At the risk of being modded redundant, I would like to throw in my vote for Pidgin on Linux and Windows, with the OTR plugin for rock-solid encryption. Adium is the equivalent on Mac OS X, as it is based on the same libpurple codebase and also does OTR. Set up the jabber server of your choice behind your firewall, require VPN access, and you're set. Works for me and my org...Mac, Windows or Linux.
I hear what you're saying...it's baffling that anyone could defend current US copyright law. But in this case, isn't the problem with a very uninformed web hosting provider taking the wrong action? There was not a DMCA notice issued, but rather the host just decided to pull the site because they (wrongly) assumed it was copyright violations. The RIAA was not behind this, as the content was not even in their reach.
After reading your comment, and verifying that you are 100% right, I had to scroll back up to see who posted this story. I would have bet my testes on kdawson, but the great Rob Malda himself posted this crap?!?
And, I don't have much experience with Dreamweaver, or know exactly what you were querying from the DB, but some simple variables I can imagine being automated.
You are right about Dreamweaver in that is can do some simple queries to a MySQL database, spitting out some rather verbose PHP to do so. But if you want to do anything more than writing some queries, you're going to have to hand-code some PHP in Dreamweaver's source-code view.
So, more than likely, they just made him switch from his favorite text editor, to a big application with WYSIWYG capabilities, where he will be using its text editor.
If the manager is not technically inclined enough to understand how ridiculous this situation is, he should stay out of the way. Rather than forcing a tool on someone, they should require rigorous documentation and comments in the code, so that any capable programmer can pick up where the last guy left off, no matter the tool used.
Sorry, there is no DRM involved in mounting the iPod. It basically is a USB mass storage device. All Apple's drivers do is detect when a USB mass storage device matching an iPod's filesystem is plugged in, and launch iTunes. Seriously, that's it.
The way that Apple keeps you from copying files is by hiding the directories that contain the music files. The files are then scattered amongst a bunch of obscurely-named directories to make it a little more difficult to find them, after you figure out how to show the hidden directories. (On a Mac or Linux, it's as simple as "ls -a" in a terminal.) An iPod database file is how the iPod and iTunes keep track of what files are on the device, and where to find them. Dozens of other applications (including Linux music players like Rhythmbox or Amarok) have figured out how to read the database. There's also apps that read the database and let you copy files directly, like the Mac app Senuti.
The only DRM involved is in files purchased from the iTunes store. You can access and copy these files, but you just can't play them unless your computer is authorized for the account that purchased them.
Modded 100% funny. Your comment should be at least 40% insightful.
WTF Microsoft is supposed to be conveying with the Seinfeld commercial is beyond me. I know it's a series, and there may be a punchline to all of this, but I have a feeling that's not the case.
It just seems they think that Gates and Seinfeld goofing around is a "cool" and "hip" way to counter the Get A Mac ads. And, as mentioned elsewhere, the Mojave/Vista ads have no credibility, because we don't know that the subjects involved even knew about Vista's perceived shortcomings beforehand.
I envision the army of people out there with their Hackintoshes. There's a serious amount of effort being put into not only making OS X boot on many different machines, but enabling WiFi, Ethernet cards, and GPUs not normally supported by Apple. In the end, it all seems a little bit futile to expend all this energy on a closed-source OS. After all, Apple is just one Software Update away from breaking it all again. Why not take all that knowledge and expertise and put it into a system where your hard work and hax0r skills are appreciated and accepted?
I'm typing this from a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop plugged into an Ethernet jack because it's a bitch-and-a-half to get the WiFi card working with Ubuntu. I can make it work if I really need to, but I enjoy using Ubuntu and value my spare time to sit down and use it. I'd like to see some of those guys making that weird mini WLAN card in their Toshiba laptop work on a hacked OS X put some effort into the FOSS community so that non-techies will think about installing Ubuntu on their laptop instead of that Vista upgrade.
Part of what makes OS X a great OS is that Apple controls the hardware side. "Everything just works" is a broad overstatement, but it mostly applies to Apple hardware and OS X. Being able to buy a boxed copy of OS X for any generic x86 PC would lead to a lot of Linux-type scenarios: *most everything* just works, but a patch here, or a trip to apt-get there, and a little bit of geeky knowledge is needed to get things working.
Most of us here at Slashdot, myself included, would be fine with that. But OS X would not be the roaring success it is if people said things like "you may need to download fwcutter to get your WiFi card working" or "you need that SSE2 emulation BIOS patch to get it to boot." It is a success because Apple--for better or worse--has tightly intertwined the hardware and software experience so that the geeky *nix parts are only there if you want to play with it, not because you have to.
