Agree - but my point was that you can do much of your packet management via a network.
I get the fact that you will do security updates on Windows via the net as you will on Linux and that that will require some bandwidth (not a lot and probably less for Linux based my experience and depending on how much software you have installed) But I doubt that most windows users will be downloading and installing things like Office Suites / Web browsers / Image manipulation applications / operating system upgrades (not incremental updates like service packs but actual Upgrades) Via the net, most of that will come on media.
What about taking it further to other stuff like pulling down server systems via the net - I have never heard of anyone downloading *legit* versions of Exchange or SQL Server etc.. for windows, but I know quite a few people who will download and install Apache, MYSql, Postfix or Hula / Cyrus (whatever you want) for Linux. I know that wont be the case for 100% of computer users but it is something that is made more difficult for dial up users. So there is a bit of a difference.
The OP implied that Linux support for dialup internet connections was dicey, Im not sure he did, but he might have.
(I don't know about Linux dial-up internet providers....)
Depends on how you read it (setting Up dial up / getting dial up for Linux rather than windows (I know there is no difference but GP may not) / Linux using dial up)- but I thought I addressed all the points - His point was that Linux is *good* for broadband users and he's unsure about dial up. I tend to agree. I think Linux is great for Broadband users, and that Dial up users lose out on some of the experience - although that doesn't imply its unusable or even worse than the competition when you only have dial up. I'm not trying to be an arse I just think the moron comment was harsh and maybe unwarranted.
Actually he had a point if you are going to update your OS in any meaningful way (say a dist upgrade) or use whatever the Ubuntu front end for apt is. I know I wouldn't be half as happy using Debian on a dial up connection just from a getting new software and updates / upgrades point of view. I know there are alternatives but it is one of the great features of the whole Linux thing just to install software on demand from a centralised packet manager.
As far as setting up a dial up connection within Ubuntu, I assume its as easy as it is in any other distro if you are using a desktop environment, and shouldn't pose any major problems (some modems aside).
As such your comment may have been a tad harsh. - note I am not referring to you as a moron - simply putting my view across. Thanks
The point is that I was talking about IA64 but maybe should have clarified. I was thinking of servers as the story is about Xeons.... The fastest non server processors I or my company currently have on the inventory are only AMD Athlon 2400+'s and I cant see why any company that is not doing any massively intensive tasks (i.e. not normal office type usage) needs the latest kit as there is simply no benefit in paying for it. I cannot imagine what I would do with a bleeding edge 64-bit processor on a desktop (then again I cant see the need for anything more than about a 20Gb Hard Disk in a corporate Desktop either so...). Maybe that's because we are a server centric company but that's also what I see with most of our clients, why spend twice as much on technology you don't need!!!! (Not saying you wont need it in the future but I don't get early adoption at the prices involved - especially on the desktop (although anyone looking to upgrade to Vista may be excused). It would seem better to put that extra cash into some extra RAM...). But then we can only advise not force people to behave in a sensible manner.
The reason for my previous post was the fact that there are now a huge number of different processor's (by model) and at least two (three if you are not bound to windows) manufacturers. Which in turn really means that there is a lot of choice and much heavy competition to get you to adopt one or the other. The background is that when speccing up for a number of projects fairly recently (2 internal and one external); Working on required performance / cost / reliability / HW support we ended up with UltraSparc T1's In house (we can justify not being able to run Windows Server natively on the boxes as we don't anywhere else (and I should point out we are a Sun Advantage Partner...) And Anyway I like Purple) and P4's for the customer. T
Basically we looked at:
AMD64 Opterons in Sun X4100 servers Itanium 2's in Dell PowerEdge 3250 Servers P4's in Dell PowerEdge 1850 Servers UltraSparc T1's in Sun T1000 / T2000 Servers And a few others from Sun Microsystems, Dell & HP
And As I said the client ended up with the bog standard Dell's. The wide evaluation and quoting on our part was mainly because whilst their procurement team stating they; "needed the latest technology, preferably 64 bit Multiprocessor 1U servers from a good brand like HP or Dell" for their (single internal Apache) web server (with 120 clients, maybe 60 Concurrent connections at peak...), as they would fit in with their other kit (mostly rented and 3-5 year old HP Kit) and would meet their policy of only buying "future proof technology". They didn't want to pay the premium, in fact they decided that the 3% price difference between HP kit that would at least allow them to stay 100% HP (with all the benefits it brings) was too much. They certainly didn't need the performance of a top end bleeding edge server. As far as Operating systems are concerned they initially requested Windows Server 2003 as the base for their Apache Server, (And since there are Itanium versions of that particular OS out there it didn't seem a problem) but ended up with Debian (not even going to go into the versatility of Debian where architecture is concerned..!).
---
PS: Grammar / Spelling / Content Nazis - Please excuse the above as I was very tired, I did try hard not to make it illegible though. - And where I say Debian I obviously mean Debian GNU/Linux. (Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds)
Now I have no preference in the whole AMD vs Intel debate, I just use whatever seems to give me the most value for money / required performance. I am currently using AMD chips in kit 4 years old or younger and Intel chips in some of my older hardware, and haven't yet even looked at AMD64 or IA64 chips). but it is really good to see some serious competition between two industry giants. Long live the competition, its better for the consumer.
