So will PS1/PS2 European games play on a US PS3? How about if I make it easier will PS1/PS2 American games play on a European PS1/PS2 or vice-versa? I highly doubt it unless you chip it since these games as are region encoded. By providing software to read PS1 and PS2 games it may (guessing here) be possible that the regional encoding of PS1/PS2 games is ignored, so this would be a good selling point for the PS3 but could open up a can of worms in litigation.
What I would be interested in is what PS1/PS2 games don't play or play well on the European/Australian PS3 since there is no list to date. Still even if say 80-90% (my guess) of games work if your favourate games don't work then you are going to be disappointed so I would suggest to those people that they hang onto their old PS2 which is still supported and does make an excellent gaming machine for the kids room or connected via a switch box to your main TV.
In some ways this could be a good thing and lead to reductions in the price of the PS3 in the fairly foreseeable future although for a first release this will not happen. An additional plus will be an overall reduction in power consumption for the PS3 since software will be used replace chips which do require cooling, which will result in even quieter running.
I don't think Microsoft is scared of VMware or even Xen. If you are going to run a MS OS on your machine you are required to pay for the MS OS license, however you had better read the Vista licenses first before you do this since some of the "cheaper" licenses forbid you from vitalization. Of course this is not going to stop your pirate but commercial companies had better watch out.
I do think that Microsoft is scared of vitalization becoming more popular on Linux, Solaris and the commercial Unix's to the extent that the MS OS becomes redundant. Of course applications do play an important part of the decision making here, however many organisations are now starting to question vendor lock-in and this is going to hurt Microsoft over time.
While serious vitalization is great for sand-boxing and testing environments you are going to require much more powerful machines which means multi CPU's with lots of memory and of course this is great from a hardware sellers perspective. If you are running MS Vista you really should be thinking of 2GB and up if you are serious about vitalization. For Linux and Solaris you can normally get away with 50% less. Again this depends on your requirements (does the Homework, Homework,.... dance).
Vitalization is useful for certain things but in a commercial production environment it gets quite embarrassing when a critical component fails and all your virtual machines crash. Crashes like this can cost millions of dollars for every hour they are down in some environments. Sometimes many stand alone or clustered machines are more appropriate even though they are more expensive then one humongous machine with many virtual OS's.
There are machines with host swappable critical components such as memory and CPU as well as the more mundane parts such as disks (very high up-time guaranteed) but these machines are very expensive. For some organizations (eg. Banks) this is the price of doing reliable business. The more reliable a machine is the more it costs and the reliability/cost graph is more exponential than linear.
Of course for home use if you want vitalization then go for it and have fun doing it. Even 512MB single CPU machines will work although overall performance will be down but this depends on what you are doing with the virtual machine(s).
The problem here is what install mechanism is best? What works well for one may not be good enough or flexible enough for others. As many are aware there are many Linux distributions and each one has its installers that have their own advantages and disadvantages. I have always said that Mac's are excellent application machines while MS Windows is more general purpose (this is not to say this is best) because that is what most developers support, however Linux distributions give the user IMHO a greater degree of flexibility and freedom.
Personally I like Fedora Core 6 and find the "yum" (this does download rpm packages) facility excellent in that you can access the main FC6 repos with a simple "yum update" command or if you need to install something (providing the repo has it) with "yum install package_name" with "package_name' being the package name you want (wild cards accepted). Of course RTFM does still apply, but for those that don't like the command line you can easily use the graphical interface to yum which allows you to use drag and drop.
There are other sites (livna comes to mind) that have separate repos which can be very useful so you can specifically target that repo instead of going though all repos with "yum install --enablerepo=livna package_name". If I put on extra repos I normally prevent them from being used by default unless I explicitly require them. Again you have great flexibility and control but it is slightly more complex.
With yum I can install or update thousands of packages and yum will find the dependencies for me and install them appropriately. This is very important to me if I install a new kernel since I have a Nvidia graphical card that requires updates tailor-made for the kernel version and the command "yum update --enablerepo=livna nvida*" does this.
Still what works for me may not work for you, since I am very comfortable with the command line and I don't mind the odd Google search or RTFM if I find a problem. I also consider my machine every bit as functional (probably more so IMHO) as a Mac or MS Windows machine.
All Graphical Linux distributions usually make Gnome or KDE the default desktop although if you have only a small amount of memory then FVWM is a great solution. Personally I prefer KDE over Gnome but I always suggest to new users to try both and see which one they like and I always setup a graphical Linux machine with both so they can make the choice before they login. So far both my wife and sons prefer KDE but Gnome is there if they want it. At work I have colleagues who prefer Gnome over KDE and I am happy with that as well.
Personally I would never like to see one window (session) manager dominate to the extent that all others die off. The whole concept of Linux/Unix is freedom of choice and that is why I will not push one windowing solution over another unless there are special hardware circumstances.
When using any graphical interface it is very important you know how to get back to first principles and that means telling users if they really have a stuffed up their display manager then the best solution is to rename your ".gnome" or ".kde" directory and log back in again. Unfortunately you have to configure again but at least you start with something sane. This equally applies to any configuration file or directory although I do agree it can be a pain. What I try to do is instill in the user a sense of control by explaining how they can save their good configuration so they fiddle while being able to quickly restore their good configuration if everything goes pear shaped. I normally explain how the user can copy using either the command line or the file-manager, however I leave the choice to them.
Any company that controls the manufacturing process (Sony) can eventually reduce the total cost of production of the product and benefit from this reduction in its entirety. If you have to buy from a manufacturer you need volume orders to cut down the cost and it is debatable that when the manufacturing costs are eventually reduced that the total reduction will be passed in its entirety to the company (Microsoft and Nintendo) who orders the product.
Working out the cost of product is very difficult considering the chain of the production processes and unless the company is fully up-front with all over costs all the so called informed people are just guessing although you can make reasonable guesses concerning a company that orders it's product from other manufacturing companies.
For a company like Sony the initial setup is the major cost but once you get your production line going the all up cost is not that much but getting this information which is normally "top secret" is very difficult so anyone for industrial espionage.