The only way Apple could reasonably sell OS X for generic x86 or x86_64 hardware is to have a huge list of requirements similar to the "Vista Capable" debacle. And it would cost a lot more than the $129 it costs now. Prices would be similar to what you pay for the latest boxed version of Windows, because currently OS X is subsidized by the premium you paid on Apple's hardware to run it in the first place.
I love Macs, I love OS X, and I love Linux. I think all this effort to get OS X running on generic hardware would be better spent on getting Ubuntu (or some other distro) up to the same level of reliability and usability of OS X on Apple hardware.
Indeed...check out the moderation FAQ. There's a few reasons a post can be marked redundant, and definitely more than just repeating what someone else said. Rehashing Slashdot memes like "Ha ha" is a good way to get a redundant mod, no matter where in the conversation it is.
Too bad this comment will go down in the annals of Slashdot modded as "Funny." It was 20% Insightful and 20% Interesting, but should have been 100% Insightful. I agree that it is a new marketing strategy, and one that we are likely to see more of in the future: fake "leaked album" controversy to drum interest in a band that most people couldn't give a bowel movement about.
One could say "nothing has really changed" in that an application makes an Internet lookup request, and the OS does its internal DNS lookup, passing it back to the application. But the internal plumbing of Leopard and previous versions of OS X are quite a bit different. It's quite unlike most other *nix'es out there, as out of the box, it's set to authenticate against an LDAP-style directory service, be it the local Directory Services node, an Apple Open Directory server, or Active Directory. (Note that this is different only because it's the default...we all know that other *nix'es can do this if so configured.)
Previous versions of OS X used NetInfo only for authentication purposes, and the standard lookupd process handled DNS requests and caching. Now it's all tied into Directory Services. To the end user, it may look and act the same, but as the article points out, Leopard clients are potentially exposed to a vulnerability that earlier OS X clients are not.
Do you mean we are supposed to read TFA? Seriously?
Oh, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say, since they bothered to put the question in the headline, yes, Google is searching us. I can sometimes be bothered to RTFA, but not when it's so obviously tinfoil-hat-baiting as this.
No, it was System 7 when they started charging for the OS. 7.1 (aka "System 7 Pro") also cost, as did 7.5 and 7.6. Only the 7.5.x and 7.6.x updates were free.
I've ranted about KDE 4 before, and unfortunately must continue. I've always been a big KDE advocate, but they took damn near everything that made KDE great out of the 4.0 release. I was disappointed, but willing to give them a break and get to 4.1 (and restore some features from the 3.x series). Now we hear that 4.1 is worse than 4.0. I don't want to switch to Gnome or xfce or anything like that...but how long will I have to continue running 3.5.x?
Modern Mechanix is a great website that reprints stories from old issues of Popular Mechanics and similar magazines. Thus guy's got a ton of scans and they all look great. You might want to visit the site and ask him how he does it.
A shiny, new laptop loaded with Vista, of course. He's earned it!
And a couple of accessories to go with it: A dongle that will allow him to install Mac OS X on said laptop, and an Ubuntu CD if he would rather go that route.
Don't think he wouldn't choose one of those options, because even he knows that Windows, in its current state, is unusable.
Bill sure did pick a good time to get out. I imagine when Windows 7 receives its inevitable bashing in the press, he'll be content just giving his money away, saving the world, one gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at a time.
Yeah, I guess its good, they don't have a record label now right? No, that's not right. While they self-released In Rainbows before putting out a physical release, they are signed to (and the album was physically released on) ATO in the USA, and XL Recordings in the UK/Europe.
Zimbra is now offering a perpetual license. Previously, they only offered licenses that had to be renewed every year, which gave many potential customers worry about what would happen after a MS takeover.
If this is a concern for you, you can now buy a license that never expires. MS couldn't do anything about it.
The fact of the matter is that Zimbra has a large customer base now. A year or 18 months ago, MS could have bought Yahoo and just shut Zimbra down. But they have a ton of universities, ISPs, and other big entities among their customers now. It would be in MS's interest (or someone else's if MS doesn't want to deal with it) to take on Zimbra's business.
It's still a little unnerving until this is all settled, but there is a good option now.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I'm "definately" glad they didn't spell it that way.
At the risk of being modded redundant, I would like to throw in my vote for Pidgin on Linux and Windows, with the OTR plugin for rock-solid encryption. Adium is the equivalent on Mac OS X, as it is based on the same libpurple codebase and also does OTR. Set up the jabber server of your choice behind your firewall, require VPN access, and you're set. Works for me and my org...Mac, Windows or Linux.
