What other formats did he use? The article did not say. I actually prefer the Ogg Vorbis encoding as higher quality than MP3. I've begun the long process of converting my mp3s to ogg.
I have found a lot of unreasonable fear, uncertainty, and doubt. To be honest, people understand Windows and are afraid of change. Including technical professionals, they fear loosing out on all their expensive certifications and the like. I am an advocate of better technology and Linux and F/OSS is just better. Plain and simple.
Dumbed down is not the answer! This is just what is happening with America now. What we need is for people to smarten up and to want to learn about their computers. Because everything has been dumbed down and hidden in Windows, it has become the malware/botnet writers playground. If you are too easily frustrated when something doesn't work right the first time, you need to find a new hobby. Sorry, I said it........ but it needed to be said.
LOL! This is something I experience when I go into work everyday. I lament the fact that I need to reboot my desktop at least 3x per day. I mysteriously loose my single sign-on credentials and must re-enter them. I absolutely abhor MS Outhouse. When installing software, I sometimes mistakenly look for RPMs. Oh, and when I pull up a command line I type traceroute instead of tracert and when I type kinit or kdestory, I get befuddled with an error message. I miss my CentOS Linux machine... tear drop
to live free and clear of Windows. I have been doing it for several years. I use CentOS on my desktop and have not had any problems with software management. Red Hat's RPM works very well and its yum package install and removal system is brilliant. I did have to add rpmfusion and rpmforge repositories so that I could get the non-free plugins and the like. Once adding those two repositories, I can play MP3s, watch movies, stream video, encode video (other than ogg vorbis), and the like. I use thunderbird for email with the enigmail plugin for PGP Encryption and can even play movies on Hulu and YouTube. Not really sure what the author is having difficulty with. I am not a fan of the debian-based distributions and I know I'll catch flack for "dissing" Ubuntu but.... Anyone can drink a Windows free kool aid
Hey, thanks for that link. It looks pretty cool. I wonder if they have any plans to integrate Gnome Evolution. I like it better than Mozilla Thunderbird. With this addition, you really can completely replace a Microsoft Network.
I know this is a little bit off topic but how are you planning to replace Collaborative services like groupware? There doesn't exist any really good F/OSS groupware alternatives. The ones out there are really crippleware and you have to buy licensing to get at the good stuff. I guess sharepoint is easier to replace with an open source CMS.
I would say the case for a F/OSS Operating System has been made. I simply love the security of Linux. You can count the amount of malware available by hand and it is all easily defeated. I think the last virus I got several years ago, an rm -rf worked wonders. I checked my netstat and used other programs to verify that I wasn't spewing data out to a botnet controller and I still periodically check. Proof positive that security by obscurity doesn't work.
Microsoft skills are not the key to economic recovery. The key to economic recovery is open source and open standards which encourage innovation and competition. With competition, comes improved products and reliability; not this poor security/reliability record that Windows has. The keys to economic recovery come with the innovations of open source that stem from individuals, universities, and companies like Red Hat, SuSE, Vyatta, Asterisk, and others alike. It is the practice of using M$ software rather than Free/Open Source Software that has a much lower total cost of ownership that helped us get where we are today... competition stifled and debt weary. Rather than Volt workers accepting a pay cut, why not the CEO, CIO, and CTO of that company agree to cap his salary at 100,000 and no bonus. Let him or her take one for the team for a change. They should have an option to vote down the executives. This is my own 0.02 anyhow.
This will never happen because the low cost cellular market is starting to heat up. Take a look at Boost Mobile, http://www.boostmobile.com/ which offers a $50 a month unlimited plan as an example. T-Mobile will soon be following suit. There will be consumer back lash against exhorbitant cellular service costs. For years now, cellular service has been way overpriced and I am thankful for Boost dropping the boom on it. While I do not use Boost, I am a T-Mobile customer and T-Mobile is already in serious consideration of matching Boost's service. When this happens, I will pretty much be a T-Mobile customer for life. While their coverage might not be as good as other GSM carriers, their customer service is outstanding.
