I've always thought that a tiny padlock in the status bar is not enough visual indication for the average user, so it's about time someone comes up with something better. Microsoft has a great idea here, but I don't think a simple color change is good enough. There should be textual feedback. Now, if they were to use the status bar more effectively (such as "SSL Encrypted via Verisign") with color differentiation, they'd really be onto something. A simple color shift? I'd bet that the average Joe Sixpack will say "ooooh, purty" and be totally unaware that he's submitting his credit card to a Nigerian scammer.
Regarding removal of SSL: WHY? A self-issued certificate is perfectly good for corporate email sites and things like that. If the system is flawed, address the flaws, but don't throw out an entire legacy system which is still in widespread use. But then by that logic, that is also how Windows came to inherit all of the security flaws it has now, I suppose.
In a related story, Sony DRM defeats Sony's efforts to gain good PR and convince the public that DRM is a good thing.
When asked for comment, Sony execs replied "Fair Use? HA! All of our customers are crooks. They have no legitimate reason to rip CDs to MP3s. Our wildly successful ATRAC players proved that consumers prefer closed, DRM-enhanced formats rather than open standards like MP3."
A known script kiddie was asked for comment on IRC channel "l337_haxx0r5" - he remarked "Sony DRM is teh r0xx0r5!!!11!! It's gr8! Thx 2 them I have 3000 z0mb135!!11!!!"
Re:Your show is great fun to watch and all, but...
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· Score: 1
Actually I don't remember mentioning it on here before, coward, aside from my profile.
I'd love to see the HAARP death ray and underground surveillance conspiracy theories/myths debunked once and for all.
Thanks!
Re:Octane Aditive really Boost Gas performance?
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This is true only if your engine is pinging/knocking without the octane booster, or if your ECM is detecting engine knock and retarding the timing or enriching the fuel mixture too much to compensate. Generally only an issue on supercharged or high compression engines, or engines with carbon buildup, a lot of wear, or running a very advanced timing curve. Lean-burn engines and higher-temperature engines may incur this as well.
Brushing your teeth with it and spitting most of it out? Not terribly bad for you.
Making a meal of flouride toothpaste? Yes, you can ingest too much flouride. Florine is poisonous, as are chlorine and dihydrogen monoxide in excessive amounts.
4) Homeopathy (Suspected myth)
Homeopathy as in using herbal remedies as medicines because the chemical reactions can cure some illnesses? Not a myth - where do you think most prescription medicines come from? Herbal extracts. Why do you think pharmaceutical companies are now attempting to patent herbal remedies? What about medical studies proving ginger is better at treating motion sickness than Rx medications (referenced in this very thread earlier, in fact)? What about coca leaves and poppy seeds being great painkillers, and coca leaves being great appetite suppressants? What about willow extracts being a great pain reliever (aka asprin)? Black Cohosh being a great treatment for menopausal symptoms without nasty side effects of horse urine extracts? Garlic being antibiotic and antiviral? Herbal remedies and a proper diet obviously affect your overall health and can help boost your immune system, and modern medicine is beginning to recognize ages-old remedies and pharmaceutical companies are scared and are trying to patent them (see/. yesterday or the day before).
Homeopathy as in "energy" manipulation (toss Reiki, etc. in here while you're at it)? Tiny amounts of an herb changing your chi or yin/yang balance or whatever? Holding a certain kind of crystal balancing the same? Obviously bunk.
Re:Surely I am not the only one wondering...
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I shouldn't be feeding a troll, but here goes:
From IMDB on Jamie:
Jamie is happily married, and has said that he is very proud of his wife!
From IMDB on Adam: Spouse
Julia (2003 - present) 2 children
You could have gone to IMDB to check it out, gone to the Mythbusters' home page on Discovery's site and done some reading to get the exact same info -- or you could post flamebait on/. because it's oh-so-funny to post "OMG U R GAY LOLOLROFL!!!111!!!" rather than sticking to the issue at hand.
Re:Your show is great fun to watch and all, but...
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually I figured that years ago - the reason is: would a corporation seeking to avoid CAFE levees design the aerodynamics of a truck to divert airflow in such a way that fuel economy will be fine when the tailgate is closed, or would they design the aerodynamics without taking the tailgate into account, causing customers to leave the tailgate open and let it bounce (and eventually come off on some bumpy road because the safety cables or levers are usually fairly flimsy)?
Of course they assume a closed tailgate (since they recommend never leaving it open) and want to do anything they can to avoid lowering their corporate average fuel economy rating (CAFE) when they design the vehicle, then they can avoid the $600-or-so per-vehicle fine because they've sought to keep their average fuel economy up.
Also: if they didn't take the tailgate into account when designing the truck, performance would absolutely suck on the highway. Hell, I've noticed the slight drag from the pop-up headlights on my ZR-1 (Corvette) at extreme speeds, and the drag from the aerodynamic popup headlights is minimal compared to the effects introduced by a large rectangular sail on a truck would be if the engineers didn't take it into account during the design and windtunnel testing process.
please, tell us where these secret free server apps that we pay dearly for are on that install CD!
