My advice is to take some humanities courses to learn better how to communicate with your fellow human beings.
I think if you asked a lot of employers they'd tell you that a big problem is having to hire technically proficient staff that do not have the ability to write a sensible paragraph.
If you can write as well in English as you can program the latest Design Pattern, then you will go much further in your career.
And now Intel is coming out with something that's running Linux? Intel and Microsoft are usually in bed together, and suddenly they're releasing competing products and Intel's is even running Linux?
In this case the key ingredient is that AFAIK, Winodws doesn't run on XScale.
The lower power requirements of an non x86 design are a sufficiently compelling argument for set top boxes that Intel can plausibly make this argument to MS, though I'm sure there's been overtures that perhaps WinCE might work.
You can be assured that if there not enough arguments against using Microsoft's products, that Intel's biggest co-gorilla would have them using Windows or have them on the carpet explaining in great detail why not.
No, you're right that SVG doesn't have a full set of widgets - it's still in the primitive, low-level drawing language stage, kind of like Adobe Acrobat.
Not that such a higher-level capability couldn't be developed in future versions of SVG. In that sense, it's like another poster said, where the entire Mac OS X desktop could fit inside Mozilla, or any SVG compliant renderer. Just as we got PostScript enabled printers to abstract away the raw rendering interface onto paper, we could conceivably get SVG enabled frame buffers to abstract away the low level device interfaces. Like Display Postscript would be.
It's brave, it's cross-platform, but it's probably inefficient and the SVG spec is probably too new and amorphous to bet hardware design on.
To some extent, I think what you're looking for - forms capability - probably won't develop inside SVG simply because it's the responsibility of a separate working group for XForms.
due to the public backlash about having "big brother" track what their computers were doing, they allowed users to disable that hardware code from being detected.
Alas, the same paranoia about the government/Intel/MS snooping into your computer that worked back when PIII was coming out is not likely to be the same.
Since 11 Sep 2001, there's ample evidence that invoking the words "terrorist threat" ( the argument of "hackers" "pedophiles" "virus" is not so similarly strong) are sufficient to cow most freedom loving people into meek submission to what previously would have been regarded as an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy and anonymity.
My vote is for SVG, even though the current support for it in Mozilla is pretty fragile [YMMV, I'm on 1.1 Linux].
With full support for SVG, Web applications could really take off in a big way (graphical and not just text interaction) that is unhindered by platform specific nonsense.
One big hitch though seems to be in rendering quality outline fonts. Everyone would love to have the precision of PostScript for determining exactly where text is located, how far it extends, etc, but there seems to be big players that are nervous about releasing outlines of their fonts and have punted about precise layout of fonts inside SVG, deferring to upper level CSS specifications and what not that permit layout decisions to change when we really need a web layout engine that doesn't change from platform to platform (and is free and open).
After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft.
Is that really true?
I thought the United States Federal Government was the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers.
This issue has so many facets I don't know where to begin.
Some people program conscientiously, with maintainability in mind, writing lucid code that is easy for them and others to understand. It is easy to change, to extend, and is less likely to need changes or fixes.
Some coders have twisted minds unlike anyone else's. They code in a fashion they believe makes perfect sense, but heaven help the person appointed maintainer of the project. "Whaddya mean the codes broken and hard to fix? Fred's one of our sharpest programmers, as evidenced by him critiquing everyone else and no one able to understand his high level of intellect!"
Some people hack in a straight line to the destination in the shortest amount of time. Then, they or their successors spend inordinate amounts of time patching leaky pipes with bubble gum, baling wire and duct tape.
Some people delight in being indispensible for a project's existence. The code complexity becomes job security.
Some managers err by seeking to fix the unfixable and appointing poor slobs to a task that really shouldn't be done. Scrap it and rewrite would be the better option.
Some managers err by neglecting maintenance completely. If it's not a brand new shiny project, then they don't think they'll look sufficiently cool to the C level folks. The bread and butter applications are left to languish while the glittery new buzzword compliant project gets showcased up the wazoo.
and that's just for starters.
All I can say is:
"Be careful out there!"
