You know, if you look at it that way, we could have a big round of software patent whoop-de-doo now, but in 20 years or so when almost every conceivable software trick is either in OSS or is patented software for which the patent has expired we won't have as much to worry about.
The injunction could be issued if NTP makes the case that they are suffering irrepairable harm as long as BlackBerry is allowed to continue the service before whatever kind of terms they come to with NTP. NTP does no business that would be harmed though since they are just a holding company. It doesn't seem likely to me that the injunction will be issued either, but one of the big arguments against OSS is the patent issue. I haven't heard of any patent issue affecting OSS at all much less to this extent. So, I was wondering how this situation may refute that argument against OSS. Can we say it is more likely (in fact has happened) that the patent issue may affect commercial software, and in the case of SaaS, how could a CEO ever consider using one if something like this situation could come up.
They'd have to come find you to make you stop using it was my point. It may not be legal to continue to use Word, say, in the situation described, but it could not instantly be turned off on you like SaaS could.
Is that something they will allow you to do in the event of something like BlackBerry's situation? Or is that an on-going practice the user must follow while using Salesforce?
So, I'd say use it to learn as much as you can about being sysadmin, and if you like it, then look for a job somewhere else where they will pay you what you will be worth. I had to leave my first programming job (which I moved into from a non-IT position) I guess because my employer thought the opportunity I received was compensation in itself. It was for the first year or two. But after that, I was working at the same level as my "established" IT peers but for about 25% less. I bailed the first chance I got to work somewhere else. The whole move into IT was scary because I took a paycut to do it in the first place *and* I have a wife, two kids, overweight dog, mortgage (also overweight), etc depending on me. It's all been worth it though. I now make what I should, and I work for a decent company now who will pay for some training. Speaking of which, since I made the move into IT, I have been going to school on my own time and dime. That's my other recommendation. Bite the bullet and get an IT-related degree if you don't already have one (your description didn't make it sound like you did). I wouldn't spend a second of my time on certifications that become obsolete in a couple of years until I had the degree. That last bit is the kind of comment that sets off a firestorm around here, but an IT degree is not useless outside the IT field if you ever decide to leave it. A ten-year-old Bachelors degree in CS/CIS will open a lot more doors outside of IT than a stack of contemporary certifications. And if you stay in IT, you can run the certification treadmill, but the opportunity for advancement will never be as good as if you have the degree. Anyway, that's my perspective. I hope it helps. Best of luck to you!
One phenomenon that makes multiple videogame consoles palatable is exclusive titles that are only available on one console. Nintendo has the Mario stuff, XBox has Halo, Playstation has Final Fantasy (I think the XBox 360 may have landed one of them though). Whereas with the two competing HD formats, I don't think you will find entertainment titles that will be exclusive to a given format. What would be the point? With videogame hardware there is some differentiation in the hardware capabilities. Some people may even prefer a given console because of how the controller feels in their hands.
I also think that there will be only one format left standing. I don't think it'll take as long for things to shake out as some do. I could also see it coming down to something like format following purpose though. Like HD-DVD as primarily a computer medium and Bluray as primarily a movie/entertainment medium.
Nibiru as a planet seems very plausible to me. I don't know about any of that other stuff you seem concerned about. The Sumerians knew about all the planets that we knew about plus some, and now we're finding stuff bigger than Pluto out there. Every time one of our probes zips by a planet, we find improbable-seeming stuff that we cannot readily explain. The Voyagers are off their predicted courses, and we don't know why. Seems like we may not know as much as we'd like to think, and if that is the case, you'd think we'd be slower to draw ridicule about things we cannot disprove until such time as we are able to. Like the face on Mars thing. It looked like a face in the old imagery, but with better technology, we were able to resolve better images. Now it doesn't look like a face. The better technology is now allowing us to detect these large Kuiper objects. Now the Sumerian planets are looking more like they exist. I'm not pushing aliens or any of that other stuff you brought up, just planets. That's not dis-info.
or Nibiru is supposed to spread a red dust with its passing: "When Nibiru passes between the Earth and the Sun, small red dust will rain down coloring drinking water reddish." There's info on it here and here although there are probably better sites out there. I haven't read about it in a long time, but it is interesting junk that Sitchin talked about that couldn't possibly be true, except we keep finding big stuff floating out there past the Kuiper belt. Who knows... Hmm, note to self-gather up tin foil for project with the kids tomorrow.
