One would however assume that the resources available to the NARA and LC are significantly larger than what the Icelandic National Library has to spend on collecting websites. Oh god, I laughed so hard.
This is probably true for the server market, but not so much for the desktop/laptop market. Did you forget about how quickly Apple shifted from PPC to x86? Or, more recently, how Apple shafted Adobe by dropping 64-bit Carbon at the last minute? That does affect purchases of desktops/laptops.
Other than that, I can chalk up the rest to "different strokes for different folks" until we get to the end...
your enthusiasm for all things Microsoft is, well nuts I use what works for me. I have a Linux box for LAMP development; I work on a Windows machine because the UI is cleaner and the applications I want run better on it (and yes, Visual Studio is far better than XCode), which, along with the horrible interface of OS X and the fact that I enjoy playing PC games, ensure I use a Windows desktop. Trying to pigeonhole me into being some kind of Microsoft fanboy is kind of funny, and a little sad. About the only bias I have is that I don't like Apple.
Linux still crushes Windows as a server For some purposes. Not others. You're obviously smart enough to know this. I can't run Active Directory or effectively support Windows clients via Linux servers.
As for some small business use, OS X server is nearly free in comparison to Windows server, if you're trying to support 100 people or so. OS X runs you $1000 while Windows Server 2008 costs $16,000. In a "small business", I strongly doubt you need 100 people connected to a server at the same time (because CALs can be used by multiple users, just not concurrently). And in fact there's Small Business Server on the Windows side, though 2008 hasn't been released yet; its prices are cheaper. But you're right, OS X Server is cheaper than Windows Server. If you think you need 100 CALs, you probably need to rethink your business model. If you really do need 100 CALs for Windows Server, it'll run you about $9000.
But with OS X Server, you simply get less functionality, especially if you aren't using OS X desktops.
Is Windows server 16 times as awesome as OS X server? Can OS X (effectively) run ASP.NET (and Mono does not [yet, it shows great promise!] count)? I thought not (and in power and features ASP.NET kicks the open-source equivalents not named JSP up and down the road, don't pretend it doesn't).
How about Active Directory?
How about Exchange? Zimbra's okay, but not there yet, and I can't think of anything else that measures up.
How about a fix-on-the-fly file system? (Server 2008 allows error correction of a mounted file system without taking the drive offline, only locking files/directories being fixed.)
How about RDP 6.0? (While UNIX operating systems can do similar, it's nowhere as polished.)
Don't get me wrong. If your requirements fit it, a Linux server is fine. I host a number of PHP web apps on Linux. (I see absolutely no reason for OS X server, but that's another story entirely.) And in many technical respects, Linux as a server OS is way better than Windows. But Linux just lacks a lot of things that a lot of enterprise clients want and/or need, as well as a lot of the polish that makes accomplishing those tasks pleasant. That's not a condemnation of Linux, it's how things are. Saying that one "crushes" the other is moronic, and you're obviously smarter than that.
It's actually more practical and efficient to apt-get a software package from a central repository of software than to download an "installer". Until there's a version of a package that your distro doesn't support, and then (in many, though not all, cases) its pants fall down around its ankles. For a power user it's usually possible to set it up (though god help you if packaged stuff expects the distro-provided version), but it's unreasonably time-consuming and annoying.
I'm curious to know how exactly it is "easy" to bypass running as a limited user. I'm interested in concrete examples...specifically, how someone can be running as a limited user and gain administrator access. It's not. It used to be, sure, but it hasn't been for quite some time.
Steve has shown in 5 years that Apple can release more interesting stuff than Microsoft. Apple just "does" it, they don't pre-announce years in advance. Steve just shows up on sage with a fully operational Intel Mac running Apple's software Suite (OSX, iLife, etc) on day 1, or with a fully functioning iPhone that happens to have used OSX, on day 1. And this is why they suck for anyone who uses their stuff for one of those "job" things: no roadmaps.
Microsoft bellyaches how "hard" software is to make, and constantly delays (and they don't make computers or phones and sell them) Apple makes it look very easy and investors are starting to see Microsoft isn't really that good at their CORE job. Apple makes it look "easy" by restricting their problem set. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury. As for not being good at their "CORE job", there's nothing wrong with Vista, it's just not some gigantic leap forward. Post-SP1 it works fine.
