Google isn't where it is because of the patents that it holds. Google simply runs faster than everyone else. This change will take a lot of effort and energy that's currently wasted in the courts and put it back into products or services. I'm all for protecting the small inventor but patenting math didn't work.
This isn't the first time the Republicans have shown up the Democrats with their web savvy.
How soon they forget...
Several readers let us know about a little problem with presidential hopeful John McCain's MySpace page. Looks as though some staffer didn't read the fine print of the "credit" clause when selecting a template for the page. The template author and CEO of Newsvine, Mike Davidson, noticed this and didn't care too much. But the McCain page was pulling an image from Davidson's site, costing him bandwidth every time someone visited the candidate's MySpace page. So Davidson changed the image in question to read: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage... particularly marriage between two passionate females." Here is Davidson's account of the "immaculate hack".
The corrective action would be.. Have a set of tests to determine which senator(s) can lecture / vote on a given topic. Those who fail the test lose their voting rights...
sounds like the No Senator Left Behind program which as you should know, just doesn't work...
We're using an Astaro Firewall & Spam filter for 100 users. We get updates very frequently, up to 6 times daily, and the results are excellent. On occasion we will find a new spam variant getting through and normally in less than a day that hole will be closed with an automatic update. This is in an environment where some mail users received 300 spams a day. I walked into this situation before I knew how bad it was - Groupwise 6.0 on a Netware 6.0. With the firewall/SMTP proxy solution, we get great spam filtering and we didn't have to touch Groupwise other to set a smart SMTP host.
I was obviously intentionally vague. I don't wish to argue the details of each concept. I doubt that either of us know enough to really compare them. The bottom line, however, is that the ICBM problem is difficult to solve. Using more conventional technology is unreliable at best. Creating something that can target a well designed ICBM with enough energy to destroy it whether it's a "nuclear pumped x-ray laser" or anything else begs the question - What else is this good for? If an "nuclear pumped x-ray laser" can start fires almost instantly in hundreds of locations triggering nuclear winter like conditions, is that deadly enough? How many times past one does life on Earth have to be destroyed before I can say "potentially deadlier than any nuclear weapon". If this device can also be used for instantaneous precision strikes then it's far more likely to be used than ICBMs which luckily have done nothing but maintain a state of mutually assured destruction so far.
Whoa. There have been many proposed designs for the US Missile Defense/SDI. Think back to the Star Wars days. You're just thinking about the ones that are relatively small and simple enough to test and deploy today. It's easy to argue that interceptor missiles are not very reliable at defending against long or short range missiles. So why bother? Well they buy a certain amount of perceived safety which is nothing but politics. They also are a small part of a much bigger picture. An effective missile defense consists of many layers that defend at all stages in a missile's life. When you get serious about reducing the chance of a missile getting through you start thinking about more powerful and experimental systems. It's these that I am referring to. It's difficult to reliably blast apart many, well designed airborne ICBMs. Such a problem requires speed, power and precision which are the ingredients for a good missile defense system and a good weapon. Do I have a quote from a Soviet? Nope. Are you kidding? I do know that Star Wars was a big issue for the Soviets. Why? They knew they could build ICBMs that could evade anything that the US had at the time. What they didn't want was for the US to get too serious about solving this problem because once the problem was solved the US would have the shield as well as a nifty new weapon that would completely disrupt the balance of power.
This was known a long time ago (Regan Era). It was thought that reflective coatings, spiraling flight paths and other rather simple alterations to ICBMs would render every Star Wars system useless - as a defensive system. This news simply proves what was suspected. The reason the Russians hated Star Wars was because they knew it was nothing more than a more powerful weapon system that the US public would buy off on. They knew that anything that could take down an ICBM, especially one designed to be difficult to shoot down, would be faster, more precise and potentially deadlier than any nuclear weapon. I think the only reason the Russians have spent the time and money to prove this point is to show that the Shield is pointless as a defense and hopefully cause the US public to ask the pointed questions.