I'm glad there's no threat of nuclear annihilation anymore so all these plans can be thrown out. Seriously though, they must have better plans now 'cause the nuclear threat is still there. They probably have dug bunkers under Ben Nevis or something.
I hope that helps you. Get professional help if you can't seem to get over it on your own. Don't let life and opportunity pass you by because you can't seem to bring yourself to speak out and be noticed like other people do without a second thought.
Being an INTP (just found that out recently and it helps explain a lot), I've been a big introvert misfit all my life. In contrast to what TFA says about shyness, I'm pushing forty and have only overcome mine in the past few years through conscious effort. I'm functional, but I'm not going to be running for office any time soon. The Smiths How Soon Is Now? pretty much sums up how I was until some time after I turned thirty. I found liquor helped when going out, but by the time I started loosening up, I could barely talk... They have better treatments for it now, I hear. What I have found that helps is when I have to give presentations in my MBA classes. I've got four coming up over the next two weeks...where'd I put that bottle... Just kidding! Anyways, I hope shyness is not an intrinsic characteristic of all introverts. I'd hate to think that all the other misfits out there like me have had to put up with something so stupid their whole lives too.
William Gibson gave me goosebumps in Neuromancer with something along these lines (don't want to completely spoil it for anyone). Who knows what kinda binary garbage we are spouting out there that another species could pick up. NASA shoots programs to its probes all over the place. That stuff could be intercepted and analyzed. So could some of the actual hardware itself. That stuff gets lost/abandoned all the time. I think the odds are very remote that anything sinister could happen to us, but the guy in TFA has a point, and it would not be impossible for some alien species who may already be in this neck of the woods to access our hardware/software, grok it and infiltrate our systems.
My point (without critical review as to quality) is that there are a lot of PC games that can more easily be ported for the 360 increasing the liklihood of that happening. The number of games in a library *is* a selling point as the main topic of the article is the dearth of games for the 360 launch. With the vast number of PC games written for DirectX, I see a lot of potential for second lives for games on the 360 than on say the PS3.
Take Rollcage by Psygnosis for example. This was a DirectX 6 game that came out in 1999. The graphics on it were very good at up to 1600x1200. It had split screen play for 4 and networked play for up to 6 players. This game may have been something that would have done well on the original XBox were it not for the difficulty in porting it. If that is made much easier by the 360's SDK, then all Psygnosis would need to do is enhance the Live capabilities, add support for the 360 controller and make some coding adjustments for the RISC architecture (big endian/little endian, etc). Otherwise, there would be no new design needed. Seems like a no-brainer to revive this for the 360. I cannot see the same being said for any other console.
Something I have been wondering about is how many PC games there are out there that may have been released for the original XBox if the SDK were easier to use. As I understand it, Microsoft has made the 360 SDK a pleasure to use. Might we see a wave of what were previously PC-only titles get ported to the 360 as game houses catch on? Sony's vast library of games is one of its big selling points. It looks like the potential is there for Microsoft to take the titles crown from them.
I don't think they are going to. I went ahead and bought one last month. I'm hoping that used XBox game prices will drop quicker once enough people have the 360. When the 360 gets down to $100-150, I'll look at getting one then. By then, I should have a monster set of old games to try on it!
I bought an XBox last month because I have grown tired of upgrading my computer to stay as current as I can afford just to play games. I think the sound on it is as good as I get on my computer. I am not an audiophile though, YMMV. I would say the 360's sound would be even better.
Plus, something I have only become aware of since buying the XBox, video game makers will spend more time optimizing their software for it. Valve somehow got Half-Life 2 working on much lower spec hardware in the XBox than their recommend minimum spec for PC's albeit the graphics resolution is lower (I am getting used to that too because it is nicer playing on my 65" TV even with the lower res). What this does is preserve my hardware investment over a longer period of time, and show my folly (my opinion) for running in the upgrade treadmill marathon.
I don't think MS planned on backwards compatibility and only looked into it when they realized how much people would want it (re, it may cost them some sales). By then, it was too late to do anything in hardware. The backwards compatibility is achieved through emulation software, so you have to have the full version of the 360 with the harddrive to store it.