So that will make it legal to burn any media to CD/DVD as you are paying the copyright holder?.... Does this mean you can circumvent any DRM or other technical measures to protect the material on other media / files to burn them since you have paid this tax?.... Do I get tax back if I end up burning a coaster?.... Can you easily get tax back if its material you own the copyright to that you are burning?.... Does this include Software products and movie DVD rips and if so are you going to have to tell the media supplier what you intend to make copies of?....
Thought Not.
More accurate question might be:
Is this yet another revenue stream (on top of all the others) for someone somewhere who feels that their profits are not what they could be, and another kick to the teeth of fair use (If that exists in Spain)?
Yes.
Either prosecute people for copyright infringement (regardless how insane the laws surrounding that are) or leave the blank media alone. - By the way shouldn't the tax be on paper not Printers? after all the paper is the media. Mobile phones? Are they going to pay the copyright holders of the text messages I receive too?
If this is true then this is madness, and needs to be challenged before it spreads.
Regardless of how secure your storage medium is you are going to want a copy somewhere that is up to date and that you are not going to lose (after all losing your USB key may not expose your data to others but it will make it unavailable to you). That's without going into the likelihood that when you need access to your data on that USB key the PC you have access to wont have USB or it will be disabled...
Moving on; Synchronising data may be is fairly trivial now, so having multiple secure copies of your data shouldn't be too hard, I keep all my important contact data and quite a bit of my data on my PDA as well as on my Desktop giving me access to it anywhere. But that combination of up to date and secure data storage that is accessible may be beyond quite a few novice users.
In conclusion having access to data anywhere via the web is a good idea, however if it is a pay per use system, or if you need to use the web applications of a single vendor to access or modify it it becomes less useful. I would find a service that simply acts as remote storage quite useful, if it could be used as a storage medium for many other web based applications and could be synced with my PDA and desktop - AND was accessed in a secure manner (ssh tunnel or whatever) encrypted by me (not the provider). In short I would like a number of services that interoperated securely and offered some degree of flexibility. Sadly I assume we are going to see a collection of companies providing a set of incompatible services and applications that will be quite costly, in order to recreate the lock in that has served Microsoft so well over the last few years.
I am not really bothered at the prospect of my freenode nick or password being available to someone else. Mainly as its hardly going to do any lasting damage to me other than potentially being a little annoying. The only problem I see is that someone could theoretically impersonate me and make me look like a bit of a git, but that should be easily remedied over a short amount of time. Plus unless these username / password combinations are posted publicly and no one changes their passwords its unlikely to happen given the number of users... Oh and anyone using an important password with their freenode account probably needs a wakeup call anyway
It might be a bigger problem if this happened here on slashdot (someone gathering email addresses or similar would have a decent mailing list to sell - with a fairly specific target audience... but then I use a public mail address here anyway so it might actually imporve the quality of spam I get...) and it would be a catastrophe if it would have been a finance related system or similar.
On the other hand it sounds from the summary and the blog thats linked that the break of a single username / password combo from remote was the root cause of this breach. If I am accurate in my understanding and that is really the case then we need to take a long hard look at how we can change that. You should not be able to compromise a system from remote with a single set of credentials regardless of how non-sensitive (insensitive?) the system is.
But then I'd like to see more details about what happened, when it happened (if it really happened?) what was exposed (or could have been exposed) during the attack before I take too hard a line either way.
Microsoft looks like it could be getting into bed with Yahoo (to compete with Google apparently) whilst adding technology that mimics PDF functionality (XPS the XML Paper Standard (that competes with Adobe)) into the core of its next OS. Now Adobe gets into bed with the company that is giving Microsoft a headache over search and online applications. This could be a very clear case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend....
Hmmmm, This is either simply Google bidding the most for their tool bar to be bundled with some very widely used software, or the battle lines within the IT sector are getting a little more defined.
Personally I would prefer to be able to download and install an application that does whatever the job is I want doing; without installing any other "useful" application's - regardless of which "well selected" partner it comes from. However from a non technical perspective this may well become interesting.
Now to me it is starting to look as though Microsoft are feeling less in control of their ability to "lock" users to their software. This appears to be the reason for the plethora of new proprietary file formats that they can force into the main stream with Vista. It will be interesting to see if there is any fight against the formats or if the rest of the software industry will carry out its own embrace and extend exercise... After all this time round they are not providing "new" functionality but rather revamping existing standards and encroaching on other companies areas of expertise.
Google should add a decent dedicated document search feature that is purely an index of ODF, PDF, Rich/Plain Text etc.. and exclude XPS until it sees mainstream use at least, and offer links to - the original document - html version - adobe acrobat / open office. Im not certain if Adobe will or even should, but I would also like to see adobe and open office support the XPS standard for reading, if not necessarily for export.
Of all the features that I have seen or heard of that are supposed to be in the final incarnation of vista I cannot find one that is not either 1) a tweak, 2) something already available in either Mac OS or Linux or 3) A fix of something that is broken in XP. In short Vista is not at this point coming across as innovative. Actually if I think about it it appears that its Microsoft playing catch up.
Even Aero isn't innovative, I've been playing with Sun Microsystem's Project Looking glass and whilst it doesn't do a lot for me (it makes my laptop an interesting talking point when giving presentations....) and it feels like something dumped on top of the OS to make it look like a major change.