I've been searching for the perfect mail solution both for myself and for the companies that I have worked for. I've done the self hosting with CyrusIMAP + Postfix + SpamAssassin + the kitchen sink. That's fine but it's often a pain to administer and keep up to date. I have been steering friends and small businesses toward Fusemail because it's solid, cheap and full of nice features:
350MB Shared Disk Space = 1.66/mo 1,250MB Shared Disk Space = $5.99/mo 3,000MB Shared Disk Space = $9.99/mo
The spam filtering is great and the web interface is better than most. I have several family members using accounts sharing my space. Some use my domain and others use their own. Some even "fused" (fetchmail) their other Comcast, Google and Pair accounts just because Fusemail can consolidate the whole deal.
I also just installed Citadel just to check it out. I have to say that it was the quickest and easiest install of a mail system that I ever did. It's essentailly make && make install && setup once for the server and once for the web system. It supports IMAP, POP and GroupDAV. It has mail and a calendar and chat features and other nice groupware related stuff. They claim it's stable and it scales. I can't say that I've used it much yet but IMAP and GroupDAV worked "out of the box".
I went looking for centrally administered AV solution a few months ago and settled on Kaspersky because:
1 - Detection rates are supposed to be very good. 2 - The price was great. 3 - Linux support is on par with Windows. 4 - Administration is done from a single (unfortunately Windows only) PC. 5 - Companies like Astaro Security Linux license the Kaspersky scanner. 6 - Kaspersky had one of the first mail scanners for Sendmail, Postfix, etc.
This project was funded because a day after I started a trojan infected the network and shut down operations for days. I couldn't get any scanners to find anything anywhere. On a whim a guy installed Defender Pro (Kaspersky) which he picked up from Wal-Mart for $20. Defender Pro detected the infection and removed it. We cleaned off a half dozen infected PCs (unpatched Win2K) and purchased 100 licenses for Kaspersky AV.
I know I'm going to get scolded for this but what would be great is something like an Ubuntu style mail server. What I mean by that is a less generic, easily installed and configured mail server that is free but commercially supported. There are a number of Exchange style offerings available such as OpenExchange, Kroupware, etc. but all of them are either a mess to install or entangled with a proprietary offering. I have maintained Linux based mail servers since '95 but I'm currently having troubles selling a Linux solution over an Exchange server simply because my coworkers and managers can't wrap their heads around the Debian+Postfix+CYRUS+SASL+SpamAssassin+LDAP+KITCHE NSINK concept. Something like LinuXchange would be easier for them to grasp. Because of some customer requests we're moving from NDS to Active Directory so Novell's offerings are less than popular. What I wish I could find is a Debian based distribution specifically built to supplant Exchange servers.
OK. iFolder a synchronization package... which allows you to access your files from anywhere (coffee shop, parents computer, laptop, lab computer) without leaving them lying around for the next person to find and dig through.
From Novell: Novell iFolder® lets your files follow you, everywhere. iFolder allows you to access, organize, and manage your files from anywhere, anytime. iFolder also provides worry-free security, ensuring that all your files are always safe, secure and up to date. Now your files can be as mobile as you are -- at work, home or on the go.
ATManaged File - http://www.enfoldsystems.com/Products/Open/ATManag edFile ATManagedFile allows you to store metadata in the database while keeping File assets on the servers file system. Content is treated like a first-class citizen in Plone, it can be transitioned (workflow), edited, copy/pasted. Metadata for content can be described through Archetype schema's. A managed_files tool enables administrators to specify where content is stored, the deletion policy, as well as the stored filesystem naming convention.
Highfield joined the BBC in 2000 and is in charge of the corporation's online and cross platform content and his impact has been considerable. His position atop the poll is evidence of the regard in which the panel holds the BBC and their belief that the corporation's global reach is truly setting the agenda - in terms of innovation, penetration and ambition.
It's quite clear that this is the best strategy that Microsoft has against Free Software. MS _may_ not get to point where they directly sue over patents and copyrights but be assured that they will work very hard to create useful and popular things that are legally incompatible with Free Software.
What I really want is a keyboard that's smart enough to record and play back key sequences. I know that most window managers can handle this and I know I can write a script for most things, plus alias does a great job but sometimes I just want to record some keys that I'm going to use on multiple systems in multiple environments and I don't want the window manager or shell to know anything about it.