You get a really nifty (nifty as in piece of shiat) SMTP and POP server with Windows, along with IIS. Do they count?
Seriously though I think that the poster has Windows Server, Windows Small Business Server, and Windows Server + SQL Server confused.
Windows Server does not come with SQL Server.
Small Business Server Premium does, but that version of SQL Server does not scale and cannot be clustered (or, at least older versions cannot). Also in SBS the database size is limited, and the Exchange Information Store is limited to 16GB, PLUS you cannot have more than one information store on SBS. It's intended for very small businesses and very light use. If you run any kind of load at all against Windows SBS, performance will be lackluster, to put it politely.
You're missing the key element of "time" because in business time is money. If your time is worth anything, then TCO is not zero.
Of course, there is the possibility that you consider your time to be of no worth, which is something that I am not in a position to disagree with.;)
Seriously though, TCO is different from up-front purchase cost in that it counts labor costs, maintenance/support costs, downtime (scheduled and otherwise - although Microsoft's TCO studies do not take "scheduled maintenance" downtime periods into account as they do not consider scheduled maintenance to be downtime) and so forth.
gunzip linux_x86-32.3.0.1.tgz tar xvf linux_x86-32.3.0.1.tgz ln -s/linux_x86-32.3.0.1sr/src/linux
then config, make, etc.
Want to run php 7.5.6 in that timeframe? Do the same. Download the package, compile it, install it.
I know someone who bought RedHat in 1997 and even after hardware upgrades, have never upgraded the distribution to a newer one - they've been updating the individual packages as needed, the install has been moved from hard drive to hard drive, and yet it bears no reasonable resemblance to any current distribution, nor to RedHat (5, I think?).
Me? I upgrade workstations - that is, wipe, and cleanly install new distro versions after archiving/srv, var/*,/etc, and/home. Why? Because I haven't bothered with checkinstall to track manually-installed packages to allow for easy removal. Why haven't I bothered with that? Because it's so darn easy to back up important data and restore to a new distribution and not have to spend an entire day tracking down dependencies and conflicts. I may start working with checkinstall at some point to avoid that issue but so far it hasn't been too much of a problem.
Servers? I leave them alone and patch/upgrade individual packages as needed. If it's serving up, say, phpnuke and works, and has the latest php/apache/module/etc. patches, why upgrade? If the threading scheduler in the kernel is improved then of course I'd have to upgrade the kernel, but why would it have to be upgraded to SuSE Enterprise Linux 18 in five years if that particular server is still doing its job? So far Linux downtime on servers has been limited to extended power outages (e.g., snowstorms, hurricane remnants, building maintenance) and hardware changes, whereas Windows server uptime averages two weeks or so, mainly due to patches requiring reboots. Yes, I've had to `/etc/initd/apache reload` a few times for patches but that is still no downtime.
There is nothing wrong with the cellphone provider. They tested the market and found they can sell ringtones to lazy customers for $2.49 per download.
There IS something wrong with the incredibly lazy slobs who pay that much for a ringtone.
Place the blame where it belongs. Seriously. Anyone who bothers to RTFM will learn that they have options which not only let them put any old MP3 or MIDI file on their phone as a ringtone, but will enable them to download pictures from the phone for free as well. In the event that a phone is locked (e.g., you bought from Verizon) you can usually work past that.
he radiative recombination of electron-hole pairs can be used for the generation of electromagnetic radiation by the electric current in a p-n junction. This effect is called electroluminescence. In a forward-biased p-n junction fabricated from a direct band gap material, such as GaAs or GaN, the recombination of the electron-hole pairs injected into the depletion region causes the emission of electromagnetic radiation. Such a device is called a Light Emitting Diode (LED). If mirrors are provided (usually by cleaved crystallographic surfaces of the semiconductor) and the concentration of the electron hole pairs (called the injection level) exceeds some critical value, this device may function as a semiconductor laser that emits a coherent electromagnetic radiation with all photons in phase with each other. LEDs fabricated from different semiconductors cover a broad range of wavelengths, from infrared to ultraviolet.
The electrical conductivity of a semiconductor can be increased by adding doping elements, or small percentages of impurity elements, to the semiconductor. The presence of the small traces of impurity elements can yield extra charge carriers which are free to move through the material.
In the compound gallium arsenide, each gallium atom has three electrons in its outermost shell of electrons and each arsenic atom has five. This gives an average of four electrons per atom in the compound. When a trace of an impurity element with two outer electrons, such as zinc, is added to the crystal, the result is the shortage of one electron from one of the pairs. This shortage sets up an imbalance in which there is a place in the crystal for an electron but there is no electron available. This is commonly called a "hole." This forms the so-called p-type semiconductor in which the conduction of electricity is by motion of the hole from one atom to another.
Before OOo 1.9.x (2.0 beta) your flamebait would have been correct - pre-Office-1.9.x I held a similar opinion, although I'd have used a word rhyming with "spit" to describe OOo.
