I don't know about everyone else but my machines crash now and then and need to be reloaded. I bought a software package (wordsearch8formac) the other day. I loaded it using an admin id so the privs would be high enough. Then it wouldn't run when I logged in non-admin. So I tried to reinstall on my non-admin account and hit the install limit. I emailed the company and they ignored my request to reset my install count. Back goes the software. I am getting really sore about the companies punishing the paying users with DRM to prevent piracy. I buy software so I can get support. Also I am a developer so I don't want to pirate any more than I want my software pirated. Given that real paying users need to reload software as needed, this install limit thing just doesn't work at all.
I believe from the days of supercalc and excel, if you stand back ten feet and squint, and it looks the same, it is considered the same. For the purposes of the court that is. Back at Digital Research I remember someone showing me a Mac and saying, "That is what we want GEM to be like". At least they were honest.
I seem to remember that when a 360 program crashed, a dump would be printed that gurus could read. Something like register 15 always pointed to the calling function so you could trace back as far as necessary through all the call levels. Later when the standard Unix execution environment was created, it looked very similar and that is why contemporary debuggers can work so well. In the days of hand coded assembly code (back when 640K was enough for anyone) we did without stack frames because code could be so much more compact without them. Now that we have essentially unlimited memory (gigabytes of ram), having stack frames to support debugging as well as automatic variables is practical. Around the time of the 286 protected mode, the addressing modes of x86 started looking very IBMish. Of course that was also about the time optimized C compilers started generating code that was competitive to hand written assembly (in most cases). Of course there are still moments when key routines win being hand coded, graphics being my favorite.
Having read an article about this issue, while at the Apple store I saw a copy of Symantec Anti-Virus for the Mac on the shelf with all the other software Apple sells. While it would be strange for Apple to try to dis-allow the existence of Symantec for Mac, actually having it in their store means they accept its value enough to want to make money off it. If it wasn't really needed, would they carry it on their shelf? Also Symantec may have to hope the Apple Mac platform needs antivirus as Microsoft has recently announced that they intend to give away antivirus software for free which could hurt Symantec's profits on the PC platform. Given that, I am watching carefully this issue about whether Mac users need to invest in yearly subscriptions to software that slow down their computers. Over the years I have been astounded at how badly Windows machines run when Symantec is installed, and how many error messages come up about Symantec software failing to terminate on time.
THis is so true. Over the length of my career I have marked up hundreds of contracts. They always have a ten page contract full of boilerplate. Sometimes they agree almost immediately, sometimes they do not. Sometimes they are completely unreasonable and you have to walk away. It is sad but I had to walk away from one contract where they wanted an indefinite non-compete for themselves, their affiliates, and any affiliates they might have in the future. It never hurts to try and negotiate over the contract. Use common sense. Try to understand what they really need, what you really need, and where you can meet in the middle. If they need the software badly enough, they will negotiate. This has been my experience.
"three heads breathing fire, half a dozen plugins", sounds like something Daniel saw in a dream/vision. It just precedes the end of the known world. I guess I am joking, but I was a fan of the KISS principle and it seems flexibility leads to infectibility these days. HTML had a certain elegance, and Dynamic HTML started a slippery slope that has brought us to a web made of gobbletigoop.
As much as we would all like our names on our work, many of us work under contract to create software that then belongs to the client. Unless you have it in the contact, and/or it is in the specification that an about dialog displays the programmer's name, doing this may be actionable. Many companies where the owners are developers themselves are ok with this because they understand. Some companies feel they need plausible deniability in case a developer runs afoul of the law, like that file system guy. Did IBM really want everyone to know Easywriter was written by Captain Crunch? Not really. In fact that was quite a lapse of judgement. Support people just hate hearing from users that unknown functions exist when undocumented keystrokes are entered. I suspect this kind of thing originated in game software mostly. In retrospect, people would be surprised at all the software I have written, and I wish I had the ability to have my name displayed when people are at an ATM machine, or use a SCSI hard drive...