Open source makes for the best way to achieve President Obama's goals of transparency. Open source ensures a standards based method that will allow everyone to access government websites, information, and portals. No longer do you need to be tied into the M$ quagmire to conduct government business. If M$ won't open its software and standards, folks like Red Hat, Novell, Sun, and others will. You will have a choice of products to use.
Don't you think that is a little harsh and judgemental? Loosing your job, employment, career can be pretty catastrophic to the psyche. Try having a little more compassion. Being harsh, judgemental, and indifferent to needs other than our own is what brought us to this large scale recession in the first place.
Open source software will not suffer as a result of economic downturn because many of the applications out there are also hobbies and labours of love. In fact, in these economic times, quite the reverse. I would expect open source to thrive and flourish because businesses will be looking for less expensive, more attractive alternatives. Plus, open source development is a way of keeping programming skills fresh and gives the out of work software engineer a chance to hone their skills and practice writing better code. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of all invention, and in this economy, it is necessary to provide a more competitive product than the Microsofts of the world.
I really like Request Tracker. I think it is hands down, the best open source Help Desk Software. It can be used in solution ranging from Help Desk Management to Queue Management. It also has excellent documentation. An O'reilly book was written about RT so you can get a nice amount of assistance getting it going and even customizing it.
were one of the unlucky ones laid off from work, I would really like to say the words, "So sue me," and not return the money. But, to take the ethical high ground and pay back the money is really the best course of action because it makes you look like the good guy. You will be more apt to be considered for rehire. I dislike M$ intensely but I won't stoop to ethics violations.... including pirating M$ software. Returning the money only makes you smell like a rose. I know that those laid off are suffering, but, at least you aren't alone. The suffering is widespread and getting worse by the week. The only silver lining to this cloud is that the government needs to pay attention to the plight of the working class and middle class because the adverse economic conditions are so widespread. The unemployed are no longer a statistical minority, and while sad, will actually help in the long run.
Ballmer is right but he had no business making such comments directed at Apple. Microsoft practically perfected the closed source, proprietary, and monopolistic marketing and sales practices. I do believe Apple should open up its iPhone and iPod but this may never happen. I think Ballmer complaints about Apple's closed source operating system for the iPod are really just sore loser gaffs. Microsoft invested large amounts of time and money in the failed Zune. Since Zune did not compete with Apple, I am sure Microsoft is licking sore wounds.
This was a really good ruling. Leave censorship to the parents. There has been yet to prove a direct corollation between violent behvior and video games. Some studies have shown that operrant conditioning is happening where video game players may overcome the natural inhibition to kill. However, this theory fails to explain why most people that play violent video games do not go out and act like that in the real world. Behavioral science, while fascinating, is inexact at best. Legislating people's actions based on an inexact science is never a very good idea.
Obama should give money in the stimulus towards open source software and mandate its use but this doesn't automatically equate to job creation or transparency. Indeed as an open source user, this is a victory to me. Though, generally-speaking, because open source software is extensively debugged and peer reviewed, it is more stable and doesn't require an army to maintain it, I would not expect a large number of jobs to be created. However, a good reason for open source is an open, enforced standard of interoperability where the source code is readily viewable and accessible without spartan licensing. What we have now is a flash player for Linux (binary only) that still lags behind its Windows/Mac counterparts. I should not be forced into using IE if I need access to a government website. I don't really see how this equates to more transparency other than the still smaller crowd of Linux/BSD users can obtain the same information. Transparency is really only as good as the information the government will post as publicly available, regardless of chosen platform. Transparency begins with the willingness of government to disclose ALL of the information.
Much like driving requires a license, it is no stretch to foresee forcing IPv6 upon everyone and requiring that everyone wanting to connect their computers to the internet purchase an address. That address or range of addresses becomes the license to use the internet, and as such, becomes the diminished reasonable expectation of privacy allowing surveillance. Personally, I am dead set against giving big brother any more power. We are already near Orwellian 1984. This might be why a crushing recession or depression is a good thing. It might stem the tide of loss of individual freedoms as the citizenry loose confidence in their government and government is less likely to function efficiently. All these stimulus bills that force tracking and have other law enforcement assisting technologies should never pass.
