It seems to me that I just read that a new Ximian Gnome is going to be based on Gnome 2.2, but I don't recall where I saw that. Is there any truth to that? Is there a published timeline for such a release? The current Ximian Gnome was great when it came out, but it's starting to feel a little stale, especially after looking at Gnome 2.2 screenshots.
Well, they did ban kids from buying Glade and other arosol air fresheners around here when "huffing" was the cool new thing for kids to do. Even though kids could have perfectly valid reasons for wanting their bedroom to smell like spring rain or mountain breeze, there are steps that need to be taken if common goods are causing a significant problem.
For many Mac fans it's about the speed in terms of entire tasks, not simply the computing time.
If, for example, it takes you 5 minutes to get your PC to do what you want it to, and then it does the task in virtually no time, what does that matter if you can do the same task on a Mac in 30 seconds and wait an entire second for it to complete the task?
Obviously the numbers are just there to illustrate my point, not based on anything specific.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's about speed including usability and reliability.
I have gotten a student version of VB6 with a textbook. The student version will not let you compile the exe file. Did you get a special student price on the full version of VB with no restrictions on how you use it after you leave school?
Yup. MS struck a deal w/ our school where we can get full versions of just about anything (OS upgrades, Office, Visual Studio, etc) for around $30. I think Slashdot posted on this in the past, but good luck digging through the archives to find it. The specific part of the agreement reads, "If you leave the University within the term of the contract you will receive a perpetual license for the products that you have received."
It's one heck of a marketing move on their part, but I can't say that I feel good about it.
To icculus.org (booth #9):
What is it like to be a small organization at a big convention with people like HP, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc? Do people give you any credit for what you are doing?
This was a big reason that I ended up using *gasp* VB for a desktop project that I had when I was doing contracted work.
My client didn't understand the concept of OSS or Free Software (why would they?) but they made it clear that they would not pay to have it developed if other people were going to get the software for free soon after. So, if I wanted the job (income) I had to write commercial software.
I would have loved to tack on an extra $1550 to my quote in order to purchase a QT license, but that's an obvious issue when the client looks at the break-down of my quote and that line adds a large percentage to the bottom line.
Unfortunately, Swing is a pain to work with (at least from my experience) and Microsoft put VB in my hands for next to no cost when I was a college student and allowed me to use it after I graduated, even on commercial projects. Once again, Microsoft's marketing succeeds in this case.
I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but perhaps QT would consider a per-project license fee, one that acknowledges low-budget projects. Maybe charging a percentage of a project's total cost (if under a certain amount) for the rights to use QT in it would work.
Maybe giving college kids a low-cost license that enables them to use QT in commercial projects after school would be beneficial to everybody.
Maybe GTK just needs to mature on other platforms.
In that case, how about a standardized screen/display for these devices and a standardized method to connect (USB, Firewire, etc)? That way, devices themselves can continue to be small and functional on their own (not to mention independent) but an external display could be used when you want more functionality.
If I ever buy a cell phone I don't want it to have a big screen, I want it to transmit my voice conversation well. If I find that I need a big screen, I want to buy a screen, not an entirely new phone.
Hasn't the concept of modularity sunk in yet? Not even with the geeks that understand good software development techniques?
But how well would that work if you worked for, say, a retailer who has millions of "objects" ordered, sold, shipped, returned for credit, etc? How quickly can you generate XML for 10 million orders and 500,000 returns, store that XML while the schema is updated, and re-import the XML? Remember that for every second that it takes to perform this, your company is losing money.
Regarding the news from Stanford a couple weeks ago, "The chairman of President Bush's bioethics council demanded a public apology from Stanford University, accusing the school of trying to conceal the nature of its stem cell research and mischaracterizing the bioethics council's views."
Everybody, especially Slashdotters, tend to be such critics. Doesn't anybody think that an open discussion (including the merits of the proposal) on the topic is best for all of us? Doesn't it make sense to have a system in place where authorities can track Internet communications of an individual or organization if there is strong evidence that such tracking is justified? Sure, sure "Big Brother is watching us" blah blah, but isn't he always going to be? Isn't one of the best solutions to make it illegal for the feds to perform this kind of monitoring unless they have strong evidence that from a court that it should be performed and then allow them to put this sort of system in place? Why not treat it more mail or the phone system or like a search warrant?
"Simulated" Motion(sickness)
on
Robocoaster
·
· Score: 1
Are people going to get sick on it like they do at theaters that have seats that move just a little to give the impression that you're moving with the movie? There are people that get sick in said theaters but not on coasters. Does anybody have any interesting info on the different types of motion sickness?
Old Method, But New Prosecution/Media Coverage?
on
When Sysadmins Go Bad
·
· Score: 1
I was amused when, in casual discussion, my boss brought up a similar topic soon after I was hired. He knew that I was a fan of Linux/UNIX (but unfortunately I use little at work) and he made a comment about cron'ing a job that would delete everything from the filesystem if I hadn't logged in for x days (he jokingly called this "job security"). So, I guess my point is that this topic has been kicked around for a while, and companies know about the potential, but I can't say that I've ever seen prosecution for such actions. Is this the first time we've seen prosecution and/or media coverage for this type of action?
Re:Merits of PHP compared to Perl?
on
Professional PHP4
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I switched from Perl to PHP early in my Web development days for a few reasons.
Perl has an entire culture that comes along with it that advocates perl as the
solution to everything, and that kind of thinking made made perl a pain to
learn, especially for somebody that just wanted to write dynamic Web content,
not rule the world with his regex talent. I was also annoyed by always
printing out content headers and the CGI modules were clunky and had too much
overhead.