But: OOo 2.0 is quite good. Really. Better than Office 2000 in some(many( ways, and lacking only an email client. Unfortunately there are some severe I/O bottlenecks but most users would never encounter them. DBMS integration is better - you can pull data in QUITE easily - more easily than you can in M$ Office. Drag and drop from any supported data source to where you want the data. A novice can draw data in from a database and put the data to actual use.
Spreadsheet formatting is excellent.
Is it as pretty as Office 2003? No. Does it look as nice as the next version of Office (2006? 2007?) No, it looks better - it looks like an office suite and looks like a productivity app, not some second-rate GUI-designed-by-four-year-olds-wielding-crayolas bargain-bin program.
Don't forget that Support is a big deal for companies. They like to have support contracts to fall back on.
Yes, it is absolutely important to have the ability to be told "It's a hardware problem call Dell" or "you need to talk to Dell, your OEM" by Microsoft.;)
(disclaimer: this is a weak attempt at a funny, not a troll. Read at own risk. Batteries not included. If swallowed induce vomiting and contact your nearest poison control center. No warranty expressed or implied. These limitations may not apply to you depending on the laws in your state. etc.)
The market is small because there are few HDTV devices. Well, few for less than $1,500.
There are few sub-$1,500 HDTV devices because the market is small. Well, few PC and few portable devices. It's a catch-22 situation.
HDTV is not growing because of product availability. Product availability is not growing because HDTV really isn't here yet in full force. Repeat et al, reworded in many different ways, it's still the same darn situation.
Actually, I can't find ANY portable HDTV receivers - and yes, I've looked. All portables I can find are still analog.
Oh, and the last time I checked, the HDTV Wonder card is not the subject of this review, and totally ignores the question I asked, which is:
Why the hell are TV tuner (and related product) manufacturers still actively designing and producing analog-only products?
Why can I not get an HDTV version of the AiW card (not that I want another ATI product, but that's beside the point)? Reminder (again) for the people who don't read: the HDTV wonder card is not an AiW card. It is a discrete (separate) tuner card.
Will it run Linux, or will I be just as screwed on it as I've been with the ATI-TV (ISA), AiW 128 Pro, AiW 7500, AiW8500DV? I'm sure it runs great on Windows, which is great and all, only I want to punt Windows from my system and not have a dual-boot configuration.
Also what is up with offering only analog/NTSC reception on this side of the pond? NTSC broadcasts are supposedly dying soon, so why don't they offer HDTV-capable cards yet? They advertise high-definition output, which is just wonderful, but what's so great about an upsampled NTSC picture?
For what it's worth, I think payola is going to die.
No, really. With the media consolidation what's to stop Sony, Capitol, etc. from buying up the radio stations? No payola necessary. The "DJ" (well. teleprompter reader really) will play the queued music from the satellite feed and announce them with a smile, or not keep his job. No payoffs required once the media consolidation process is complete.
There will still be an independent station here and there, but how much would you want to bet that the RIAA and Artist Rights Enforcement Corporation won't raise the licensing fees to air major labels' material once the consolidation of mainstream stations is complete?
By the RIAA logic, folks who engage in file sharing are also doing nothing wrong. After all, they are not distributing for a fee, no physical property is stolen, and many users are unaware that most artists only receive a very, very tiny percentage of each CD or tape sale (usually $.30 or less per unit). So, because the average Joe is REALLY hurting the average artist with each MP3 download, but doing so UNKNOWINGLY, due to his misguided idea that the artist is getting $11 out of each $17 CD sold, then of course the average Joe is innocent of wrongdoing.
Hey if that kind of logic (feigned ignorance) works for the RIAA, it ought to work for file sharers as well.
This is why unless a REALLY compelling release comes out (e.g., Pink Floyd, Weird Al) I don't buy RIAA material - not even from so-called "independent" labes which are really just shell companies owned by RIAA labels. Heck, I haven't even bought Roger Waters' "Ca Ira" because it is a Sony/BMG release in the states. Instead, I am looking for an overseas source for it - legit or otherwise, and I emailed Sony as such.
Pharmaceutical companies only care about your health. Natural remedies are eeeevil and bad for you. Patented synthetic drugs made from extracts of those natural remedies are good. That which cannot be patented is bad! Don't you love the anti-herbal campaigns run by pharmaceutical companies, and now that there are medical studies which prove that at least some ages-old remedies actually work, they are now racing to patent them?
Of course, if they can succeed in patenting things such as garlic, orange juice, cranberry juice, ecchinacea, and other foods which can cure some sicknesses that patented remedies can only control the symptoms of, and if they can patent herbs like St. John's Wort, Black cohosh, etc. then you will see pharmaceutical companies singing the praises of such things like revolutionary new cures for the cold, treatment of certain depressions for which prozac etc. are overkill, and black cohosh rather than conjugated horse urine for treatment of menopausal symptoms, all without negative side effects when taken in moderate amounts. You'll see herbal remedies and certain foods rise in prices and only be legally distributed by a certified/licenses pharmacist.
