Good point. If you look deeper into the ERP systems market for small to midsized companies you'll see 2 companies dominate - Microsoft and Best (was Sage). Both companies have been gobbling up smaller competitors for the past few years. I have heard that Sage owns the market in Europe. Anyway, one of Best's top producers is Mas90 (Mas200) which was originally produced by State of the Art. It's written in a flavor of Business Basic called ProvideX which happens to be cross platform (Linux too). Since the acquisition of SOTA, Best has been using more and more IE components and has dropped unix support all together. They developed a new client server version based on SQL Server. Microsoft feeds them a little rope here, a little rope there...SNAP!
I picked up a Lexmark Z65N at Costco last week for $169.99 which seemed quite good considering the 21ppm and 2400x1200dpi ratings. Plus it has a built in ethernet port. I knew it claimed support for Windows and OSX only but I figured it would likely work somewhat under Linux with another driver.
As it turns out it's a mixed bag of good and bad. The Windows driver doesn't work with sharing since it wants to speak directly to the printer and fails if it can't. This means Linux is _not_ supported in any way and Lexmark tech support says they have no indication that Linux will ever be supported. Luckily I have access to enough printers and Windows PCs (and Win4Lin) that I can live with this. It does also mean, however, that I can't queue jobs and share drivers, etc.on the Win2K server. In addition the installer on the supplied CD won't run off a network share. I downloaded the latest driver from the Lexmark website to get around that but still I'm left with fairly poor text quality and much slower than 21ppm. Photo quality is good but not much better than the HP970cxi (1200x1200dpi) that it was supposed to replace. On the up side, the printer was cheap. The cartridges are a little cheaper than the HP ones (I don't know anything about mileage yet, though) and it does have an ethernet port. For me it works just well enough in the areas that I care about to be worth keeping. It's not the incredible deal that I thought it was but it's not too bad. I just wish Lexmark would tell you the limitations of the printer. I think Lexmark was smart in many respects because the trade offs that they made cause this printer to work well for many people. However, for some it won't work at all. They just need to be a little more forthcoming with the details.
Up until now, free software has mostly threatened closed commercial software. GNU Radio, however, might make some hardware manufacturers squirm a bit. If I can use a generic device along with GNU Radio to emulate a range of devices how will this impact the makers of those devices and are you (or users of GNU Radio) possibly violating patents for some of those devices? It seems that GNU Radio will stir up more mud in the IP and DRM debates. What are your thoughts on this?
I gather from some prior posts that a single device won't allow this software to "communicate seamlessly across the entire electromagnetic spectrum". However, this doesn't rule out the possibility of a range of devices that can accomplish this. What do you see when you envision these devices? What are the implications of such devices in terms of possible applications and possible ubuses, intentional or unintentional?
You can get get the Linux spellchecker.xpi and the Windows spellchk.xpi from the Netscape FTP site along with some other options that aren't included with Mozilla. Yea, I know that there is a spellchecker project for Mozilla but it's not really ready yet - and my wife is really complaining about it.
Just as with fashion and music it seems that most people step off the technology train at a certain age (late teens to mid twenties I would guess). People teach what they know or at least what they can understand. Combine this with the average age of a teachers and you get quite a few teachers sharing technology that's 10+ years old. Fortunately the basics (reading, math, science, etc), at least at the grade school levels, haven't changed that much. The teching methods have, however. I bet you see the same phenomonon there. Then again it happens in business, engineering, art, etc. Maybe the better choice would be to study this effect.
I can only wish that an open source company had even close to that much money and power. It might actually be able to change the tide on digital right management products and legislation...
I've been using PostNuke for a while now and am mostly pleased with it. It's well supported, mature, actively developed, themeable and there are lots of add-on modules. It's easy to set up, easy to operate and more secure than some others.
Use the EZ CMS for publishing and use the Wiki for collaboration.
On the other hand, I am starting to favor Python over PHP for various reasons. As a result I've been looking at Zope and wondering if I can get more of what I want. Here's what I have found so far:
PostNuke seems much easier to understand and to get up and running right away. The website is easier to understand and the documentation is geared to making it work rather than the design and theory behind the project. Zope, however does look quite interesting for it's object model and number of products available. It appears as if it would take much longer to get a complex site built but once one has experience with Zope it seems it would be trivial to extend the available products. Also the Zope team had put serious emphesis on the Content Management Framework (CMF). If you're looking for just content management and workflow, this deserves a serious look.