A simple example: A fab plant for the cell chip is approx US$5M to US$10M but producing the chip would cost between US$10 and US$30 each so reducing from 90nm to 45nm would result in chips of a few dollars and when you look at volume quantities you are going to save 10's of millions a year on the production of that item.
MS Windows Vista seems to a case of trying to reinvent the wheel and getting it horribly wrong because they do not want to be accused of copying the *nix methodology because of their "not invented here" ideology.
In any Unix/Linux setup the user nearly always has the option of installing and running their own applications without the need for the System Admin. In fact when a user runs an application it nearly always runs user the user's name and their privileges so if the user runs malware they are normally the only ones affected.
My son uses my new laptop that has Fedora Core 6 on it and wanted to install Glam so he could contact his friends. He did not know Glam was already installed under a different name so he got the rpm and installed it under his home directory and was able to chat on-line. I was quite impressed that he did what he did since he does not have much Linux experience. In addition he put the game Guild Wars on and runs it under Wine, again from his home directory. I have setup all members of my family with their own accounts and they have full control of their own directories and cannot interfere with other accounts.
Like it or not any Operating system is quite complex and dumbing down the interface so we can call it "The total user experience" is going cause problems because and I will quote you on this "Vista cries wolf so often that when the real wolves show up, I'd be surprised if any user, newbie or guru, listens".
With regard to having a cheap burner well you really have to look at what people have to backup today (if they even backup) and like the floppy disk the DVD will start heading down that path. Try to backup 300GB with standard DVD's (dual layer, + or - it does not matter) You are going to need a alot of DVD's to do one full backup. If you are going to get a burner that will backup a reasonable amount of data you will normally go for the one that can store the most and that at the moment is Bluray.
Even using a dual layer Bluray burner (cost is on par with DVD burners in the late 1990's) you will still need at least 6 disks to backup 300GB and that is just if you have one 300GB drive and considering 1TB disks are nearly here then even a Bluray disk is too small. In reality Bluray and HD-DVD are aimed at he HDTV market whereas DVD's are still aimed at the SDTV market which won't disappear anytime soon. My guess is 3 to 6 years before you will see significant trends, however given that you can get 81cm (32in) HDTV (720p with HDMI) for under AU$1000 (US$780) which makes owning a HDTV very attractive. Smaller sets are even cheaper.
You could try HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) but currently the burners and disks make the price of a Bluray burner and disks look like a bargain. I am aware of backing up to other hard disks but does fire, flood and theft to name a few mean anything?
Design by committee means more features that no one actually needs or even wants except for that one person we like to keep locked in his room because he might scare the neighbours.
From the Article "I've left out all manner of obvious circumvention techniques such as burning to CD or recording an audio stream, since those are not true cracks". Well it may not be a true crack in the Authors eyes but it still effectively gets around any DRM because if you can see or hear something then that something can easily be copied to a distributable media that is effectively DRM free. This is very simple to do although it may be slightly inconvenient and you will most likely loose some quality depending on your recording equipment.
The only way DRM can work is if every consumer is forced to have a special DRM chip in their head and it would be interesting or horrifying to see if the consumer would accept this blindly or fight against it.
When I put FC6 on my 64 bit dual core AMD laptop it came standard with Firefox 1.5 while OpenSUSE (put this on my son's PC) came with Firefox 2. To upgrade to version 2 was fairly easy since all I had to do was download the rpm then remove version 1.5 then install the rpm. Firefox 2 seems to work well and I can even install global or personal plug-ins. I have a 64 bit processor and most of my apps are 64 bits (including Firefox) have to use nspluginwrapper to add 32 bit plug-ins because some vendors (cough Flash) have not got a 64 bit addition, however once "wrapped" it works.
I am not sure if Firefox 2 is vulnerable since I have not seen any alerts.
> Because the vast majority of file managers need one. HTTP servers need one. Browser plug-ins need one. Programs like ffmpeg need one. etc.
That is only true in MS Windows OS's and some other non *nix OS's. All Linux/Unix OS's have a file called/etc/magic that allows any *nix application to determine what the file type is. While it is possible to setup *nix file managers to look at extensions it is rather pointless if the "magic" file is properly configured although the user can do what they feel comfortable with. Back in the late 1970's I actually used the ".doc" and ".text" extensions for textual documents. Where extensions are used extensively in *nix is in programming (LaTeX/TeX also do this and there are others) because this is an acceptable convention and enables the programmer or user to distinguish between different files without the need for a file manager.
In reality MS OS's have too much dependence on extensions that are a carry over from the DOS days. Unfortunately this dependency makes programs that are written for MS Windows require an extension and this usually carries over to *nix systems when porting is required.
If what Google did is deemed illegal in the eyes of the law then at least the people who are involved in this should be held accountable and prosecuted, but this type of thing may be just standard (well maybe a little suspicious) business practice and nothing can be done unless the courts say otherwise.
The problem here may be a form of ethics. It may not be illegal but it definitely puts the party in a bad light. All companies will try to do the best for said company even if it means bending the law slightly. As long as they bend but don't break the law they are operating legally but their reputation may be taken down a peg or two in the eyes of the public. How much a company bends the law depends on how much of their credibility they are willing to loose if what they are doing becomes public.
If this was Microsoft the law would scrutinise this in much more detail because if you are a Monopoly and Microsoft is, then the law can be harsher on them compared to a non monopolistic company like Google.
Please don't take this as an apology for Google. As far as I am concerned if someone in that company did something illegal then they should be prosecuted and if that means the credibility of the company drops then so be it.
In Nvidia's defence they do seem to be providing excellent Linux support and if you use yum then definitely use the "livna" repo all the latest Nvidia 32 bit and 64 bit drivers are there. Before you do check the forums out first.
On my new 64 bit laptop which has a Nvidia card graphic card, the graphics worked straight up from the CD install although I did have to do a little reading to get the 3D support working. In fact I initially found that 64 bit drivers were rather rare but that has improved in the last month so just about everything on my laptop works except for my Broadcom Wireless network (32 bit drivers) but that is a low priority at the moment since I don't require it yet, however I do know there is a work around which I used for the some 32 bit Firefox add-ons such as Flash.