No, Batteries will not jump start the economy. Why? It is still cheaper in the eyes of the moneymen to send the R&D to India or some other country. In effect, the stimulus funds will end up benefitting a third world economy. I would only jump for joy over this if there was legislation to ensure that jobs would be created here in the US and that all R&D and manufacturing happens here. I really, really do not want our funds being used to help the Indian or Chinese economy.
Americans too often forget that NOTHING in life is free. Facebook offers their account for free and can do this only through advertising and the reselling of the rights to market, you, the account holder. And, you don't see a drop of money in return. Too often we see something is free and jump impulsively all over the deal. Corporations such as Facebook count on this marketing psychology to get you to sign up. Now, they have a thriving community in which to sell ad space and make far more money selling advertisements then they would on a recurrent account fee. Facebook has also, through their marketing research, discovered that your content is also worth oodles of money. Stay away from these social networking sites and you guarantee your privacy. Plus you don't give companies the ability to make money off you. Why do you think You Tube is such a cash cow for Google? They sell their website's ad space and your content? I dare someone to start their own social networking site without all the facist terms of service and do something because it is ethical, not because you can make gobs of money.
I am all for helping the poor, but we have to help the poor in our own respective countries first. It is little known that there are parts of the deep south mired in shocking poverty which resembles trips to third world nations. There are areas of the Louisiana Bayous, Macon County, GA, and parts of the Mississippi Delta that have no electricity, running water, sewage treatment, or any other amenity that most others enjoy. I am so sick of our politicians blatantly ignoring the suffering of our own people. The only reason these drugs companies are advocating low cost medications to poor countries is to look like a "responsible corporation." So, the drug companies get additional charitable tax write offs and it is sick. Indeed it is only smoke and mirrors. So, the next time you see a commercial coming from a drug company that looks altruistic, don't believe the bull shit they are spewing.
You have a very laudable goal. I faced a situation with a small private school for high functioning children with learning disabilities. I stepped in as a consultant (A friend of mine is on the board of directors and I did this as volunteer work) to fix the situation when the system admin was terminated. The coffers for the IT budget were nearly drained from an expensive, maintenance intensive setup. The school was in such bad shape financially as a result of misspent money on IT that admin staff took a voluntary furlough. All grade and student information data was archived and copies exported to csv files. After this was done, we shut down the infrastructure for a re-design using Fedora (Gnome Desktop), CentOS (File/Directory/Email Server), OpenBSD (Security/Routing), and FreeBSD (Application/Database Server.) By the end of the summer, using the strengths of Linux and BSD, we had a fully kerberized infrastructure that met the requirements of the school. Here are the technologies we used: Squid Web proxy, MIT Kerberos, CentOS Directory Server, Joomla CMS (replaced that crappy smart board application), Apache 2.2 and Tomcat, MySQL, Postfix, OpenBSD Spamd and RIP. There are others too. This project was not easy but wildly successful but the success was, for a large part, due to the cooperation, enthusiasm, and dedication of the staff. Staff realized that there were going to be changes and not all changes would please everyone but this was in the name of saving a school. We have been up and running for the past 8 mos without a hiccup. Previously, major outtages were a weekly, if not daily occurance. I was successful because I involved as many people as I could. Even my most adamant teacher recognizes that Windows is not the be all, end all.
Actually, it is an operating system..... The OpenBSD guys simply have a justifiable hard on for killing the spammer. I support them a 100%. BSD does more than just spam. Makes an excellent security appliance, application server, and web server. Hells, you can also use it as a BGP/RIP/OSPF router which would bring a high end Cisco to its knees. OpenBSD (and BSD in general) is kind of a swiss army knife of operating systems. If you want to do it, you most likely can.