I can't seem to be able to reach the site. Does this run on the root display like VNC and PCAnywhere normally do under Windows or does it create a new display. It doesn't seem as useful except for as a prank if the user sees you take over the machine. So if this is able to create a new display then this is what I've been looking for. It would potentially allow me to run multiple sessions under Windows which is something I've been wanting to do but couldn't afford. Citrix or the server edition of Win4Lin could have solved my problem but this might do it too. Anyone know how this works?
Of course it will remain open source so that those half-million developers can continue to contribute their time and genius to its success, but if those thousands of contributions lead to direct financial gain for companies whose coffers are already overflowing and are simultaneously using those contributions to manufacture software with price tags out of reach to anyone but corporations, is PHP still the language developers should be focusing on for use in the open-source community?
A - Which of these companies have overflowing coffers?
B - It's open source. If someone wants to contribute then they can contribute. If someone wants to profit then they can attempt to profit. I don't see why a company that contributes shouldn't have the opportunity to profit somehow.
C - Nothing says that PHP can't be forked back towards the little web scripting engine that was once PHP and PHP/FI before that.
Patents in the past have been used mostly defensively. Most large companies either had mutual agreement to share patents or they went ahead and used the patented ideas of other companies knowing that the other companies used their patented ideas too. Thus the result of a lawsuit would be a wash. Now with MS and IBM building such huge patent portfolios it's getting a bit scarry for Linux and other Open Source projects. This announcement is encouraging, however. With Big Blue's huge patent portfolio (and Novell's) it could actually take on Microsoft on the behalf of Linux. In effect Big Blue would step in whenever a lawsuit was threatened and say to Microsoft, "Back off or will prevent you from using this IP which you have incorporated into X, Y and Z products." Why would they do that? Because IBM now needs Linux. Linux is one of IBM's OSs now and it has to defend it. The big question the is whether IBM could somehow hijack Linux using IP. Could IBM become the only vendor legally capable of delivering a useful version of Linux. Sure it would cripple Linux in the long run but Big Blue isn't known for being smart all the time.
Take a look at rdiff-backup. I've been very impressed with it. From the website:
rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, and modification times. Also, rdiff-backup can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like rsync. Thus you can use rdiff-backup and ssh to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, rdiff-backup is easy to use and settings have sensical defaults.
Ever since I switched from Perl and PHP to Python I've been looking for the perfect Python IDE. Kokodo 3.0 looks interesting. I think ActiveState does a nice job and the folks there put together what I think are the best Perl and Python installations for Windows (although I don't normally use Windows). I like the Komodo Tcl based designer for the the cross platform abilities but the resulting apps always look too "old". If Komodo used XUL and Mozilla to create gui apps then I would be really impressed.
So I have yet to find the perfect Python IDE but here's a start.
Kdevelop is very robust but is more focussed C++. Leo isn't pretty but the outlining features are very cool. BoaConstructor hold lots of promise for better cross platform support, zope support, a debugger and form designer but the project seems to have stalled. Eric might be my best bet with project mgt, CVS/Subversion and Qt-Designer but I've encountered stability problems.
Actually I wish I could have something with the feature set of Eric with the stability, speed and maturity of Kdevelop plus Leo's outlining abilities. Oh yea, and I'd really like an form designer that uses XUL and Mozilla for building cross platform GUIs.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Google isn't where it is because of the patents that it holds. Google simply runs faster than everyone else. This change will take a lot of effort and energy that's currently wasted in the courts and put it back into products or services. I'm all for protecting the small inventor but patenting math didn't work.
This isn't the first time the Republicans have shown up the Democrats with their web savvy.
How soon they forget...
Several readers let us know about a little problem with presidential hopeful John McCain's MySpace page. Looks as though some staffer didn't read the fine print of the "credit" clause when selecting a template for the page. The template author and CEO of Newsvine, Mike Davidson, noticed this and didn't care too much. But the McCain page was pulling an image from Davidson's site, costing him bandwidth every time someone visited the candidate's MySpace page. So Davidson changed the image in question to read: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage... particularly marriage between two passionate females." Here is Davidson's account of the "immaculate hack".