For 32 bit drivers and software here is a tool called "ndiswrapper" that enables you to get around the issue but you should look at the forums for more details. In fairness I am quite sure MS Windows Vista forums can help with 32 bit driver issues on 64 bit machines but I personally have no interest since I can do everything I want and more with FC6 and it costs me nothing except a little reading.
On a feel good note. I was trying to burn an iso last night and realised I did not have any DVD burning software (my initial oversight) so I did a quick Google and as root I ran "yum install gnomebaker*" (this is the one I chose there are others). Within 15 minutes I was burning my iso. My son who was watching was very surprised how quick and easy this was, so much so he has asked me to install FC6 or OpenSUSE (another story) on his PC. It must be noted that "yum" works straight off unless you are going through a firewall or you need to change your repository. Not difficult but you do need to read the manual.
I am on my second PS2 since my first PS2 was accidentally tripped over by my wife (don't ask!) just after the console warranty had expired. I did manage to get it to continue working for another six months but one day it just died (DVD failed). I still have my next PS2 and it still works well (almost 5 years) but this time I got a wireless controller so the console is not on the floor for anyone to trip over. My original PS1 (9 years) still works since I opened it up and cleaned it and put a lite coating of silicon grease on the rails.
All manufacturers do statistical research on how long a product will last and will give an appropriate warranty (normally 1 year). Anything that is mechanical will wear out but knowing how long is very important. While a product may have some failures in it's first year this is normally within acceptable limits for the manufacturer to fix free of charge and is factored into the price accordingly. After the warranty expires on a product the manufacturer is legally entitled to wash his hands of any claims, however some manufactures will extend this since it is called "good will" (or 'PR") and makes the company look good. This is a factored into the price as well. Of course how long the manufacturer can continue to support something that is out of warranty is up to them and the profitability of that item.
If you as the purchaser can maintain your purchase then that product can last a very long time, however if that product is abused (kids are good at this although I don know some adults that are worse) it won't last long and manufacturers do take this into account as well.
While the Wii is making a small profit per machine which IMHO is great for Nintendo it is going to interesting to see how many games for this machine do well. I think games like the traditional ones such as Mario, Zelda and Metroid (to name a few) will sell well with gamers but what games will casual gamers buy? Also if games remain at a premium price for a long time (take a look at Gamecube games) then this will turn off casual gamers from buying many new games although exceptional games will always do well. No matter how much you dislike Microsoft the catch cry of "Developers, Developers...." is even more important in today's economic climate and all companies are doing the best that they can to encourage this.
You are right people do buy a game machine to play games but people also buy machines like the Xbox360 and PS3 to not only play games but act as a central entertainment hub for movies and other services as well. Basically as more an more HDTV's are purchased then you are going to see a huge revolution in the living room and Microsoft and Sony are both fighting for a piece of the action, because it is worth billions.
If you get a BD or HD-DVD player you can still play standard DVD's and CD's on them. These new media players are aimed at High definition displays and while the market for HD is still small at the moment it is rapidly increasing due to falling prices of LCD and plasma screens and this means that people who purchase HDTV's will want HD players and recorders as well. Typical supply and demand although there will be a great deal of market push.
15 million PSP's is not bad when you consider that the Gamecube and the Xbox were about 20 million over their life which was relatively short compared to the PS2 and while Microsoft lost about $5 billion, Nintendo made a nice profit. So far the PSP is making a profit.
As far as being happy with DVD's well you can easily put a 2 hour SD movie on a single sided disk but try and backup a 300GB disk drive and you start getting to the same problem people had with floppies. I will admit even a 50GB Blueray disk is not satisfactory but at the moment super DLT tapes or even HVD's are not cheap and that does not count the recorder. This is going to be a huge problem especially if you want to future proof your backups (ie. off-site backups), but this is a topic for a future debate.
The actual name is "Digital Versatile Disc" but it abbreviates to DVD. Now if we abbreviate "Blu-Ray Disk" we actually get BD which is also used (see some of the fine print on some Blue-Ray capable devices) which is one letter less so it really depends on what abbreviation you like to roll off your tongue. In reality the Blue-Ray format is supported by many other consortium's (Sony just being one). In just about all industries abbreviations are used and the one with the least number of letters or at least a catchy set of letters is best remembered.
As for Sony's Memory-Stick many devices do support it as they do SD (normally the cheapest), CF, MMC and XD. Now SACD I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SACD.
UMD is a Sony proprietary disk which is quite successful for PSP games. This disk (not the format) is actually a spin off from the mini-disk which is still sold today and is relatively cheap and robust (due to it's protective sleeve) when compared against other media.
As for the Betamax, VHS war well I suggest reading about it since the one with the greatest initial capacity won even though the looser was actually the better format.
Canada is not the only country were "Adult Content" (politically correct definition for porn) is being provided by Telecoms. It is being done in Australia and New Zealand as well and is projected by management to rake in billions of dollars. The important thing from a political perspective is for the politicians to say to the the voters that we are protecting the children by making sure they cannot download anything that may upset them even though they may "borrow" dad's mobile. Of course this does not stop a kid from sneaking a peek at dad's porno (err "Adult Content") magazine.
Not sure about the UK and the USA but I would not be surprised if this is being implemented as well (probably by stealth) because the Telecoms that are over here are global corporations.
From the little I have gleaned from the non Slash-dotted sites it appear that they have a installer that runs under MS Windows that allows you to install their Linux distro be it Ubuntu or Debian (correct me if I am wrong). In principle this sounds great then I ask myself why?
If Linux evangelists want people to move to a Linux OS then you don't want a MS Windows installer you really want a proper Linux installer other wise you are just saying that Linux is a poor cousin to MS Windows and I can assure you that the majority of potential users who do this will eventually go back to MS Windows and usually with a bad feeling to Linux.
I think that a person who is interested in using Linux really needs to use a live CD/DVD first and then if they are interested they go ahead (get some help if possible) and create a dual boot and play with Linux some more. In fact dual booting is not a real solution either because users will eventually fall back to MS Windows because it is too easy to backslide. It is very important if you are trying to convince friends that if they are serious they must switch to a Linux only PC although let them play with a few distros before that and they need to get educated in basic security and System Admin practices.