The reason this virus spreads around is that Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided that if certain files existed on a drive, they would get executed immediately when the drive is detected. While this is convenient for loading extensions that enhance the drives function, like encryption/decryption features, it is also obviously a problem when it loads malware. In the old days (DOS days) the user looked for a setup.exe file or install.exe and ran that if they wanted to install the software. These days when you stick in the CD, suddenly the installer is already running. This is either brilliant, or the most stupid idea ever. Microsoft probably created this feature of Windows primarily so there application software would be easier to install. The old way was never much of a barrier to getting software installed as long as the use knew about the "DIR" command. Of course the use of command line and commands like DIR or CD require basic knowledge, and Microsoft prefers, Plug and Play where installing and running software is no more difficult than inserting a DVD and having the movie start right away.
It is common practice to offer discounted pricing to customers that have bought a lot previously. Sales software often displays customer's previous pricing so the salesman knows what to ask for. Price is often what the market will bare. This is why salesman issue quotations good for a month. They contain adjusted pricing they will honor for a short period of time. Then there are pricing schemes that adjust if you buy something else, like Intel selling you eproms cheap if you also buy your ram from them. These practices are often illegal, but rampant anyway. Salesman have a range for each product and get the most they can, often giving away promotions to buyers willing to pay higher prices. I hate the sales game, which is why I do something else. Of course the money is there.
I wasted $5000 on Vista capable machines tooling up for Vista development. It wasn't until I couln't run Aero that I stumbled across the concept of Vista Capable. Then I went to the Microsoft web site and searched for Vista Capable. That is when the term "Core Experience" first came to light. When I searched for Core Experience, that is when I found out about the "Premium Ready" stickers that I had not previously seen. For some weeks the VIsta Capable machines were for sale before any of the Premium Ready stickers arrived. Had both stickers been visible, we might have asked what the difference was, but it was a bait and switch. One of those, It dawns on you" situations. If the sticker had said, "Vista Capable, runs the Core Experience", we might have had a fair chance at figuring it out, but thst was not how it went down. We were ripped off.
President Bush has a solution to the problem. He and Vice President Cheney help reduce the problem by using other email systems. It is ok because Cheney says he isn't in the executive branch, so it's ok. HeE is doing everything he can to use alternative channels to communicate because he has the highest regard for the National Archives and he doesn't want to make more work for them. I think he is very considerate because he has done quite a lot to reduce their workload. We will look back on President Bush and say he astounded us and that we had no idea how inventive he was and the lengths he would go to so that the people wouldn't be burdened knowing every petty little detail of his work, after all, he is the President.
Some of us create technology solutions by using standards to combine technologies together and create solutions. Having the OS comply with some standards helps a lot in this area. I must be one of those people, and I don 't work for the certifying company.
You are so right. I have cried my eyes out to Adobe, but they have retards working in their development groups that can't do simple things like write an app that installs and runs correctly on their so called favorite platform for creatives. It means that people that want to use photo editing software, and expect to be able to un-tar unix software sources must use separate drives. Formatting the primary system drive case sensitive is adobe suicide. I recommend doing the case sensitive work on an external drive or partition.
I remember getting email from them claiming someone was trying to contact me. Then they wanted me to sign up to find out who. I did and there was no one. I don 't know why I was surprised. I don't remember having to pay, just being disappointed that there wasn't actually someone trying to communicate with me. It is true, I am a lonely guy nerd, but it is still false advertising.
I think one common factor in recent news articles about loss of data has been large databases on notebook computers. One of the features of mainframes were that you could access the database, but you couldn't grab the whole thing. With current Internet speeds, you can steal a large database in minutes. I think remote policies should allow transactional access but not raw access to datafiles containing personal data. This would minimize the loss of data. It is always amazing to hear 200,000 people's accounts were compromised when a notebook was misplaced. Also for development people, I like to keep a few key source files that don't change much on a USB key and the rest on line, so if the on-line parts are stolen by strangers, they don't get enough to build the software. It is just too easy to grab everything these days. Technology makes it possible, but that doesn;t mean it's wise.
I happen to have a Toshiba P35-S609 with a battery Model No. PA3383U-1BRS. I called them to ask if my battery is subject to this recall. They asked which version of Windows I was running and I indicated I was running Ubuntu Linux. Then they tried to give me the link to a web site where I could download a Windows program that would identify whether my battery needed to be replaced. The support person was an idiot and continued to try and give me the Windows link long after I had assured him I was unwilling to re-install Windows just to run his program. I will not be buying any more Toshiba products.