And Apple still can't really compete with Office (iWork is terrible), Visual Studio (XCode is terrible), or, really a server infrastructure (because say what you will about Vista, Server 2008 is awesome).
Python will add the most real world value to all of us (unless you are a python expert).
If you're worried about learning a language in a school, you're in the wrong place. That's not the point of a university. If you're looking for that, you belong in a technical college.
Scheme teaches valuable skills that you simply don't get with something like Python. Functional programming is the logical starting point for teaching programming. "But I already know C, I don't need this" is ridiculous. Lisp/Scheme teach a very valuable paradigm that you will not get with Python or C, and its lessons can be applied to imperative languages once they are learned later.
2. My brother could never find financial aid, and scholarships only go so far.
I know two or three people offhand who funded their entire education through scholarships they applied to outside of their educational institute's financial aid office. It's very doable.
4. I'm not saying that I haven't considered public schools; I simply much prefer a school that I'm not in the top 1% of math SAT scores. If that sounds arrogant I apologize, but I'm just tired of going to schools like my high school that don't have a *single* person (student or otherwise) who knows C.
Oh, please. Don't be a fucking douchebag if you can at all help it. "Wah, wah, I am so smart!" You will find people at any institution who will kick your ass up and down the road and know much, much, much more than you do about what you proclaim to be good at; you will find people who are far hotter shit than you are or ever will be. It doesn't matter where you go, this will be the case.
"Oh, no, nobody in my high school knows C! I am adrift in a sea of stupidity!" Grow up.
5. I want to go to MIT because I think that I can learn something about programming from other students and teachers (the computer programming class is taught with JavaScript and teachers certified by a one day course) for the first time in my life.
You can do that at any university. Hell, MIT's learning materials are given away for free. Do you want to learn, or do you want the little piece of paper?
7. Yes, I was about to call the MIT admissions office, but my mother brought up the argument "don't even try, we won't have the money for that", hence this ask slashdot article.
Your mother is a moron, and you shouldn't be listening to her when it comes to this.
8. I want to find scholarships from FOSS organizations because I want to support the community and working for a FOSS company would be a dream come true. I love Linux and free software, and would be proud to put some time into the cause.
"Work" is the exchange of your time for their money, and if they want you to fuck up a Holy Sacred GPL Project because it suits your purposes, you do it or you get fired. You need a cluestick to the head or need to learn about the real world. It's not a cause, it's an operating system and a style of releasing software.
9. I hate to respond to my own article, but I felt like I needed to clear up a few things.
Frankly, you just make yourself look like more of an ass. You're in plentiful, if not good, company, though--you sound like half the kids in my school's CS department.
Also, as far as anyone has ever told me and I've ever seen, grad school for engineering and ESPECIALLY for CS is completely worthless for getting a job, and is done almost only by those who wish to go into academia.
That's funny. That's really funny. Google (who you mention below) has a minimum of a BS in computer science, but recommends a MS and a Ph.D. is a big plus. I would wager that you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Sure, 2 years of Business school might be required after 5 or so years in the work force in order to get a managerial position that really pays bank, but that's far in the future. Places like MS and Google and Yahoo! are hiring kids out of my school at 75k or more a year for software engineering jobs (there is obviously a variance, and some jobs get a lower salary).
Try "pretty much all jobs have a lower salary." Expecting 75K+ straight out of college is ludicrous unless you have some sort of proven track record that shows you aren't just another college graduate. For someone leaving school with a master's, I'd buy 75K+ (but that'd still be a huge stretch). Same for a Ph.D. Not some kid with a bachelor's.
I ask you, are you a member of the ACLU? If not, why not? After the town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania passed an ordinance to punish landlords who rented to illegal immigrants and businesses who hired illegal immigrants, the ACLU and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued Hazleton, saying the ordinance was unconstitutional.
The ACLU does some good work--and some very, very bad. That's why I'm not a member.
sure they are a shit cult not worth anything, can't we just let the fucktards be fucktards? it is your own fault if you get tricked into their fairytale with no factual historic background or events tied to it.
why don't people focus their 'civic duty' elsewhere, like maybe our corrupt legal system, corrupt politicians, and corrupt companies?