Are hysterical investors acting like there is some Open Source land-grab going on like they did when the WWW was picking up? Are they again willng to burn through billions of $$$ to try to gain some sort of elusive Open Source market share? Is the Dow Jones shooting up 150 points a day with commentators pointing out that Open Source tech stocks are behind the rallying? Are the idiots-that-be talking about gambling the non-existent U.S. Medicare "lockbox" funds on the stock market again due to the strengths of Open Source companies? Nope, I don't think there is a bubble going on.
I said their EULA will hold them harmless to users PAYING for their hosting. Hotmail was an example-PAYING customers don't get any assurance that their data will not be lost either. Microsoft doesn't give you any guarantees with their non-hosted software either. The best you can do when using it is hope that your IT staff knows how to safeguard your data. That's your insurance policy. If you let them host your stuff, you not only throw that insurance policy out the window (pun not intended, but humorous nonetheless), but you expose your data to whatever ill fortune may befall it when it goes outside your network.
I imagine their EULA for the hosted stuff would be just like their Hotmail one in that the user completely indemnifies them if they lose all the user's files like what happened to some Hotmail users a while back. Mmm... One of the biggest arguments they use against GPL/OSS is that there is no one to hold accountable for it if something goes wrong-What's the difference here? Oh, you are paying for someone to not be accountable.
Look, I know MS has a fine document standard they would like everyone to use because they put a lot of work into it, and that is okay. They are a business, and that's the way things work. Noone is going to be able to point somewhere where MS says they don't want to not be the de facto standard. If they say something like that, it means they aren't doing everything they can for their shareholders. But I don't believe for a minute that they won't support OpenDocument because they don't want to be limited by it. It was a negotiating tactic that Massachusetts evidently didn't find pursuasive either. It's too bad they didn't find a way to free up their standard enough to satisfy Massachusetts because they sure didn't get the outcome they wanted out of the situation.
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I'm saying it's an argument in OSS' favor.
You know, if you look at it that way, we could have a big round of software patent whoop-de-doo now, but in 20 years or so when almost every conceivable software trick is either in OSS or is patented software for which the patent has expired we won't have as much to worry about.
The injunction could be issued if NTP makes the case that they are suffering irrepairable harm as long as BlackBerry is allowed to continue the service before whatever kind of terms they come to with NTP. NTP does no business that would be harmed though since they are just a holding company. It doesn't seem likely to me that the injunction will be issued either, but one of the big arguments against OSS is the patent issue. I haven't heard of any patent issue affecting OSS at all much less to this extent. So, I was wondering how this situation may refute that argument against OSS. Can we say it is more likely (in fact has happened) that the patent issue may affect commercial software, and in the case of SaaS, how could a CEO ever consider using one if something like this situation could come up.
They'd have to come find you to make you stop using it was my point. It may not be legal to continue to use Word, say, in the situation described, but it could not instantly be turned off on you like SaaS could.
Is that something they will allow you to do in the event of something like BlackBerry's situation? Or is that an on-going practice the user must follow while using Salesforce?
the EU twisting their arm to do it. They don't wanna... So, there is something to see here.
So, I'd say use it to learn as much as you can about being sysadmin, and if you like it, then look for a job somewhere else where they will pay you what you will be worth. I had to leave my first programming job (which I moved into from a non-IT position) I guess because my employer thought the opportunity I received was compensation in itself. It was for the first year or two. But after that, I was working at the same level as my "established" IT peers but for about 25% less. I bailed the first chance I got to work somewhere else. The whole move into IT was scary because I took a paycut to do it in the first place *and* I have a wife, two kids, overweight dog, mortgage (also overweight), etc depending on me. It's all been worth it though. I now make what I should, and I work for a decent company now who will pay for some training. Speaking of which, since I made the move into IT, I have been going to school on my own time and dime. That's my other recommendation. Bite the bullet and get an IT-related degree if you don't already have one (your description didn't make it sound like you did). I wouldn't spend a second of my time on certifications that become obsolete in a couple of years until I had the degree. That last bit is the kind of comment that sets off a firestorm around here, but an IT degree is not useless outside the IT field if you ever decide to leave it. A ten-year-old Bachelors degree in CS/CIS will open a lot more doors outside of IT than a stack of contemporary certifications. And if you stay in IT, you can run the certification treadmill, but the opportunity for advancement will never be as good as if you have the degree. Anyway, that's my perspective. I hope it helps. Best of luck to you!