From: http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/28/0236232
The corrective action would be.. Have a set of tests to determine which senator(s) can lecture / vote on a given topic. Those who fail the test lose their voting rights...
sounds like the No Senator Left Behind program which as you should know, just doesn't work...
We're using an Astaro Firewall & Spam filter for 100 users. We get updates very frequently, up to 6 times daily, and the results are excellent. On occasion we will find a new spam variant getting through and normally in less than a day that hole will be closed with an automatic update. This is in an environment where some mail users received 300 spams a day. I walked into this situation before I knew how bad it was - Groupwise 6.0 on a Netware 6.0. With the firewall/SMTP proxy solution, we get great spam filtering and we didn't have to touch Groupwise other to set a smart SMTP host.
I was obviously intentionally vague. I don't wish to argue the details of each concept. I doubt that either of us know enough to really compare them. The bottom line, however, is that the ICBM problem is difficult to solve. Using more conventional technology is unreliable at best. Creating something that can target a well designed ICBM with enough energy to destroy it whether it's a "nuclear pumped x-ray laser" or anything else begs the question - What else is this good for? If an "nuclear pumped x-ray laser" can start fires almost instantly in hundreds of locations triggering nuclear winter like conditions, is that deadly enough? How many times past one does life on Earth have to be destroyed before I can say "potentially deadlier than any nuclear weapon". If this device can also be used for instantaneous precision strikes then it's far more likely to be used than ICBMs which luckily have done nothing but maintain a state of mutually assured destruction so far.
Whoa. There have been many proposed designs for the US Missile Defense/SDI. Think back to the Star Wars days. You're just thinking about the ones that are relatively small and simple enough to test and deploy today. It's easy to argue that interceptor missiles are not very reliable at defending against long or short range missiles. So why bother? Well they buy a certain amount of perceived safety which is nothing but politics. They also are a small part of a much bigger picture. An effective missile defense consists of many layers that defend at all stages in a missile's life. When you get serious about reducing the chance of a missile getting through you start thinking about more powerful and experimental systems. It's these that I am referring to. It's difficult to reliably blast apart many, well designed airborne ICBMs. Such a problem requires speed, power and precision which are the ingredients for a good missile defense system and a good weapon. Do I have a quote from a Soviet? Nope. Are you kidding? I do know that Star Wars was a big issue for the Soviets. Why? They knew they could build ICBMs that could evade anything that the US had at the time. What they didn't want was for the US to get too serious about solving this problem because once the problem was solved the US would have the shield as well as a nifty new weapon that would completely disrupt the balance of power.
This was known a long time ago (Regan Era). It was thought that reflective coatings, spiraling flight paths and other rather simple alterations to ICBMs would render every Star Wars system useless - as a defensive system. This news simply proves what was suspected. The reason the Russians hated Star Wars was because they knew it was nothing more than a more powerful weapon system that the US public would buy off on. They knew that anything that could take down an ICBM, especially one designed to be difficult to shoot down, would be faster, more precise and potentially deadlier than any nuclear weapon. I think the only reason the Russians have spent the time and money to prove this point is to show that the Shield is pointless as a defense and hopefully cause the US public to ask the pointed questions.
I've been searching for the perfect mail solution both for myself and for the companies that I have worked for. I've done the self hosting with CyrusIMAP + Postfix + SpamAssassin + the kitchen sink. That's fine but it's often a pain to administer and keep up to date. I have been steering friends and small businesses toward Fusemail because it's solid, cheap and full of nice features:
350MB Shared Disk Space = 1.66/mo
1,250MB Shared Disk Space = $5.99/mo
3,000MB Shared Disk Space = $9.99/mo
The spam filtering is great and the web interface is better than most. I have several family members using accounts sharing my space. Some use my domain and others use their own. Some even "fused" (fetchmail) their other Comcast, Google and Pair accounts just because Fusemail can consolidate the whole deal.