Or perhaps I am just cynical. I'm sure they really do have the public good in mind, right? Right? I mean, certainly drugs which treat depression "but can cause heart failure certain individuals" or "can result in liver failure in certain individuals" and drugs which can control blood pressure "but side effects include glaucoma" is a good thing because they are patentable and real treatments of the cause of problems rather than controlling symptoms is bad for business.
I'm all for patents for protecting legitimate inventions, but companies have gone too far with patents, and with the USPTO simply rubber-stamping every application to come through the door and leaving it up to the courts to sort out the mess, who wants to do business here in the US any more?
What's up with patenting software? That is what copyright is for. You're fully protected, and you can trademark certain aspects of the look and feel of an app. Patents are not required. Besides, since the 1950s there has been plenty of prior art which should rule most software patents invalid anyhow. Heck, hypertext in its purest form has been around since analog computers, and prior to that in paper books.
What's up with patenting the human genome? They innovated NOTHING. The human genome is either the product of billions of years of pure chance and accident, or the result of a design by "GOD" and there is nothing genetics companies are designing in the process, aside from designing the process and devices to actually map and manipulate the genome. Those processes and devices are certainly patentable, but the genome ought not to be as there is billions (or thousands, let's not get into that flame war, I'm including both theories here to avoid flamefests) of years' worth of prior art demonstrating that those companies have produced zilch.
Am I veering off topic here? Not really, I'm just drawing some related (and unrelated) examples of how ridiculous the patent process has become, due in part to the employeee productivity quotas set at the USPTO, and due in part to laziness.
A few years ago it was more difficult to obtain patent protection. A friend of mine invented a product related to automobiles and the USPTO rejected it because the clerk who received the application did not believe the invention would perform as claimed (since when is that the acid test for a patent?). The USPTO demanded that he produce other designs to prove that certain other things would not peform the intended function. He did so, persisted, and nearly $30K worth of prototypes later (not a lot of money for a large corp, but for a small self-funded proprietor it's a huge chunk of change) and independent testing labs proved his claim, they finally granted the patent. The clerk was certainly on his toes, but was a little too aggressive in enforcing the patent process, beca
What is better for identifying an item as yours? A tiny serial number laser-etched somewhere inconspicuous, or a huge lemur on the case that is not easily scratched out? It'd be cool if Apple were to see this and offer custom laser etchings on all of their notebooks.
AJAX (or reasonable fascimiles) are definitely here to stay (see gmail, google maps, OWA), but much like Flash, it will be overused at first without thinking of the ramifications.
Companies looking to lower deployment costs may look to hosted Microsoft Office, hosted email (I know this is old hat but I'm talking corporate email which is usually internal), hosted database apps, and so forth.
Then when something happens - e.g., when it dawns on them that they've now outgrown the T1 and now need a DS-3 just to run Office, or their ISP goes under or simply doesn't give a hoot when your connection breaks, or a pole gets hit by a truck and Verizon takes a week to get out to fix it and your company comes to a HALT because you've decided to host your whole enterprise with Microsoft, you'll realize just what a bad idea hosted apps are. Remember ASPs and why they didn't work for most services?
Microsoft is proposing that the ASP model be taken to a whole new level, and when it works it will work great for moderate use in a small company, but as you get larger you'll outgrow it. Also: if your ISP goes under and you need to source a new T1 provider, it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to three months to get Verizon's ass in gear to actually run the cables.
Remember: in computers it all comes down to picking the right tool to fix a problem. AJAX is being touted by some as the BFH for all problems, and there is danger that AJAX will gain a bad rep like Flash has when people turn to it for everything.
Great uses for AJAX which immediately come to mind (getting the two best-known ones out of the way first):
Email clients
Mapping
Content Management System administration
Messageboards
Database administration (think phpMyAdmin on steroids
System administration (think Webmin on steroids)
webhost file management
CRM systems
e-Commerce storefronts
Online banking
Knowledgebase systems
Things I expect AJAX would suck for:
Office suites
MOST desktop app solutions
Anything the web isn't ideal for
In conclusion, IMHO, pretty much anything with dynamic content for which the web is currently the ideal interface for is an ideal problem for AJAX to solve, and anything not currently on the web (e.g., Office suites in particular) is something that AJAX is the wrong tool for. If you think I have Microsoft's hosted Office solution in mind with this post, you're right.
Note that I am not even taking into account things like handling of confidential data and the obvious security risks, but I took it for granted that most here are sensible enough to see those problems up front.
It would be really scummy of them to do since they proposed c# to be an open standard from the beginning. I don't think Microsoft would even attempt to take action against Mono or any other C# implementation because of all of the negative PR it would generate not to mention the potential legal issues.
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NoNoNo, I have a better idea! They had to smack the probe around a few times to bring it into line. How about calling it the Tomagothi?