So where does one get off lease dells? Besides ebay of course.
Go to dell.com and find the link near the top for "Dell Outlet." You'll find all kinds of really good deals on used desktops, laptops and servers.
I hear what you're saying...it's baffling that anyone could defend current US copyright law. But in this case, isn't the problem with a very uninformed web hosting provider taking the wrong action? There was not a DMCA notice issued, but rather the host just decided to pull the site because they (wrongly) assumed it was copyright violations. The RIAA was not behind this, as the content was not even in their reach.
Was that the one called "Windows 386" that had the terrible rapping-office-chick promo video?
2069: A Sex Odyssey
After reading your comment, and verifying that you are 100% right, I had to scroll back up to see who posted this story. I would have bet my testes on kdawson, but the great Rob Malda himself posted this crap?!?
And, I don't have much experience with Dreamweaver, or know exactly what you were querying from the DB, but some simple variables I can imagine being automated.
You are right about Dreamweaver in that is can do some simple queries to a MySQL database, spitting out some rather verbose PHP to do so. But if you want to do anything more than writing some queries, you're going to have to hand-code some PHP in Dreamweaver's source-code view.
So, more than likely, they just made him switch from his favorite text editor, to a big application with WYSIWYG capabilities, where he will be using its text editor.
If the manager is not technically inclined enough to understand how ridiculous this situation is, he should stay out of the way. Rather than forcing a tool on someone, they should require rigorous documentation and comments in the code, so that any capable programmer can pick up where the last guy left off, no matter the tool used.
Sorry, there is no DRM involved in mounting the iPod. It basically is a USB mass storage device. All Apple's drivers do is detect when a USB mass storage device matching an iPod's filesystem is plugged in, and launch iTunes. Seriously, that's it.
The way that Apple keeps you from copying files is by hiding the directories that contain the music files. The files are then scattered amongst a bunch of obscurely-named directories to make it a little more difficult to find them, after you figure out how to show the hidden directories. (On a Mac or Linux, it's as simple as "ls -a" in a terminal.) An iPod database file is how the iPod and iTunes keep track of what files are on the device, and where to find them. Dozens of other applications (including Linux music players like Rhythmbox or Amarok) have figured out how to read the database. There's also apps that read the database and let you copy files directly, like the Mac app Senuti.
The only DRM involved is in files purchased from the iTunes store. You can access and copy these files, but you just can't play them unless your computer is authorized for the account that purchased them.
Modded 100% funny. Your comment should be at least 40% insightful.
WTF Microsoft is supposed to be conveying with the Seinfeld commercial is beyond me. I know it's a series, and there may be a punchline to all of this, but I have a feeling that's not the case.
It just seems they think that Gates and Seinfeld goofing around is a "cool" and "hip" way to counter the Get A Mac ads. And, as mentioned elsewhere, the Mojave/Vista ads have no credibility, because we don't know that the subjects involved even knew about Vista's perceived shortcomings beforehand.
you and what army?
I envision the army of people out there with their Hackintoshes. There's a serious amount of effort being put into not only making OS X boot on many different machines, but enabling WiFi, Ethernet cards, and GPUs not normally supported by Apple. In the end, it all seems a little bit futile to expend all this energy on a closed-source OS. After all, Apple is just one Software Update away from breaking it all again. Why not take all that knowledge and expertise and put it into a system where your hard work and hax0r skills are appreciated and accepted?
I'm typing this from a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop plugged into an Ethernet jack because it's a bitch-and-a-half to get the WiFi card working with Ubuntu. I can make it work if I really need to, but I enjoy using Ubuntu and value my spare time to sit down and use it. I'd like to see some of those guys making that weird mini WLAN card in their Toshiba laptop work on a hacked OS X put some effort into the FOSS community so that non-techies will think about installing Ubuntu on their laptop instead of that Vista upgrade.
Part of what makes OS X a great OS is that Apple controls the hardware side. "Everything just works" is a broad overstatement, but it mostly applies to Apple hardware and OS X. Being able to buy a boxed copy of OS X for any generic x86 PC would lead to a lot of Linux-type scenarios: *most everything* just works, but a patch here, or a trip to apt-get there, and a little bit of geeky knowledge is needed to get things working.
Most of us here at Slashdot, myself included, would be fine with that. But OS X would not be the roaring success it is if people said things like "you may need to download fwcutter to get your WiFi card working" or "you need that SSE2 emulation BIOS patch to get it to boot." It is a success because Apple--for better or worse--has tightly intertwined the hardware and software experience so that the geeky *nix parts are only there if you want to play with it, not because you have to.
