Does anyone else remember a year or so ago when another major company decided that Linux was the future? They talked about how Linux was going to be this, that, and the other thing. And that company was moving their products to Linux, and really staking their future on Linux. Now that company is in the midst of what can only be called its death throes. Sadly, we remember today the company called Corel. And the great promise that we saw in them making things available on Linux.
I do not wish to seem negative before Kylix is even here, but I really have to wonder. It doesn't seem to me that Borland/Inprise is staking their future on Linux to quite the degree that Corel did, but what if Kylix isn't what's its cracked up to be? How would that affect the future of the Linux community? I approach this matter very seriously, because my livelihood depends on it. I work for a development firm that is strongly grounded in Delphi, and there are more than just rumors about shifting over to developing with Kylix. It concerns me greatly that we will be depending on Kylix on Linux, when nary a Delphi developer in the house has any real world experience with either Linux or any type of Unix.
I, for one, will have to wait and see whether the buzz about Kylix is really worth checking into...
Now I can trash that copy of RedHat for Sparc that I had been saving. I think this announcement highlights what the earlier story said about RedHat kind of losing ground to companies like SuSE. SuSE is in the midst of a strong push to loosen RedHat's stranglehold on the US Linux market, and I wish them the best of luck. I've been using SuSE for years, and have always preferred them and Caldera to RedHat. Does anyone know the processor limitations on SuSE's Sparc release? Since most Sparc based boxes I know are multiprocessor boxes, it would be nice if SuSE was accomodating.
Ahh, obscenity. The only sure-fire way to make sure that no one takes seriously the ideas you try to convey. Yes, you can opine (for now, anyway) with the same freedom that everyone else enjoys. But you obviously lack the ability to do so in a meaningful or productive manner. Do you feel like more of a man (or woman) for bantering about like a pismire? I, for my part, lay claim to no special knowledge of or insight into the words of the Tivo representative. I do, however, understand that he expressed two ideas which were in direct contrast to one another, and I can say with confidence that the meaning those ideas conveyed, whether intentional or not, was not consistent with my beliefs regarding freedom. You, on the other, who seem to struggle so feebly to assemble sentences with words of more than four letters (I prefer to do my thinking with my non-reproductive head), should at least attempt to describe your feelings about matters in a manner more conducive to productive discussion. If I have at least inspired some raw emotions in a being such as yourself, then I am indeed pleased with my work. Whether you continue to use the intelligence that supposedly separates you from the "lower" animals is entirely your decision, but I would suggest that you can only profit from such action.
How is playing Big Brother "protecting everyone's privacy"? I'd say it's just the opposite. Or perhaps you just have to think about the right way. Or rather not think about it at all. Just let somebody else do your thinking for you. Like Tivo. Or Microsoft. Or the Government. And then they can "protect your privacy." Sheesh.
But I'm not convinced. Fine, if the stuff really works like they say (and let's not forget all the other wonderful things we've been promised over the years (flying cars in the year 2000, what? cold fusion, what? personal robot slaves, what?)), that still doesn't make me rush out and buy a heatsink based on the stuff. For one thing, even if you dissipate the heat from the CPU rapidly, most computer cases have some severe limitations on how quickly they dissipate heat internally. Whether it's insufficient airflow, poof case design, or what have you, I'm not convinced that a better heatsink without a better overall heat dissipation scheme means that much. Now maybe if you make some kind of alloy or composite material for the actual chassis using this stuff, and it can cool the entire box rapidly, that would be worth my hard earned hardware budget's attention. But it's still a step in the overall right direction. Especially with the new Itanium "Easy Bake Oven heating element" chips and the Pentium 4 portable frying surface chips coming out. But would a Transmeta need this stuff?
Human civilization has only made technological use of radio waves for an extremely short period of time as compared to both the length of time we have had human civilizations and the length of time that humans have inhabited this planet. At the current rate of technological advancement, or even one half that rate, before we've even hit the midway point of the 1000 year duration of our civilization (according to the scale used in the article) we will be long past the "primitive" use of radio signals that we have employed over the past 100 years. To think that an advanced civilization is necessarily going to produce detectable radio signals is, in my mind, extremely short-sighted. But that's what we can look for with our SETI telescopes. And hey, I enjoy pitting identical machines running SETI side by side and watching the Linux box beat the Windows box by a couple of hours every time.