I cannot see corporate users migrating to Vista for any real reason, even the "new" security model isn't going to be a winner there as it will break any application that through lack of proper design requires admin rights (and there are a few out there).
As for it being the biggest change since the 3.11/95 upgrade Im confused how you could even relate the two. Windows 95 was a totally different user experience from Windows 3.x. This isn't. If you look at the last real upgrades for home users (excluding DOS and whatever interface was thrown over it (buttons for DOS anyone?) it was windows 3.11 to 95 for a huge difference in usability, 95 to 98 for a massive boost to hardware support and management (in my opinion anyway) and then 98 to XP for the benefits of NT (After all I don't know many home users who got their hands on 2000 and I discount ME as it was appalling...).
I see no innovation and no reason to upgrade if you are still using Windows. As far as RAM and CPU usage, Well Im not sure I am fairly confident that you could get Vista slimmed down to normal XP performance, but then I can get XP to perform quite well, it just takes a lot of effort. Realistically though Vista is going to be on a new PC or you are going to have to upgrade something (probably add more RAM or upgrade your graphics card rather than upgrade your CPU but still.)
The really sad thing is that 6 months after the launch there will be a huge number of users, and why? because its the best OS? because its worth upgrading to? because its more secure? No. It will have a user base because it comes pre-loaded on N number of new PC's.
..before a person is charged with a crime someone should care about the infraction, which in turn as a entails someone noticing that a the crime ever happened. If nobody noticed enough to be harmed, it isn't a crime no matter how severe a technical violation it is (there are of course a handful of exceptions to this idea, but it is a general thrust).
That is probably the clearest way I have ever seen that put, - I applaud you. I would add to that that sentencing should follow in a similar vein in that it should be a punishment for the crime committed taking into account the impact of your crime or where more appropriate the potential impact of your crime (where impact has been mitigated or avoided through some means that would not always be the case)> That is as opposed to an arbitrary sentence based on what is politically expedient or what has gone before. (I know there are are all sorts of issues regarding the value on intangible things like mental health etc.. but it should be workable.)
Im confused by this story. Firstly If someone turns up to see the Prime minister / President / Head Honcho of any country (or most organisations) without an invitation or appointment they are likely to be told "thanks, but no thanks". I don't really think that the "pushed away" part of this article, which appears to be the focus has any bearing on anything at all. (FTA: The delegation led by Richard Stallman was kindly but firmly pushed back by the chief of security team of French Prime minister saying : the decision not to receive Richard Stallman was mature considered.)
The French government seem to be split on issues relating to open source (Software patents and DRM etc.) but do seem to be discussing it in public and with some authority, putting France somewhere at the top of the list of countries doing something about the issues at hand. We don't know which way it will swing, but at least we know it will be discussed first. Oh and congratulations to the 165,000 French People and 1000 Organisations who signed the EUCD.INFO petition, your doing something and this story should have focused on you, not on getting the most interesting headline.
I guess that must be fair since selling something that is inherently broken and then refusing to fix it is completely defensible. Now I wouldn't run 98 or God forbid ME (actually God forbid Windows - but thats not the point..). There will be quite a few people out there who bought a PC with 98 preloaded and have been chugging along quite happily (using their restore CD's regularly presumably..) now they are being dumped. Well is it acceptable? im not sure maybe it is, im not sure when MS Stopped selling 98 Boxed or as an option for OEM's so if we are talking 7 years since the last sale then maybe its acceptable. After all if there were problems with a VCR you bought 7 years ago (along the lines of certain Videos broke the player so it needed to be reset..) you'd probably buy a new one.
However leaving these machines un-patched may well be a poor choice, - many people who use it may not even be aware of the loss of support, others will not car. This means that there will be a base of potentially easily exploited PC's on the net. Ah well, Im sure a few will upgrade.
Just as a point how many 98 and ME users are out there? my website shows 33+ of visitors using Windows 98, (compared to 8% GNU/Linux and 44% Windows XP) is that about right?
Thet are not claiming they *cant* access it simply that its encrypted. These are not one and the same thing. And since they state that under certain circumstances they may access it I would suggest that it is likley that they will have retained a way of accessing it.
I'm not so confident - again I trust Google however they do appear to have left themselves with some room for maneuver. I would simply ask whether you would be as confident if Google were taken over by a less scrupilous competitor in 3 months time. - If you read the associated T&C's you will find: -- 3. GOOGLE PRIVACY POLICY For information about our data protection practices and the data that may be available to Google when you use the Firefox Extensions, please see the Google Privacy Policy at http://www.google.com/privacy.html and the Firefox Extensions Privacy Notices at http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/agreement.html. By using the Extensions, you acknowledge and agree that Google may access, preserve, and disclose information regarding your use of the services if required to do so by law or under other conditions set forth in the Google Privacy Policy http://www.google.com/privacy.html. Google will not be responsible or liable for the exercise or non- exercise of its rights under the Terms of Service. -- Emphasis mine... So Im sure you could read into that a little - however as I said I do trust Google, however the usual issues apply, and Google may well be leaving themselves access (for the reasons above..). Then from the linked privacy policy: -- Uses
* We may use personal information to provide the services you've requested, including services that display customized content and advertising.
* We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and services. * We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Google.
* When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
* We may also share information with third parties in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal process, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services.
* Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information on a server outside your own country.