What's the Next Catchy Descriptor of Perl?
on
Ask Larry Wall
·
· Score: 2
If it really takes off, how about using iSCSI internally instead of raw SCSI? Then, all your disk interfaces could be the same.
Does the extra hardware for NICs still cost too much? (Last I heard, even raw SCSI was considered too expensive for the consumer market, so I'm probably off my rocker again.)
I think I have to give the guy credit for admitting to the truth. It's a lot less tedious to listen to someone telling the truth than it is someone imputing that your company's virility is related to it's adoption of.NET technology.
What else is true?
Unix was not immune to software not designed with security in mind. I used rsh for years. But a transition was made.
If security is regarded as important, then slowly and inexorably Microsoft will move in that direction. Despite being a monopoly, they will respond in their sluggish way, just as they made Win2K substantially more robust with regards to crashing after everyone laughed at their early versions of NT.
The reason I love it is the exact same reason I hate it.
"It's not run like a business focused on the bottom line."
Love: because working the public sector frees you from the vagaries of the business cycle and crude metrics, such as
"Did you contribute directly to increased sales last quarter? No, I don't care if you just invented the WWW, I want to see it on the balance sheet so I can show it to the VP. Last year's raise was 18%, but this year we're having lay-offs."
Hate: Just because your organization is free from the tyranny of the bottom line doesn't mean you're free from politics and various fronts of appearances your management wants to put up.
"It would be better if you didn't mention you invented the WWW this fiscal year because the department's marquee focus was on this mundane database application. Last year's raise was 6.5 % and this year's raise is 4.1 %."
Pick your poison. If you go into the public or private sector, stay with smaller organizations, screening for psychotic management, of course. They usually can't hide too well there anyway, compared to a large organization.
Yes, it's nice to be able to record stuff, but the price tag is too high on this new box.
My TiVo was a lot less expensive and offers the same functionality as far as video is concerned. But the TiVo seems to suffer the same "locked to play only from the same box that recorded the stream" syndrome (although it seems if you're willing to jump through constantly changing hoops it's possible to circumvent that. With 2 x 100 B disks to record my shows, I haven't been motivated yet to jump through the hoops (PPP out of the back serial port.)
At some point someone is going to release some free, easy-to-use software for capturing and editting video.
And, at some point someone is going to sell the hardware that makes this easy to do from your couch and easy to plug Ethernet, extra hard drives into the back. It doesn't have to cost $1500, either.
When those things happen, there will be a furor in Hollywood unlike what you've seen so far.
I think there's growing evidence that the marketplace will soon find its own solution to dawdling on the last mile over monopoly-owned wires.
Wireless.
Already I see where more than a few people are foregoing traditional land-line voice service in favor of cellular wireless phones. That same trend you're seeing for plain old voice traffic will be mimicked for IP service.
With all the war{walking,chalking,driving,flying} going on, I can see where a few strategically-placed public access points (maybe 802.11a with directional antennas) will start an avalanche of users to using wireless for their IP service needs.
I don't suppose that the Mozilla 1.1 binaries have been compiled with SVG support yet?
I grabbed an SVG-enabled binary for Linux from not too long ago and it crashed pretty quickly.
The SVG DOM specification looks like a really interesting way to introduce more full-featured graphics, including user input, so I was hoping that something like this would become mainstream sooner rather than later.
I use an nVidia Quadro4 900XGL to drive a Samsumg T240 (24" HDTV display) under Red Hat 7.2, but with the nVidia kernel drivers.
When we were researching this, it was important to find out whether the DVI interface on the graphics card was really capable of driving 1920x1200 digitally and not just through its analog connectors (DVI-I means integrated DVI-D and DVI-A (analog)), since many smart displays will just fall back onto the analog signal if the digital signal is not there.
IIRC, the fundamental issue was how good the TMDS transmitter was on the video card. It seemed like, very roughly, RAMDAC frequency: analog picture quality, TMDS frequency: digital picture quality. Many topped out at 1280x1024, some were good for 1600x1200, but you had to look very carefully for one capable of 1920x1200. Eg, there were some medical quality image viewing hardware that were quite expensive.