The wired article (I guess citing the Forrester stuff), said that Dell is going to become a major open source player. Is that going to be Dell's open source web browser? Or perhaps their open source office suite? It seems to me that if Dell is going to become a major player in the open source market (apart from shipping a pitifully slim array of machines available with RedHat), they should, I don't know, maybe be in the software business first. Dell isn't even a closed source software company. They don't write much of anything, other than their own web sites. Perhaps if the writer of the article opened his/her source, we would see that it was a phony to start with. Sheesh.
I don't know about that...and I have read Starship Troopers. I've also read a good bit of Heinlein's other stuff. A good portion of the ideas expressed in Stranger in a Strange Land, for instance, aren't exactly right-wing in nature. The whole poking fun at Christianity and organized religion in general thing. Heinlein is, unfortunately, one of the more unappreciated SF writers. But a great topic for debate.
If you have never read any Heinlein, you should start now. One of his short novels/longer short stories is called "The Man Who Sold the Moon." This amusing tale covers, among other things, what happens when corporate America gets involved with the space program. One example was a plan to have the light side of the moon scorched on a large scale to produce a company's logo that would be visible in earth's night sky. What's really interesting is that the story was written well before there was a space program. Heinlein is often amazing for his uncanny ability to describe our modern US (and sometimes global) society in shockingly accurate terms, especially considering how long it's been since he wrote the bulk of his work.
have more than 4 IDE devices without going to absurd lengths to do it. Nowadays, most folks have at least two CD type drives (a burner, a reader, a DVD, etc.), maybe an IDE tape, at least a couple of hard drives, and not enough money to go SCSI on everything. I don't need the arguments about SCSI; I accept that it is better, faster, more scalable, etc., but I don't accept the needless price gouging. I want cheap, relatively fast, and most importantly, more than 4 IDE devices.... Surely that's not so much to ask. If IDE is that bad off, let's quit using it
You know, you certainly could ask Al Gore for a job as a computer historian. He needs all the help he can get proving that he invented the internet. You could be on CNN tomorrow telling everybody, "I was there with Vice President Gore when he invented the Internet. I helped him bind the servers into one connection. If it weren't for Mr. Gore, there would be no internet. The built-in CAT 5 data port in Al's neck allows the Father of the Internet to jack into his child every day...." and so forth, ad nauseum. Everything I say is just because I'm a history major forced into the IT world. These computers are so naughty, with their fancy Illudium processors.
That's unpossible.
The best, though, was:
Tyranny and oppression are a small price to pay to live in the land of the free. --M. Burns
I want to see Hugo again. It's high time Bart's brother started getting his share of the fame and fortune.
"Hey Apple: Compare the number of muscles and effort required to push your index finger. Now compare how many muscles are involved in tilting the whole mouse."
You know, some technology company finally comes up with a way to make exercise fun, and you have to go and cast it in an evil light. Using more muscles is better. If only we could control the amount of force necessary to execute that click, we could make some real progress. For me, I'd like to walk up to some hot chick (no, not politically correct, ask me if I care) and say, "Hey baby, I can mouse press 450 foot pounds."
is for Honda to spin off this company as "Mechanical Men" so that it can be purchased by US Robotics, who will handle communications systems, and we will see a realization of Isaac Asimov's famous US Robotics and Mechanical Men corporation. Not that we are all that far from it now, since the founder(s) of USR, the modem company, named their company for Asimov's fictitious one anyway.
Here's a conversation I had with Sigma Designs several weeks ago. They have a bad attitude. (Start at the bottom and read your way up.) From: Tech Support | Block address To: Subject: RE: driver--mc Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:02:37 -0800 Hi, Sorry, that information is classified. Thank you, mc NOTE : PLease include this whole thread of correspondence in your answer for proper follow-up. We'll have to ask you to resend your message if it does not contain the case history. Thanks for your cooperation -----Original Message----- Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 2:16 PM To: Tech Support Subject: RE: driver--mc So how about getting the specs so I can write the driver? No sense reinventing the wheel if you don't have to. Thanks again. --- Tech Support wrote: > Hi, > There won't be a driver for Linux for the current H+ > with the EM8300 chip, > this is due to the CSS protection. > Onbly a new product based on the EM8400 chip will > suport Linux. > > Thank you, > mc > NOTE : PLease include this whole thread of > correspondence in your answer for > proper follow-up. We'll have to ask you to resend > your message if it does > not contain the case history. > > Thanks for your cooperation > > > > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 10:35 PM > To: tech_support@sdesigns.com > Subject: driver > > > Hey, when/where can I get a driver for my Hollywood > Plus card for Linux? And if I can't get one from > you > folks, where might I get the hardware specs so I > could > write a driver? My fellow Linux users would > certainly > like a driver for this card, and we would be willing > to help write the driver. Thanks for your > assistance.