With that said, I feel that the top reasons to use PHP rather than perl are:
PHP's embedded nature as opposed to perl's stand-alone nature (I realize
that perl can be embedded, but it's rarely used that way). This makes it easier
to get simple code in to a page (just embed the code rather than creating an
external file with proper permissions, header code, etc in the right
location.
Simplicity of the language -- PHP is much easier to read and learn. This is
so important when you develop a project with multiple coders
involved or when a project needs to be taken over or maintained by somebody
other than the intial developer(s).
Avoiding modules. PHP includes nearly all of the basics that you need for
dynamic Web development and the extra code that you may need can just be
tossed in to your code directories rather than installed as a module. This is
nice when you have to deal with ISPs or server admins that are slow to install
software and it makes it easier to move your code from one server to
another.
I realize that most of this won't convert a perl advocate (what would?)
especially if they're going to be the sole coder on a project, but that's
rarely the case with real production systems.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that I just read that a new Ximian Gnome is going to be based on Gnome 2.2, but I don't recall where I saw that. Is there any truth to that? Is there a published timeline for such a release? The current Ximian Gnome was great when it came out, but it's starting to feel a little stale, especially after looking at Gnome 2.2 screenshots.
Well, they did ban kids from buying Glade and other arosol air fresheners around here when "huffing" was the cool new thing for kids to do. Even though kids could have perfectly valid reasons for wanting their bedroom to smell like spring rain or mountain breeze, there are steps that need to be taken if common goods are causing a significant problem.
For many Mac fans it's about the speed in terms of entire tasks, not simply the computing time.
If, for example, it takes you 5 minutes to get your PC to do what you want it to, and then it does the task in virtually no time, what does that matter if you can do the same task on a Mac in 30 seconds and wait an entire second for it to complete the task?
Obviously the numbers are just there to illustrate my point, not based on anything specific.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's about speed including usability and reliability.
It's one heck of a marketing move on their part, but I can't say that I feel good about it.
To icculus.org (booth #9): What is it like to be a small organization at a big convention with people like HP, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc? Do people give you any credit for what you are doing?
This was a big reason that I ended up using *gasp* VB for a desktop project that I had when I was doing contracted work.
My client didn't understand the concept of OSS or Free Software (why would they?) but they made it clear that they would not pay to have it developed if other people were going to get the software for free soon after. So, if I wanted the job (income) I had to write commercial software.
I would have loved to tack on an extra $1550 to my quote in order to purchase a QT license, but that's an obvious issue when the client looks at the break-down of my quote and that line adds a large percentage to the bottom line.
Unfortunately, Swing is a pain to work with (at least from my experience) and Microsoft put VB in my hands for next to no cost when I was a college student and allowed me to use it after I graduated, even on commercial projects. Once again, Microsoft's marketing succeeds in this case.
I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but perhaps QT would consider a per-project license fee, one that acknowledges low-budget projects. Maybe charging a percentage of a project's total cost (if under a certain amount) for the rights to use QT in it would work.
Maybe giving college kids a low-cost license that enables them to use QT in commercial projects after school would be beneficial to everybody.
Maybe GTK just needs to mature on other platforms.
In that case, how about a standardized screen/display for these devices and a standardized method to connect (USB, Firewire, etc)? That way, devices themselves can continue to be small and functional on their own (not to mention independent) but an external display could be used when you want more functionality.
If I ever buy a cell phone I don't want it to have a big screen, I want it to transmit my voice conversation well. If I find that I need a big screen, I want to buy a screen, not an entirely new phone.
Hasn't the concept of modularity sunk in yet? Not even with the geeks that understand good software development techniques?
But how well would that work if you worked for, say, a retailer who has millions of "objects" ordered, sold, shipped, returned for credit, etc? How quickly can you generate XML for 10 million orders and 500,000 returns, store that XML while the schema is updated, and re-import the XML? Remember that for every second that it takes to perform this, your company is losing money.
Regarding the news from Stanford a couple weeks ago, "The chairman of President Bush's bioethics council demanded a public apology from Stanford University, accusing the school of trying to conceal the nature of its stem cell research and mischaracterizing the bioethics council's views."
Everybody, especially Slashdotters, tend to be such critics. Doesn't anybody think that an open discussion (including the merits of the proposal) on the topic is best for all of us? Doesn't it make sense to have a system in place where authorities can track Internet communications of an individual or organization if there is strong evidence that such tracking is justified? Sure, sure "Big Brother is watching us" blah blah, but isn't he always going to be? Isn't one of the best solutions to make it illegal for the feds to perform this kind of monitoring unless they have strong evidence that from a court that it should be performed and then allow them to put this sort of system in place? Why not treat it more mail or the phone system or like a search warrant?
Are people going to get sick on it like they do at theaters that have seats that move just a little to give the impression that you're moving with the movie? There are people that get sick in said theaters but not on coasters. Does anybody have any interesting info on the different types of motion sickness?
I was amused when, in casual discussion, my boss brought up a similar topic soon after I was hired. He knew that I was a fan of Linux/UNIX (but unfortunately I use little at work) and he made a comment about cron'ing a job that would delete everything from the filesystem if I hadn't logged in for x days (he jokingly called this "job security"). So, I guess my point is that this topic has been kicked around for a while, and companies know about the potential, but I can't say that I've ever seen prosecution for such actions. Is this the first time we've seen prosecution and/or media coverage for this type of action?
but we still love you, Oscar!
With that said, I feel that the top reasons to use PHP rather than perl are:
I realize that most of this won't convert a perl advocate (what would?) especially if they're going to be the sole coder on a project, but that's rarely the case with real production systems.
Related links: Google: php vs perl, Web Automation: PHP vs. Perl vs. PHP
yeah...and the real problem with McDonalds is that they don't give away Big Macs to people who already bought a Whopper at Buger King.