Before anyone replies and says "What about games" (you can use Wine but you won't have the latest games), "What about MS tools" (I thought the idea was to get away from MS tools), "What about 'insert your excuse here'". The counter to all of these starts with the potential Linux user knowing what they really want to do with Linux. If they are not willing to give up their MS Windows solutions then let them continue down that path because you are wasting your time. This is especially true in a Business environment since Managers are very conservative and the only way to get Linux adopted in the workplace is when the order comes down as a very courageous decision from the top. Oh watch the fun then.
I am quite sure there are Consultants who have gone down the path of trying to introduce a Linux solution who have been shot down by Managers who don't want to learn something new and bring up a myriad of reasons (some may be valid but most aren't) why the business cannot switch. In a situation like this all the Consultant can do is walk away.
In keeping with what I have just said my new Laptop is running only on Fedora Core 6 (no dual boot) and I am using Firefox 2 to post this article. My son even put his legit copy of Guild Wars on it under Wine and it works.
Of course in Unix/Linux there are two types of links one is a hard link and the other a soft link and have been around in Unix since the early 1970's. There is another type of link that is called a context dependent symbolic link (Tru64 Unix or OSF1) which is a way of assigning a directory or file to a specific cluster member. Very useful in a clustered file-system since each cluster member may need its own log and configuration files or even specific directory that has identical names to those used by the other cluster members.
I have always been amazed that Microsoft only used a "shortcut" (IMHO a depreciated soft link) but maybe they have only just got around to rummaging through the University rubbish bin used by Unix people. Of course after reading the article on BlueJ (see http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/27/14 7243) I would not be surprised if they patent it.
> Start by convincing your friend to buy MS free computers
This can be quite difficult and can limit your friend's choice. Unfortunately in the majority of cases you will have to install the Linux OS for them or better still get them to do the install with you advising them and jotting down notes for them, When you are finished the basic install you should get them to do it again which is great for a simple disaster recovery exercise and gives your friend a good deal of confidence. It is even more fun if you can get a group of friends to do this.
In principle putting Linux on a PC is an excellent way of reducing malware on the Internet however it must be remembered that the people who get problems are normally computer illiterate and treat a computer like a commodity item that to them is an interactive TV. You don't have to be a Unix/Linux guru to install and maintain Linux software but you do have to be prepared to learn and one of the major learning areas is security and basic system administration. Unix/Linux does force you to do some learning and this is its major strength and its weakness. It is possible to get worms and other malware on *nix machines but being aware of this and how to combat them reduces the risk. Again a little knowledge and a willingness to learn goes a long way. I have personally found that most people can easily learn to work under Linux however you do need to be able to motivate them.
To gently force people to learn how to work under Linux, you need to only install Linux on the PC and this means no dual booting because I can guarantee that the user of the machine will backslide to a Microsoft OS. What about "games" I hear you say well there is Wine and other emulation software as well as consoles (sorry could not resist) that can help but the reality is you won't be able to run the latest Microsoft OS compatible games. Of course if Game Manufactures (they go were the money is and at the moment it is Microsoft) become aware of more and more Linux users then you will see games that will run natively under Linux. It is happening but slowly.
Microsoft may have popularised the Internet but they glossed over the fact that you as the user need to do some learning and this is the major reason why we have malware on the Internet.
You are right just because a PC ships without an OS does not mean it is Linux, Free BSD or even MS Windows compatible although I have a sneaking suspicion that if you pay (win win for Microsoft and vendor) for an OEM version of Windows XP it will work. If you are going to put a Linux distro on it you had better do your homework first (you should do it anyway) otherwise it is going to cost you.
Actually I thought Microsoft had some sort of deal with PC vendors in that they had to ship all PC's with a working OS. Of course they would love it if they could have forced "a working OS" to be "the latest Microsoft working OS" which is what the majority of PC's ship with anyway.
I live in Australia and will have to wait till March before the PAL variant comes out although most HD and SD TV's sold today can do NTSC and PAL. Even when the machine comes out I will not get it unless there is at least three or more games that I really want and since I like RPG's and Action Adventure there is little chance of that before late this year. I have looked at the Wii and except for Zelda I am not that interested. The Xbox360, well it is Microsoft but again there are very few games for it that interest me.
To me the PS3 delay is a plus because I am looking at buying a large screen HDTV late this year and if the Wii (plenty are on the shelves over here) and the Xbox360 deals are anything to go by I can score a high end PS3 plus HDTV and Sound system at a good discount and yes stores will do this, however you have to do your homework and be prepared to wait. I have plenty of excellent PS2 games and many more coming that will tide me over till late this year so I am not in any hurry.
With regard to your HDTV at 480p and 1080i, IMHO you got ripped off. The 480p is NTSC which is standard definition and the 1080i is what it can take but it will still scale down to 480p although the picture will be nicer than if was a basic SDTV (if your picture resolution is 720x480 it really is an SDTV). I have a so called HDTV (glass picture tube) with a refresh rate of 100Hz that can do 480i (NTSC), 576i (PAL), 720i and 1080i and it was marketed as HD ready although the picture is much much better than any SDTV at 50Hz, in fact my PS2 and Gamecube produce an excellent picture.
All true HDTV's are 720 (low end 1280x720) to 1080 (high end 1920x1080) and preferably progressive scan (the "p"). I know some so called HDTV's have a resolution of 1024x1024 but basically they are 720p if they have progressive scan. Take a look at the following URL for a good intro to HDTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_telev ision In fact DON'T buy a HDTV until you have read this and done some additional homework. A good rule of thumb is 720p is fine for 100cm (40in) and below but greater than 100cm try to get one at 1080p if your budget can afford it.
Just out of curiosity people writing from the US are saying they see many PS3 sitting on shelves. Maybe stores in the US have a policy of putting full boxes on display but all the stores I have seen in Australia and in Asia display empty boxes which are only for display purposes and the real stock is out the back where it is secure. Has anyone asked if those boxes are full or just for display?
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> If you can show me a Red-Coat that was alive in 1861, I'll gladly shoot his ass for messing with the US!
Boy those Brits sure have alot to answer for I never new they were behind the American Civil War.
