2. This is to be expected in a society that places privatizing over everything else. Those of you that think the "ownership society" is a good thing, please consider this example carefully. It is the logical outcome of a legal system that emphasizes priviatization. Other than that, I'm not sure why this is so outrageous.
What I'd like to know is why _that_ judge? I mean there had to be some maneuvering to this whole affair. What was the process that got them this privilege?
1. The beautiful thing about a *nix install is/home/username Backup everything in there and when you hose the system/upgrade/reinstall it's all there. Everything. Sadly, the popular ubuntu/kubuntu installer cannot handle a proper install where/home sits on it's own partition. It looks like it will, it gives you options, but those options just error out later. You need to download the alternate installer.
Windows users like to claim something like this occurs, but as a desktop admin that just migrated another wonky drive last week, license restrictions bugger up the whole thing! The whole system snapshot thing just doesn't work for similar reasons. My employer has our licenses in order and WGA throws a hissy-fit when you switch drives. I know, why don't I image a drive???? I shouldn't need to do this AND pay for the privilege of fixing Windows. We pay extra for Windows and it just doesn't work as advertised.
2. I baby sit a Backup Exec 10d and I've done a mixed bacula backup system and I find bacula the better solution.
Sadly, _actual_ use never gets into these articles.
Wait, maybe OpenDirectory is all-powerful? "lookupd had some limitations, though. Designed in a time when libc calls expected to return full user records -- including crypt() passwords -- it has no specific authentication support. It is, additionally, a read-only architecture. While this is the norm for libc interfaces, it makes sense that in a world of evolving directory services to support write operations. Finally, lookupd is relatively difficult to extend. While third party lookupd agents were written, they were the exception rather than the rule." http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/08/05/a ctive_directory.html
Actually, adoption has been very strong, and Adobe is using Flex for many, many projects internally (according to company insiders;))
This statement is standard corporate pablum used to make something sound like it's the latest and greatest when there's nothing else to say about it. They will probably announce a number of well-known corporate brands "adopting" it to try to build some influence too.
This is all very typical media build-up based on half-truths to get something going. Blindly adopting Adobe's heresay as truth is the topic of another conversation.
1. Other posts in this discussion mention some serious problems with the framework.
2. The fact that a staunchly non-free software company has resorted to the Mozilla Public License tells me that trying to drive adoption through their standard practices (non-free license) has failed.
Right now their new product is not taking off fast enough and they are trying to head Microsoft off. They've got a more profitable product in Flash and it's their product as opposed to this project they inherited from Macromedia.
This is the last step before they abandon it. Which they won't do right away. First some exec that came over from Macromedia and forcing the project through will resign. Then a couple of months later the updates will stop.
As someone who has witnessed their business people in action at a very high level, the riskiest thing they've done lately is to try a new restaurant for lunch.
It is a warning to everyone who thinks that mysql will be immediately better for going public.
In my finance class I learned that the best way to grow a company is on revenues. Second best is private equity. Near the bottom of the list is public equity.
It's probably the case that Mysql's early investors are looking for their pay day. That's fine, but I'm more concerned about the long term effect of being a public company on the quality of mysql product.
The clever slashdotter with a little cash to gamble with should buy some mysql hold it for a year and dump it. They should come out ahead and be getting out while the picture looks rosy.
What would Microsoft gain by forcing XP users onto Vista? Sales of Vista. XP users are dead weight to Microsoft. They are after all, last years sale. Vista is sales reported this quarter.
Also remember because Microsoft operates as a Monopolist, Vista is priced much higher than it would be if there were some competition.
Your alternative leads one down the blind path of non-accountability and no transparency whatsoever.
You propose the fall guy remains way-way down the chain of authority and the executive class retains authority, and the salary to reflect that, but no liability.
Instead of name-calling, how about a viable alternative where the chain of authority is clearly defined? Maybe it's just easier to shout-down ideas than it is to come up with some constructive alternatives?