The situation has probably improved over the last 6 months, so you shouldn't have quite so hard a time finding a good video card.
When you got your oil changed last, did you take the engine apart to make sure that your mechanic didn't put a rabbit in there?
Well, no, but it reminds me.
I live in a wooded area. In the winter time, the warm engine compartment and heater ducts are an attraction for animals, particularly mice. Periodically, I get the shop to remove a mouse from the heating ducts in the car.
Anyway, one winter day I was about to drive my car into the shop for a checkup and oil-change. I drove into town on the freeway, about 70 mph through the subfreezing temperatures. Parked the car and had the shop drive it into their bay. When they popped open the hood they saw a scared rabbit sitting in the corner of the engine compartment who suddenly jumped out at them and ran off to hide in some restrooms. Finally they chased the bunny outside. But they were surprised as all get out to have that rabbit spring out at them.
So, I guess I brought the extra rabbit into the shop and left with one less.
(I still wonder about the rabbit sitting in the corner of the running engine compartment, with 70 mph pavement inches below and cold air rushing by for about half an hour.)
Two real world minuses of Outlook/Exchange in MyCorporateWorld are:
Practically, it's hard to afford giving users enough space in their inboxes. They cannot be trained well enough to delete mail or to move it to other folders. Of course, it would help some if they didn't attach huge Powerpoint files to their messages.
After using Exchange for several years and ironing out the initial glitches, there's still instances where "messages go missing" that users were certain they had saved, maybe in one of those other folders.
I still use Unix mbox files for incoming mail along with MH and glimpse for searching and haven't run into any problems with insufficient inbox space or missing messages. But I like a GUI for casual use as well as a terse command line when the conditions demand it.
Outlook users generally enjoy a reasonably well-designed GUI and integrated calendering features that's hard to beat.
I'm going to try Evolution in the near future. I'm wondering if the Bynari connector will give me a pretty good interface to the Exchange server if I need to use it?
What's the point of making any work for sale if anyone can give it away for free?
I contend that most people that are supposedly giving away copyrighted works of other individuals are not really doing it for free. That they expect compensation in the form of other persons giving them other copyrighted works "for free" at some time.
But I am crazy. If you leave your MP3 collection on a public server and expect no compensation in any form whatsoever, then I have no problem with that.
I know everyone's got a point of view on this matter, ranging from "all information should be free at birth" to "all information should be controlled and tolled".
My view is best expressed by first clearing up the confusion about nomenclature.
"Copyright"
I think Fair Use includes the ability to make copies, so I don't buy Jack Valenti's argument that making a copy of a DVD is, or should be, illegal.
Also, there are too many cases where the free flow of information can be unduly inhibited by onerous technical burdens just to protect the current business models of RIAA and MPAA members.
I think they should rename the concept "CopyCharge".
Owners of the current copyrights should have the exclusive right to distribute for charge.
Of course that includes money. But also, in all fairness, I think it should include Napster-like barter exchanges where "if I give you access to X copyrighted material then you give me access to Y copyrighted material".
I think everyone should respect copyright ownership in that way.
Thus, I don't have any problems with them prosecuting people who actually distribute copies of material for compensation when they don't own the "copycharge" right.
I do have a problem with heavy handed tactics where the flow of all digital information is restricted just because of some lawbreakers. It's just like crowbars. Yes, they can be used as burglary tools, but they're also quite useful in many other circumstances.
Yes, please, by all means prosecute actual burglars. No, under no circumstances, should you outlaw tools. That's why I view NET as great, but other laws such as DMCA and CB.... as abominations.
Slashdot Mirror
As an American, I've always thought of Aussies as being likewise independent, free-thinking and friendly people (Mad Max notwithstanding).
You know, like, "No worries, mate!"
Now I'm feeling bad because I was worried about the evil Ashcroft and Carnivore while my buddies in Oz are enduring much worse!
[Quoting from the article...]
"Some phones use software known as Java that lets them do much more sophisticated things."
Sigh, I hate it when I see evidence that I'm learning about a new technology this way.
Shoot, I may as well just start learning about foreign policy and macroeconomics from my political leaders on TV.
My advice is to take some humanities courses to learn better how to communicate with your fellow human beings.