Just a brief note or two about CE devices. I support the little devils, and they are as close to awful as anything I have ever encountered. Yes, they can do a number of things that Palm devices can't right now, but from a support standpoint they are not worth it. I support about a thousand users, many of them with handhelds. Probably 2/3 of the handheld users have Palms. We average less than 1 call per month about a Palm misbehaving. We probably average 50 or more calls a month from the CE users. CE devices, from my experience, are unable to communicate with their desktop counterparts, for useful things like synchronization, a majority of the time. Most of our folks have HP Jornadas, and maybe part of the problem is with those devices specifically. From what I've seen though, CE has a habit of crashing randomly in a manner strongly reminiscent of Win 9X. So, my whole point in this diatribe boils down to the fact that Palm devices, and consequently their manufacturers, will be more successful than their more pricey Win CE counterparts, at least in the foreseeable future, because they are simply better designed products. I, for one, am willing to accept a little less functionality for greater stability, lower cost, and the ability to use it with the desktop operating system of my choice.
I'm impressed by the folks at Handspring, and I think they have a really good product, but I have to wonder about the IPO bit. Those who saw Caldera's IPO a couple of weeks ago probably noticed that it was less impressive. Many investors and analysts are beginning to shift their attention away from upstart companies with only red ink on their balance sheets and are moving money back to those companies who are making real money. Even the Palm IPO was less than spectacular. Is Handspring even profitable yet? Will they profitable tomorrow? Next year? Ten years from now will they still be around? Sure, I'd love to get in on the IPO, but I'm not entirely certain that becoming publicly traded carries the same amount of glitz and glamour that it did a year or two ago. Just some food for thought...
that I can still use a hyperlink? A shortcut to another file, presumably on another web site? Gosh, what will the government uphold next, the ability to use ASCII characters? I mean, it's getting a little absurd when TicketMaster is trying to sue somebody for linking to them./. better be careful, USAToday might get mad about linking to that story. Don't get me wrong, I think the judge made the best decision possible in this case, but this is just another example of the e-lawsuit ad absurdum.
Did anyone else notice that this person (or these persons) put up an AOL email address for you to contact them? That should be your first clue right there.
Your point does have a certain amount of merit. The Linux world certainly does not need a bunch of "paper admins," ala the "paper MCSEs" bungling a good product. However, ASE training is fairly in depth and, IMHO, far superior to the value of some other certifications. I think, though, that you have overstated the case about "creative problem solving" etc. Those people who are inherently good at tackling problems can benefit immensely from exposure to the knowledge and hands on experience offered by ASE training. Creativity and the ability to look at things from a non-traditional perspective, as well as other "skills" which are difficult to quantify, are not learned methodologies in the first place. On the other hand, those people who fulfill their IT duties in automoton fashion may or may not benefit from the training, but chances are they are not the kind of people you'd want to hire anyway. You have to ask yourself whether you would rather have a good problem solver with the technical knowledge on which to build solutions, or a good problem solver who cannot figure out how to clear the NVRAM on a Prosignia or how to recreate the system partition so he can access the BIOS or a Deskpro. Again, we should not overly value a paper certification or someone who is supposedly trained, because monkeys can be trianed too, but neither should we discount the potential utility of a company like Compaq sending Linux professionals out to work with their hardware and software.