* Read more in the full privacy policy. -- Again emphasis mine, IANAL but that does appear to broaden the scope wouldn't you say? I am not suggesting Google would use this data for their own benefit but it appears they could, up to and including passing it on to a third party.
If you trust Google then this could be great! if you don't then feel free to bash this as a blatant grab for yet more personal data.
Either way you cant say Google aren't pushing to see what users want, and integrating it into whats good for Google. My opinion? I don't know, I like and trust goggle as much as I trust any corporation, but do I want them to have yet more information about me? Probably not. So personally I will give it a miss, although it might be useful in the future, and if it takes off in internet kiosks (and why not) then all the better. It has some serious benefit to people who travel regularly and don't own laptops and PDA's.
Cue the "tin foil hat" posts, closely followed by the "there is no privacy anyway" posts possibly followed by some random "I don't like the new layout" posts.
Because if I make some blades for your Quattro I am not going to be sued for patent infringments or copyright breaches. (Assuming I dont just copy the blades completley and just produce something that fits the razor...).
Anyway the issue here is that Apple cant pick what laws apply to their business anymore than I can pick which ones apply to me.
"...envisions the creation of an unmanned ground vehicle that could patrol large areas without putting U.S. soldiers in harm's way."
"We're already using drones (unmanned airplanes) for surveillance in the skies over Iraq,"
So how long before they save lives by taking lives?
It may be pedantic and out of date but I would prefer if there was a disincentive for military action (like counter invasion or the loss of life) rather than an all out search for ways to carry out military action on the cheap.
Although who wants to see dead soldiers and civilians (of any nationality) - This is good for robotics, it may be bad for warfare - but then sadly technology with any military application usually does end up killing people,- lets all get back to clubs with nails in, the body count may be lower.
We'll Just invent better molecules for our "slippery paint"(TM) damn you for spotting obvious flaws in humorous posts!
As a point, if the paint was in millions of thin layers (somehow), wouldn't the first layer be pulled off when anything exerting a strong enough force interacted with it, like wind or water on it surface?
Outlook works and 'collaborates' quite well with ANY Mail server,
In reality to use Exchange to its full potential you need an exchange server, if you are realistically deploying Exchange you will be using Active Directory, if you want centralised Rights Management you need the centralised server component, if you want the nice new collaboration tools you need sharepoint. Hell you also need to be running Windows (presumably XP).
Now I know that you don't need all this, however if you want to maximise the potential of this office suite, thats what you need. I have implemented many IMAP Servers (mainly Cyrus) and have had people using Outlook with them, but it isnt the same as having exchange, frankly for all this collaberation junk you are better off setting up a true GroupWare environment of some sort and just using your office apps for producing documents.
Now again I realise that you recieve a CAL for exchange when you buy Outlook, and you probably get a SharePoint CAL too, but last time I checked (and its been a long while, + we used per processor licensing wherever possible..) for every client capable of accessing a server you technically require a CAL, including for File Servers, i.e. plain old NT/2k/2k3 server which you dont get with Office.
So in short if you are already using MS kit this probably isnt a bad thing, just another upgrade on the road to paradise(?) but if you dont use all and possibly only Microsoft technology, this isnt a plus. It is all about lock in to Microsoft technologies.
But yes I see your point, you dont need anything, but if you want to make the most out of your software you really do need a lot of kit.
I for one welcome our van der Waals force utilising Stickybot overloards.
Seriously though, FTA "The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes." I want some of those, these if ever actually created (not sure what issues here would be but I assume mass, surface area and gravity would play in there somewhere) would have a huge impact on normal life. Just imagine the benefits to burglars, the next invention is going to have to be some very very slippery paint:)
I have no problem with some end user writing a quickie app to solve some simple, quick problem for themselves.
If there is a requirement for an application users should request that an application be bought or otherwise sourced. the IT dept should give each user the capability to do his or her job, the employee should have all the tools required, if not the employee should inform the IT department and have it sorted.
Hell I dont even allow spreadsheets to be created that act as applications (i.e. reused timesheets with password protection and shed loads of inneffective macros) because if you need something like that go to the IT department, they will produce it and then support it, (often a simple web page on an intranet is really effective). If you havent got the IT budget to produce/procure the tools you need do that then you havent got the IT bidget to fix things when when
1) It all goes wrong 2) The employee who wrote the app/macros (whatever) leaves and no one kows how it works 3) The application is accidentally removed and must be recreated.
You wouldn't let your employees build their own desks or make their own ID's so why allow them to create software that the company ends up relying on? That is why you hire and train and pay your IT staff (usually) so well.
Anyway, maybe I'm being draconian but it prevents more hassle than it causes.
he major change in Beta 2 was the introduction of Office SharePoint Server.' This means that Sharepoint Server is required,
May be misleading but so far if you want to utilise all the features of this office package you will probably need:
Exchange
Share point
Rights Management
Active Directory
Plus the associated CALS, and OS licenses, the technical staff, the hardware and the training for your user base. Oh and there are NO alternatives for use with MS Office (correct me if I am wrong), Personally I'd rather build my own out of the bits that are available in OpenSource land, use the features that I (my company) needs and lump the rest, but thats not everyones cup of tea. All I really want in life is Visio for linux, or a decent clone, preferably with the network architect toolkit or similar.
I'll live in hope or maybe I should learn a real programming language and spend some time...