1. How is it that this law firm gets paid for the privilege of drafting our laws? Before anyone hits the reply button, what makes you think this is some kind of pro-bono cause for the law firm? The likelihood this is some kind of charitable effort is miniscule. What makes you think citizens preferences will win over the corporate interests?
This story encapsulates what's wrong with our democracy. -The Law has been abstracted and complicated to such a degree that the above-average (slashdotters are certainly capable) is not qualified or considered capable of writing one.
-Citizens are not diving into this problem, organizing themselves and working the system we have by voting in blocks or even altering the system to make it "better."
Okay, so I'm proxying my preferences to this law firm who, for reasons unknown is drafting this bill.
Data compromise is the CEO's responsibility. Fail in your duties? Fine, it's a _minimal_ felony prosecution with manditory federal prison sentence. This is not after a determination of liability. This is after the data set has been compromised. The other piece of the puzzle is a kind of GAAP for data at rest. Is there such a thing now?
The RIAA doesn't care if a few individuals keep them in court for whatever liability they open themselves up to.
Individuals won't have enough money to diminish the environment of fear the RIAA is trying to establish.
The goal is to establish an environment of fear, such that most users are afraid to anything other than what the media conglomerates say is okay. Better still, what's okay today can be wrong tomorrow.
The RIAA end game is good. Stories like this just help it along.
I'm actually a daily KDE user, so this isn't a rant.
I want linux to succeed as much as the next kde user but articles like this just set everyone's expectations way too high. There are issues that don't have much to do with KDE, but because that's what the average user sees, they may blame it on KDE. It's the ages-old hardware issues. Printers is still an issue for home users.
Beyond that, there are glaring holes in some of the applications. (print selection for example)
My personal wish is that some of the kde projects would focus on specific types of users. For example, I bet Law Office users have some needs that outlook doesn't do well instead of being a medium-slow follower. No, I'm not talking about an "exchange killer" because trying to eat a big part of exchanges market isn't likely. (not impossible, not likely)
Look, it's never ACTUALLY about what's wrong the stupid computer. In this case Linux has nothing to do with it.
We all understand the warranty people use scripts right? The person on the other end of the line has to stick to that script, and along the way, minimize the HP's costs. This anecdote illustrates that support is a "profit center" by making phone queues and no actual warranty service the means to more profit.
It would, then come as no surprise to find out that there are some incentives for: 1. finishing calls as quickly as possible. 2. Minimizing HP's costs. (As in: PHB says, "Congratulations you issued the lowest amount of warranty orders this month! Here's your shiny new pen as a thank you."
Today's lesson: Play along with the person on the other end of the phone. Don't disclose anything about your purchase. If ethics permit, never stray from "I'm using it as I ordered/bought it" and everything will go fine.
That's because Corporate Managers are all doing a circle jerk for the Small to Medium Business (SMB) customer thinking there are more attractive returns in that segment.
From Worst Buy's perspective, SMB is a large part of the American Economy that retailers like Costco have serviced.
SMB is supposedly fertile ground for IT (microsoft) too, though I personally haven't seen very many that bought into the frequent upgrade cycles and service contracts. They tend to be quite practical and dismiss the BS.
I'm more interested to hear that BB has run out of growth opportunities on the floor of their stores.
I would also hazard a guess and say their status as a subsidiary that can run itself is wholly temporary. The few mega-corporations I've dealt with all have terrible sicknesses "not invented here" and "better managed by corporate" that comes with the appearance of success.
As long as they do stunts like this and keep killing their acquisitions, BB will die the slow death so many other retailers have before them.
I'll tell you what's politically expedient. Voting them out of office.
But, that entails being involved in the political process. Which, many of you are not. The ones who are not politically involved certainly didn't click "read more."
1. Small business where you are required to do many tasks and have the capacity to learn new ones.
2. Big business where you have _very_ specific tasks and duties and in some cases that's what they are looking for. (IMHE anyway) You may start in a low-prestige job that you're pretty much stuck in unless you have great social skills. The likelihood you get to the high-prestige job from within the organization is low.