Although I do not feel that Compaq is the best PC manufacturer, I am quite pleased that Compaq is offering Linux training as part of their ASE program. Having known a few Compaq ASE folks, they are generally very knowledgable about Compaq products and how to make them work. It will be nice to have a few Compaq Linux specialist types out there. With companies like Compaq and IBM (maybe they'll offer some Linux training, too) supporting Linux, maybe the mainstream computer user will begin to understand that Linux is for real. Even Dell has been offering PCs with Red Hat for quite some time now. I am curious to see if others will follow the lead in offering officially sanctioned Linux training. Working with Linux on an Alpha would be kinda cool, too. Like the license plate Compaq gave me for my car says, "Linux Live Free or Die"
Since some people fail to understand, here it is in plain English:
I wrote the Win 2k comment as a joke. This is obviously how it was interpreted by some friendly moderator, because it was moderated as Funny. The person making the conspiracy comment was also intent upon humor. Lighten up. I know that NASA prefers Linux. The Microsoft world is a lot less painful when you can laugh a little.
Hey, NASA knew they were taking a risk loading the Mars Polar Lander with the Windows 2000 beta. They should have learned their lesson from the Navy's experience with NT. Somewhere on Mars, the MPL is sitting with a cracked LCD, through which is barely visible the fabled BSOD.
The quick and dirty answer to your inquiry is NO. I would not follow Microsoft's "lead." It's not really a lead anyway. Yeah, a dynamic DNS system may be a good thing, and it certainly might ease administration if implemented in an intelligent fashion, but the rest of the IT world usually finds a better way. There may already be a better implementation. I have to admit that M$ is making a positive move by ditching (more or less) WINS and NetBIOS. Now they'll catch up to where the rest of us (not necessarily Novell) have been for years. But, and this is a big but, if Windows 2000 is supposed to be the platform of the future, what's gonna happen when we start the move to IPv6? Maybe I just missed it in that white paper, but I haven't seen or heard anything about what's gonna when the nature of IP addressing undergoes a fundamental shift. This question is relevant for other platforms, too, but I have little doubt that the various Unices and their relations will be able to make the change successfully when the time comes. In summary, I again laud M$ for doing something it should have done years ago, migrate towards a sensible name resolution platform. I would just urge you to remember that Microsoft has not gotten where they are today by being the big innovators. They have almost always just knocked off what someone else has done before them and changed it just enough to call it their own. The similarities between the current DNS question and the other little Microsoftian gimmicks is just a bit disturbing to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone else remember a year or so ago when another major company decided that Linux was the future? They talked about how Linux was going to be this, that, and the other thing. And that company was moving their products to Linux, and really staking their future on Linux. Now that company is in the midst of what can only be called its death throes. Sadly, we remember today the company called Corel. And the great promise that we saw in them making things available on Linux.
I do not wish to seem negative before Kylix is even here, but I really have to wonder. It doesn't seem to me that Borland/Inprise is staking their future on Linux to quite the degree that Corel did, but what if Kylix isn't what's its cracked up to be? How would that affect the future of the Linux community? I approach this matter very seriously, because my livelihood depends on it. I work for a development firm that is strongly grounded in Delphi, and there are more than just rumors about shifting over to developing with Kylix. It concerns me greatly that we will be depending on Kylix on Linux, when nary a Delphi developer in the house has any real world experience with either Linux or any type of Unix.
I, for one, will have to wait and see whether the buzz about Kylix is really worth checking into...
Now I can trash that copy of RedHat for Sparc that I had been saving. I think this announcement highlights what the earlier story said about RedHat kind of losing ground to companies like SuSE. SuSE is in the midst of a strong push to loosen RedHat's stranglehold on the US Linux market, and I wish them the best of luck. I've been using SuSE for years, and have always preferred them and Caldera to RedHat. Does anyone know the processor limitations on SuSE's Sparc release? Since most Sparc based boxes I know are multiprocessor boxes, it would be nice if SuSE was accomodating.
Ahh, obscenity. The only sure-fire way to make sure that no one takes seriously the ideas you try to convey. Yes, you can opine (for now, anyway) with the same freedom that everyone else enjoys. But you obviously lack the ability to do so in a meaningful or productive manner. Do you feel like more of a man (or woman) for bantering about like a pismire? I, for my part, lay claim to no special knowledge of or insight into the words of the Tivo representative. I do, however, understand that he expressed two ideas which were in direct contrast to one another, and I can say with confidence that the meaning those ideas conveyed, whether intentional or not, was not consistent with my beliefs regarding freedom. You, on the other, who seem to struggle so feebly to assemble sentences with words of more than four letters (I prefer to do my thinking with my non-reproductive head), should at least attempt to describe your feelings about matters in a manner more conducive to productive discussion. If I have at least inspired some raw emotions in a being such as yourself, then I am indeed pleased with my work. Whether you continue to use the intelligence that supposedly separates you from the "lower" animals is entirely your decision, but I would suggest that you can only profit from such action.