Slashdot Mirror
And more importantly Is one of the 57 verieties Apple now?
Heinz Self investigatin' Self SEC reportin' Wholesome Apple Soup!
Agree - but my point was that you can do much of your packet management via a network.
I get the fact that you will do security updates on Windows via the net as you will on Linux and that that will require some bandwidth (not a lot and probably less for Linux based my experience and depending on how much software you have installed) But I doubt that most windows users will be downloading and installing things like Office Suites / Web browsers / Image manipulation applications / operating system upgrades (not incremental updates like service packs but actual Upgrades) Via the net, most of that will come on media.
What about taking it further to other stuff like pulling down server systems via the net - I have never heard of anyone downloading *legit* versions of Exchange or SQL Server etc.. for windows, but I know quite a few people who will download and install Apache, MYSql, Postfix or Hula / Cyrus (whatever you want) for Linux. I know that wont be the case for 100% of computer users but it is something that is made more difficult for dial up users. So there is a bit of a difference.
The OP implied that Linux support for dialup internet connections was dicey, Im not sure he did, but he might have.
(I don't know about Linux dial-up internet providers....)
Depends on how you read it (setting Up dial up / getting dial up for Linux rather than windows (I know there is no difference but GP may not) / Linux using dial up)- but I thought I addressed all the points - His point was that Linux is *good* for broadband users and he's unsure about dial up. I tend to agree. I think Linux is great for Broadband users, and that Dial up users lose out on some of the experience - although that doesn't imply its unusable or even worse than the competition when you only have dial up. I'm not trying to be an arse I just think the moron comment was harsh and maybe unwarranted.
Anyway, Thanks.
Actually he had a point if you are going to update your OS in any meaningful way (say a dist upgrade) or use whatever the Ubuntu front end for apt is. I know I wouldn't be half as happy using Debian on a dial up connection just from a getting new software and updates / upgrades point of view. I know there are alternatives but it is one of the great features of the whole Linux thing just to install software on demand from a centralised packet manager.
As far as setting up a dial up connection within Ubuntu, I assume its as easy as it is in any other distro if you are using a desktop environment, and shouldn't pose any major problems (some modems aside).
As such your comment may have been a tad harsh. - note I am not referring to you as a moron - simply putting my view across. Thanks
Sorry -
The point is that I was talking about IA64 but maybe should have clarified. I was thinking of servers as the story is about Xeons.... The fastest non server processors I or my company currently have on the inventory are only AMD Athlon 2400+'s and I cant see why any company that is not doing any massively intensive tasks (i.e. not normal office type usage) needs the latest kit as there is simply no benefit in paying for it. I cannot imagine what I would do with a bleeding edge 64-bit processor on a desktop (then again I cant see the need for anything more than about a 20Gb Hard Disk in a corporate Desktop either so...). Maybe that's because we are a server centric company but that's also what I see with most of our clients, why spend twice as much on technology you don't need!!!! (Not saying you wont need it in the future but I don't get early adoption at the prices involved - especially on the desktop (although anyone looking to upgrade to Vista may be excused). It would seem better to put that extra cash into some extra RAM...). But then we can only advise not force people to behave in a sensible manner.
The reason for my previous post was the fact that there are now a huge number of different processor's (by model) and at least two (three if you are not bound to windows) manufacturers. Which in turn really means that there is a lot of choice and much heavy competition to get you to adopt one or the other. The background is that when speccing up for a number of projects fairly recently (2 internal and one external); Working on required performance / cost / reliability / HW support we ended up with UltraSparc T1's In house (we can justify not being able to run Windows Server natively on the boxes as we don't anywhere else (and I should point out we are a Sun Advantage Partner...) And Anyway I like Purple) and P4's for the customer. T
Basically we looked at:
AMD64 Opterons in Sun X4100 servers
Itanium 2's in Dell PowerEdge 3250 Servers
P4's in Dell PowerEdge 1850 Servers
UltraSparc T1's in Sun T1000 / T2000 Servers
And a few others from Sun Microsystems, Dell & HP
And As I said the client ended up with the bog standard Dell's. The wide evaluation and quoting on our part was mainly because whilst their procurement team stating they; "needed the latest technology, preferably 64 bit Multiprocessor 1U servers from a good brand like HP or Dell" for their (single internal Apache) web server (with 120 clients, maybe 60 Concurrent connections at peak...), as they would fit in with their other kit (mostly rented and 3-5 year old HP Kit) and would meet their policy of only buying "future proof technology". They didn't want to pay the premium, in fact they decided that the 3% price difference between HP kit that would at least allow them to stay 100% HP (with all the benefits it brings) was too much. They certainly didn't need the performance of a top end bleeding edge server. As far as Operating systems are concerned they initially requested Windows Server 2003 as the base for their Apache Server, (And since there are Itanium versions of that particular OS out there it didn't seem a problem) but ended up with Debian (not even going to go into the versatility of Debian where architecture is concerned..!).
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PS: Grammar / Spelling / Content Nazis - Please excuse the above as I was very tired, I did try hard not to make it illegible though. - And where I say Debian I obviously mean Debian GNU/Linux. (Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds)
Now we wait for AMD's next move..