I also just installed Citadel just to check it out. I have to say that it was the quickest and easiest install of a mail system that I ever did. It's essentailly make && make install && setup once for the server and once for the web system. It supports IMAP, POP and GroupDAV. It has mail and a calendar and chat features and other nice groupware related stuff. They claim it's stable and it scales. I can't say that I've used it much yet but IMAP and GroupDAV worked "out of the box".
Q - What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison?
A - God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
I went looking for centrally administered AV solution a few months ago and settled on Kaspersky because:
1 - Detection rates are supposed to be very good.
2 - The price was great.
3 - Linux support is on par with Windows.
4 - Administration is done from a single (unfortunately Windows only) PC.
5 - Companies like Astaro Security Linux license the Kaspersky scanner.
6 - Kaspersky had one of the first mail scanners for Sendmail, Postfix, etc.
This project was funded because a day after I started a trojan infected the network and shut down operations for days. I couldn't get any scanners to find anything anywhere. On a whim a guy installed Defender Pro (Kaspersky) which he picked up from Wal-Mart for $20. Defender Pro detected the infection and removed it. We cleaned off a half dozen infected PCs (unpatched Win2K) and purchased 100 licenses for Kaspersky AV.
No, I don't work for Kaspersky.
I know I'm going to get scolded for this but what would be great is something like an Ubuntu style mail server. What I mean by that is a less generic, easily installed and configured mail server that is free but commercially supported. There are a number of Exchange style offerings available such as OpenExchange, Kroupware, etc. but all of them are either a mess to install or entangled with a proprietary offering. I have maintained Linux based mail servers since '95 but I'm currently having troubles selling a Linux solution over an Exchange server simply because my coworkers and managers can't wrap their heads around the Debian+Postfix+CYRUS+SASL+SpamAssassin+LDAP+KITCHE NSINK concept. Something like LinuXchange would be easier for them to grasp. Because of some customer requests we're moving from NDS to Active Directory so Novell's offerings are less than popular. What I wish I could find is a Debian based distribution specifically built to supplant Exchange servers.
OK. iFolder a synchronization package... which allows you to access your files from anywhere (coffee shop, parents computer, laptop, lab computer) without leaving them lying around for the next person to find and dig through.
From Novell: Novell iFolder® lets your files follow you, everywhere. iFolder allows you to access, organize, and manage your files from anywhere, anytime. iFolder also provides worry-free security, ensuring that all your files are always safe, secure and up to date. Now your files can be as mobile as you are -- at work, home or on the go.
Novell has GPLed their file sharing system and renamed it iFolder:
http://www.ifolder.com/
iFolder is a file sharing application for Linux, Windows, and Mac.
Using iFolder workgroup features, you can easily:
* Share files across multiple computers
* Share files with other users
Used with an iFolder server, you can:
* Maintain a backup of your files on an iFolder Enterprise server
* Share files with other users and computers
* Restore deleted files from Backup
Look at iFolder. I think this is Netstorage repackaged and _GPLed_.
http://www.ifolder.com/
Don't forget:
g edFile
ATManaged File - http://www.enfoldsystems.com/Products/Open/ATMana
ATManagedFile allows you to store metadata in the database while keeping File assets on the servers file system. Content is treated like a first-class citizen in Plone, it can be transitioned (workflow), edited, copy/pasted. Metadata for content can be described through Archetype schema's. A managed_files tool enables administrators to specify where content is stored, the deletion policy, as well as the stored filesystem naming convention.
PloneLocalFolderNG - http://zopyx.com/OpenSource/PloneLocalFolderNG/
PloneLocalFolderNG allows you to mount a part of the filesystem as folder into your Plone site.
I forgot. What's the conversion from Bogomips to Googomips?
Sounds like something to focus on internally, not externally.
Remember:
"Your focus determines your reality."
The real News fo Nerds is #1:
Highfield joined the BBC in 2000 and is in charge of the corporation's online and cross platform content and his impact has been considerable. His position atop the poll is evidence of the regard in which the panel holds the BBC and their belief that the corporation's global reach is truly setting the agenda - in terms of innovation, penetration and ambition.