I've always thought that a tiny padlock in the status bar is not enough visual indication for the average user, so it's about time someone comes up with something better. Microsoft has a great idea here, but I don't think a simple color change is good enough. There should be textual feedback. Now, if they were to use the status bar more effectively (such as "SSL Encrypted via Verisign") with color differentiation, they'd really be onto something. A simple color shift? I'd bet that the average Joe Sixpack will say "ooooh, purty" and be totally unaware that he's submitting his credit card to a Nigerian scammer.
Regarding removal of SSL: WHY? A self-issued certificate is perfectly good for corporate email sites and things like that. If the system is flawed, address the flaws, but don't throw out an entire legacy system which is still in widespread use. But then by that logic, that is also how Windows came to inherit all of the security flaws it has now, I suppose.
In a related story, Sony DRM defeats Sony's efforts to gain good PR and convince the public that DRM is a good thing.
When asked for comment, Sony execs replied "Fair Use? HA! All of our customers are crooks. They have no legitimate reason to rip CDs to MP3s. Our wildly successful ATRAC players proved that consumers prefer closed, DRM-enhanced formats rather than open standards like MP3."
A known script kiddie was asked for comment on IRC channel "l337_haxx0r5" - he remarked "Sony DRM is teh r0xx0r5!!!11!! It's gr8! Thx 2 them I have 3000 z0mb135!!11!!!"
Actually I don't remember mentioning it on here before, coward, aside from my profile.
Hi Jamie, Adam, etc.
I'd love to see the HAARP death ray and underground surveillance conspiracy theories/myths debunked once and for all.
Thanks!
This is true only if your engine is pinging/knocking without the octane booster, or if your ECM is detecting engine knock and retarding the timing or enriching the fuel mixture too much to compensate. Generally only an issue on supercharged or high compression engines, or engines with carbon buildup, a lot of wear, or running a very advanced timing curve. Lean-burn engines and higher-temperature engines may incur this as well.
Otherwise, higher octane is a waste.
2) Fluride being bad for you (suspected myth)
/. yesterday or the day before).
Brushing your teeth with it and spitting most of it out? Not terribly bad for you.
Making a meal of flouride toothpaste? Yes, you can ingest too much flouride. Florine is poisonous, as are chlorine and dihydrogen monoxide in excessive amounts.
4) Homeopathy (Suspected myth)
Homeopathy as in using herbal remedies as medicines because the chemical reactions can cure some illnesses? Not a myth - where do you think most prescription medicines come from? Herbal extracts. Why do you think pharmaceutical companies are now attempting to patent herbal remedies? What about medical studies proving ginger is better at treating motion sickness than Rx medications (referenced in this very thread earlier, in fact)? What about coca leaves and poppy seeds being great painkillers, and coca leaves being great appetite suppressants? What about willow extracts being a great pain reliever (aka asprin)? Black Cohosh being a great treatment for menopausal symptoms without nasty side effects of horse urine extracts? Garlic being antibiotic and antiviral? Herbal remedies and a proper diet obviously affect your overall health and can help boost your immune system, and modern medicine is beginning to recognize ages-old remedies and pharmaceutical companies are scared and are trying to patent them (see
Homeopathy as in "energy" manipulation (toss Reiki, etc. in here while you're at it)? Tiny amounts of an herb changing your chi or yin/yang balance or whatever? Holding a certain kind of crystal balancing the same? Obviously bunk.
I shouldn't be feeding a troll, but here goes:
/. because it's oh-so-funny to post "OMG U R GAY LOLOLROFL!!!111!!!" rather than sticking to the issue at hand.
From IMDB on Jamie:
Jamie is happily married, and has said that he is very proud of his wife!
From IMDB on Adam:
Spouse
Julia (2003 - present) 2 children
You could have gone to IMDB to check it out, gone to the Mythbusters' home page on Discovery's site and done some reading to get the exact same info -- or you could post flamebait on
Actually I figured that years ago - the reason is: would a corporation seeking to avoid CAFE levees design the aerodynamics of a truck to divert airflow in such a way that fuel economy will be fine when the tailgate is closed, or would they design the aerodynamics without taking the tailgate into account, causing customers to leave the tailgate open and let it bounce (and eventually come off on some bumpy road because the safety cables or levers are usually fairly flimsy)?
Of course they assume a closed tailgate (since they recommend never leaving it open) and want to do anything they can to avoid lowering their corporate average fuel economy rating (CAFE) when they design the vehicle, then they can avoid the $600-or-so per-vehicle fine because they've sought to keep their average fuel economy up.
Also: if they didn't take the tailgate into account when designing the truck, performance would absolutely suck on the highway. Hell, I've noticed the slight drag from the pop-up headlights on my ZR-1 (Corvette) at extreme speeds, and the drag from the aerodynamic popup headlights is minimal compared to the effects introduced by a large rectangular sail on a truck would be if the engineers didn't take it into account during the design and windtunnel testing process.
You get a really nifty (nifty as in piece of shiat) SMTP and POP server with Windows, along with IIS. Do they count?
