And I guess Amazon.com isn't trademarked or copyrighted, huh?
Give me a break. Katie.com is unique (there IS only one). No one else has Katie.com... how can it be common. Short, maybe but uncommon? IBM is short, but uncommon. K-a-t-i-e may be common as a surname, but katie.com as a unique brand presense is definitely trademarkable.
Copyright and Trademark are basically the same thing, at least in the US. UPTO does not need to grant you a trademark for you to have your asset trademarked. You can even use the little superscript TM if you wish. What they do say on their webpages is that _REGISTERED_ trademarks grant you additional rights, and should your trademark come in dispute I imagine it's an easier case. It's an added insurance for just such cases, but by no means necessary.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) Designed to be well, extensible, so they patented their very own XML format for MS Word documents. Fine, they can do that, because it's XML. That's what it's for. You make make your very own data containers.
Eskimo XML - Has lots of structure for types of ice, snow, frost... not so heavy on tropical breezes.
Porn Collector XML - has lots of types of breast size... no so heavy on plot types.
Different markups for different folks, THAT's the point of XML. MS is free to make their own format, patent the hell out of, and then watch people use OpenOffice, but it's their right.
Re:Um...because using a computer is more complex?
on
Are You Annoying?
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, my biggest problem with client support is that when they've done something *that they know they've done* (installed spyware, deleted something, whatever) and don't tell me (family members are the worst). I just get some vague, well my Outlook isn't sending and receiving mail now... tells me smtp error. "Did you change anything?" "hmmm, I don't know." So after a lot of work, I figure what they did, ask them if they had done X recently, and they sheepishly say something like, "Well, I didn't think THAT would have any effect."
THAT's what's annoying, wasting MY time with bullshit... it's not like I've never NOT helped them either. I'll always stay until the end, but it never fails. Although, I'm starting to get pretty good at smelling the cover-up now.
I usually disarm them with something like, "Don't worry, I won't delete your porn *G*." They perk right up.
I actually have an old domain dedicated to just that... collecting 100's of spams a day to train the bayes filters. Identical spams sent a hundred times just help me confirm what spam looks like. I use my other users to train the ham side, and guess what, it works like a charm. We get considerably less spam. So, yes catchall domains are useful... as spam honeypots.
I have this little chiuaua mutt/mix thing that I rescued from the street, and he's got this little quirk. Every time I get the hose, he starts spinning around and around and around in a circle yipping and going nuts, like some kinda berserker rage, but directed at his ass.
It is most amusing, and since the TV is on the fritz, it's all I've got.
Slashdot readers must be as equally amusing when they call customer support.
"Hey, Dave, I've got a caller irrate that we billed him $.05 too much. Let's have some fun."
Hah, you know how many gophers you've got to plough under to grow an acre of corn? EVERYTHING we do impacts nature, kills living stuff, and reduces resources.
We need only to be aware, to respect, to manage, and to not be cruel. Give a little respect to that cow that made that delicious burger. Honor that wonderful salmon steak.
It's not wrong to kill to eat/survive/learn. It's wrong to not appreciate or to carelessly waste life.
The problem with technologists deciding where technology goes is that they are not customer focused. They are technology focused. From the Microsoft blog featured here the other day, MS was at one time (and probably still is) extremely customer focused. Maybe they've lost it a bit, I don't know.
It's always an internal battle within organizations. Should we embrace some cool tech or not. Boss asks why, IT guy says, "'cause it's the future." Which begs the question.
Is it going to help ME in MY business?
I think the beauty of OS in general is that we make commodity blocks, which we can then adapt to a wide range of uses. When I meet with a client, I ALWAYS start with business questions.
"What are are your current challenges? What would you like to do better?"
Sometime they respond with specific answers about technology. I usually back them up one more step and try to get them to think about the bigger picture, macro style. They have an "A-ha" moment, and then the flood gates open. It usually boils down to wasted time and effort performing some repetitive task.
"Ah, well you know, that's the stuff computers are really good at. Repetitive tasks, that is. Let's reduce the time your people spend managing computers, and put them to work managing your business."
It's so simple, it's revolutionary. Microsoft did a lot for computing, but they mostly were able to make people slaves to their personal computers.
OS turns it back into what it should have been all along, Business Automation.
And all this talk about MS's new tech, or.NET or whatever... I have only question: Can a technology by itself really be a magic bullet?
It takes more than smarts to say, "I don't know." JV seems like a reasonable guy. He's probably a bit too entrenched in his thinking, but he said that he didn't know. I think any time someone in a position of power says they don't know, it reflects very well on their sincerity. It takes guts to say, I don't know, let me investigate further and get back to you.
Seems like an upright guy, just misguided or out of touch with the present day realities. We'd probably get much much further with the MPAA and RIAA if we had better diplomacy skills and stopped flaming injudiciously. They're like your grandparents. They may not get all this new fangled stuff that seems wrong, but beating them over the head isn't going to solve it.
IMHO Steve Jobs, is our best advocate in this arena, somebody who bridges the gap between media and technology successfully and is a leader and visionary.
I empathize. I started a Linux based company in late 1999. We got VC, hired people, tried to get the business going, expand it, realized that Linux was not going to peak any time soon in our geographical area, had to lay off people, went almost entirely broke... well, you know the deal. It's been over 4 years now, but we're still hanging in there, and now the Linux landscape is starting to look better, things are picking up, and who knows?