Now I have no preference in the whole AMD vs Intel debate, I just use whatever seems to give me the most value for money / required performance. I am currently using AMD chips in kit 4 years old or younger and Intel chips in some of my older hardware, and haven't yet even looked at AMD64 or IA64 chips). but it is really good to see some serious competition between two industry giants. Long live the competition, its better for the consumer.
So that will make it legal to burn any media to CD/DVD as you are paying the copyright holder?....
Does this mean you can circumvent any DRM or other technical measures to protect the material on other media / files to burn them since you have paid this tax?....
Do I get tax back if I end up burning a coaster?....
Can you easily get tax back if its material you own the copyright to that you are burning?....
Does this include Software products and movie DVD rips and if so are you going to have to tell the media supplier what you intend to make copies of?....
Thought Not.
More accurate question might be:
Is this yet another revenue stream (on top of all the others) for someone somewhere who feels that their profits are not what they could be, and another kick to the teeth of fair use (If that exists in Spain)?
Yes.
Either prosecute people for copyright infringement (regardless how insane the laws surrounding that are) or leave the blank media alone. - By the way shouldn't the tax be on paper not Printers? after all the paper is the media. Mobile phones? Are they going to pay the copyright holders of the text messages I receive too?
If this is true then this is madness, and needs to be challenged before it spreads.
Regardless of how secure your storage medium is you are going to want a copy somewhere that is up to date and that you are not going to lose (after all losing your USB key may not expose your data to others but it will make it unavailable to you). That's without going into the likelihood that when you need access to your data on that USB key the PC you have access to wont have USB or it will be disabled...
Moving on; Synchronising data may be is fairly trivial now, so having multiple secure copies of your data shouldn't be too hard, I keep all my important contact data and quite a bit of my data on my PDA as well as on my Desktop giving me access to it anywhere. But that combination of up to date and secure data storage that is accessible may be beyond quite a few novice users.
In conclusion having access to data anywhere via the web is a good idea, however if it is a pay per use system, or if you need to use the web applications of a single vendor to access or modify it it becomes less useful. I would find a service that simply acts as remote storage quite useful, if it could be used as a storage medium for many other web based applications and could be synced with my PDA and desktop - AND was accessed in a secure manner (ssh tunnel or whatever) encrypted by me (not the provider). In short I would like a number of services that interoperated securely and offered some degree of flexibility. Sadly I assume we are going to see a collection of companies providing a set of incompatible services and applications that will be quite costly, in order to recreate the lock in that has served Microsoft so well over the last few years.
I am not really bothered at the prospect of my freenode nick or password being available to someone else. Mainly as its hardly going to do any lasting damage to me other than potentially being a little annoying. The only problem I see is that someone could theoretically impersonate me and make me look like a bit of a git, but that should be easily remedied over a short amount of time. Plus unless these username / password combinations are posted publicly and no one changes their passwords its unlikely to happen given the number of users... Oh and anyone using an important password with their freenode account probably needs a wakeup call anyway
It might be a bigger problem if this happened here on slashdot (someone gathering email addresses or similar would have a decent mailing list to sell - with a fairly specific target audience... but then I use a public mail address here anyway so it might actually imporve the quality of spam I get...) and it would be a catastrophe if it would have been a finance related system or similar.
On the other hand it sounds from the summary and the blog thats linked that the break of a single username / password combo from remote was the root cause of this breach. If I am accurate in my understanding and that is really the case then we need to take a long hard look at how we can change that. You should not be able to compromise a system from remote with a single set of credentials regardless of how non-sensitive (insensitive?) the system is.
But then I'd like to see more details about what happened, when it happened (if it really happened?) what was exposed (or could have been exposed) during the attack before I take too hard a line either way.
Hmmmm, This is either simply Google bidding the most for their tool bar to be bundled with some very widely used software, or the battle lines within the IT sector are getting a little more defined.
Personally I would prefer to be able to download and install an application that does whatever the job is I want doing; without installing any other "useful" application's - regardless of which "well selected" partner it comes from. However from a non technical perspective this may well become interesting.
Now to me it is starting to look as though Microsoft are feeling less in control of their ability to "lock" users to their software. This appears to be the reason for the plethora of new proprietary file formats that they can force into the main stream with Vista. It will be interesting to see if there is any fight against the formats or if the rest of the software industry will carry out its own embrace and extend exercise... After all this time round they are not providing "new" functionality but rather revamping existing standards and encroaching on other companies areas of expertise.
Google should add a decent dedicated document search feature that is purely an index of ODF, PDF, Rich/Plain Text etc.. and exclude XPS until it sees mainstream use at least, and offer links to - the original document - html version - adobe acrobat / open office. Im not certain if Adobe will or even should, but I would also like to see adobe and open office support the XPS standard for reading, if not necessarily for export.
Of all the features that I have seen or heard of that are supposed to be in the final incarnation of vista I cannot find one that is not either 1) a tweak, 2) something already available in either Mac OS or Linux or 3) A fix of something that is broken in XP. In short Vista is not at this point coming across as innovative. Actually if I think about it it appears that its Microsoft playing catch up.
Even Aero isn't innovative, I've been playing with Sun Microsystem's Project Looking glass and whilst it doesn't do a lot for me (it makes my laptop an interesting talking point when giving presentations....) and it feels like something dumped on top of the OS to make it look like a major change.
I cannot see corporate users migrating to Vista for any real reason, even the "new" security model isn't going to be a winner there as it will break any application that through lack of proper design requires admin rights (and there are a few out there).