Seriously though I think that the poster has Windows Server, Windows Small Business Server, and Windows Server + SQL Server confused.
Windows Server does not come with SQL Server.
Small Business Server Premium does, but that version of SQL Server does not scale and cannot be clustered (or, at least older versions cannot). Also in SBS the database size is limited, and the Exchange Information Store is limited to 16GB, PLUS you cannot have more than one information store on SBS. It's intended for very small businesses and very light use. If you run any kind of load at all against Windows SBS, performance will be lackluster, to put it politely.
You're missing the key element of "time" because in business time is money. If your time is worth anything, then TCO is not zero.
;)
Of course, there is the possibility that you consider your time to be of no worth, which is something that I am not in a position to disagree with.
Seriously though, TCO is different from up-front purchase cost in that it counts labor costs, maintenance/support costs, downtime (scheduled and otherwise - although Microsoft's TCO studies do not take "scheduled maintenance" downtime periods into account as they do not consider scheduled maintenance to be downtime) and so forth.
That is not true of ANY Linux distribution.
/linux_x86-32.3.0.1sr/src/linux
/srv, var/*, /etc, and /home. Why? Because I haven't bothered with checkinstall to track manually-installed packages to allow for easy removal. Why haven't I bothered with that? Because it's so darn easy to back up important data and restore to a new distribution and not have to spend an entire day tracking down dependencies and conflicts. I may start working with checkinstall at some point to avoid that issue but so far it hasn't been too much of a problem.
circa 2009:
Want to run the Linux 3.0.1 kernel on your SuSE Enterprise Linux 9.1 even though the subscription has run out?
wget ftp://kernel.org/pub/linux_x86-32.3.0.1.tgz
gunzip linux_x86-32.3.0.1.tgz
tar xvf linux_x86-32.3.0.1.tgz
ln -s
then config, make, etc.
Want to run php 7.5.6 in that timeframe? Do the same. Download the package, compile it, install it.
I know someone who bought RedHat in 1997 and even after hardware upgrades, have never upgraded the distribution to a newer one - they've been updating the individual packages as needed, the install has been moved from hard drive to hard drive, and yet it bears no reasonable resemblance to any current distribution, nor to RedHat (5, I think?).
Me? I upgrade workstations - that is, wipe, and cleanly install new distro versions after archiving
Servers? I leave them alone and patch/upgrade individual packages as needed. If it's serving up, say, phpnuke and works, and has the latest php/apache/module/etc. patches, why upgrade? If the threading scheduler in the kernel is improved then of course I'd have to upgrade the kernel, but why would it have to be upgraded to SuSE Enterprise Linux 18 in five years if that particular server is still doing its job? So far Linux downtime on servers has been limited to extended power outages (e.g., snowstorms, hurricane remnants, building maintenance) and hardware changes, whereas Windows server uptime averages two weeks or so, mainly due to patches requiring reboots. Yes, I've had to `/etc/initd/apache reload` a few times for patches but that is still no downtime.
There is nothing wrong with the cellphone provider. They tested the market and found they can sell ringtones to lazy customers for $2.49 per download.
There IS something wrong with the incredibly lazy slobs who pay that much for a ringtone.
Place the blame where it belongs. Seriously. Anyone who bothers to RTFM will learn that they have options which not only let them put any old MP3 or MIDI file on their phone as a ringtone, but will enable them to download pictures from the phone for free as well. In the event that a phone is locked (e.g., you bought from Verizon) you can usually work past that.
Oh come on, the poster was obviously making a funny and not attempting to troll. Mod that coward up! :)
When did GaAs or GaAn become equivalent to Si?
. htm
From http://www.mtmi.vu.lt/pfk/funkc_dariniai/diod/led
he radiative recombination of electron-hole pairs can be used for the generation of electromagnetic radiation by the electric current in a p-n junction. This effect is called electroluminescence. In a forward-biased p-n junction fabricated from a direct band gap material, such as GaAs or GaN, the recombination of the electron-hole pairs injected into the depletion region causes the emission of electromagnetic radiation. Such a device is called a Light Emitting Diode (LED). If mirrors are provided (usually by cleaved crystallographic surfaces of the semiconductor) and the concentration of the electron hole pairs (called the injection level) exceeds some critical value, this device may function as a semiconductor laser that emits a coherent electromagnetic radiation with all photons in phase with each other. LEDs fabricated from different semiconductors cover a broad range of wavelengths, from infrared to ultraviolet.
The electrical conductivity of a semiconductor can be increased by adding doping elements, or small percentages of impurity elements, to the semiconductor. The presence of the small traces of impurity elements can yield extra charge carriers which are free to move through the material.
In the compound gallium arsenide, each gallium atom has three electrons in its outermost shell of electrons and each arsenic atom has five. This gives an average of four electrons per atom in the compound. When a trace of an impurity element with two outer electrons, such as zinc, is added to the crystal, the result is the shortage of one electron from one of the pairs. This shortage sets up an imbalance in which there is a place in the crystal for an electron but there is no electron available. This is commonly called a "hole." This forms the so-called p-type semiconductor in which the conduction of electricity is by motion of the hole from one atom to another.