Finally, is it just me or is the zope.org site really hard to understand? There are few examples, virtually no screenshots and links to everything but real answers. Every Zope site seems the same too. There's always a sidebar with a useless, simple calendar and a link back to every other zope site, but little real answers. I must be missing something. Maybe once I wrap my head around everything Zope I'll make a site devoted to showcasing what Zope and Zope products can do with real screenshots, real demos and real example code.
I have been using Anomy Mail Tools to make decisions about incoming attachments and JavaScript infected messages. I use AVP (although I'll likely switch to one of the free scanners listed in this thread) to scan certain attachments (.doc,.xls, etc.) but otherwise data formats get through and executables get quarantined. If someone wants an executable from quarantine I scan it with Norton Antivirus (thanks Win4Lin) simply because I think that Symantec does a fine job of keeping their system up to date (and I do it maybe twice a year). I also use SpamAssassin for spam filtering. It works really well.
One other thing to watch out for... I had become fairly lazy about scanning the desktop since incoming mail was virtually 100% clean and since nobody uses floppies any more. Then I had a user download an infected file from her personal webmail account. I went crazy trying to figure out how this thing got in until I finally got a confession on the webmail use.
IT was magical in the late 90s but now it's a bad word. There will be organizations that need lots of IT help and organizations that don't. Some companies will dump most of its IT budget and do fine and others will increase IT spending and find it gives them an edge. What's always been true is that the companies that match their IT spending to their true needs will come out on top. Nothing else matters, not the trade rags, not the media hype, nothing. In a few years we'll see articles about companies that surprisingly spend lots of money on IT and have an advantage in their market. Big deal. It's the same old story. The best thing you can do as an IT profesional is be useful. Just like anyone else.
At first I thought you were just paranoid. As a credit card user you are protected against fraud in many ways. Plus the card company goes pays a lot of money for systems that statistically search for fraud. I know because a friend works for the company that provides the software to most of the banks that issue cards use. Plus, after all it's not any harder to steal your signature the old fashioned way - with a scanner.
I actually ran into this issue at work once. My boss wanted his signature scanned so that he could have it on his letterhead and never have to pull out his pen again. That is until I asked him how secure he thought his computer was. Yes, security was my responsibility but they didn't give me much time to spend on it and virtually no budget. Plus I think his password was "porsche" and he wasn't about to change it.
Anyway that was 10 years ago. It does bring up the reason to be paranoid, however. A database of signatures is a worthy target for any cracker and it's likely worth something to the holding company. So what do they do with it anyway? I can't imagine that the benefits of being able to produce the signature from anywhere is all that great. Plus you can't prove that the signature didn't come from a different purchase or a different databse anyway. So why go through all this trouble? I would be interested to hear the stats on the fraud that this kind of system prevents. I'm guessing it's minimal. So what is the worst case here? Likely nothing but then again a cracker could use the data for purchases or identity theft and a malicious company could use the database for something like spam only much worse. "He said we could handle his long distance. See, we even have his signature"
BTW, I like the earlier post about dragging your fingernail across the paper. Yea, some systems might require extra passes of the pen but it's simple and effective.
I live in Utah. Yea, yea, I know. Anyway, a few months ago one of the users on my network stopped me in the hall to say he had just sent an e-mail in reply to a spam requesting that he be removed from the spammer's list. I got all upset and explained (again) that all that does is confirm to the spammer that he has a live address. Then he explained that he had told the spammer that he would sue him under some bogus Utah law. He made up the number and title, etc. I was only mildly amused until the next day when he received a personal reply from the spammer. He apologized and said he would not use the address anymore. I was amazed. I don't expect this to ever work again but at least now we have the law behind us. Oh yea, I also find it typical that the Utah law has as much to do with stopping sexually explicit mail as it does with stopping spam in general. I guess that this is where the political support comes from. Don't you wish your state had it's own Porn Csar?