How is playing Big Brother "protecting everyone's privacy"? I'd say it's just the opposite. Or perhaps you just have to think about the right way. Or rather not think about it at all. Just let somebody else do your thinking for you. Like Tivo. Or Microsoft. Or the Government. And then they can "protect your privacy." Sheesh.
But I'm not convinced. Fine, if the stuff really works like they say (and let's not forget all the other wonderful things we've been promised over the years (flying cars in the year 2000, what? cold fusion, what? personal robot slaves, what?)), that still doesn't make me rush out and buy a heatsink based on the stuff. For one thing, even if you dissipate the heat from the CPU rapidly, most computer cases have some severe limitations on how quickly they dissipate heat internally. Whether it's insufficient airflow, poof case design, or what have you, I'm not convinced that a better heatsink without a better overall heat dissipation scheme means that much. Now maybe if you make some kind of alloy or composite material for the actual chassis using this stuff, and it can cool the entire box rapidly, that would be worth my hard earned hardware budget's attention. But it's still a step in the overall right direction. Especially with the new Itanium "Easy Bake Oven heating element" chips and the Pentium 4 portable frying surface chips coming out. But would a Transmeta need this stuff?
Human civilization has only made technological use of radio waves for an extremely short period of time as compared to both the length of time we have had human civilizations and the length of time that humans have inhabited this planet. At the current rate of technological advancement, or even one half that rate, before we've even hit the midway point of the 1000 year duration of our civilization (according to the scale used in the article) we will be long past the "primitive" use of radio signals that we have employed over the past 100 years. To think that an advanced civilization is necessarily going to produce detectable radio signals is, in my mind, extremely short-sighted. But that's what we can look for with our SETI telescopes. And hey, I enjoy pitting identical machines running SETI side by side and watching the Linux box beat the Windows box by a couple of hours every time.
The wired article (I guess citing the Forrester stuff), said that Dell is going to become a major open source player. Is that going to be Dell's open source web browser? Or perhaps their open source office suite? It seems to me that if Dell is going to become a major player in the open source market (apart from shipping a pitifully slim array of machines available with RedHat), they should, I don't know, maybe be in the software business first. Dell isn't even a closed source software company. They don't write much of anything, other than their own web sites. Perhaps if the writer of the article opened his/her source, we would see that it was a phony to start with. Sheesh.
I don't know about that...and I have read Starship Troopers. I've also read a good bit of Heinlein's other stuff. A good portion of the ideas expressed in Stranger in a Strange Land, for instance, aren't exactly right-wing in nature. The whole poking fun at Christianity and organized religion in general thing. Heinlein is, unfortunately, one of the more unappreciated SF writers. But a great topic for debate.
If you have never read any Heinlein, you should start now. One of his short novels/longer short stories is called "The Man Who Sold the Moon." This amusing tale covers, among other things, what happens when corporate America gets involved with the space program. One example was a plan to have the light side of the moon scorched on a large scale to produce a company's logo that would be visible in earth's night sky. What's really interesting is that the story was written well before there was a space program. Heinlein is often amazing for his uncanny ability to describe our modern US (and sometimes global) society in shockingly accurate terms, especially considering how long it's been since he wrote the bulk of his work.
have more than 4 IDE devices without going to absurd lengths to do it. Nowadays, most folks have at least two CD type drives (a burner, a reader, a DVD, etc.), maybe an IDE tape, at least a couple of hard drives, and not enough money to go SCSI on everything. I don't need the arguments about SCSI; I accept that it is better, faster, more scalable, etc., but I don't accept the needless price gouging. I want cheap, relatively fast, and most importantly, more than 4 IDE devices.... Surely that's not so much to ask. If IDE is that bad off, let's quit using it
You know, you certainly could ask Al Gore for a job as a computer historian. He needs all the help he can get proving that he invented the internet. You could be on CNN tomorrow telling everybody, "I was there with Vice President Gore when he invented the Internet. I helped him bind the servers into one connection. If it weren't for Mr. Gore, there would be no internet. The built-in CAT 5 data port in Al's neck allows the Father of the Internet to jack into his child every day...." and so forth, ad nauseum. Everything I say is just because I'm a history major forced into the IT world. These computers are so naughty, with their fancy Illudium processors.