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What other formats did he use? The article did not say. I actually prefer the Ogg Vorbis encoding as higher quality than MP3. I've begun the long process of converting my mp3s to ogg.
I have found a lot of unreasonable fear, uncertainty, and doubt. To be honest, people understand Windows and are afraid of change. Including technical professionals, they fear loosing out on all their expensive certifications and the like. I am an advocate of better technology and Linux and F/OSS is just better. Plain and simple.
Dumbed down is not the answer! This is just what is happening with America now. What we need is for people to smarten up and to want to learn about their computers. Because everything has been dumbed down and hidden in Windows, it has become the malware/botnet writers playground. If you are too easily frustrated when something doesn't work right the first time, you need to find a new hobby. Sorry, I said it ........ but it needed to be said.
LOL! This is something I experience when I go into work everyday. I lament the fact that I need to reboot my desktop at least 3x per day. I mysteriously loose my single sign-on credentials and must re-enter them. I absolutely abhor MS Outhouse. When installing software, I sometimes mistakenly look for RPMs. Oh, and when I pull up a command line I type traceroute instead of tracert and when I type kinit or kdestory, I get befuddled with an error message. I miss my CentOS Linux machine ... tear drop
to live free and clear of Windows. I have been doing it for several years. I use CentOS on my desktop and have not had any problems with software management. Red Hat's RPM works very well and its yum package install and removal system is brilliant. I did have to add rpmfusion and rpmforge repositories so that I could get the non-free plugins and the like. Once adding those two repositories, I can play MP3s, watch movies, stream video, encode video (other than ogg vorbis), and the like. I use thunderbird for email with the enigmail plugin for PGP Encryption and can even play movies on Hulu and YouTube. Not really sure what the author is having difficulty with. I am not a fan of the debian-based distributions and I know I'll catch flack for "dissing" Ubuntu but .... Anyone can drink a Windows free kool aid
Hey, thanks for that link. It looks pretty cool. I wonder if they have any plans to integrate Gnome Evolution. I like it better than Mozilla Thunderbird. With this addition, you really can completely replace a Microsoft Network.
I know this is a little bit off topic but how are you planning to replace Collaborative services like groupware? There doesn't exist any really good F/OSS groupware alternatives. The ones out there are really crippleware and you have to buy licensing to get at the good stuff. I guess sharepoint is easier to replace with an open source CMS.
I would say the case for a F/OSS Operating System has been made. I simply love the security of Linux. You can count the amount of malware available by hand and it is all easily defeated. I think the last virus I got several years ago, an rm -rf worked wonders. I checked my netstat and used other programs to verify that I wasn't spewing data out to a botnet controller and I still periodically check. Proof positive that security by obscurity doesn't work.
Whomever modded this article as a troll, missed the point. This comment was tongue in cheek and meant to illicit a laugh. I found it funny myself.
Microsoft skills are not the key to economic recovery. The key to economic recovery is open source and open standards which encourage innovation and competition. With competition, comes improved products and reliability; not this poor security/reliability record that Windows has. The keys to economic recovery come with the innovations of open source that stem from individuals, universities, and companies like Red Hat, SuSE, Vyatta, Asterisk, and others alike. It is the practice of using M$ software rather than Free/Open Source Software that has a much lower total cost of ownership that helped us get where we are today ... competition stifled and debt weary. Rather than Volt workers accepting a pay cut, why not the CEO, CIO, and CTO of that company agree to cap his salary at 100,000 and no bonus. Let him or her take one for the team for a change. They should have an option to vote down the executives. This is my own 0.02 anyhow.
This will never happen because the low cost cellular market is starting to heat up. Take a look at Boost Mobile, http://www.boostmobile.com/ which offers a $50 a month unlimited plan as an example. T-Mobile will soon be following suit. There will be consumer back lash against exhorbitant cellular service costs. For years now, cellular service has been way overpriced and I am thankful for Boost dropping the boom on it. While I do not use Boost, I am a T-Mobile customer and T-Mobile is already in serious consideration of matching Boost's service. When this happens, I will pretty much be a T-Mobile customer for life. While their coverage might not be as good as other GSM carriers, their customer service is outstanding.