In rare cases, the lines blur a bit.
1. Which are you happier in? 2. How much more money do you want to make?
As other posts have said, I don't think jack-of-all-trades is bad. It's just a matter of combining a few of those trades more effectively.
1. The RIAA is the entertainment conglomerates "bad cop." 2. The point is to make consumers deathly afraid of doing anything with digital media without checking for their approval. This makes DRM look like a great solution if you are a consumer afraid of being sued.
"Stick it to them" and haha posts may make/.'ers feel better, but don't take the entertainment conglomerates head-on. The entertainment conglomerates are quite happy about that by the way because/.'er's are a bunch of copyright criminals in an online echo-chamber with their crazy ideas about "free media."
How about organizing an annual no-drm day? Don't by any DRM'd media on that one day each year. That's right no DVD's, no iTunes.
Oh, wait that means we would have to DO something though. Nevermind.
Slashdot Mirror
1. I agree the summary is a bit inflamatory.
2. This is to be expected in a society that places privatizing over everything else. Those of you that think the "ownership society" is a good thing, please consider this example carefully. It is the logical outcome of a legal system that emphasizes priviatization. Other than that, I'm not sure why this is so outrageous.
What I'd like to know is why _that_ judge? I mean there had to be some maneuvering to this whole affair. What was the process that got them this privilege?
1. The beautiful thing about a *nix install is /home/username Backup everything in there and when you hose the system/upgrade/reinstall it's all there. Everything. Sadly, the popular ubuntu/kubuntu installer cannot handle a proper install where /home sits on it's own partition. It looks like it will, it gives you options, but those options just error out later. You need to download the alternate installer.
Windows users like to claim something like this occurs, but as a desktop admin that just migrated another wonky drive last week, license restrictions bugger up the whole thing! The whole system snapshot thing just doesn't work for similar reasons. My employer has our licenses in order and WGA throws a hissy-fit when you switch drives. I know, why don't I image a drive???? I shouldn't need to do this AND pay for the privilege of fixing Windows. We pay extra for Windows and it just doesn't work as advertised.
2. I baby sit a Backup Exec 10d and I've done a mixed bacula backup system and I find bacula the better solution.
Sadly, _actual_ use never gets into these articles.
What exactly is open about a mac?
/ 1120215
/ 2145206
a ctive_directory.html
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/13
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/08
Wait, maybe OpenDirectory is all-powerful?
"lookupd had some limitations, though. Designed in a time when libc calls expected to return full user records -- including crypt() passwords -- it has no specific authentication support. It is, additionally, a read-only architecture. While this is the norm for libc interfaces, it makes sense that in a world of evolving directory services to support write operations. Finally, lookupd is relatively difficult to extend. While third party lookupd agents were written, they were the exception rather than the rule." http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/08/05/
Openldap works good for me.
Actually, adoption has been very strong, and Adobe is using Flex for many, many projects internally (according to company insiders ;))
This statement is standard corporate pablum used to make something sound like it's the latest and greatest when there's nothing else to say about it. They will probably announce a number of well-known corporate brands "adopting" it to try to build some influence too.
This is all very typical media build-up based on half-truths to get something going. Blindly adopting Adobe's heresay as truth is the topic of another conversation.
1. Other posts in this discussion mention some serious problems with the framework.
2. The fact that a staunchly non-free software company has resorted to the Mozilla Public License tells me that trying to drive adoption through their standard practices (non-free license) has failed.
The future doesn't look too bright.
The summary is exactly what the media conglomerates want burned into every American consumers brain.
Fear anything that is not authorized or offered to you by the media conglomerates.
Right now their new product is not taking off fast enough and they are trying to head Microsoft off. They've got a more profitable product in Flash and it's their product as opposed to this project they inherited from Macromedia.
This is the last step before they abandon it. Which they won't do right away. First some exec that came over from Macromedia and forcing the project through will resign. Then a couple of months later the updates will stop.