So will PS1/PS2 European games play on a US PS3? How about if I make it easier will PS1/PS2 American games play on a European PS1/PS2 or vice-versa? I highly doubt it unless you chip it since these games as are region encoded. By providing software to read PS1 and PS2 games it may (guessing here) be possible that the regional encoding of PS1/PS2 games is ignored, so this would be a good selling point for the PS3 but could open up a can of worms in litigation.
What I would be interested in is what PS1/PS2 games don't play or play well on the European/Australian PS3 since there is no list to date. Still even if say 80-90% (my guess) of games work if your favourate games don't work then you are going to be disappointed so I would suggest to those people that they hang onto their old PS2 which is still supported and does make an excellent gaming machine for the kids room or connected via a switch box to your main TV.
In some ways this could be a good thing and lead to reductions in the price of the PS3 in the fairly foreseeable future although for a first release this will not happen. An additional plus will be an overall reduction in power consumption for the PS3 since software will be used replace chips which do require cooling, which will result in even quieter running.
I don't think Microsoft is scared of VMware or even Xen. If you are going to run a MS OS on your machine you are required to pay for the MS OS license, however you had better read the Vista licenses first before you do this since some of the "cheaper" licenses forbid you from vitalization. Of course this is not going to stop your pirate but commercial companies had better watch out.
I do think that Microsoft is scared of vitalization becoming more popular on Linux, Solaris and the commercial Unix's to the extent that the MS OS becomes redundant. Of course applications do play an important part of the decision making here, however many organisations are now starting to question vendor lock-in and this is going to hurt Microsoft over time.
While serious vitalization is great for sand-boxing and testing environments you are going to require much more powerful machines which means multi CPU's with lots of memory and of course this is great from a hardware sellers perspective. If you are running MS Vista you really should be thinking of 2GB and up if you are serious about vitalization. For Linux and Solaris you can normally get away with 50% less. Again this depends on your requirements (does the Homework, Homework,.... dance).
Vitalization is useful for certain things but in a commercial production environment it gets quite embarrassing when a critical component fails and all your virtual machines crash. Crashes like this can cost millions of dollars for every hour they are down in some environments. Sometimes many stand alone or clustered machines are more appropriate even though they are more expensive then one humongous machine with many virtual OS's.
There are machines with host swappable critical components such as memory and CPU as well as the more mundane parts such as disks (very high up-time guaranteed) but these machines are very expensive. For some organizations (eg. Banks) this is the price of doing reliable business. The more reliable a machine is the more it costs and the reliability/cost graph is more exponential than linear.
Of course for home use if you want vitalization then go for it and have fun doing it. Even 512MB single CPU machines will work although overall performance will be down but this depends on what you are doing with the virtual machine(s).
The problem here is what install mechanism is best? What works well for one may not be good enough or flexible enough for others. As many are aware there are many Linux distributions and each one has its installers that have their own advantages and disadvantages. I have always said that Mac's are excellent application machines while MS Windows is more general purpose (this is not to say this is best) because that is what most developers support, however Linux distributions give the user IMHO a greater degree of flexibility and freedom.
Personally I like Fedora Core 6 and find the "yum" (this does download rpm packages) facility excellent in that you can access the main FC6 repos with a simple "yum update" command or if you need to install something (providing the repo has it) with "yum install package_name" with "package_name' being the package name you want (wild cards accepted). Of course RTFM does still apply, but for those that don't like the command line you can easily use the graphical interface to yum which allows you to use drag and drop.
There are other sites (livna comes to mind) that have separate repos which can be very useful so you can specifically target that repo instead of going though all repos with "yum install --enablerepo=livna package_name". If I put on extra repos I normally prevent them from being used by default unless I explicitly require them. Again you have great flexibility and control but it is slightly more complex.
With yum I can install or update thousands of packages and yum will find the dependencies for me and install them appropriately. This is very important to me if I install a new kernel since I have a Nvidia graphical card that requires updates tailor-made for the kernel version and the command "yum update --enablerepo=livna nvida*" does this.
Still what works for me may not work for you, since I am very comfortable with the command line and I don't mind the odd Google search or RTFM if I find a problem. I also consider my machine every bit as functional (probably more so IMHO) as a Mac or MS Windows machine.
All Graphical Linux distributions usually make Gnome or KDE the default desktop although if you have only a small amount of memory then FVWM is a great solution. Personally I prefer KDE over Gnome but I always suggest to new users to try both and see which one they like and I always setup a graphical Linux machine with both so they can make the choice before they login. So far both my wife and sons prefer KDE but Gnome is there if they want it. At work I have colleagues who prefer Gnome over KDE and I am happy with that as well.
Personally I would never like to see one window (session) manager dominate to the extent that all others die off. The whole concept of Linux/Unix is freedom of choice and that is why I will not push one windowing solution over another unless there are special hardware circumstances.
When using any graphical interface it is very important you know how to get back to first principles and that means telling users if they really have a stuffed up their display manager then the best solution is to rename your ".gnome" or ".kde" directory and log back in again. Unfortunately you have to configure again but at least you start with something sane. This equally applies to any configuration file or directory although I do agree it can be a pain. What I try to do is instill in the user a sense of control by explaining how they can save their good configuration so they fiddle while being able to quickly restore their good configuration if everything goes pear shaped. I normally explain how the user can copy using either the command line or the file-manager, however I leave the choice to them.
Any company that controls the manufacturing process (Sony) can eventually reduce the total cost of production of the product and benefit from this reduction in its entirety. If you have to buy from a manufacturer you need volume orders to cut down the cost and it is debatable that when the manufacturing costs are eventually reduced that the total reduction will be passed in its entirety to the company (Microsoft and Nintendo) who orders the product.
Working out the cost of product is very difficult considering the chain of the production processes and unless the company is fully up-front with all over costs all the so called informed people are just guessing although you can make reasonable guesses concerning a company that orders it's product from other manufacturing companies.
For a company like Sony the initial setup is the major cost but once you get your production line going the all up cost is not that much but getting this information which is normally "top secret" is very difficult so anyone for industrial espionage.