Because Scientology has infected our politicians as well. Operation Snow White says hi.
There is a number of wireless chipsets with fully functional open-source drivers other than Centrino. For most of those, the specs for writing your own driver are also fully available.
Cool, now try to find one in a decent-quality laptop. Atheros is the norm in most AMD laptops I run into.
How are you related to these 40 machines? Do you use at least one on a daily basis?
I am forced to, yes.
Well if you don't know how to use it, it sure is shit... Just like Solaris, IRIX, Windows, Mac OS or anything else is shit to my grandma. She prefers the cassette player and the TV.
Yeah, because using them daily for most of a year means I don't know how to use it. Get a fucking brain.
Indeed, until now Apple provides me with the least worst design I found (for a price an average sized company can pay).
Different strokes for different folks. Your stroke, apparently, is monumentally short.
Anyway... I'm happy PHP now gets even more compatible with Windows (I heard something similar when 2003 came out)... But if you want the best dev environment for PHP it's definitely the Mac!
Oh god, I laughed. The Mac might be the best dev environment for PHP, but it's a damn shame that it sucks for languages worth using for more than ten-minute one-offs.
AMD was much better several years ago, with much more bang for the buck than Intel in the segments I usually buy, not the highest end, but still providing competitive value for the price.
So basically where the Core 2 Duos are kicking ass and taking names? Come on, I understand the fanboy attitude but there's nothing to recommend AMD at present outside of the server market. Intel's equal-or-better in power consumption and better in performance. They're not competitive for the price by any stretch.
Terrible? Not at all. AMD is still producing very good processors. They were also first up with proper quad-core chips. There's nothing wrong with AMD chips. They're very good. Likewise in the server market their quad core Opterons are excellent. I'm buying exclusively AMD at the moment.
"Proper" quad-core chips? What kind of performance gains are those getting you over a C2Q? (The answer is "just about none.")
Opterons are the only place in the market where AMD is competitive. There is literally no reason to buy AMD for anything else at the moment.
NDIS wrapper has never been a great idea. It puts you at the mercy of Microsoft bugs and malice all for the benefit of a $30 network card. The kind of card that needs NDIS wrapper is usually worst of class and should be shunned. It's brain dead much like a winmodem and the "firmware" game is intentional. The card maker wants to be Windows only so don't buy it. Sooner or later hardware vendors will have to come around.
That's a little hard on just about any laptop with an AMD processor. Intel boards have Centrino, which works under Linux without trouble. AMD-based laptops...not so much.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not your buddy, guy!
Other than that, I can chalk up the rest to "different strokes for different folks" until we get to the end... your enthusiasm for all things Microsoft is, well nuts I use what works for me. I have a Linux box for LAMP development; I work on a Windows machine because the UI is cleaner and the applications I want run better on it (and yes, Visual Studio is far better than XCode), which, along with the horrible interface of OS X and the fact that I enjoy playing PC games, ensure I use a Windows desktop. Trying to pigeonhole me into being some kind of Microsoft fanboy is kind of funny, and a little sad. About the only bias I have is that I don't like Apple. Linux still crushes Windows as a server For some purposes. Not others. You're obviously smart enough to know this. I can't run Active Directory or effectively support Windows clients via Linux servers. As for some small business use, OS X server is nearly free in comparison to Windows server, if you're trying to support 100 people or so. OS X runs you $1000 while Windows Server 2008 costs $16,000. In a "small business", I strongly doubt you need 100 people connected to a server at the same time (because CALs can be used by multiple users, just not concurrently). And in fact there's Small Business Server on the Windows side, though 2008 hasn't been released yet; its prices are cheaper. But you're right, OS X Server is cheaper than Windows Server. If you think you need 100 CALs, you probably need to rethink your business model. If you really do need 100 CALs for Windows Server, it'll run you about $9000.
But with OS X Server, you simply get less functionality, especially if you aren't using OS X desktops. Is Windows server 16 times as awesome as OS X server? Can OS X (effectively) run ASP.NET (and Mono does not [yet, it shows great promise!] count)? I thought not (and in power and features ASP.NET kicks the open-source equivalents not named JSP up and down the road, don't pretend it doesn't).
How about Active Directory?
How about Exchange? Zimbra's okay, but not there yet, and I can't think of anything else that measures up.