It's quite clear that this is the best strategy that Microsoft has against Free Software. MS _may_ not get to point where they directly sue over patents and copyrights but be assured that they will work very hard to create useful and popular things that are legally incompatible with Free Software.
What I really want is a keyboard that's smart enough to record and play back key sequences. I know that most window managers can handle this and I know I can write a script for most things, plus alias does a great job but sometimes I just want to record some keys that I'm going to use on multiple systems in multiple environments and I don't want the window manager or shell to know anything about it.
I can't seem to be able to reach the site. Does this run on the root display like VNC and PCAnywhere normally do under Windows or does it create a new display. It doesn't seem as useful except for as a prank if the user sees you take over the machine. So if this is able to create a new display then this is what I've been looking for. It would potentially allow me to run multiple sessions under Windows which is something I've been wanting to do but couldn't afford. Citrix or the server edition of Win4Lin could have solved my problem but this might do it too. Anyone know how this works?
Of course it will remain open source so that those half-million developers can continue to contribute their time and genius to its success, but if those thousands of contributions lead to direct financial gain for companies whose coffers are already overflowing and are simultaneously using those contributions to manufacture software with price tags out of reach to anyone but corporations, is PHP still the language developers should be focusing on for use in the open-source community?
A - Which of these companies have overflowing coffers?
B - It's open source. If someone wants to contribute then they can contribute. If someone wants to profit then they can attempt to profit. I don't see why a company that contributes shouldn't have the opportunity to profit somehow.
C - Nothing says that PHP can't be forked back towards the little web scripting engine that was once PHP and PHP/FI before that.
Patents in the past have been used mostly defensively. Most large companies either had mutual agreement to share patents or they went ahead and used the patented ideas of other companies knowing that the other companies used their patented ideas too. Thus the result of a lawsuit would be a wash. Now with MS and IBM building such huge patent portfolios it's getting a bit scarry for Linux and other Open Source projects. This announcement is encouraging, however. With Big Blue's huge patent portfolio (and Novell's) it could actually take on Microsoft on the behalf of Linux. In effect Big Blue would step in whenever a lawsuit was threatened and say to Microsoft, "Back off or will prevent you from using this IP which you have incorporated into X, Y and Z products." Why would they do that? Because IBM now needs Linux. Linux is one of IBM's OSs now and it has to defend it. The big question the is whether IBM could somehow hijack Linux using IP. Could IBM become the only vendor legally capable of delivering a useful version of Linux. Sure it would cripple Linux in the long run but Big Blue isn't known for being smart all the time.
Take a look at rdiff-backup. I've been very impressed with it. From the website:
rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves subdirectories, hard links, dev files, permissions, uid/gid ownership, and modification times. Also, rdiff-backup can operate in a bandwidth efficient manner over a pipe, like rsync. Thus you can use rdiff-backup and ssh to securely back a hard drive up to a remote location, and only the differences will be transmitted. Finally, rdiff-backup is easy to use and settings have sensical defaults.
I found it to be very fast and reliable. And yes, it aparently does work under Windows.
Ever since I switched from Perl and PHP to Python I've been looking for the perfect Python IDE. Kokodo 3.0 looks interesting. I think ActiveState does a nice job and the folks there put together what I think are the best Perl and Python installations for Windows (although I don't normally use Windows). I like the Komodo Tcl based designer for the the cross platform abilities but the resulting apps always look too "old". If Komodo used XUL and Mozilla to create gui apps then I would be really impressed.
;-)
So I have yet to find the perfect Python IDE but here's a start.
Kdevelop is very robust but is more focussed C++.
Leo isn't pretty but the outlining features are very cool.
BoaConstructor hold lots of promise for better cross platform support, zope support, a debugger and form designer but the project seems to have stalled.
Eric might be my best bet with project mgt, CVS/Subversion and Qt-Designer but I've encountered stability problems.
Actually I wish I could have something with the feature set of Eric with the stability, speed and maturity of Kdevelop plus Leo's outlining abilities. Oh yea, and I'd really like an form designer that uses XUL and Mozilla for building cross platform GUIs.