Before OOo 1.9.x (2.0 beta) your flamebait would have been correct - pre-Office-1.9.x I held a similar opinion, although I'd have used a word rhyming with "spit" to describe OOo.
But: OOo 2.0 is quite good. Really. Better than Office 2000 in some(many( ways, and lacking only an email client. Unfortunately there are some severe I/O bottlenecks but most users would never encounter them. DBMS integration is better - you can pull data in QUITE easily - more easily than you can in M$ Office. Drag and drop from any supported data source to where you want the data. A novice can draw data in from a database and put the data to actual use.
Spreadsheet formatting is excellent.
Is it as pretty as Office 2003? No. Does it look as nice as the next version of Office (2006? 2007?) No, it looks better - it looks like an office suite and looks like a productivity app, not some second-rate GUI-designed-by-four-year-olds-wielding-crayolas bargain-bin program.
Yes, it is absolutely important to have the ability to be told "It's a hardware problem call Dell" or "you need to talk to Dell, your OEM" by Microsoft.
(disclaimer: this is a weak attempt at a funny, not a troll. Read at own risk. Batteries not included. If swallowed induce vomiting and contact your nearest poison control center. No warranty expressed or implied. These limitations may not apply to you depending on the laws in your state. etc.)
The market is small because there are few HDTV devices. Well, few for less than $1,500.
There are few sub-$1,500 HDTV devices because the market is small. Well, few PC and few portable devices. It's a catch-22 situation.
HDTV is not growing because of product availability. Product availability is not growing because HDTV really isn't here yet in full force. Repeat et al, reworded in many different ways, it's still the same darn situation.
Actually, I can't find ANY portable HDTV receivers - and yes, I've looked. All portables I can find are still analog.
Oh, and the last time I checked, the HDTV Wonder card is not the subject of this review, and totally ignores the question I asked, which is:
Why the hell are TV tuner (and related product) manufacturers still actively designing and producing analog-only products?
Why can I not get an HDTV version of the AiW card (not that I want another ATI product, but that's beside the point)? Reminder (again) for the people who don't read: the HDTV wonder card is not an AiW card. It is a discrete (separate) tuner card.
Will it run Linux, or will I be just as screwed on it as I've been with the ATI-TV (ISA), AiW 128 Pro, AiW 7500, AiW8500DV? I'm sure it runs great on Windows, which is great and all, only I want to punt Windows from my system and not have a dual-boot configuration.
Also what is up with offering only analog/NTSC reception on this side of the pond? NTSC broadcasts are supposedly dying soon, so why don't they offer HDTV-capable cards yet? They advertise high-definition output, which is just wonderful, but what's so great about an upsampled NTSC picture?
For what it's worth, I think payola is going to die.
No, really. With the media consolidation what's to stop Sony, Capitol, etc. from buying up the radio stations? No payola necessary. The "DJ" (well. teleprompter reader really) will play the queued music from the satellite feed and announce them with a smile, or not keep his job. No payoffs required once the media consolidation process is complete.
There will still be an independent station here and there, but how much would you want to bet that the RIAA and Artist Rights Enforcement Corporation won't raise the licensing fees to air major labels' material once the consolidation of mainstream stations is complete?
By the RIAA logic, folks who engage in file sharing are also doing nothing wrong. After all, they are not distributing for a fee, no physical property is stolen, and many users are unaware that most artists only receive a very, very tiny percentage of each CD or tape sale (usually $.30 or less per unit). So, because the average Joe is REALLY hurting the average artist with each MP3 download, but doing so UNKNOWINGLY, due to his misguided idea that the artist is getting $11 out of each $17 CD sold, then of course the average Joe is innocent of wrongdoing.
Hey if that kind of logic (feigned ignorance) works for the RIAA, it ought to work for file sharers as well.
This is why unless a REALLY compelling release comes out (e.g., Pink Floyd, Weird Al) I don't buy RIAA material - not even from so-called "independent" labes which are really just shell companies owned by RIAA labels. Heck, I haven't even bought Roger Waters' "Ca Ira" because it is a Sony/BMG release in the states. Instead, I am looking for an overseas source for it - legit or otherwise, and I emailed Sony as such.
Pharmaceutical companies only care about your health. Natural remedies are eeeevil and bad for you. Patented synthetic drugs made from extracts of those natural remedies are good. That which cannot be patented is bad! Don't you love the anti-herbal campaigns run by pharmaceutical companies, and now that there are medical studies which prove that at least some ages-old remedies actually work, they are now racing to patent them?