As someone who has witnessed their business people in action at a very high level, the riskiest thing they've done lately is to try a new restaurant for lunch.
This is not a dig at the folks at Mysql.
It is a warning to everyone who thinks that mysql will be immediately better for going public.
In my finance class I learned that the best way to grow a company is on revenues. Second best is private equity. Near the bottom of the list is public equity.
It's probably the case that Mysql's early investors are looking for their pay day. That's fine, but I'm more concerned about the long term effect of being a public company on the quality of mysql product.
The clever slashdotter with a little cash to gamble with should buy some mysql hold it for a year and dump it. They should come out ahead and be getting out while the picture looks rosy.
Food for thought.
1. There is a reason why these alternative practitioners stay in business. Because they work.
2. Big pharma is a business. They take risks to bring you Viagra and therapies designed to build repeat business.
3. Big pharma certainly has sold a whole host of drugs that are far more harmful than your draining blood example.
Big pharma are most certainly *not* the Good Citizens you make them out to be.
on my Nokia 9300. I don't use it, but the client is definitely installed.
This phone doesn't appear to be very popular in the U.S., but it's the most useful phone I've ever owned.
What would Microsoft gain by forcing XP users onto Vista?
Sales of Vista. XP users are dead weight to Microsoft. They are after all, last years sale. Vista is sales reported this quarter.
Also remember because Microsoft operates as a Monopolist, Vista is priced much higher than it would be if there were some competition.
EOL
Microsoft declares XP End of Life and Dell won't be able to choose between XP or Vista.
Companies do it all of the time.
There's this thing called a monopoly that prevents this trouble from occurring.
Windows users will buy new machines, and get Vista "real soon now." The number of users that switch will be nominal. No harm done to Microsoft.
As much as the media may want it to be, there is no competition in a market with a Monopoly.
Your alternative leads one down the blind path of non-accountability and no transparency whatsoever.
You propose the fall guy remains way-way down the chain of authority and the executive class retains authority, and the salary to reflect that, but no liability.
Instead of name-calling, how about a viable alternative where the chain of authority is clearly defined? Maybe it's just easier to shout-down ideas than it is to come up with some constructive alternatives?
I've got a few questions:
1. How is it that this law firm gets paid for the privilege of drafting our laws? Before anyone hits the reply button, what makes you think this is some kind of pro-bono cause for the law firm? The likelihood this is some kind of charitable effort is miniscule. What makes you think citizens preferences will win over the corporate interests?
This story encapsulates what's wrong with our democracy.
-The Law has been abstracted and complicated to such a degree that the above-average (slashdotters are certainly capable) is not qualified or considered capable of writing one.
-Citizens are not diving into this problem, organizing themselves and working the system we have by voting in blocks or even altering the system to make it "better."
Okay, so I'm proxying my preferences to this law firm who, for reasons unknown is drafting this bill.
Data compromise is the CEO's responsibility. Fail in your duties? Fine, it's a _minimal_ felony prosecution with manditory federal prison sentence. This is not after a determination of liability. This is after the data set has been compromised. The other piece of the puzzle is a kind of GAAP for data at rest. Is there such a thing now?
The RIAA doesn't care if a few individuals keep them in court for whatever liability they open themselves up to.
Individuals won't have enough money to diminish the environment of fear the RIAA is trying to establish.
The goal is to establish an environment of fear, such that most users are afraid to anything other than what the media conglomerates say is okay. Better still, what's okay today can be wrong tomorrow.
The RIAA end game is good. Stories like this just help it along.
I'm actually a daily KDE user, so this isn't a rant.
I want linux to succeed as much as the next kde user but articles like this just set everyone's expectations way too high. There are issues that don't have much to do with KDE, but because that's what the average user sees, they may blame it on KDE. It's the ages-old hardware issues. Printers is still an issue for home users.