I think if you asked a lot of employers they'd tell you that a big problem is having to hire technically proficient staff that do not have the ability to write a sensible paragraph.
If you can write as well in English as you can program the latest Design Pattern, then you will go much further in your career.
And now Intel is coming out with something that's running Linux? Intel and Microsoft are usually in bed together, and suddenly they're releasing competing products and Intel's is even running Linux?
In this case the key ingredient is that AFAIK, Winodws doesn't run on XScale.
The lower power requirements of an non x86 design are a sufficiently compelling argument for set top boxes that Intel can plausibly make this argument to MS, though I'm sure there's been overtures that perhaps WinCE might work.
You can be assured that if there not enough arguments against using Microsoft's products, that Intel's biggest co-gorilla would have them using Windows or have them on the carpet explaining in great detail why not.
However, when the HTML is standard, it's a bug in the browser, which needs to be addressed.
Your logic is flawless, but notice where you're left now.
The browser is branded buggy and non-compliant.
Say the browser is IE 4 or Netscape 4.
Great - the browser creators come out with a new version of the browser that fixes those bugs.
IE 6 and Netscape 6 are in greater compliance with standardized HTML 4.01, CSS, DOM, etc.
Now you come to the end of the road:
No, you're right that SVG doesn't have a full set of widgets - it's still in the primitive, low-level drawing language stage, kind of like Adobe Acrobat.
Not that such a higher-level capability couldn't be developed in future versions of SVG. In that sense, it's like another poster said, where the entire Mac OS X desktop could fit inside Mozilla, or any SVG compliant renderer. Just as we got PostScript enabled printers to abstract away the raw rendering interface onto paper, we could conceivably get SVG enabled frame buffers to abstract away the low level device interfaces. Like Display Postscript would be. It's brave, it's cross-platform, but it's probably inefficient and the SVG spec is probably too new and amorphous to bet hardware design on.
To some extent, I think what you're looking for - forms capability - probably won't develop inside SVG simply because it's the responsibility of a separate working group for XForms.
due to the public backlash about having "big brother" track what their computers were doing, they allowed users to disable that hardware code from being detected.
Alas, the same paranoia about the government/Intel/MS snooping into your computer that worked back when PIII was coming out is not likely to be the same.
Since 11 Sep 2001, there's ample evidence that invoking the words "terrorist threat" ( the argument of "hackers" "pedophiles" "virus" is not so similarly strong) are sufficient to cow most freedom loving people into meek submission to what previously would have been regarded as an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy and anonymity.
My vote is for SVG, even though the current support for it in Mozilla is pretty fragile [YMMV, I'm on 1.1 Linux].
With full support for SVG, Web applications could really take off in a big way (graphical and not just text interaction) that is unhindered by platform specific nonsense.
One big hitch though seems to be in rendering quality outline fonts. Everyone would love to have the precision of PostScript for determining exactly where text is located, how far it extends, etc, but there seems to be big players that are nervous about releasing outlines of their fonts and have punted about precise layout of fonts inside SVG, deferring to upper level CSS specifications and what not that permit layout decisions to change when we really need a web layout engine that doesn't change from platform to platform (and is free and open).
After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft.
Is that really true?
I thought the United States Federal Government was the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers.
Am I wrong?
like with a mail order business spun off a website with some demoware?
Publish a couple of advertisements in magazines read by your target market.
In the short term, burn your own CDs and get a local publishing house to create some glossy user manual and CD covers.
This issue has so many facets I don't know where to begin.
- Some people program conscientiously, with maintainability in mind, writing lucid code that is easy for them and others to understand. It is easy to change, to extend, and is less likely to need changes or fixes.
- Some coders have twisted minds unlike anyone else's. They code in a fashion they believe makes perfect sense, but heaven help the person appointed maintainer of the project. "Whaddya mean the codes broken and hard to fix? Fred's one of our sharpest programmers, as evidenced by him critiquing everyone else and no one able to understand his high level of intellect!"
- Some people hack in a straight line to the destination in the shortest amount of time. Then, they or their successors spend inordinate amounts of time patching leaky pipes with bubble gum, baling wire and duct tape.