It seems that what Microsoft perceives and what Microsoft admits (except throught leaks) are two different things. Microsoft must consider the threat from Linux and IBM to be about over to admit this. Here's how it works. A number of articles and opinions spring up stating that Linux is dead or dying or not a threat. Then Microsoft says that Linux and IBM are their toughest competition. Investors see both stories independant of each other and think they are so smart to discover that Microsoft's greatest threat is not really much of a threat. They then invest becuase little is more powerful a motivator than your own, original, brilliant idea. This way, as it play out, Microsoft is seen as either crushing it's greatest competitor or, if things don't go its way, Microsoft is simply seen as battling a worthy competitor. Either way it demonstrates that Microsoft has _competition_ which is all too important for public relations. These guys are not to be underestimated.
For the quick edit (eg notepad stuff) nothing beats Metapad
For the bigger project stuff it's either JEdit or XEmacs. Both are stable, cross platform and loaded with features. I'm still trying to decide which one I like best.;-)
For the server side use SSH from cygwin and for the client side I really like TTSSH as an extension to Teraterm. It also looks like there is now a TTX SSL and an SSL OTP available too. By the way, all of these have source available.
a) MS is making a shitload of money off of Office for OSX.
"shitload" is relative. If it makes less than OfficeXP it drags down the average. Like I said, this may be the Office v.X guys complaining that their pond is too small but it doesn't make sense for Microsoft as a whole to demand that OSX take more marketshare.
b) Dropping OSX for Mac when it's making money probably wouldn't attract the attention of the DOJ or assorted State AGs, would it? Nope. Not at all. I'm sure there wouldn't be a potential lawsuit there.
That depends. The profit on Office v.X could look like whatever Microsoft wants it to look like. It's a tiny percentage of overall sales and depending on how support costs are applied Microsoft could hide all sorts of things (legally). If Microsoft starts complaining now they just might have everyone convinced that Office v.X isn't selling that great by the time they pull the plug.
Do you know how much shit Microsoft has pulled over the years? This would be significant but not outrageous for Microsoft. You might expect that Microsoft would tone down in light of the antitrust case but really the opposite has happened. Why not? They have yet to receive even a slap on the wrist. Wars will be won and lost in the marketplace before this case is played out and the final outcome will be irrelevant.
Microsoft will gladly make money off the OSX market as long as it doesn't impact their control over the marketplace. I think OSX has turned into a serious threat, however. Look at all the software that's already been ported to OSX. It's enough to make a Linux/BSD user drool. OSX makes a nice desktop, a great server and it's backed by a major corporation. It has all that Linux and BSD are lacking in terms of corporate adoption.
So maybe Microsoft will pull the plug on Office v.X; maybe it won't. Saying that OSX sales are too small and casting doubt on the long term viability of Office v.X does nothing but boost Microsofts image in the corporate OS marketplace. Once again it boils down to FUD.
But after the turn of year, Microsoft began looking more closely at how Apple marketed OS X 10.1, complaining the Mac maker failed to put out enough marketing dollars to drive adoption of the new operating system. That adoption was crucial to Microsoft, which developed Office v. X to run only on OS X and not the older OS 9.
This could be a case there the Office v.X people are trying to justify their poor sales performance but I doubt it. I think MS sees OSX as a threat and they are gearing up for big fall out with Apple.
You know, some things are complex and new. It's that simple. Somehow you have to tell this stupid machine that you want to record some World Cup game on some channel at some time using whatever silly buttons the manufacturer could afford. Can it be done better? Sure. Make it less complex by stripping away options (wizards, shortcuts, etc.) or make it less new by using metaphors (icons, desktops, etc).
But until the machine is smart enough to understand you, you will have to be smart enough to understand the machine.
Your point is well taken and I found it amusing. However, I would like to dispel this myth before it gets too far.
I have 2 young kids. After seeing what my wife went through in getting a newborn to nurse for the first time I have little sympathy for engineers complaining about end users. Yea, some baby/mother combos just fall together and all is well but often it's a complex struggle. Babies aren't born knowing how to nurse. They are born with some reflexes that in a perfect world fire in sequence and produce the proper result. Sometimes it doesn't work that way.
It starts with a rooting reflex. When the baby's cheek is touched it causes him to open his mouth and turn his head. Then there's a reflex to open further when the lower lip is brushed. Finally sucking is initiated by touching the tongue. Timing is important and failure causes frustration. Whole careers are based on helping new mothers with this. Luckily babies learn quickly and bypass the reflex approach within a few days.