That's unpossible. The best, though, was: Tyranny and oppression are a small price to pay to live in the land of the free. --M. Burns I want to see Hugo again. It's high time Bart's brother started getting his share of the fame and fortune.
Hey, how about the two faces of Slashdot, since this story seems to have been posted twice?
"Hey Apple: Compare the number of muscles and effort required to push your index finger. Now compare how many muscles are involved in tilting the whole mouse."
You know, some technology company finally comes up with a way to make exercise fun, and you have to go and cast it in an evil light. Using more muscles is better. If only we could control the amount of force necessary to execute that click, we could make some real progress. For me, I'd like to walk up to some hot chick (no, not politically correct, ask me if I care) and say, "Hey baby, I can mouse press 450 foot pounds."
is for Honda to spin off this company as "Mechanical Men" so that it can be purchased by US Robotics, who will handle communications systems, and we will see a realization of Isaac Asimov's famous US Robotics and Mechanical Men corporation. Not that we are all that far from it now, since the founder(s) of USR, the modem company, named their company for Asimov's fictitious one anyway.
Here's a conversation I had with Sigma Designs several weeks ago. They have a bad attitude. (Start at the bottom and read your way up.) From: Tech Support | Block address To: Subject: RE: driver--mc Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:02:37 -0800 Hi, Sorry, that information is classified. Thank you, mc NOTE : PLease include this whole thread of correspondence in your answer for proper follow-up. We'll have to ask you to resend your message if it does not contain the case history. Thanks for your cooperation -----Original Message----- Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 2:16 PM To: Tech Support Subject: RE: driver--mc So how about getting the specs so I can write the driver? No sense reinventing the wheel if you don't have to. Thanks again. --- Tech Support wrote: > Hi, > There won't be a driver for Linux for the current H+ > with the EM8300 chip, > this is due to the CSS protection. > Onbly a new product based on the EM8400 chip will > suport Linux. > > Thank you, > mc > NOTE : PLease include this whole thread of > correspondence in your answer for > proper follow-up. We'll have to ask you to resend > your message if it does > not contain the case history. > > Thanks for your cooperation > > > > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 10:35 PM > To: tech_support@sdesigns.com > Subject: driver > > > Hey, when/where can I get a driver for my Hollywood > Plus card for Linux? And if I can't get one from > you > folks, where might I get the hardware specs so I > could > write a driver? My fellow Linux users would > certainly > like a driver for this card, and we would be willing > to help write the driver. Thanks for your > assistance.
Just a brief note or two about CE devices. I support the little devils, and they are as close to awful as anything I have ever encountered. Yes, they can do a number of things that Palm devices can't right now, but from a support standpoint they are not worth it. I support about a thousand users, many of them with handhelds. Probably 2/3 of the handheld users have Palms. We average less than 1 call per month about a Palm misbehaving. We probably average 50 or more calls a month from the CE users. CE devices, from my experience, are unable to communicate with their desktop counterparts, for useful things like synchronization, a majority of the time. Most of our folks have HP Jornadas, and maybe part of the problem is with those devices specifically. From what I've seen though, CE has a habit of crashing randomly in a manner strongly reminiscent of Win 9X. So, my whole point in this diatribe boils down to the fact that Palm devices, and consequently their manufacturers, will be more successful than their more pricey Win CE counterparts, at least in the foreseeable future, because they are simply better designed products. I, for one, am willing to accept a little less functionality for greater stability, lower cost, and the ability to use it with the desktop operating system of my choice.