As for it being the biggest change since the 3.11/95 upgrade Im confused how you could even relate the two. Windows 95 was a totally different user experience from Windows 3.x. This isn't. If you look at the last real upgrades for home users (excluding DOS and whatever interface was thrown over it (buttons for DOS anyone?) it was windows 3.11 to 95 for a huge difference in usability, 95 to 98 for a massive boost to hardware support and management (in my opinion anyway) and then 98 to XP for the benefits of NT (After all I don't know many home users who got their hands on 2000 and I discount ME as it was appalling...).
I see no innovation and no reason to upgrade if you are still using Windows. As far as RAM and CPU usage, Well Im not sure I am fairly confident that you could get Vista slimmed down to normal XP performance, but then I can get XP to perform quite well, it just takes a lot of effort. Realistically though Vista is going to be on a new PC or you are going to have to upgrade something (probably add more RAM or upgrade your graphics card rather than upgrade your CPU but still.)
The really sad thing is that 6 months after the launch there will be a huge number of users, and why? because its the best OS? because its worth upgrading to? because its more secure? No. It will have a user base because it comes pre-loaded on N number of new PC's.
..before a person is charged with a crime someone should care about the infraction, which in turn as a entails someone noticing that a the crime ever happened. If nobody noticed enough to be harmed, it isn't a crime no matter how severe a technical violation it is (there are of course a handful of exceptions to this idea, but it is a general thrust).
That is probably the clearest way I have ever seen that put, - I applaud you. I would add to that that sentencing should follow in a similar vein in that it should be a punishment for the crime committed taking into account the impact of your crime or where more appropriate the potential impact of your crime (where impact has been mitigated or avoided through some means that would not always be the case)> That is as opposed to an arbitrary sentence based on what is politically expedient or what has gone before. (I know there are are all sorts of issues regarding the value on intangible things like mental health etc.. but it should be workable.)
Im confused by this story. Firstly If someone turns up to see the Prime minister / President / Head Honcho of any country (or most organisations) without an invitation or appointment they are likely to be told "thanks, but no thanks". I don't really think that the "pushed away" part of this article, which appears to be the focus has any bearing on anything at all. (FTA: The delegation led by Richard Stallman was kindly but firmly pushed back by the chief of security team of French Prime minister saying : the decision not to receive Richard Stallman was mature considered .)
The French government seem to be split on issues relating to open source (Software patents and DRM etc.) but do seem to be discussing it in public and with some authority, putting France somewhere at the top of the list of countries doing something about the issues at hand. We don't know which way it will swing, but at least we know it will be discussed first. Oh and congratulations to the 165,000 French People and 1000 Organisations who signed the EUCD.INFO petition, your doing something and this story should have focused on you, not on getting the most interesting headline.
I guess that must be fair since selling something that is inherently broken and then refusing to fix it is completely defensible. Now I wouldn't run 98 or God forbid ME (actually God forbid Windows - but thats not the point..). There will be quite a few people out there who bought a PC with 98 preloaded and have been chugging along quite happily (using their restore CD's regularly presumably..) now they are being dumped. Well is it acceptable? im not sure maybe it is, im not sure when MS Stopped selling 98 Boxed or as an option for OEM's so if we are talking 7 years since the last sale then maybe its acceptable. After all if there were problems with a VCR you bought 7 years ago (along the lines of certain Videos broke the player so it needed to be reset..) you'd probably buy a new one.
However leaving these machines un-patched may well be a poor choice, - many people who use it may not even be aware of the loss of support, others will not car. This means that there will be a base of potentially easily exploited PC's on the net. Ah well, Im sure a few will upgrade.
Just as a point how many 98 and ME users are out there? my website shows 33+ of visitors using Windows 98, (compared to 8% GNU/Linux and 44% Windows XP) is that about right?
Thet are not claiming they *cant* access it simply that its encrypted. These are not one and the same thing. And since they state that under certain circumstances they may access it I would suggest that it is likley that they will have retained a way of accessing it.
I'm not so confident - again I trust Google however they do appear to have left themselves with some room for maneuver. I would simply ask whether you would be as confident if Google were taken over by a less scrupilous competitor in 3 months time. - If you read the associated T&C's you will find:l . By using the Extensions, you acknowledge and agree that Google may access, preserve, and disclose information regarding your use of the services if required to do so by law or under other conditions set forth in the Google Privacy Policy http://www.google.com/privacy.html. Google will not be responsible or liable for the exercise or non- exercise of its rights under the Terms of Service.
--
3. GOOGLE PRIVACY POLICY
For information about our data protection practices and the data that may be available to Google when you use the Firefox Extensions, please see the Google Privacy Policy at http://www.google.com/privacy.html and the Firefox Extensions Privacy Notices at http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/agreement.htm
--
Emphasis mine... So Im sure you could read into that a little - however as I said I do trust Google, however the usual issues apply, and Google may well be leaving themselves access (for the reasons above..). Then from the linked privacy policy:
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Uses
* We may use personal information to provide the services you've requested, including services that display customized content and advertising.
* We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and services.
* We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Google.
* When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
* We may also share information with third parties in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal process, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our network and services.
* Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information on a server outside your own country.
* Read more in the full privacy policy.