Open source makes for the best way to achieve President Obama's goals of transparency. Open source ensures a standards based method that will allow everyone to access government websites, information, and portals. No longer do you need to be tied into the M$ quagmire to conduct government business. If M$ won't open its software and standards, folks like Red Hat, Novell, Sun, and others will. You will have a choice of products to use.
Don't you think that is a little harsh and judgemental? Loosing your job, employment, career can be pretty catastrophic to the psyche. Try having a little more compassion. Being harsh, judgemental, and indifferent to needs other than our own is what brought us to this large scale recession in the first place.
Open source software will not suffer as a result of economic downturn because many of the applications out there are also hobbies and labours of love. In fact, in these economic times, quite the reverse. I would expect open source to thrive and flourish because businesses will be looking for less expensive, more attractive alternatives. Plus, open source development is a way of keeping programming skills fresh and gives the out of work software engineer a chance to hone their skills and practice writing better code. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of all invention, and in this economy, it is necessary to provide a more competitive product than the Microsofts of the world.
I really like Request Tracker. I think it is hands down, the best open source Help Desk Software. It can be used in solution ranging from Help Desk Management to Queue Management. It also has excellent documentation. An O'reilly book was written about RT so you can get a nice amount of assistance getting it going and even customizing it.
were one of the unlucky ones laid off from work, I would really like to say the words, "So sue me," and not return the money. But, to take the ethical high ground and pay back the money is really the best course of action because it makes you look like the good guy. You will be more apt to be considered for rehire. I dislike M$ intensely but I won't stoop to ethics violations .... including pirating M$ software. Returning the money only makes you smell like a rose. I know that those laid off are suffering, but, at least you aren't alone. The suffering is widespread and getting worse by the week. The only silver lining to this cloud is that the government needs to pay attention to the plight of the working class and middle class because the adverse economic conditions are so widespread. The unemployed are no longer a statistical minority, and while sad, will actually help in the long run.
Ballmer is right but he had no business making such comments directed at Apple. Microsoft practically perfected the closed source, proprietary, and monopolistic marketing and sales practices. I do believe Apple should open up its iPhone and iPod but this may never happen. I think Ballmer complaints about Apple's closed source operating system for the iPod are really just sore loser gaffs. Microsoft invested large amounts of time and money in the failed Zune. Since Zune did not compete with Apple, I am sure Microsoft is licking sore wounds.
This was a really good ruling. Leave censorship to the parents. There has been yet to prove a direct corollation between violent behvior and video games. Some studies have shown that operrant conditioning is happening where video game players may overcome the natural inhibition to kill. However, this theory fails to explain why most people that play violent video games do not go out and act like that in the real world. Behavioral science, while fascinating, is inexact at best. Legislating people's actions based on an inexact science is never a very good idea.
Obama should give money in the stimulus towards open source software and mandate its use but this doesn't automatically equate to job creation or transparency. Indeed as an open source user, this is a victory to me. Though, generally-speaking, because open source software is extensively debugged and peer reviewed, it is more stable and doesn't require an army to maintain it, I would not expect a large number of jobs to be created. However, a good reason for open source is an open, enforced standard of interoperability where the source code is readily viewable and accessible without spartan licensing. What we have now is a flash player for Linux (binary only) that still lags behind its Windows/Mac counterparts. I should not be forced into using IE if I need access to a government website. I don't really see how this equates to more transparency other than the still smaller crowd of Linux/BSD users can obtain the same information. Transparency is really only as good as the information the government will post as publicly available, regardless of chosen platform. Transparency begins with the willingness of government to disclose ALL of the information.
Much like driving requires a license, it is no stretch to foresee forcing IPv6 upon everyone and requiring that everyone wanting to connect their computers to the internet purchase an address. That address or range of addresses becomes the license to use the internet, and as such, becomes the diminished reasonable expectation of privacy allowing surveillance. Personally, I am dead set against giving big brother any more power. We are already near Orwellian 1984. This might be why a crushing recession or depression is a good thing. It might stem the tide of loss of individual freedoms as the citizenry loose confidence in their government and government is less likely to function efficiently. All these stimulus bills that force tracking and have other law enforcement assisting technologies should never pass.