A simple example: A fab plant for the cell chip is approx US$5M to US$10M but producing the chip would cost between US$10 and US$30 each so reducing from 90nm to 45nm would result in chips of a few dollars and when you look at volume quantities you are going to save 10's of millions a year on the production of that item.
Excellent post.
MS Windows Vista seems to a case of trying to reinvent the wheel and getting it horribly wrong because they do not want to be accused of copying the *nix methodology because of their "not invented here" ideology.
In any Unix/Linux setup the user nearly always has the option of installing and running their own applications without the need for the System Admin. In fact when a user runs an application it nearly always runs user the user's name and their privileges so if the user runs malware they are normally the only ones affected.
My son uses my new laptop that has Fedora Core 6 on it and wanted to install Glam so he could contact his friends. He did not know Glam was already installed under a different name so he got the rpm and installed it under his home directory and was able to chat on-line. I was quite impressed that he did what he did since he does not have much Linux experience. In addition he put the game Guild Wars on and runs it under Wine, again from his home directory. I have setup all members of my family with their own accounts and they have full control of their own directories and cannot interfere with other accounts.
Like it or not any Operating system is quite complex and dumbing down the interface so we can call it "The total user experience" is going cause problems because and I will quote you on this "Vista cries wolf so often that when the real wolves show up, I'd be surprised if any user, newbie or guru, listens".
With regard to having a cheap burner well you really have to look at what people have to backup today (if they even backup) and like the floppy disk the DVD will start heading down that path. Try to backup 300GB with standard DVD's (dual layer, + or - it does not matter) You are going to need a alot of DVD's to do one full backup. If you are going to get a burner that will backup a reasonable amount of data you will normally go for the one that can store the most and that at the moment is Bluray.
Even using a dual layer Bluray burner (cost is on par with DVD burners in the late 1990's) you will still need at least 6 disks to backup 300GB and that is just if you have one 300GB drive and considering 1TB disks are nearly here then even a Bluray disk is too small. In reality Bluray and HD-DVD are aimed at he HDTV market whereas DVD's are still aimed at the SDTV market which won't disappear anytime soon. My guess is 3 to 6 years before you will see significant trends, however given that you can get 81cm (32in) HDTV (720p with HDMI) for under AU$1000 (US$780) which makes owning a HDTV very attractive. Smaller sets are even cheaper.
You could try HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) but currently the burners and disks make the price of a Bluray burner and disks look like a bargain. I am aware of backing up to other hard disks but does fire, flood and theft to name a few mean anything?
Design by committee means more features that no one actually needs or even wants except for that one person we like to keep locked in his room because he might scare the neighbours.
From the Article "I've left out all manner of obvious circumvention techniques such as burning to CD or recording an audio stream, since those are not true cracks". Well it may not be a true crack in the Authors eyes but it still effectively gets around any DRM because if you can see or hear something then that something can easily be copied to a distributable media that is effectively DRM free. This is very simple to do although it may be slightly inconvenient and you will most likely loose some quality depending on your recording equipment.
The only way DRM can work is if every consumer is forced to have a special DRM chip in their head and it would be interesting or horrifying to see if the consumer would accept this blindly or fight against it.
When I put FC6 on my 64 bit dual core AMD laptop it came standard with Firefox 1.5 while OpenSUSE (put this on my son's PC) came with Firefox 2. To upgrade to version 2 was fairly easy since all I had to do was download the rpm then remove version 1.5 then install the rpm. Firefox 2 seems to work well and I can even install global or personal plug-ins. I have a 64 bit processor and most of my apps are 64 bits (including Firefox) have to use nspluginwrapper to add 32 bit plug-ins because some vendors (cough Flash) have not got a 64 bit addition, however once "wrapped" it works.
I am not sure if Firefox 2 is vulnerable since I have not seen any alerts.
> Because the vast majority of file managers need one. HTTP servers need one. Browser plug-ins need one. Programs like ffmpeg need one. etc.
/etc/magic that allows any *nix application to determine what the file type is. While it is possible to setup *nix file managers to look at extensions it is rather pointless if the "magic" file is properly configured although the user can do what they feel comfortable with. Back in the late 1970's I actually used the ".doc" and ".text" extensions for textual documents. Where extensions are used extensively in *nix is in programming (LaTeX/TeX also do this and there are others) because this is an acceptable convention and enables the programmer or user to distinguish between different files without the need for a file manager.
That is only true in MS Windows OS's and some other non *nix OS's. All Linux/Unix OS's have a file called
In reality MS OS's have too much dependence on extensions that are a carry over from the DOS days. Unfortunately this dependency makes programs that are written for MS Windows require an extension and this usually carries over to *nix systems when porting is required.
If what Google did is deemed illegal in the eyes of the law then at least the people who are involved in this should be held accountable and prosecuted, but this type of thing may be just standard (well maybe a little suspicious) business practice and nothing can be done unless the courts say otherwise.
The problem here may be a form of ethics. It may not be illegal but it definitely puts the party in a bad light. All companies will try to do the best for said company even if it means bending the law slightly. As long as they bend but don't break the law they are operating legally but their reputation may be taken down a peg or two in the eyes of the public. How much a company bends the law depends on how much of their credibility they are willing to loose if what they are doing becomes public.
If this was Microsoft the law would scrutinise this in much more detail because if you are a Monopoly and Microsoft is, then the law can be harsher on them compared to a non monopolistic company like Google.
Please don't take this as an apology for Google. As far as I am concerned if someone in that company did something illegal then they should be prosecuted and if that means the credibility of the company drops then so be it.
It is really quite difficult to program a ham sandwich into MS Vista and trying to prevent it from getting rather smelly and stale. Those refresh routines must be very complex. http://news.com.com/5208-1032_3-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=16504&messageID=142375&start=-1.
In Nvidia's defence they do seem to be providing excellent Linux support and if you use yum then definitely use the "livna" repo all the latest Nvidia 32 bit and 64 bit drivers are there. Before you do check the forums out first.
On my new 64 bit laptop which has a Nvidia card graphic card, the graphics worked straight up from the CD install although I did have to do a little reading to get the 3D support working. In fact I initially found that 64 bit drivers were rather rare but that has improved in the last month so just about everything on my laptop works except for my Broadcom Wireless network (32 bit drivers) but that is a low priority at the moment since I don't require it yet, however I do know there is a work around which I used for the some 32 bit Firefox add-ons such as Flash.