I can't say I am happy to hear that Windows Mobile is gaining more ground and will have trounced Linux on the Motorola platform. It is a sad day for me.
I tried to buy a game for my father at the Apple store. It seems the best action games don 't support the basic MacBook due to non-support of the video hardware. I wanted to communicate with EA and let them know how disappointed I was, but you have to get an account to communicate with them. For some reason my account never activated and I was never allowed allowed to express myself in any way. These arrogant people don't deserve my business. None of this surprises me. They have responded to success by getting a big head. I was glad to read this thread as it places to rest any chance I will give them any of my money.
I bought the eSATA adapter for my MBP and tried to use it with an external hard drive, but the adapter was flaky and corrupted the external storage after 500GB of data was placed there. All in all unsatisfying. The price of the eSATA drive, the cable, the adapter, and a lot of lost data, was too high for me to try again. At first I thought the express eSATA card was very cool, but alas it is shelf-ware now.
The firewire 800 port was my best hope of fast transport to devices. I guess the only solution now is gigabit ethernet attached NAS. The throughput of the ethernet and the ability of the NAS to store data at ethernet speeds will become the next question. The hardware fw800->drive solution appealed to me.
Back in the day, large companies wanted every desktop to have a visible routable address. That was before we considered whether that was even a good idea. Since then NAT has saved our butts and management has come to see that all computers don't have to have visible addresses. Moving to IP6 just puts us back in the old place where we can all have visible addresses again, and we can consider whether that is a good idea. IMHO, most companies don't need more than a few visible addresses for visible servers. Client machines can all sit inside NAT'ed subnets and do just fine.
If we put all those hot chips up there, we will melt the snow faster and them people will complain. The real trick would be to take the heat from the chips and use it to generate energy to run the chips. Sort of a perpetual motion deal.
Actually my only problem is the dumb design of the thin little piece of plastic over the CD slot that break from your wrist resting on it when you use the mousepad. Not a great design. Any ideas how to fix it? Other than superglue?
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I don't know about everyone else but my machines crash now and then and need to be reloaded. I bought a software package (wordsearch8formac) the other day. I loaded it using an admin id so the privs would be high enough. Then it wouldn't run when I logged in non-admin. So I tried to reinstall on my non-admin account and hit the install limit. I emailed the company and they ignored my request to reset my install count. Back goes the software. I am getting really sore about the companies punishing the paying users with DRM to prevent piracy. I buy software so I can get support. Also I am a developer so I don't want to pirate any more than I want my software pirated. Given that real paying users need to reload software as needed, this install limit thing just doesn't work at all.
I believe from the days of supercalc and excel, if you stand back ten feet and squint, and it looks the same, it is considered the same. For the purposes of the court that is. Back at Digital Research I remember someone showing me a Mac and saying, "That is what we want GEM to be like". At least they were honest.
I seem to remember that when a 360 program crashed, a dump would be printed that gurus could read. Something like register 15 always pointed to the calling function so you could trace back as far as necessary through all the call levels. Later when the standard Unix execution environment was created, it looked very similar and that is why contemporary debuggers can work so well. In the days of hand coded assembly code (back when 640K was enough for anyone) we did without stack frames because code could be so much more compact without them. Now that we have essentially unlimited memory (gigabytes of ram), having stack frames to support debugging as well as automatic variables is practical. Around the time of the 286 protected mode, the addressing modes of x86 started looking very IBMish. Of course that was also about the time optimized C compilers started generating code that was competitive to hand written assembly (in most cases). Of course there are still moments when key routines win being hand coded, graphics being my favorite.
Having read an article about this issue, while at the Apple store I saw a copy of Symantec Anti-Virus for the Mac on the shelf with all the other software Apple sells. While it would be strange for Apple to try to dis-allow the existence of Symantec for Mac, actually having it in their store means they accept its value enough to want to make money off it. If it wasn't really needed, would they carry it on their shelf? Also Symantec may have to hope the Apple Mac platform needs antivirus as Microsoft has recently announced that they intend to give away antivirus software for free which could hurt Symantec's profits on the PC platform. Given that, I am watching carefully this issue about whether Mac users need to invest in yearly subscriptions to software that slow down their computers. Over the years I have been astounded at how badly Windows machines run when Symantec is installed, and how many error messages come up about Symantec software failing to terminate on time.