One phenomenon that makes multiple videogame consoles palatable is exclusive titles that are only available on one console. Nintendo has the Mario stuff, XBox has Halo, Playstation has Final Fantasy (I think the XBox 360 may have landed one of them though). Whereas with the two competing HD formats, I don't think you will find entertainment titles that will be exclusive to a given format. What would be the point? With videogame hardware there is some differentiation in the hardware capabilities. Some people may even prefer a given console because of how the controller feels in their hands.
I also think that there will be only one format left standing. I don't think it'll take as long for things to shake out as some do. I could also see it coming down to something like format following purpose though. Like HD-DVD as primarily a computer medium and Bluray as primarily a movie/entertainment medium.
Nibiru as a planet seems very plausible to me. I don't know about any of that other stuff you seem concerned about. The Sumerians knew about all the planets that we knew about plus some, and now we're finding stuff bigger than Pluto out there. Every time one of our probes zips by a planet, we find improbable-seeming stuff that we cannot readily explain. The Voyagers are off their predicted courses, and we don't know why. Seems like we may not know as much as we'd like to think, and if that is the case, you'd think we'd be slower to draw ridicule about things we cannot disprove until such time as we are able to. Like the face on Mars thing. It looked like a face in the old imagery, but with better technology, we were able to resolve better images. Now it doesn't look like a face. The better technology is now allowing us to detect these large Kuiper objects. Now the Sumerian planets are looking more like they exist. I'm not pushing aliens or any of that other stuff you brought up, just planets. That's not dis-info.
or Nibiru is supposed to spread a red dust with its passing: "When Nibiru passes between the Earth and the Sun, small red dust will rain down coloring drinking water reddish." There's info on it here and here although there are probably better sites out there. I haven't read about it in a long time, but it is interesting junk that Sitchin talked about that couldn't possibly be true, except we keep finding big stuff floating out there past the Kuiper belt. Who knows... Hmm, note to self-gather up tin foil for project with the kids tomorrow.
I'm glad there's no threat of nuclear annihilation anymore so all these plans can be thrown out. Seriously though, they must have better plans now 'cause the nuclear threat is still there. They probably have dug bunkers under Ben Nevis or something.
I hope that helps you. Get professional help if you can't seem to get over it on your own. Don't let life and opportunity pass you by because you can't seem to bring yourself to speak out and be noticed like other people do without a second thought.
Being an INTP (just found that out recently and it helps explain a lot), I've been a big introvert misfit all my life. In contrast to what TFA says about shyness, I'm pushing forty and have only overcome mine in the past few years through conscious effort. I'm functional, but I'm not going to be running for office any time soon. The Smiths How Soon Is Now? pretty much sums up how I was until some time after I turned thirty. I found liquor helped when going out, but by the time I started loosening up, I could barely talk... They have better treatments for it now, I hear. What I have found that helps is when I have to give presentations in my MBA classes. I've got four coming up over the next two weeks...where'd I put that bottle... Just kidding! Anyways, I hope shyness is not an intrinsic characteristic of all introverts. I'd hate to think that all the other misfits out there like me have had to put up with something so stupid their whole lives too.
William Gibson gave me goosebumps in Neuromancer with something along these lines (don't want to completely spoil it for anyone). Who knows what kinda binary garbage we are spouting out there that another species could pick up. NASA shoots programs to its probes all over the place. That stuff could be intercepted and analyzed. So could some of the actual hardware itself. That stuff gets lost/abandoned all the time. I think the odds are very remote that anything sinister could happen to us, but the guy in TFA has a point, and it would not be impossible for some alien species who may already be in this neck of the woods to access our hardware/software, grok it and infiltrate our systems.
My point (without critical review as to quality) is that there are a lot of PC games that can more easily be ported for the 360 increasing the liklihood of that happening. The number of games in a library *is* a selling point as the main topic of the article is the dearth of games for the 360 launch. With the vast number of PC games written for DirectX, I see a lot of potential for second lives for games on the 360 than on say the PS3.