--
Again emphasis mine, IANAL but that does appear to broaden the scope wouldn't you say? I am not suggesting Google would use this data for their own benefit but it appears they could, up to and including passing it on to a third party.
If you trust Google then this could be great! if you don't then feel free to bash this as a blatant grab for yet more personal data.
Either way you cant say Google aren't pushing to see what users want, and integrating it into whats good for Google. My opinion? I don't know, I like and trust goggle as much as I trust any corporation, but do I want them to have yet more information about me? Probably not. So personally I will give it a miss, although it might be useful in the future, and if it takes off in internet kiosks (and why not) then all the better. It has some serious benefit to people who travel regularly and don't own laptops and PDA's.
Cue the "tin foil hat" posts, closely followed by the "there is no privacy anyway" posts possibly followed by some random "I don't like the new layout" posts.
Because if I make some blades for your Quattro I am not going to be sued for patent infringments or copyright breaches. (Assuming I dont just copy the blades completley and just produce something that fits the razor...).
Anyway the issue here is that Apple cant pick what laws apply to their business anymore than I can pick which ones apply to me.
"...envisions the creation of an unmanned ground vehicle that could patrol large areas without putting U.S. soldiers in harm's way." "We're already using drones (unmanned airplanes) for surveillance in the skies over Iraq,"
So how long before they save lives by taking lives?
It may be pedantic and out of date but I would prefer if there was a disincentive for military action (like counter invasion or the loss of life) rather than an all out search for ways to carry out military action on the cheap.
Although who wants to see dead soldiers and civilians (of any nationality) - This is good for robotics, it may be bad for warfare - but then sadly technology with any military application usually does end up killing people,- lets all get back to clubs with nails in, the body count may be lower.
However, not all bloggers share that mentality. And not all non bloggers are exempt from it so hey.
blogs are at least a fantastic way to vet an employee before hiring.
We'll Just invent better molecules for our "slippery paint"(TM) damn you for spotting obvious flaws in humorous posts!
As a point, if the paint was in millions of thin layers (somehow), wouldn't the first layer be pulled off when anything exerting a strong enough force interacted with it, like wind or water on it surface?
Outlook works and 'collaborates' quite well with ANY Mail server,
In reality to use Exchange to its full potential you need an exchange server, if you are realistically deploying Exchange you will be using Active Directory, if you want centralised Rights Management you need the centralised server component, if you want the nice new collaboration tools you need sharepoint. Hell you also need to be running Windows (presumably XP).
Now I know that you don't need all this, however if you want to maximise the potential of this office suite, thats what you need. I have implemented many IMAP Servers (mainly Cyrus) and have had people using Outlook with them, but it isnt the same as having exchange, frankly for all this collaberation junk you are better off setting up a true GroupWare environment of some sort and just using your office apps for producing documents.
Now again I realise that you recieve a CAL for exchange when you buy Outlook, and you probably get a SharePoint CAL too, but last time I checked (and its been a long while, + we used per processor licensing wherever possible..) for every client capable of accessing a server you technically require a CAL, including for File Servers, i.e. plain old NT/2k/2k3 server which you dont get with Office.
So in short if you are already using MS kit this probably isnt a bad thing, just another upgrade on the road to paradise(?) but if you dont use all and possibly only Microsoft technology, this isnt a plus. It is all about lock in to Microsoft technologies.
But yes I see your point, you dont need anything, but if you want to make the most out of your software you really do need a lot of kit.
I for one welcome our van der Waals force utilising Stickybot overloards.
:)
Seriously though, FTA "The Pentagon is interested in developing gecko-inspired climbing gloves and shoes." I want some of those, these if ever actually created (not sure what issues here would be but I assume mass, surface area and gravity would play in there somewhere) would have a huge impact on normal life. Just imagine the benefits to burglars, the next invention is going to have to be some very very slippery paint
If there is a requirement for an application users should request that an application be bought or otherwise sourced. the IT dept should give each user the capability to do his or her job, the employee should have all the tools required, if not the employee should inform the IT department and have it sorted.
Hell I dont even allow spreadsheets to be created that act as applications (i.e. reused timesheets with password protection and shed loads of inneffective macros) because if you need something like that go to the IT department, they will produce it and then support it, (often a simple web page on an intranet is really effective). If you havent got the IT budget to produce/procure the tools you need do that then you havent got the IT bidget to fix things when when
1) It all goes wrong
2) The employee who wrote the app/macros (whatever) leaves and no one kows how it works
3) The application is accidentally removed and must be recreated.
You wouldn't let your employees build their own desks or make their own ID's so why allow them to create software that the company ends up relying on? That is why you hire and train and pay your IT staff (usually) so well.
Anyway, maybe I'm being draconian but it prevents more hassle than it causes.
May be misleading but so far if you want to utilise all the features of this office package you will probably need:
Exchange
Share point
Rights Management
Active Directory
Plus the associated CALS, and OS licenses, the technical staff, the hardware and the training for your user base. Oh and there are NO alternatives for use with MS Office (correct me if I am wrong), Personally I'd rather build my own out of the bits that are available in OpenSource land, use the features that I (my company) needs and lump the rest, but thats not everyones cup of tea. All I really want in life is Visio for linux, or a decent clone, preferably with the network architect toolkit or similar.
I'll live in hope or maybe I should learn a real programming language and spend some time...