THis is so true. Over the length of my career I have marked up hundreds of contracts. They always have a ten page contract full of boilerplate. Sometimes they agree almost immediately, sometimes they do not. Sometimes they are completely unreasonable and you have to walk away. It is sad but I had to walk away from one contract where they wanted an indefinite non-compete for themselves, their affiliates, and any affiliates they might have in the future. It never hurts to try and negotiate over the contract. Use common sense. Try to understand what they really need, what you really need, and where you can meet in the middle. If they need the software badly enough, they will negotiate. This has been my experience.
Years ago I worked on Automated Teller Machines for Western Bancorp, a holding company associated with First Interstate and some other banks.
"three heads breathing fire, half a dozen plugins", sounds like something Daniel saw in a dream/vision. It just precedes the end of the known world. I guess I am joking, but I was a fan of the KISS principle and it seems flexibility leads to infectibility these days. HTML had a certain elegance, and Dynamic HTML started a slippery slope that has brought us to a web made of gobbletigoop.
As much as we would all like our names on our work, many of us work under contract to create software that then belongs to the client. Unless you have it in the contact, and/or it is in the specification that an about dialog displays the programmer's name, doing this may be actionable. Many companies where the owners are developers themselves are ok with this because they understand. Some companies feel they need plausible deniability in case a developer runs afoul of the law, like that file system guy. Did IBM really want everyone to know Easywriter was written by Captain Crunch? Not really. In fact that was quite a lapse of judgement. Support people just hate hearing from users that unknown functions exist when undocumented keystrokes are entered. I suspect this kind of thing originated in game software mostly. In retrospect, people would be surprised at all the software I have written, and I wish I had the ability to have my name displayed when people are at an ATM machine, or use a SCSI hard drive...
The reason this virus spreads around is that Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided that if certain files existed on a drive, they would get executed immediately when the drive is detected. While this is convenient for loading extensions that enhance the drives function, like encryption/decryption features, it is also obviously a problem when it loads malware. In the old days (DOS days) the user looked for a setup.exe file or install.exe and ran that if they wanted to install the software. These days when you stick in the CD, suddenly the installer is already running. This is either brilliant, or the most stupid idea ever. Microsoft probably created this feature of Windows primarily so there application software would be easier to install. The old way was never much of a barrier to getting software installed as long as the use knew about the "DIR" command. Of course the use of command line and commands like DIR or CD require basic knowledge, and Microsoft prefers, Plug and Play where installing and running software is no more difficult than inserting a DVD and having the movie start right away.
It is common practice to offer discounted pricing to customers that have bought a lot previously. Sales software often displays customer's previous pricing so the salesman knows what to ask for. Price is often what the market will bare. This is why salesman issue quotations good for a month. They contain adjusted pricing they will honor for a short period of time. Then there are pricing schemes that adjust if you buy something else, like Intel selling you eproms cheap if you also buy your ram from them. These practices are often illegal, but rampant anyway. Salesman have a range for each product and get the most they can, often giving away promotions to buyers willing to pay higher prices. I hate the sales game, which is why I do something else. Of course the money is there.
I wasted $5000 on Vista capable machines tooling up for Vista development. It wasn't until I couln't run Aero that I stumbled across the concept of Vista Capable. Then I went to the Microsoft web site and searched for Vista Capable. That is when the term "Core Experience" first came to light. When I searched for Core Experience, that is when I found out about the "Premium Ready" stickers that I had not previously seen. For some weeks the VIsta Capable machines were for sale before any of the Premium Ready stickers arrived. Had both stickers been visible, we might have asked what the difference was, but it was a bait and switch. One of those, It dawns on you" situations. If the sticker had said, "Vista Capable, runs the Core Experience", we might have had a fair chance at figuring it out, but thst was not how it went down. We were ripped off.
President Bush has a solution to the problem. He and Vice President Cheney help reduce the problem by using other email systems. It is ok because Cheney says he isn't in the executive branch, so it's ok. HeE is doing everything he can to use alternative channels to communicate because he has the highest regard for the National Archives and he doesn't want to make more work for them. I think he is very considerate because he has done quite a lot to reduce their workload. We will look back on President Bush and say he astounded us and that we had no idea how inventive he was and the lengths he would go to so that the people wouldn't be burdened knowing every petty little detail of his work, after all, he is the President.