For 32 bit drivers and software here is a tool called "ndiswrapper" that enables you to get around the issue but you should look at the forums for more details. In fairness I am quite sure MS Windows Vista forums can help with 32 bit driver issues on 64 bit machines but I personally have no interest since I can do everything I want and more with FC6 and it costs me nothing except a little reading.
On a feel good note. I was trying to burn an iso last night and realised I did not have any DVD burning software (my initial oversight) so I did a quick Google and as root I ran "yum install gnomebaker*" (this is the one I chose there are others). Within 15 minutes I was burning my iso. My son who was watching was very surprised how quick and easy this was, so much so he has asked me to install FC6 or OpenSUSE (another story) on his PC. It must be noted that "yum" works straight off unless you are going through a firewall or you need to change your repository. Not difficult but you do need to read the manual.
I am on my second PS2 since my first PS2 was accidentally tripped over by my wife (don't ask!) just after the console warranty had expired. I did manage to get it to continue working for another six months but one day it just died (DVD failed). I still have my next PS2 and it still works well (almost 5 years) but this time I got a wireless controller so the console is not on the floor for anyone to trip over. My original PS1 (9 years) still works since I opened it up and cleaned it and put a lite coating of silicon grease on the rails.
All manufacturers do statistical research on how long a product will last and will give an appropriate warranty (normally 1 year). Anything that is mechanical will wear out but knowing how long is very important. While a product may have some failures in it's first year this is normally within acceptable limits for the manufacturer to fix free of charge and is factored into the price accordingly. After the warranty expires on a product the manufacturer is legally entitled to wash his hands of any claims, however some manufactures will extend this since it is called "good will" (or 'PR") and makes the company look good. This is a factored into the price as well. Of course how long the manufacturer can continue to support something that is out of warranty is up to them and the profitability of that item.
If you as the purchaser can maintain your purchase then that product can last a very long time, however if that product is abused (kids are good at this although I don know some adults that are worse) it won't last long and manufacturers do take this into account as well.
While the Wii is making a small profit per machine which IMHO is great for Nintendo it is going to interesting to see how many games for this machine do well. I think games like the traditional ones such as Mario, Zelda and Metroid (to name a few) will sell well with gamers but what games will casual gamers buy? Also if games remain at a premium price for a long time (take a look at Gamecube games) then this will turn off casual gamers from buying many new games although exceptional games will always do well. No matter how much you dislike Microsoft the catch cry of "Developers, Developers ...." is even more important in today's economic climate and all companies are doing the best that they can to encourage this.
You are right people do buy a game machine to play games but people also buy machines like the Xbox360 and PS3 to not only play games but act as a central entertainment hub for movies and other services as well. Basically as more an more HDTV's are purchased then you are going to see a huge revolution in the living room and Microsoft and Sony are both fighting for a piece of the action, because it is worth billions.
If you get a BD or HD-DVD player you can still play standard DVD's and CD's on them. These new media players are aimed at High definition displays and while the market for HD is still small at the moment it is rapidly increasing due to falling prices of LCD and plasma screens and this means that people who purchase HDTV's will want HD players and recorders as well. Typical supply and demand although there will be a great deal of market push.
15 million PSP's is not bad when you consider that the Gamecube and the Xbox were about 20 million over their life which was relatively short compared to the PS2 and while Microsoft lost about $5 billion, Nintendo made a nice profit. So far the PSP is making a profit.
As far as being happy with DVD's well you can easily put a 2 hour SD movie on a single sided disk but try and backup a 300GB disk drive and you start getting to the same problem people had with floppies. I will admit even a 50GB Blueray disk is not satisfactory but at the moment super DLT tapes or even HVD's are not cheap and that does not count the recorder. This is going to be a huge problem especially if you want to future proof your backups (ie. off-site backups), but this is a topic for a future debate.
The actual name is "Digital Versatile Disc" but it abbreviates to DVD. Now if we abbreviate "Blu-Ray Disk" we actually get BD which is also used (see some of the fine print on some Blue-Ray capable devices) which is one letter less so it really depends on what abbreviation you like to roll off your tongue. In reality the Blue-Ray format is supported by many other consortium's (Sony just being one). In just about all industries abbreviations are used and the one with the least number of letters or at least a catchy set of letters is best remembered.
As for Sony's Memory-Stick many devices do support it as they do SD (normally the cheapest), CF, MMC and XD. Now SACD I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SACD.
UMD is a Sony proprietary disk which is quite successful for PSP games. This disk (not the format) is actually a spin off from the mini-disk which is still sold today and is relatively cheap and robust (due to it's protective sleeve) when compared against other media.
As for the Betamax, VHS war well I suggest reading about it since the one with the greatest initial capacity won even though the looser was actually the better format.
Canada is not the only country were "Adult Content" (politically correct definition for porn) is being provided by Telecoms. It is being done in Australia and New Zealand as well and is projected by management to rake in billions of dollars. The important thing from a political perspective is for the politicians to say to the the voters that we are protecting the children by making sure they cannot download anything that may upset them even though they may "borrow" dad's mobile. Of course this does not stop a kid from sneaking a peek at dad's porno (err "Adult Content") magazine.
Not sure about the UK and the USA but I would not be surprised if this is being implemented as well (probably by stealth) because the Telecoms that are over here are global corporations.
From the little I have gleaned from the non Slash-dotted sites it appear that they have a installer that runs under MS Windows that allows you to install their Linux distro be it Ubuntu or Debian (correct me if I am wrong). In principle this sounds great then I ask myself why?
If Linux evangelists want people to move to a Linux OS then you don't want a MS Windows installer you really want a proper Linux installer other wise you are just saying that Linux is a poor cousin to MS Windows and I can assure you that the majority of potential users who do this will eventually go back to MS Windows and usually with a bad feeling to Linux.
I think that a person who is interested in using Linux really needs to use a live CD/DVD first and then if they are interested they go ahead (get some help if possible) and create a dual boot and play with Linux some more. In fact dual booting is not a real solution either because users will eventually fall back to MS Windows because it is too easy to backslide. It is very important if you are trying to convince friends that if they are serious they must switch to a Linux only PC although let them play with a few distros before that and they need to get educated in basic security and System Admin practices.