Take Rollcage by Psygnosis for example. This was a DirectX 6 game that came out in 1999. The graphics on it were very good at up to 1600x1200. It had split screen play for 4 and networked play for up to 6 players. This game may have been something that would have done well on the original XBox were it not for the difficulty in porting it. If that is made much easier by the 360's SDK, then all Psygnosis would need to do is enhance the Live capabilities, add support for the 360 controller and make some coding adjustments for the RISC architecture (big endian/little endian, etc). Otherwise, there would be no new design needed. Seems like a no-brainer to revive this for the 360. I cannot see the same being said for any other console.
Something I have been wondering about is how many PC games there are out there that may have been released for the original XBox if the SDK were easier to use. As I understand it, Microsoft has made the 360 SDK a pleasure to use. Might we see a wave of what were previously PC-only titles get ported to the 360 as game houses catch on? Sony's vast library of games is one of its big selling points. It looks like the potential is there for Microsoft to take the titles crown from them.
I don't think they are going to. I went ahead and bought one last month. I'm hoping that used XBox game prices will drop quicker once enough people have the 360. When the 360 gets down to $100-150, I'll look at getting one then. By then, I should have a monster set of old games to try on it!
3 * 3.2 = 9.6 or approximately 10. Now if it went up to approximately 11...
I bought an XBox last month because I have grown tired of upgrading my computer to stay as current as I can afford just to play games. I think the sound on it is as good as I get on my computer. I am not an audiophile though, YMMV. I would say the 360's sound would be even better.
Plus, something I have only become aware of since buying the XBox, video game makers will spend more time optimizing their software for it. Valve somehow got Half-Life 2 working on much lower spec hardware in the XBox than their recommend minimum spec for PC's albeit the graphics resolution is lower (I am getting used to that too because it is nicer playing on my 65" TV even with the lower res). What this does is preserve my hardware investment over a longer period of time, and show my folly (my opinion) for running in the upgrade treadmill marathon.
I don't think MS planned on backwards compatibility and only looked into it when they realized how much people would want it (re, it may cost them some sales). By then, it was too late to do anything in hardware. The backwards compatibility is achieved through emulation software, so you have to have the full version of the 360 with the harddrive to store it.
Are hysterical investors acting like there is some Open Source land-grab going on like they did when the WWW was picking up? Are they again willng to burn through billions of $$$ to try to gain some sort of elusive Open Source market share? Is the Dow Jones shooting up 150 points a day with commentators pointing out that Open Source tech stocks are behind the rallying? Are the idiots-that-be talking about gambling the non-existent U.S. Medicare "lockbox" funds on the stock market again due to the strengths of Open Source companies? Nope, I don't think there is a bubble going on.
I said their EULA will hold them harmless to users PAYING for their hosting. Hotmail was an example-PAYING customers don't get any assurance that their data will not be lost either. Microsoft doesn't give you any guarantees with their non-hosted software either. The best you can do when using it is hope that your IT staff knows how to safeguard your data. That's your insurance policy. If you let them host your stuff, you not only throw that insurance policy out the window (pun not intended, but humorous nonetheless), but you expose your data to whatever ill fortune may befall it when it goes outside your network.
I imagine their EULA for the hosted stuff would be just like their Hotmail one in that the user completely indemnifies them if they lose all the user's files like what happened to some Hotmail users a while back. Mmm... One of the biggest arguments they use against GPL/OSS is that there is no one to hold accountable for it if something goes wrong-What's the difference here? Oh, you are paying for someone to not be accountable.
it's gotta be turtles-All the way up! Where's my $50K?
Look, I know MS has a fine document standard they would like everyone to use because they put a lot of work into it, and that is okay. They are a business, and that's the way things work. Noone is going to be able to point somewhere where MS says they don't want to not be the de facto standard. If they say something like that, it means they aren't doing everything they can for their shareholders. But I don't believe for a minute that they won't support OpenDocument because they don't want to be limited by it. It was a negotiating tactic that Massachusetts evidently didn't find pursuasive either. It's too bad they didn't find a way to free up their standard enough to satisfy Massachusetts because they sure didn't get the outcome they wanted out of the situation.