Some of us create technology solutions by using standards to combine technologies together and create solutions. Having the OS comply with some standards helps a lot in this area. I must be one of those people, and I don 't work for the certifying company.
You are so right. I have cried my eyes out to Adobe, but they have retards working in their development groups that can't do simple things like write an app that installs and runs correctly on their so called favorite platform for creatives. It means that people that want to use photo editing software, and expect to be able to un-tar unix software sources must use separate drives. Formatting the primary system drive case sensitive is adobe suicide. I recommend doing the case sensitive work on an external drive or partition.
I remember getting email from them claiming someone was trying to contact me. Then they wanted me to sign up to find out who. I did and there was no one. I don 't know why I was surprised. I don't remember having to pay, just being disappointed that there wasn't actually someone trying to communicate with me. It is true, I am a lonely guy nerd, but it is still false advertising.
I read a lot in the news about the supreme court, but it seems they say yes a lot to the government, and they don't say no very often. Is it just me?
I think one common factor in recent news articles about loss of data has been large databases on notebook computers. One of the features of mainframes were that you could access the database, but you couldn't grab the whole thing. With current Internet speeds, you can steal a large database in minutes. I think remote policies should allow transactional access but not raw access to datafiles containing personal data. This would minimize the loss of data. It is always amazing to hear 200,000 people's accounts were compromised when a notebook was misplaced. Also for development people, I like to keep a few key source files that don't change much on a USB key and the rest on line, so if the on-line parts are stolen by strangers, they don't get enough to build the software. It is just too easy to grab everything these days. Technology makes it possible, but that doesn;t mean it's wise.
I happen to have a Toshiba P35-S609 with a battery Model No. PA3383U-1BRS. I called them to ask if my battery is subject to this recall. They asked which version of Windows I was running and I indicated I was running Ubuntu Linux. Then they tried to give me the link to a web site where I could download a Windows program that would identify whether my battery needed to be replaced. The support person was an idiot and continued to try and give me the Windows link long after I had assured him I was unwilling to re-install Windows just to run his program. I will not be buying any more Toshiba products.
I can't say I am happy to hear that Windows Mobile is gaining more ground and will have trounced Linux on the Motorola platform. It is a sad day for me.
I tried to buy a game for my father at the Apple store. It seems the best action games don 't support the basic MacBook due to non-support of the video hardware. I wanted to communicate with EA and let them know how disappointed I was, but you have to get an account to communicate with them. For some reason my account never activated and I was never allowed allowed to express myself in any way. These arrogant people don't deserve my business. None of this surprises me. They have responded to success by getting a big head. I was glad to read this thread as it places to rest any chance I will give them any of my money.
And I was hoping the new MacBooks would bring up the stock price. WAH WAH WAH.
I bought the eSATA adapter for my MBP and tried to use it with an external hard drive, but the adapter was flaky and corrupted the external storage after 500GB of data was placed there. All in all unsatisfying. The price of the eSATA drive, the cable, the adapter, and a lot of lost data, was too high for me to try again. At first I thought the express eSATA card was very cool, but alas it is shelf-ware now. The firewire 800 port was my best hope of fast transport to devices. I guess the only solution now is gigabit ethernet attached NAS. The throughput of the ethernet and the ability of the NAS to store data at ethernet speeds will become the next question. The hardware fw800->drive solution appealed to me.
Back in the day, large companies wanted every desktop to have a visible routable address. That was before we considered whether that was even a good idea. Since then NAT has saved our butts and management has come to see that all computers don't have to have visible addresses. Moving to IP6 just puts us back in the old place where we can all have visible addresses again, and we can consider whether that is a good idea. IMHO, most companies don't need more than a few visible addresses for visible servers. Client machines can all sit inside NAT'ed subnets and do just fine.
If we put all those hot chips up there, we will melt the snow faster and them people will complain. The real trick would be to take the heat from the chips and use it to generate energy to run the chips. Sort of a perpetual motion deal.
Actually my only problem is the dumb design of the thin little piece of plastic over the CD slot that break from your wrist resting on it when you use the mousepad. Not a great design. Any ideas how to fix it? Other than superglue?