Maybe he messed up and put time on the Y-axis and learning on the X-axis in which case a steep curve would be the correct term. Then again, on Slashdot there is no partial credit.
First, you don't have to cut them off. It's fairly easy to ignore them. Still, you're left with 8 which is divisible by 1,2,4 and 8. It's better than 10 but with 12 you get integers when splitting into thirds. Try that with dollars. It's a mess.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. If you look deeper into the ERP systems market for small to midsized companies you'll see 2 companies dominate - Microsoft and Best (was Sage). Both companies have been gobbling up smaller competitors for the past few years. I have heard that Sage owns the market in Europe. Anyway, one of Best's top producers is Mas90 (Mas200) which was originally produced by State of the Art. It's written in a flavor of Business Basic called ProvideX which happens to be cross platform (Linux too). Since the acquisition of SOTA, Best has been using more and more IE components and has dropped unix support all together. They developed a new client server version based on SQL Server. Microsoft feeds them a little rope here, a little rope there...SNAP!
I picked up a Lexmark Z65N at Costco last week for $169.99 which seemed quite good considering the 21ppm and 2400x1200dpi ratings. Plus it has a built in ethernet port. I knew it claimed support for Windows and OSX only but I figured it would likely work somewhat under Linux with another driver.
As it turns out it's a mixed bag of good and bad. The Windows driver doesn't work with sharing since it wants to speak directly to the printer and fails if it can't. This means Linux is _not_ supported in any way and Lexmark tech support says they have no indication that Linux will ever be supported. Luckily I have access to enough printers and Windows PCs (and Win4Lin) that I can live with this. It does also mean, however, that I can't queue jobs and share drivers, etc.on the Win2K server. In addition the installer on the supplied CD won't run off a network share. I downloaded the latest driver from the Lexmark website to get around that but still I'm left with fairly poor text quality and much slower than 21ppm. Photo quality is good but not much better than the HP970cxi (1200x1200dpi) that it was supposed to replace. On the up side, the printer was cheap. The cartridges are a little cheaper than the HP ones (I don't know anything about mileage yet, though) and it does have an ethernet port. For me it works just well enough in the areas that I care about to be worth keeping. It's not the incredible deal that I thought it was but it's not too bad. I just wish Lexmark would tell you the limitations of the printer. I think Lexmark was smart in many respects because the trade offs that they made cause this printer to work well for many people. However, for some it won't work at all. They just need to be a little more forthcoming with the details.
Up until now, free software has mostly threatened closed commercial software. GNU Radio, however, might make some hardware manufacturers squirm a bit. If I can use a generic device along with GNU Radio to emulate a range of devices how will this impact the makers of those devices and are you (or users of GNU Radio) possibly violating patents for some of those devices? It seems that GNU Radio will stir up more mud in the IP and DRM debates. What are your thoughts on this?
I gather from some prior posts that a single device won't allow this software to "communicate seamlessly across the entire electromagnetic spectrum". However, this doesn't rule out the possibility of a range of devices that can accomplish this. What do you see when you envision these devices? What are the implications of such devices in terms of possible applications and possible ubuses, intentional or unintentional?
You can get get the Linux spellchecker.xpi and the Windows spellchk.xpi from the Netscape FTP site along with some other options that aren't included with Mozilla. Yea, I know that there is a spellchecker project for Mozilla but it's not really ready yet - and my wife is really complaining about it.
Just as with fashion and music it seems that most people step off the technology train at a certain age (late teens to mid twenties I would guess). People teach what they know or at least what they can understand. Combine this with the average age of a teachers and you get quite a few teachers sharing technology that's 10+ years old. Fortunately the basics (reading, math, science, etc), at least at the grade school levels, haven't changed that much. The teching methods have, however. I bet you see the same phenomonon there. Then again it happens in business, engineering, art, etc. Maybe the better choice would be to study this effect.
I can only wish that an open source company had even close to that much money and power. It might actually be able to change the tide on digital right management products and legislation...
Some useful modules include:
CalZone (calendar)
Gallery (photo gallery)
EZ CMS (content management)
PhpWiki
Use the EZ CMS for publishing and use the Wiki for collaboration.