I'm impressed by the folks at Handspring, and I think they have a really good product, but I have to wonder about the IPO bit. Those who saw Caldera's IPO a couple of weeks ago probably noticed that it was less impressive. Many investors and analysts are beginning to shift their attention away from upstart companies with only red ink on their balance sheets and are moving money back to those companies who are making real money. Even the Palm IPO was less than spectacular. Is Handspring even profitable yet? Will they profitable tomorrow? Next year? Ten years from now will they still be around? Sure, I'd love to get in on the IPO, but I'm not entirely certain that becoming publicly traded carries the same amount of glitz and glamour that it did a year or two ago. Just some food for thought...
that I can still use a hyperlink? A shortcut to another file, presumably on another web site? Gosh, what will the government uphold next, the ability to use ASCII characters? I mean, it's getting a little absurd when TicketMaster is trying to sue somebody for linking to them. /. better be careful, USAToday might get mad about linking to that story. Don't get me wrong, I think the judge made the best decision possible in this case, but this is just another example of the e-lawsuit ad absurdum.
Did anyone else notice that this person (or these persons) put up an AOL email address for you to contact them? That should be your first clue right there.
Your point does have a certain amount of merit. The Linux world certainly does not need a bunch of "paper admins," ala the "paper MCSEs" bungling a good product. However, ASE training is fairly in depth and, IMHO, far superior to the value of some other certifications. I think, though, that you have overstated the case about "creative problem solving" etc. Those people who are inherently good at tackling problems can benefit immensely from exposure to the knowledge and hands on experience offered by ASE training. Creativity and the ability to look at things from a non-traditional perspective, as well as other "skills" which are difficult to quantify, are not learned methodologies in the first place. On the other hand, those people who fulfill their IT duties in automoton fashion may or may not benefit from the training, but chances are they are not the kind of people you'd want to hire anyway. You have to ask yourself whether you would rather have a good problem solver with the technical knowledge on which to build solutions, or a good problem solver who cannot figure out how to clear the NVRAM on a Prosignia or how to recreate the system partition so he can access the BIOS or a Deskpro. Again, we should not overly value a paper certification or someone who is supposedly trained, because monkeys can be trianed too, but neither should we discount the potential utility of a company like Compaq sending Linux professionals out to work with their hardware and software.
Although I do not feel that Compaq is the best PC manufacturer, I am quite pleased that Compaq is offering Linux training as part of their ASE program. Having known a few Compaq ASE folks, they are generally very knowledgable about Compaq products and how to make them work. It will be nice to have a few Compaq Linux specialist types out there. With companies like Compaq and IBM (maybe they'll offer some Linux training, too) supporting Linux, maybe the mainstream computer user will begin to understand that Linux is for real. Even Dell has been offering PCs with Red Hat for quite some time now. I am curious to see if others will follow the lead in offering officially sanctioned Linux training. Working with Linux on an Alpha would be kinda cool, too. Like the license plate Compaq gave me for my car says, "Linux Live Free or Die"
Since some people fail to understand, here it is in plain English:
I wrote the Win 2k comment as a joke. This is obviously how it was interpreted by some friendly moderator, because it was moderated as Funny. The person making the conspiracy comment was also intent upon humor. Lighten up. I know that NASA prefers Linux. The Microsoft world is a lot less painful when you can laugh a little.
Hey, NASA knew they were taking a risk loading the Mars Polar Lander with the Windows 2000 beta. They should have learned their lesson from the Navy's experience with NT. Somewhere on Mars, the MPL is sitting with a cracked LCD, through which is barely visible the fabled BSOD.
The quick and dirty answer to your inquiry is NO. I would not follow Microsoft's "lead." It's not really a lead anyway. Yeah, a dynamic DNS system may be a good thing, and it certainly might ease administration if implemented in an intelligent fashion, but the rest of the IT world usually finds a better way. There may already be a better implementation. I have to admit that M$ is making a positive move by ditching (more or less) WINS and NetBIOS. Now they'll catch up to where the rest of us (not necessarily Novell) have been for years. But, and this is a big but, if Windows 2000 is supposed to be the platform of the future, what's gonna happen when we start the move to IPv6? Maybe I just missed it in that white paper, but I haven't seen or heard anything about what's gonna when the nature of IP addressing undergoes a fundamental shift. This question is relevant for other platforms, too, but I have little doubt that the various Unices and their relations will be able to make the change successfully when the time comes. In summary, I again laud M$ for doing something it should have done years ago, migrate towards a sensible name resolution platform. I would just urge you to remember that Microsoft has not gotten where they are today by being the big innovators. They have almost always just knocked off what someone else has done before them and changed it just enough to call it their own. The similarities between the current DNS question and the other little Microsoftian gimmicks is just a bit disturbing to me.