Before anyone replies and says "What about games" (you can use Wine but you won't have the latest games), "What about MS tools" (I thought the idea was to get away from MS tools), "What about 'insert your excuse here'". The counter to all of these starts with the potential Linux user knowing what they really want to do with Linux. If they are not willing to give up their MS Windows solutions then let them continue down that path because you are wasting your time. This is especially true in a Business environment since Managers are very conservative and the only way to get Linux adopted in the workplace is when the order comes down as a very courageous decision from the top. Oh watch the fun then.
I am quite sure there are Consultants who have gone down the path of trying to introduce a Linux solution who have been shot down by Managers who don't want to learn something new and bring up a myriad of reasons (some may be valid but most aren't) why the business cannot switch. In a situation like this all the Consultant can do is walk away.
In keeping with what I have just said my new Laptop is running only on Fedora Core 6 (no dual boot) and I am using Firefox 2 to post this article. My son even put his legit copy of Guild Wars on it under Wine and it works.
Of course in Unix/Linux there are two types of links one is a hard link and the other a soft link and have been around in Unix since the early 1970's. There is another type of link that is called a context dependent symbolic link (Tru64 Unix or OSF1) which is a way of assigning a directory or file to a specific cluster member. Very useful in a clustered file-system since each cluster member may need its own log and configuration files or even specific directory that has identical names to those used by the other cluster members.
4 7243) I would not be surprised if they patent it.
I have always been amazed that Microsoft only used a "shortcut" (IMHO a depreciated soft link) but maybe they have only just got around to rummaging through the University rubbish bin used by Unix people. Of course after reading the article on BlueJ (see http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/27/1
> Start by convincing your friend to buy MS free computers
This can be quite difficult and can limit your friend's choice. Unfortunately in the majority of cases you will have to install the Linux OS for them or better still get them to do the install with you advising them and jotting down notes for them, When you are finished the basic install you should get them to do it again which is great for a simple disaster recovery exercise and gives your friend a good deal of confidence. It is even more fun if you can get a group of friends to do this.
In principle putting Linux on a PC is an excellent way of reducing malware on the Internet however it must be remembered that the people who get problems are normally computer illiterate and treat a computer like a commodity item that to them is an interactive TV. You don't have to be a Unix/Linux guru to install and maintain Linux software but you do have to be prepared to learn and one of the major learning areas is security and basic system administration. Unix/Linux does force you to do some learning and this is its major strength and its weakness. It is possible to get worms and other malware on *nix machines but being aware of this and how to combat them reduces the risk. Again a little knowledge and a willingness to learn goes a long way. I have personally found that most people can easily learn to work under Linux however you do need to be able to motivate them.
To gently force people to learn how to work under Linux, you need to only install Linux on the PC and this means no dual booting because I can guarantee that the user of the machine will backslide to a Microsoft OS. What about "games" I hear you say well there is Wine and other emulation software as well as consoles (sorry could not resist) that can help but the reality is you won't be able to run the latest Microsoft OS compatible games. Of course if Game Manufactures (they go were the money is and at the moment it is Microsoft) become aware of more and more Linux users then you will see games that will run natively under Linux. It is happening but slowly.
Microsoft may have popularised the Internet but they glossed over the fact that you as the user need to do some learning and this is the major reason why we have malware on the Internet.
You are right just because a PC ships without an OS does not mean it is Linux, Free BSD or even MS Windows compatible although I have a sneaking suspicion that if you pay (win win for Microsoft and vendor) for an OEM version of Windows XP it will work. If you are going to put a Linux distro on it you had better do your homework first (you should do it anyway) otherwise it is going to cost you.
Actually I thought Microsoft had some sort of deal with PC vendors in that they had to ship all PC's with a working OS. Of course they would love it if they could have forced "a working OS" to be "the latest Microsoft working OS" which is what the majority of PC's ship with anyway.
I live in Australia and will have to wait till March before the PAL variant comes out although most HD and SD TV's sold today can do NTSC and PAL. Even when the machine comes out I will not get it unless there is at least three or more games that I really want and since I like RPG's and Action Adventure there is little chance of that before late this year. I have looked at the Wii and except for Zelda I am not that interested. The Xbox360, well it is Microsoft but again there are very few games for it that interest me.
v ision In fact DON'T buy a HDTV until you have read this and done some additional homework. A good rule of thumb is 720p is fine for 100cm (40in) and below but greater than 100cm try to get one at 1080p if your budget can afford it.
To me the PS3 delay is a plus because I am looking at buying a large screen HDTV late this year and if the Wii (plenty are on the shelves over here) and the Xbox360 deals are anything to go by I can score a high end PS3 plus HDTV and Sound system at a good discount and yes stores will do this, however you have to do your homework and be prepared to wait. I have plenty of excellent PS2 games and many more coming that will tide me over till late this year so I am not in any hurry.
With regard to your HDTV at 480p and 1080i, IMHO you got ripped off. The 480p is NTSC which is standard definition and the 1080i is what it can take but it will still scale down to 480p although the picture will be nicer than if was a basic SDTV (if your picture resolution is 720x480 it really is an SDTV). I have a so called HDTV (glass picture tube) with a refresh rate of 100Hz that can do 480i (NTSC), 576i (PAL), 720i and 1080i and it was marketed as HD ready although the picture is much much better than any SDTV at 50Hz, in fact my PS2 and Gamecube produce an excellent picture.
All true HDTV's are 720 (low end 1280x720) to 1080 (high end 1920x1080) and preferably progressive scan (the "p"). I know some so called HDTV's have a resolution of 1024x1024 but basically they are 720p if they have progressive scan. Take a look at the following URL for a good intro to HDTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_tele
Just out of curiosity people writing from the US are saying they see many PS3 sitting on shelves. Maybe stores in the US have a policy of putting full boxes on display but all the stores I have seen in Australia and in Asia display empty boxes which are only for display purposes and the real stock is out the back where it is secure. Has anyone asked if those boxes are full or just for display?