How about a fix-on-the-fly file system? (Server 2008 allows error correction of a mounted file system without taking the drive offline, only locking files/directories being fixed.)
How about RDP 6.0? (While UNIX operating systems can do similar, it's nowhere as polished.)
Don't get me wrong. If your requirements fit it, a Linux server is fine. I host a number of PHP web apps on Linux. (I see absolutely no reason for OS X server, but that's another story entirely.) And in many technical respects, Linux as a server OS is way better than Windows. But Linux just lacks a lot of things that a lot of enterprise clients want and/or need, as well as a lot of the polish that makes accomplishing those tasks pleasant. That's not a condemnation of Linux, it's how things are. Saying that one "crushes" the other is moronic, and you're obviously smarter than that.
And Apple still can't really compete with Office (iWork is terrible), Visual Studio (XCode is terrible), or, really a server infrastructure (because say what you will about Vista, Server 2008 is awesome).
My sound card - a Turtle Beech Catalina cost about what this does and was worth every penny, especially when teamed up with Bose PC speakers and sub.
No highs, no lows--must be Bose!
Python will add the most real world value to all of us (unless you are a python expert).
If you're worried about learning a language in a school, you're in the wrong place. That's not the point of a university. If you're looking for that, you belong in a technical college.
Scheme teaches valuable skills that you simply don't get with something like Python. Functional programming is the logical starting point for teaching programming. "But I already know C, I don't need this" is ridiculous. Lisp/Scheme teach a very valuable paradigm that you will not get with Python or C, and its lessons can be applied to imperative languages once they are learned later.
Python (intro to prog)
No. Start with a functional language, mostly because it "looks like" math, which is something that students already know. Scheme, Lisp, whatever.
If I recall correctly, when XP shipped, Microsoft ended up having to write drivers for some Creative cards because Creative wouldn't. This isn't new.
If devs really want to do open source phone applications why aren't they using Android or OpenMoko? :)
Get back to me when there's actually a userbase for either.
Eclipse is free, VS2008 is expensive. I can tell you first hand that the former is much easier to use, yet more powerful.
Oh god, did I LOL.
2. My brother could never find financial aid, and scholarships only go so far.
I know two or three people offhand who funded their entire education through scholarships they applied to outside of their educational institute's financial aid office. It's very doable.
4. I'm not saying that I haven't considered public schools; I simply much prefer a school that I'm not in the top 1% of math SAT scores. If that sounds arrogant I apologize, but I'm just tired of going to schools like my high school that don't have a *single* person (student or otherwise) who knows C.
Oh, please. Don't be a fucking douchebag if you can at all help it. "Wah, wah, I am so smart!" You will find people at any institution who will kick your ass up and down the road and know much, much, much more than you do about what you proclaim to be good at; you will find people who are far hotter shit than you are or ever will be. It doesn't matter where you go, this will be the case.
"Oh, no, nobody in my high school knows C! I am adrift in a sea of stupidity!" Grow up.
5. I want to go to MIT because I think that I can learn something about programming from other students and teachers (the computer programming class is taught with JavaScript and teachers certified by a one day course) for the first time in my life.
You can do that at any university. Hell, MIT's learning materials are given away for free. Do you want to learn, or do you want the little piece of paper?
7. Yes, I was about to call the MIT admissions office, but my mother brought up the argument "don't even try, we won't have the money for that", hence this ask slashdot article.
Your mother is a moron, and you shouldn't be listening to her when it comes to this.
8. I want to find scholarships from FOSS organizations because I want to support the community and working for a FOSS company would be a dream come true. I love Linux and free software, and would be proud to put some time into the cause.
"Work" is the exchange of your time for their money, and if they want you to fuck up a Holy Sacred GPL Project because it suits your purposes, you do it or you get fired. You need a cluestick to the head or need to learn about the real world. It's not a cause, it's an operating system and a style of releasing software.
9. I hate to respond to my own article, but I felt like I needed to clear up a few things.
Frankly, you just make yourself look like more of an ass. You're in plentiful, if not good, company, though--you sound like half the kids in my school's CS department.
Also, as far as anyone has ever told me and I've ever seen, grad school for engineering and ESPECIALLY for CS is completely worthless for getting a job, and is done almost only by those who wish to go into academia.