The only way Apple could reasonably sell OS X for generic x86 or x86_64 hardware is to have a huge list of requirements similar to the "Vista Capable" debacle. And it would cost a lot more than the $129 it costs now. Prices would be similar to what you pay for the latest boxed version of Windows, because currently OS X is subsidized by the premium you paid on Apple's hardware to run it in the first place.
I love Macs, I love OS X, and I love Linux. I think all this effort to get OS X running on generic hardware would be better spent on getting Ubuntu (or some other distro) up to the same level of reliability and usability of OS X on Apple hardware.
Indeed...check out the moderation FAQ. There's a few reasons a post can be marked redundant, and definitely more than just repeating what someone else said. Rehashing Slashdot memes like "Ha ha" is a good way to get a redundant mod, no matter where in the conversation it is.
Too bad this comment will go down in the annals of Slashdot modded as "Funny." It was 20% Insightful and 20% Interesting, but should have been 100% Insightful. I agree that it is a new marketing strategy, and one that we are likely to see more of in the future: fake "leaked album" controversy to drum interest in a band that most people couldn't give a bowel movement about.
One could say "nothing has really changed" in that an application makes an Internet lookup request, and the OS does its internal DNS lookup, passing it back to the application. But the internal plumbing of Leopard and previous versions of OS X are quite a bit different. It's quite unlike most other *nix'es out there, as out of the box, it's set to authenticate against an LDAP-style directory service, be it the local Directory Services node, an Apple Open Directory server, or Active Directory. (Note that this is different only because it's the default...we all know that other *nix'es can do this if so configured.)
Previous versions of OS X used NetInfo only for authentication purposes, and the standard lookupd process handled DNS requests and caching. Now it's all tied into Directory Services. To the end user, it may look and act the same, but as the article points out, Leopard clients are potentially exposed to a vulnerability that earlier OS X clients are not.
... the glitz and glamour of MySpace...
Not sure this author is credible enough to be taken seriously if he thinks that MySpace is glitzy and glamorous.
Do you mean we are supposed to read TFA? Seriously?
Oh, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say, since they bothered to put the question in the headline, yes, Google is searching us. I can sometimes be bothered to RTFA, but not when it's so obviously tinfoil-hat-baiting as this.
8.0 is when they started charging for the OS.
No, it was System 7 when they started charging for the OS. 7.1 (aka "System 7 Pro") also cost, as did 7.5 and 7.6. Only the 7.5.x and 7.6.x updates were free.
I've ranted about KDE 4 before, and unfortunately must continue. I've always been a big KDE advocate, but they took damn near everything that made KDE great out of the 4.0 release. I was disappointed, but willing to give them a break and get to 4.1 (and restore some features from the 3.x series). Now we hear that 4.1 is worse than 4.0. I don't want to switch to Gnome or xfce or anything like that...but how long will I have to continue running 3.5.x?
Modern Mechanix is a great website that reprints stories from old issues of Popular Mechanics and similar magazines. Thus guy's got a ton of scans and they all look great. You might want to visit the site and ask him how he does it.
A shiny, new laptop loaded with Vista, of course. He's earned it!
And a couple of accessories to go with it: A dongle that will allow him to install Mac OS X on said laptop, and an Ubuntu CD if he would rather go that route.
Don't think he wouldn't choose one of those options, because even he knows that Windows, in its current state, is unusable.
Bill sure did pick a good time to get out. I imagine when Windows 7 receives its inevitable bashing in the press, he'll be content just giving his money away, saving the world, one gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at a time.
Zimbra is now offering a perpetual license. Previously, they only offered licenses that had to be renewed every year, which gave many potential customers worry about what would happen after a MS takeover.
If this is a concern for you, you can now buy a license that never expires. MS couldn't do anything about it.
The fact of the matter is that Zimbra has a large customer base now. A year or 18 months ago, MS could have bought Yahoo and just shut Zimbra down. But they have a ton of universities, ISPs, and other big entities among their customers now. It would be in MS's interest (or someone else's if MS doesn't want to deal with it) to take on Zimbra's business.
It's still a little unnerving until this is all settled, but there is a good option now.
If there was ever an AC that deserved some up-modding, this is the one. Don't be afraid next time and log in!
As ridiculous as it sounds, you don't have to be performing a "published" version, i.e., reading form sheet music, to owe royalties. You owe royalties every time you sing Happy Birthday, in fact.