No, Batteries will not jump start the economy. Why? It is still cheaper in the eyes of the moneymen to send the R&D to India or some other country. In effect, the stimulus funds will end up benefitting a third world economy. I would only jump for joy over this if there was legislation to ensure that jobs would be created here in the US and that all R&D and manufacturing happens here. I really, really do not want our funds being used to help the Indian or Chinese economy.
Americans too often forget that NOTHING in life is free. Facebook offers their account for free and can do this only through advertising and the reselling of the rights to market, you, the account holder. And, you don't see a drop of money in return. Too often we see something is free and jump impulsively all over the deal. Corporations such as Facebook count on this marketing psychology to get you to sign up. Now, they have a thriving community in which to sell ad space and make far more money selling advertisements then they would on a recurrent account fee. Facebook has also, through their marketing research, discovered that your content is also worth oodles of money. Stay away from these social networking sites and you guarantee your privacy. Plus you don't give companies the ability to make money off you. Why do you think You Tube is such a cash cow for Google? They sell their website's ad space and your content? I dare someone to start their own social networking site without all the facist terms of service and do something because it is ethical, not because you can make gobs of money.
I am all for helping the poor, but we have to help the poor in our own respective countries first. It is little known that there are parts of the deep south mired in shocking poverty which resembles trips to third world nations. There are areas of the Louisiana Bayous, Macon County, GA, and parts of the Mississippi Delta that have no electricity, running water, sewage treatment, or any other amenity that most others enjoy. I am so sick of our politicians blatantly ignoring the suffering of our own people. The only reason these drugs companies are advocating low cost medications to poor countries is to look like a "responsible corporation." So, the drug companies get additional charitable tax write offs and it is sick. Indeed it is only smoke and mirrors. So, the next time you see a commercial coming from a drug company that looks altruistic, don't believe the bull shit they are spewing.
You have a very laudable goal. I faced a situation with a small private school for high functioning children with learning disabilities. I stepped in as a consultant (A friend of mine is on the board of directors and I did this as volunteer work) to fix the situation when the system admin was terminated. The coffers for the IT budget were nearly drained from an expensive, maintenance intensive setup. The school was in such bad shape financially as a result of misspent money on IT that admin staff took a voluntary furlough. All grade and student information data was archived and copies exported to csv files. After this was done, we shut down the infrastructure for a re-design using Fedora (Gnome Desktop), CentOS (File/Directory/Email Server), OpenBSD (Security/Routing), and FreeBSD (Application/Database Server.) By the end of the summer, using the strengths of Linux and BSD, we had a fully kerberized infrastructure that met the requirements of the school. Here are the technologies we used: Squid Web proxy, MIT Kerberos, CentOS Directory Server, Joomla CMS (replaced that crappy smart board application), Apache 2.2 and Tomcat, MySQL, Postfix, OpenBSD Spamd and RIP. There are others too. This project was not easy but wildly successful but the success was, for a large part, due to the cooperation, enthusiasm, and dedication of the staff. Staff realized that there were going to be changes and not all changes would please everyone but this was in the name of saving a school. We have been up and running for the past 8 mos without a hiccup. Previously, major outtages were a weekly, if not daily occurance. I was successful because I involved as many people as I could. Even my most adamant teacher recognizes that Windows is not the be all, end all.
Actually, it is an operating system ..... The OpenBSD guys simply have a justifiable hard on for killing the spammer. I support them a 100%. BSD does more than just spam. Makes an excellent security appliance, application server, and web server. Hells, you can also use it as a BGP/RIP/OSPF router which would bring a high end Cisco to its knees. OpenBSD (and BSD in general) is kind of a swiss army knife of operating systems. If you want to do it, you most likely can.