- Some people delight in being indispensible for a project's existence. The code complexity becomes job security.
- Some managers err by seeking to fix the unfixable and appointing poor slobs to a task that really shouldn't be done. Scrap it and rewrite would be the better option.
- Some managers err by neglecting maintenance completely. If it's not a brand new shiny project, then they don't think they'll look sufficiently cool to the C level folks. The bread and butter applications are left to languish while the glittery new buzzword compliant project gets showcased up the wazoo.
and that's just for starters.All I can say is:
after:
and ?If it really takes off, how about using iSCSI internally instead of raw SCSI? Then, all your disk interfaces could be the same.
Does the extra hardware for NICs still cost too much? (Last I heard, even raw SCSI was considered too expensive for the consumer market, so I'm probably off my rocker again.)
I think I have to give the guy credit for admitting to the truth. It's a lot less tedious to listen to someone telling the truth than it is someone imputing that your company's virility is related to it's adoption of .NET technology.
What else is true?
Unix was not immune to software not designed with security in mind. I used rsh for years. But a transition was made.
If security is regarded as important, then slowly and inexorably Microsoft will move in that direction. Despite being a monopoly, they will respond in their sluggish way, just as they made Win2K substantially more robust with regards to crashing after everyone laughed at their early versions of NT.
I work in the public sector.
The reason I love it is the exact same reason I hate it.
Love: because working the public sector frees you from the vagaries of the business cycle and crude metrics, such as
Hate: Just because your organization is free from the tyranny of the bottom line doesn't mean you're free from politics and various fronts of appearances your management wants to put up.
Pick your poison. If you go into the public or private sector, stay with smaller organizations, screening for psychotic management, of course. They usually can't hide too well there anyway, compared to a large organization.
Yes, it's nice to be able to record stuff, but the price tag is too high on this new box.
My TiVo was a lot less expensive and offers the same functionality as far as video is concerned. But the TiVo seems to suffer the same "locked to play only from the same box that recorded the stream" syndrome (although it seems if you're willing to jump through constantly changing hoops it's possible to circumvent that. With 2 x 100 B disks to record my shows, I haven't been motivated yet to jump through the hoops (PPP out of the back serial port.)
At some point someone is going to release some free, easy-to-use software for capturing and editting video.
And, at some point someone is going to sell the hardware that makes this easy to do from your couch and easy to plug Ethernet, extra hard drives into the back. It doesn't have to cost $1500, either.
When those things happen, there will be a furor in Hollywood unlike what you've seen so far.
I think there's growing evidence that the marketplace will soon find its own solution to dawdling on the last mile over monopoly-owned wires.
Wireless.
Already I see where more than a few people are foregoing traditional land-line voice service in favor of cellular wireless phones. That same trend you're seeing for plain old voice traffic will be mimicked for IP service.
With all the war{walking,chalking,driving,flying} going on, I can see where a few strategically-placed public access points (maybe 802.11a with directional antennas) will start an avalanche of users to using wireless for their IP service needs.
Maybe then some of us poor slob end-users can start to see some benefits from that 12 month doubling period for BW/cost ratio on fat pipes.
I don't suppose that the Mozilla 1.1 binaries have been compiled with SVG support yet?
I grabbed an SVG-enabled binary for Linux from not too long ago and it crashed pretty quickly.
The SVG DOM specification looks like a really interesting way to introduce more full-featured graphics, including user input, so I was hoping that something like this would become mainstream sooner rather than later.
Right on (from another scientist using a Lintel system with a good video card and gigabit ethernet.)
The significant corollary is our preference for quality OpenGL cards in our machines.
I use an nVidia Quadro4 900XGL to drive a Samsumg T240 (24" HDTV display) under Red Hat 7.2, but with the nVidia kernel drivers.
When we were researching this, it was important to find out whether the DVI interface on the graphics card was really capable of driving 1920x1200 digitally and not just through its analog connectors (DVI-I means integrated DVI-D and DVI-A (analog)), since many smart displays will just fall back onto the analog signal if the digital signal is not there.