That's funny. That's really funny. Google (who you mention below) has a minimum of a BS in computer science, but recommends a MS and a Ph.D. is a big plus. I would wager that you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Sure, 2 years of Business school might be required after 5 or so years in the work force in order to get a managerial position that really pays bank, but that's far in the future. Places like MS and Google and Yahoo! are hiring kids out of my school at 75k or more a year for software engineering jobs (there is obviously a variance, and some jobs get a lower salary).
Try "pretty much all jobs have a lower salary." Expecting 75K+ straight out of college is ludicrous unless you have some sort of proven track record that shows you aren't just another college graduate. For someone leaving school with a master's, I'd buy 75K+ (but that'd still be a huge stretch). Same for a Ph.D. Not some kid with a bachelor's.
Oh come on, I respect him. Natural pure anger at current situation. I sure can relate a lot. Ocasional fuck just makes more interesting reading :)
Agreed. He's right, too.
What do they use for the really big onboard batteries then? (if you know) thanks in advance!
I would think they'd use metal-hydride or something.
The ACLU does some good work--and some very, very bad. That's why I'm not a member.
sure they are a shit cult not worth anything, can't we just let the fucktards be fucktards? it is your own fault if you get tricked into their fairytale with no factual historic background or events tied to it.
why don't people focus their 'civic duty' elsewhere, like maybe our corrupt legal system, corrupt politicians, and corrupt companies?
Because Scientology has infected our politicians as well. Operation Snow White says hi.
Does making .Net cross-platform help anyone but MS?
It helps me; I'm working on a game that I'll be able to roll out on Windows, Mac, and Linux at pretty close to the same time.
(It helps that I'm not tied to DirectX.)
Not on all laptops, though. The Atheros open-source driver doesn't work on some Satellites, for example.
There is a number of wireless chipsets with fully functional open-source drivers other than Centrino. For most of those, the specs for writing your own driver are also fully available.
Cool, now try to find one in a decent-quality laptop. Atheros is the norm in most AMD laptops I run into.
How are you related to these 40 machines? Do you use at least one on a daily basis?
I am forced to, yes.
Well if you don't know how to use it, it sure is shit... Just like Solaris, IRIX, Windows, Mac OS or anything else is shit to my grandma. She prefers the cassette player and the TV.
Yeah, because using them daily for most of a year means I don't know how to use it. Get a fucking brain.
Indeed, until now Apple provides me with the least worst design I found (for a price an average sized company can pay).
Different strokes for different folks. Your stroke, apparently, is monumentally short.
Anyway... I'm happy PHP now gets even more compatible with Windows (I heard something similar when 2003 came out)... But if you want the best dev environment for PHP it's definitely the Mac!
Oh god, I laughed. The Mac might be the best dev environment for PHP, but it's a damn shame that it sucks for languages worth using for more than ten-minute one-offs.
AMD was much better several years ago, with much more bang for the buck than Intel in the segments I usually buy, not the highest end, but still providing competitive value for the price.
So basically where the Core 2 Duos are kicking ass and taking names? Come on, I understand the fanboy attitude but there's nothing to recommend AMD at present outside of the server market. Intel's equal-or-better in power consumption and better in performance. They're not competitive for the price by any stretch.
Terrible? Not at all. AMD is still producing very good processors. They were also first up with proper quad-core chips. There's nothing wrong with AMD chips. They're very good. Likewise in the server market their quad core Opterons are excellent. I'm buying exclusively AMD at the moment.
"Proper" quad-core chips? What kind of performance gains are those getting you over a C2Q? (The answer is "just about none.")
Opterons are the only place in the market where AMD is competitive. There is literally no reason to buy AMD for anything else at the moment.
NDIS wrapper has never been a great idea. It puts you at the mercy of Microsoft bugs and malice all for the benefit of a $30 network card. The kind of card that needs NDIS wrapper is usually worst of class and should be shunned. It's brain dead much like a winmodem and the "firmware" game is intentional. The card maker wants to be Windows only so don't buy it. Sooner or later hardware vendors will have to come around.
That's a little hard on just about any laptop with an AMD processor. Intel boards have Centrino, which works under Linux without trouble. AMD-based laptops...not so much.