Beyond that, there are glaring holes in some of the applications. (print selection for example)
My personal wish is that some of the kde projects would focus on specific types of users. For example, I bet Law Office users have some needs that outlook doesn't do well instead of being a medium-slow follower. No, I'm not talking about an "exchange killer" because trying to eat a big part of exchanges market isn't likely. (not impossible, not likely)
Look, it's never ACTUALLY about what's wrong the stupid computer. In this case Linux has nothing to do with it.
We all understand the warranty people use scripts right? The person on the other end of the line has to stick to that script, and along the way, minimize the HP's costs. This anecdote illustrates that support is a "profit center" by making phone queues and no actual warranty service the means to more profit.
It would, then come as no surprise to find out that there are some incentives for:
1. finishing calls as quickly as possible.
2. Minimizing HP's costs. (As in: PHB says, "Congratulations you issued the lowest amount of warranty orders this month! Here's your shiny new pen as a thank you."
Today's lesson: Play along with the person on the other end of the phone. Don't disclose anything about your purchase. If ethics permit, never stray from "I'm using it as I ordered/bought it" and everything will go fine.
Really.
I'm not sure why this is an issue now. Stuff like this has been around for at least a decade.
That's because Corporate Managers are all doing a circle jerk for the Small to Medium Business (SMB) customer thinking there are more attractive returns in that segment.
From Worst Buy's perspective, SMB is a large part of the American Economy that retailers like Costco have serviced.
SMB is supposedly fertile ground for IT (microsoft) too, though I personally haven't seen very many that bought into the frequent upgrade cycles and service contracts. They tend to be quite practical and dismiss the BS.
I'm more interested to hear that BB has run out of growth opportunities on the floor of their stores.
I would also hazard a guess and say their status as a subsidiary that can run itself is wholly temporary. The few mega-corporations I've dealt with all have terrible sicknesses "not invented here" and "better managed by corporate" that comes with the appearance of success.
As long as they do stunts like this and keep killing their acquisitions, BB will die the slow death so many other retailers have before them.
Anyone invested in Worst Buy http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BBY&t=5y should get out now.
Maybe dealings with Amazon have gotten too bad for borders? IE expensive, bad service.
Also, it's 2007 and there's many more people out there with the skills to put a good site together.
I'll tell you what's politically expedient. Voting them out of office.
But, that entails being involved in the political process. Which, many of you are not. The ones who are not politically involved certainly didn't click "read more."
There are two basic employment tracks in the U.S.
1. Small business where you are required to do many tasks and have the capacity to learn new ones.
2. Big business where you have _very_ specific tasks and duties and in some cases that's what they are looking for. (IMHE anyway) You may start in a low-prestige job that you're pretty much stuck in unless you have great social skills. The likelihood you get to the high-prestige job from within the organization is low.
In rare cases, the lines blur a bit.
1. Which are you happier in?
2. How much more money do you want to make?
As other posts have said, I don't think jack-of-all-trades is bad. It's just a matter of combining a few of those trades more effectively.
NIST does a very nice job specifying _how_ to harden a windows PC.
I have a feeling whomever is issuing directives at the white house hasn't bothered to check with NIST. http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP.html
I just noticed they've got a Vista document going.
I've hardened PC's the NIST way. Most applications do very unexpected things when you least expect it.
This, by the way, is clearly the result of strenuous lobbying on Microsoft's part so early in the Vista game.
1. The RIAA is the entertainment conglomerates "bad cop."
/.'ers feel better, but don't take the entertainment conglomerates head-on. The entertainment conglomerates are quite happy about that by the way because /.'er's are a bunch of copyright criminals in an online echo-chamber with their crazy ideas about "free media."
2. The point is to make consumers deathly afraid of doing anything with digital media without checking for their approval. This makes DRM look like a great solution if you are a consumer afraid of being sued.
"Stick it to them" and haha posts may make
How about organizing an annual no-drm day? Don't by any DRM'd media on that one day each year. That's right no DVD's, no iTunes.
Oh, wait that means we would have to DO something though. Nevermind.