On the other hand, I am starting to favor Python over PHP for various reasons. As a result I've been looking at Zope and wondering if I can get more of what I want. Here's what I have found so far:
PostNuke seems much easier to understand and to get up and running right away. The website is easier to understand and the documentation is geared to making it work rather than the design and theory behind the project. Zope, however does look quite interesting for it's object model and number of products available. It appears as if it would take much longer to get a complex site built but once one has experience with Zope it seems it would be trivial to extend the available products. Also the Zope team had put serious emphesis on the Content Management Framework (CMF). If you're looking for just content management and workflow, this deserves a serious look.
Finally, is it just me or is the zope.org site really hard to understand? There are few examples, virtually no screenshots and links to everything but real answers. Every Zope site seems the same too. There's always a sidebar with a useless, simple calendar and a link back to every other zope site, but little real answers. I must be missing something. Maybe once I wrap my head around everything Zope I'll make a site devoted to showcasing what Zope and Zope products can do with real screenshots, real demos and real example code.
One other thing to watch out for... I had become fairly lazy about scanning the desktop since incoming mail was virtually 100% clean and since nobody uses floppies any more. Then I had a user download an infected file from her personal webmail account. I went crazy trying to figure out how this thing got in until I finally got a confession on the webmail use.
but according to several readers this is a false alarm.
Well, I'll just start running this right now then.
IT was magical in the late 90s but now it's a bad word. There will be organizations that need lots of IT help and organizations that don't. Some companies will dump most of its IT budget and do fine and others will increase IT spending and find it gives them an edge. What's always been true is that the companies that match their IT spending to their true needs will come out on top. Nothing else matters, not the trade rags, not the media hype, nothing. In a few years we'll see articles about companies that surprisingly spend lots of money on IT and have an advantage in their market. Big deal. It's the same old story. The best thing you can do as an IT profesional is be useful. Just like anyone else.
Your subconscious mind is only trying to protect you.
At first I thought you were just paranoid. As a credit card user you are protected against fraud in many ways. Plus the card company goes pays a lot of money for systems that statistically search for fraud. I know because a friend works for the company that provides the software to most of the banks that issue cards use. Plus, after all it's not any harder to steal your signature the old fashioned way - with a scanner.
I actually ran into this issue at work once. My boss wanted his signature scanned so that he could have it on his letterhead and never have to pull out his pen again. That is until I asked him how secure he thought his computer was. Yes, security was my responsibility but they didn't give me much time to spend on it and virtually no budget. Plus I think his password was "porsche" and he wasn't about to change it.
Anyway that was 10 years ago. It does bring up the reason to be paranoid, however. A database of signatures is a worthy target for any cracker and it's likely worth something to the holding company. So what do they do with it anyway? I can't imagine that the benefits of being able to produce the signature from anywhere is all that great. Plus you can't prove that the signature didn't come from a different purchase or a different databse anyway. So why go through all this trouble? I would be interested to hear the stats on the fraud that this kind of system prevents. I'm guessing it's minimal. So what is the worst case here? Likely nothing but then again a cracker could use the data for purchases or identity theft and a malicious company could use the database for something like spam only much worse. "He said we could handle his long distance. See, we even have his signature"
BTW, I like the earlier post about dragging your fingernail across the paper. Yea, some systems might require extra passes of the pen but it's simple and effective.
I live in Utah. Yea, yea, I know. Anyway, a few months ago one of the users on my network stopped me in the hall to say he had just sent an e-mail in reply to a spam requesting that he be removed from the spammer's list. I got all upset and explained (again) that all that does is confirm to the spammer that he has a live address. Then he explained that he had told the spammer that he would sue him under some bogus Utah law. He made up the number and title, etc. I was only mildly amused until the next day when he received a personal reply from the spammer. He apologized and said he would not use the address anymore. I was amazed. I don't expect this to ever work again but at least now we have the law behind us. Oh yea, I also find it typical that the Utah law has as much to do with stopping sexually explicit mail as it does with stopping spam in general. I guess that this is where the political support comes from. Don't you wish your state had it's own Porn Csar?
