either, and so far, I've found Vista to be less hassle to use now in comparison to Kubuntu at this point in its development. YMMV and all that, but if all it takes is one bad experience with an OS to knock it, then it should only take one good experience for me to post what I've found too.
Yuk, yuk...
It explains nothing.
If you read my post, you will find that I did indeed download it and was not saying that it wasn't there. I was posting as a public service to let other MSDN subscribers know that they may experience trouble if they install it on a Dell Inspiron 530.
I got Vista Home Premium with a new Dell Inspiron 530 I bought the other day, and I found that I liked it a lot (and I've been an MS basher around here too-I'm astounded myself). I have not had any problems with Vista running any of my old Windows software and it has worked with all of my hardware. So, I'm keeping it on here rather than dicking with Kubuntu and getting that up and running. I'll just keep that on my old machine.
I got a work email from Microsoft saying that Vista SP1 was available now on MSDN. So, I downloaded it last night. Just to be sure before I took the plunge, I chatted with Dell customer support who told me not to install SP1 yet and to wait until it comes out over Windows Update. I couldn't quite get it out of them, but it sounds like Dell is still working with Microsoft on some things. More than once I was told to not install SP1 on my machine. So, I'm waiting it out.
Why can't they make the system connect you with their support staff? Seems to me that'd be better than a cathartic session with another frustrated user. Now, so I'm not accused of missing the obvious, matching you up with someone other than them is cheaper to them and if they can sucker a user into believing that this is helpful, they've killed two birds with one stone. They would probaby try to use this as a way to make idiots out there believe that they are more like FLOSS software--"This is how you get help in the FLOSS world but better because we automatically find that other party to help you!" Microsoft "innovation" at work.
The reason they haven't seen the uptake of Silverlight they would have liked is due to the same phenomenon that's keeping Windows on the desktop--Inertia. Why would I jump to rewrite a perfectly good website to "take advantage" of Silverlight just because Microsoft releases it. I think it may be a nice tool in the chest for when the time to look at updating the site may come along, but I probably wouldn't waste my time taking a working website or Flash program and rewriting it for Silverlight. Also, to help prepare them for the disappointment, they may hype on how much more people like Microsoft.com after they release the new Silverlight version, but don't expect the hoped for uptake of Silverlight because of that. Microsoft.com is an abysmally designed and maintained website for such a prominent technology company to have--Anything will be an improvement.
Nowadays, Microsoft likes to boast that they have always produced the most secure version of Windows yet. Well, whoopdidoo. You will notice how they will never say they have produced a secure version of Windows. This helps them prevent lawsuits.
"I'll have to ask" != "I will ask"
If this bothers you, then you are seriously setting yourself up for a career full of grief and misery. If you report everyone you see doing this, 1) you'll be reporting everyone except yourself and 2) management will get tired of hearing it. There are other practical implications to this too. If you are a lily white purist about this, it is going to take you longer to write equivalent code from scratch than your peers and you will provide less value to any employer. I would even think you are probably going to worry that code you have written yourself with no outside aid may resemble other code made available on the Internet or in books.
The trouble with copyright on code is that copyright is meant to protect an author's original work, and an author will, say, write a story using a set of given words. You too may write a story and even use an entirely different set of words, but if your story ends up telling the same tale, you are in violation of the author's copyright. How I see that this applies to code is that it is a tool (set of words) to accomplish a task (tell a story) and the set of tasks which programmers accomplish is a lot more narrow in scope than all the possibilities that one could come up with when telling a story, so it greatly increases the odds that someone out there has written code that will appear similar to yours and if the whole point of copyright is to protect the story, then you already start out in hot water because to accomplish the task you necessarily will be telling the same story! Essentially, copyright does not lend itself well to computer code. And software trends also complicate matters because the big idea with OO programming (and top-down programming to a lesser extent) is code reuse!
I think they should spend all of their money and devote all their resources in making their OS more complex.
Goodness me! Did that wrong! Here're the revised tally's with the correct parties as patent Assignees: Microsoft: 6,690 IBM: 46,657 Oracle: 951 Just replace my numbers above with these and try to excuse my goof...
Querying the USPTO Patent Database returns 37,131 patents with Microsoft's name on them. So, with 235 alleged infringements, Linux allegedly infringes on less than 1% of Microsoft's patents. The way they make out that FLOSS programmers are thieves running rough-shod over their intellectual property, I would have expected more than that.
Querying for IBM, turns up 91,006 patents with IBM's name on them. My guess is that Microsoft probably infringes on more than 1% of IBM's patents. Oracle has 5,584 with their name on them (I threw that one in as a bonus just for reading this far!).
So, for Microsoft, it's either tell what patents are infringed on to allow the alleged infringing parties to mitigate Microsoft's damages and have them proved obvious, prior-art'ed or simply worked around OR don't tell and have them invalidated for failure to protect them. Hmm, nothing works very well. Also, this activity will generate a lot of negative press. But, they have to protect the value of their IP as embodied by US patents or risk lawsuits by their shareholders. What a shame... Live by the sword, die by the sword, huh?
Someone should sue Microsoft to force them to reveal which patents of theirs they think Linux infringes on. If Microsoft fights the suit, they don't want to defend their patents and they are then rendered worthless. If they reveal the patents that they allege are infringing, then Linux can be changed to work around them and they are then rendered worthless. If Microsoft does nothing to allow Linux the opportunity to fix things, then their case is harmed a la SCO's antics. The only way Microsoft wins is if the FLOSS community does nothing.
Toe jam wasn't helping my CD's at all! Thanks for your tip!
I like Indian food, and they seem to be hoarding almost the whole world's supply of it over there. What little that gets out you have to go to a restaurant to get!
So, when I'm on a call with an Indian, I am seething mad because I know whoever I'm talking to probably has a churning belly full of vindaloo and here I am with barely a hint of onion on my breath...
Your tone suggests you try to use your computers to run Windows software. That's better left to Windows than to Linux. As I mentioned though, if industry were to get behind Linux in the form of Linux software, Linux has enough capability to assume the role of de facto desktop operating system that Windows currently occupies.
BTW, your website is very interesting.
The bar for when Linux is ready for the desktop is constantly on the rise. About all the people who keep raising that bar have left to complain about is compatability/interoperability with Windows software and file formats. Linux is in a state that it could very quickly assume Windows' desktop position if there was a sea change in industry preference. I don't think we will see a change of that magnitude, but I think its adoption rate keeps it very much on Microsoft's radar.
Yup, a friend of mine had one. He wore it under his clothes in school during class. I don't remember him having it around for very long though. Must not have been comfortable. He was the only person I ever saw with one. So, I guess they didn't sell very well.
That page you point out has a 1972 Gruen Teletime LCD Watch. I think they have the year wrong. Those things came along after LED watches. Real cool site though. Brings back memories...