IIRC, the fundamental issue was how good the TMDS transmitter was on the video card. It seemed like, very roughly, RAMDAC frequency: analog picture quality, TMDS frequency: digital picture quality. Many topped out at 1280x1024, some were good for 1600x1200, but you had to look very carefully for one capable of 1920x1200. Eg, there were some medical quality image viewing hardware that were quite expensive.
The situation has probably improved over the last 6 months, so you shouldn't have quite so hard a time finding a good video card.
When you got your oil changed last, did you take the engine apart to make sure that your mechanic didn't put a rabbit in there?
Well, no, but it reminds me.
I live in a wooded area. In the winter time, the warm engine compartment and heater ducts are an attraction for animals, particularly mice. Periodically, I get the shop to remove a mouse from the heating ducts in the car.
Anyway, one winter day I was about to drive my car into the shop for a checkup and oil-change. I drove into town on the freeway, about 70 mph through the subfreezing temperatures. Parked the car and had the shop drive it into their bay. When they popped open the hood they saw a scared rabbit sitting in the corner of the engine compartment who suddenly jumped out at them and ran off to hide in some restrooms. Finally they chased the bunny outside. But they were surprised as all get out to have that rabbit spring out at them.
So, I guess I brought the extra rabbit into the shop and left with one less.
(I still wonder about the rabbit sitting in the corner of the running engine compartment, with 70 mph pavement inches below and cold air rushing by for about half an hour.)
Two real world minuses of Outlook/Exchange in MyCorporateWorld are:
- Practically, it's hard to afford giving users enough space in their inboxes. They cannot be trained well enough to delete mail or to move it to other folders. Of course, it would help some if they didn't attach huge Powerpoint files to their messages.
- After using Exchange for several years and ironing out the initial glitches, there's still instances where "messages go missing" that users were certain they had saved, maybe in one of those other folders.
I still use Unix mbox files for incoming mail along with MH and glimpse for searching and haven't run into any problems with insufficient inbox space or missing messages. But I like a GUI for casual use as well as a terse command line when the conditions demand it.Outlook users generally enjoy a reasonably well-designed GUI and integrated calendering features that's hard to beat.
I'm going to try Evolution in the near future. I'm wondering if the Bynari connector will give me a pretty good interface to the Exchange server if I need to use it?
What's the point of making any work for sale if anyone can give it away for free?
I contend that most people that are supposedly giving away copyrighted works of other individuals are not really doing it for free. That they expect compensation in the form of other persons giving them other copyrighted works "for free" at some time.
But I am crazy. If you leave your MP3 collection on a public server and expect no compensation in any form whatsoever, then I have no problem with that.
Receiving compensation is hardly an evil act
I'm not claiming that receiving compensation is an evil act. Inherently, there's nothing good or evil about receiving compensation.
What I am arguing is that owners of the copyright should have the exclusive right to distribute copies for a charge. That's all.
I know everyone's got a point of view on this matter, ranging from "all information should be free at birth" to "all information should be controlled and tolled".
My view is best expressed by first clearing up the confusion about nomenclature.
"Copyright"
I think Fair Use includes the ability to make copies, so I don't buy Jack Valenti's argument that making a copy of a DVD is, or should be, illegal.
Also, there are too many cases where the free flow of information can be unduly inhibited by onerous technical burdens just to protect the current business models of RIAA and MPAA members.
I think they should rename the concept "CopyCharge".
Owners of the current copyrights should have the exclusive right to distribute for charge.
Of course that includes money. But also, in all fairness, I think it should include Napster-like barter exchanges where "if I give you access to X copyrighted material then you give me access to Y copyrighted material".
I think everyone should respect copyright ownership in that way.
Thus, I don't have any problems with them prosecuting people who actually distribute copies of material for compensation when they don't own the "copycharge" right.
I do have a problem with heavy handed tactics where the flow of all digital information is restricted just because of some lawbreakers. It's just like crowbars. Yes, they can be used as burglary tools, but they're also quite useful in many other circumstances.
Yes, please, by all means prosecute actual burglars. No, under no circumstances, should you outlaw tools. That's why I view NET as great, but other laws such as DMCA and CB.... as abominations.