It seems that what Microsoft perceives and what Microsoft admits (except throught leaks) are two different things. Microsoft must consider the threat from Linux and IBM to be about over to admit this. Here's how it works. A number of articles and opinions spring up stating that Linux is dead or dying or not a threat. Then Microsoft says that Linux and IBM are their toughest competition. Investors see both stories independant of each other and think they are so smart to discover that Microsoft's greatest threat is not really much of a threat. They then invest becuase little is more powerful a motivator than your own, original, brilliant idea. This way, as it play out, Microsoft is seen as either crushing it's greatest competitor or, if things don't go its way, Microsoft is simply seen as battling a worthy competitor. Either way it demonstrates that Microsoft has _competition_ which is all too important for public relations. These guys are not to be underestimated.
For the bigger project stuff it's either JEdit or XEmacs. Both are stable, cross platform and loaded with features. I'm still trying to decide which one I like best. ;-)
For the server side use SSH from cygwin and for the client side I really like TTSSH as an extension to Teraterm. It also looks like there is now a TTX SSL and an SSL OTP available too. By the way, all of these have source available.
"shitload" is relative. If it makes less than OfficeXP it drags down the average. Like I said, this may be the Office v.X guys complaining that their pond is too small but it doesn't make sense for Microsoft as a whole to demand that OSX take more marketshare.
b) Dropping OSX for Mac when it's making money probably wouldn't attract the attention of the DOJ or assorted State AGs, would it? Nope. Not at all. I'm sure there wouldn't be a potential lawsuit there.
That depends. The profit on Office v.X could look like whatever Microsoft wants it to look like. It's a tiny percentage of overall sales and depending on how support costs are applied Microsoft could hide all sorts of things (legally). If Microsoft starts complaining now they just might have everyone convinced that Office v.X isn't selling that great by the time they pull the plug.
Do you know how much shit Microsoft has pulled over the years? This would be significant but not outrageous for Microsoft. You might expect that Microsoft would tone down in light of the antitrust case but really the opposite has happened. Why not? They have yet to receive even a slap on the wrist. Wars will be won and lost in the marketplace before this case is played out and the final outcome will be irrelevant.
Microsoft will gladly make money off the OSX market as long as it doesn't impact their control over the marketplace. I think OSX has turned into a serious threat, however. Look at all the software that's already been ported to OSX. It's enough to make a Linux/BSD user drool. OSX makes a nice desktop, a great server and it's backed by a major corporation. It has all that Linux and BSD are lacking in terms of corporate adoption.
So maybe Microsoft will pull the plug on Office v.X; maybe it won't. Saying that OSX sales are too small and casting doubt on the long term viability of Office v.X does nothing but boost Microsofts image in the corporate OS marketplace. Once again it boils down to FUD.
This could be a case there the Office v.X people are trying to justify their poor sales performance but I doubt it. I think MS sees OSX as a threat and they are gearing up for big fall out with Apple.
You know, some things are complex and new. It's that simple. Somehow you have to tell this stupid machine that you want to record some World Cup game on some channel at some time using whatever silly buttons the manufacturer could afford. Can it be done better? Sure. Make it less complex by stripping away options (wizards, shortcuts, etc.) or make it less new by using metaphors (icons, desktops, etc).
But until the machine is smart enough to understand you, you will have to be smart enough to understand the machine.
Your point is well taken and I found it amusing. However, I would like to dispel this myth before it gets too far.
I have 2 young kids. After seeing what my wife went through in getting a newborn to nurse for the first time I have little sympathy for engineers complaining about end users. Yea, some baby/mother combos just fall together and all is well but often it's a complex struggle. Babies aren't born knowing how to nurse. They are born with some reflexes that in a perfect world fire in sequence and produce the proper result. Sometimes it doesn't work that way.
It starts with a rooting reflex. When the baby's cheek is touched it causes him to open his mouth and turn his head. Then there's a reflex to open further when the lower lip is brushed. Finally sucking is initiated by touching the tongue. Timing is important and failure causes frustration. Whole careers are based on helping new mothers with this. Luckily babies learn quickly and bypass the reflex approach within a few days.
Maybe he messed up and put time on the Y-axis and learning on the X-axis in which case a steep curve would be the correct term. Then again, on Slashdot there is no partial credit.
Yea, but gloves would cost a fortune.
First, you don't have to cut them off. It's fairly easy to ignore them. Still, you're left with 8 which is divisible by 1,2,4 and 8. It's better than 10 but with 12 you get integers when splitting into thirds. Try that with dollars. It's a mess.
I agree. The metric system is great being base 10 and all but sometimes I wish we had evolved with 12 fingers just for this reason.