Of course, if they can succeed in patenting things such as garlic, orange juice, cranberry juice, ecchinacea, and other foods which can cure some sicknesses that patented remedies can only control the symptoms of, and if they can patent herbs like St. John's Wort, Black cohosh, etc. then you will see pharmaceutical companies singing the praises of such things like revolutionary new cures for the cold, treatment of certain depressions for which prozac etc. are overkill, and black cohosh rather than conjugated horse urine for treatment of menopausal symptoms, all without negative side effects when taken in moderate amounts. You'll see herbal remedies and certain foods rise in prices and only be legally distributed by a certified/licenses pharmacist.
Or perhaps I am just cynical. I'm sure they really do have the public good in mind, right? Right? I mean, certainly drugs which treat depression "but can cause heart failure certain individuals" or "can result in liver failure in certain individuals" and drugs which can control blood pressure "but side effects include glaucoma" is a good thing because they are patentable and real treatments of the cause of problems rather than controlling symptoms is bad for business.
I'm all for patents for protecting legitimate inventions, but companies have gone too far with patents, and with the USPTO simply rubber-stamping every application to come through the door and leaving it up to the courts to sort out the mess, who wants to do business here in the US any more?
What's up with patenting software? That is what copyright is for. You're fully protected, and you can trademark certain aspects of the look and feel of an app. Patents are not required. Besides, since the 1950s there has been plenty of prior art which should rule most software patents invalid anyhow. Heck, hypertext in its purest form has been around since analog computers, and prior to that in paper books.
What's up with patenting the human genome? They innovated NOTHING. The human genome is either the product of billions of years of pure chance and accident, or the result of a design by "GOD" and there is nothing genetics companies are designing in the process, aside from designing the process and devices to actually map and manipulate the genome. Those processes and devices are certainly patentable, but the genome ought not to be as there is billions (or thousands, let's not get into that flame war, I'm including both theories here to avoid flamefests) of years' worth of prior art demonstrating that those companies have produced zilch.
Am I veering off topic here? Not really, I'm just drawing some related (and unrelated) examples of how ridiculous the patent process has become, due in part to the employeee productivity quotas set at the USPTO, and due in part to laziness.
A few years ago it was more difficult to obtain patent protection. A friend of mine invented a product related to automobiles and the USPTO rejected it because the clerk who received the application did not believe the invention would perform as claimed (since when is that the acid test for a patent?). The USPTO demanded that he produce other designs to prove that certain other things would not peform the intended function. He did so, persisted, and nearly $30K worth of prototypes later (not a lot of money for a large corp, but for a small self-funded proprietor it's a huge chunk of change) and independent testing labs proved his claim, they finally granted the patent. The clerk was certainly on his toes, but was a little too aggressive in enforcing the patent process, beca
What is better for identifying an item as yours? A tiny serial number laser-etched somewhere inconspicuous, or a huge lemur on the case that is not easily scratched out? It'd be cool if Apple were to see this and offer custom laser etchings on all of their notebooks.
AJAX (or reasonable fascimiles) are definitely here to stay (see gmail, google maps, OWA), but much like Flash, it will be overused at first without thinking of the ramifications.
Companies looking to lower deployment costs may look to hosted Microsoft Office, hosted email (I know this is old hat but I'm talking corporate email which is usually internal), hosted database apps, and so forth.
Then when something happens - e.g., when it dawns on them that they've now outgrown the T1 and now need a DS-3 just to run Office, or their ISP goes under or simply doesn't give a hoot when your connection breaks, or a pole gets hit by a truck and Verizon takes a week to get out to fix it and your company comes to a HALT because you've decided to host your whole enterprise with Microsoft, you'll realize just what a bad idea hosted apps are. Remember ASPs and why they didn't work for most services?
Microsoft is proposing that the ASP model be taken to a whole new level, and when it works it will work great for moderate use in a small company, but as you get larger you'll outgrow it. Also: if your ISP goes under and you need to source a new T1 provider, it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to three months to get Verizon's ass in gear to actually run the cables.
Remember: in computers it all comes down to picking the right tool to fix a problem. AJAX is being touted by some as the BFH for all problems, and there is danger that AJAX will gain a bad rep like Flash has when people turn to it for everything.
Great uses for AJAX which immediately come to mind (getting the two best-known ones out of the way first):
- Email clients
- Mapping
- Content Management System administration
- Messageboards
- Database administration (think phpMyAdmin on steroids
- System administration (think Webmin on steroids)
- webhost file management
- CRM systems
- e-Commerce storefronts
- Online banking
- Knowledgebase systems
Things I expect AJAX would suck for:In conclusion, IMHO, pretty much anything with dynamic content for which the web is currently the ideal interface for is an ideal problem for AJAX to solve, and anything not currently on the web (e.g., Office suites in particular) is something that AJAX is the wrong tool for. If you think I have Microsoft's hosted Office solution in mind with this post, you're right.
Note that I am not even taking into account things like handling of confidential data and the obvious security risks, but I took it for granted that most here are sensible enough to see those problems up front.
It would be really scummy of them to do since they proposed c# to be an open standard from the beginning. I don't think Microsoft would even attempt to take action against Mono or any other C# implementation because of all of the negative PR it would generate not to mention the potential legal issues.