I understand the dilemma of a new family and a lot of debt. Been there, done that. But I think we're just on the cusp of something grand. I hope Daniel doesn't get so far out that he can't come back and reap some of the rewards when this thing pays off. I know it will! Gentoo and Linux are just too great to write off. And I hope that once a lot of the bottom feeders (myself included) making a living off X free distro, start taking responsibility, and budget R&D funds, maybe then we'll see some joy. We at least are looking ahead to make it part of our budget, a percentage of each sale.
I don't know, but I think View --> Online Layout is the layout you're looking for (no page style, just end to end text with line breaks showing inline).
Although, I agree you can do the whole Bold/Size/Style thing in OO to simulate structure, I find that people have an easier time of it in OO.
Even though style can be used in Microsoft Word, I find that in OO it's a sort of mandated policy. OO encourages you to, out of the box, use styles to define everything. It goes along with CSS web standards. Structure your data first, then style it up. OO forces you do that.
I find that when I get people using the stylelist they are more effective presenters, writers, motivators, can sell their ideas better, and waste less time reusing old documents for new purposes. They sat down and took the time to structure their thoughts.
If they want extra space around all Paragraphcs, bullets, headers (level1-levelx), fonts, backgrounds, anything you can think of, they just click it in their style dialog.
Makes re-using proposals a breeze. Change some content, one click, update table of contents, and bam - new proposal made specifically for that special client.
I find MS Word aids you in being sloppy in the short run. You want a heading, click "bold" change text size, etc. A lot of important documents are rendered un-reusable via this method. I've watched people literally spend all afternoon, changing font sizes, indents, bullets, just because the boss wanted a different look.
Get people on OO and they'll be more effective. It's a no-brainer.
I think it all boils down to agenda. Nature seems to have an agenda, and that agenda is balance. Stuff eats other stuff. If there is too much prey, more predators are bred. If there is not enough, they die off. The animal and plant kingdom has no ability to look ahead, adapt to coming changes. They only respond and they have no agenda save survival.
We humans, on the other hand, have our own agenda. For better or worse, our agenda does not at all times mesh well with nature's. We don't just die when there are too many of us.
And we certainly value comfort at a comparable level to survival *G*.
Problem is I've been running tons of these cheapo machines since 2000 and have not had a single problem with the sound cards (ens1371). They were desktop machines in the company, and we started out with Mandrake, but I've since switched them all to Gentoo. Sound system works just fine. The ONLY problem is that under kernel 2.6.x hotplug doesn't autoload the oss mixer. No problem, just load it manually. Worked find under 2.4.x, however.
Mandrake found it automatically.
It's not hardware. The only problem is a tiny one, one that a little bit of investigation would have solved. Maybe I missed it in the article, but did he at least try to call Xandros? He did buy the damn thing. Should have used their tech support.... or maybe he pirated his copy, and just conveniently mentioned it cost $99 (for someone else). What, journalists, exaggerate?!?! Lie!?! For shame!
Anyway, Linux is sometimes a little bit more difficult to configure (not true for Mandrake, however). But it has a LOT of other benefits that far outweigh a glitchy soundcard installation.
Open Data formats Source Code Security Tons of nitch tools No per seat licensing
Or how about just not permitting any sort of shell access? Provide services, like imap-ssl, pop3-ssl, web, etc but no shell accounts. Only login is from root over ssh2... keep it patched. If you're going to allow anonymous ftp access make sure folks can upload but not download until stuff gets moved to/pub... for God's sake make sure that you're chrooted into your user/anon directory and you can't check out/etc
Sounds to me like admin's aren't being responsible with server accounts, shame on them. We need the good ol' days of BOFH where you had to give up your left nut for a shell account. 'Course he'd be as likely to delete you files as a hacker so it's six of one, half a dozen of another.
One word: Huntsville, home of Redstone Arsenal and a host of high tech defense contracting.
Huntsville is actually growing extremely quickly.
Re:Done right, CSS can help multi-platform use.
on
CSS for the LDP?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
CSS can also help people think more about the actual structure of their documents. If we apply CSS to LDP, then someobody's got to standardize the structure across all the documents. Take a look at Gentoo. From day one, they have presented their documentation with data structure being the number one concern.
CSS are like writing a business plan. It gets you thinking about the nitty gritty details of your document and just like a business plan gets you thinking about details in your business.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey it's less confusing in Spanish, okay? *G*
And I guess Amazon.com isn't trademarked or copyrighted, huh?
Give me a break. Katie.com is unique (there IS only one). No one else has Katie.com... how can it be common. Short, maybe but uncommon? IBM is short, but uncommon. K-a-t-i-e may be common as a surname, but katie.com as a unique brand presense is definitely trademarkable.
IANAL, but I can read dammit.
Is registration of my mark required?
Copyright and Trademark are basically the same thing, at least in the US. UPTO does not need to grant you a trademark for you to have your asset trademarked. You can even use the little superscript TM if you wish. What they do say on their webpages is that _REGISTERED_ trademarks grant you additional rights, and should your trademark come in dispute I imagine it's an easier case. It's an added insurance for just such cases, but by no means necessary.
OTOH, she lives in UK, so the point is moot.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) Designed to be well, extensible, so they patented their very own XML format for MS Word documents. Fine, they can do that, because it's XML. That's what it's for. You make make your very own data containers.
Eskimo XML - Has lots of structure for types of ice, snow, frost... not so heavy on tropical breezes.
Porn Collector XML - has lots of types of breast size... no so heavy on plot types.
Different markups for different folks, THAT's the point of XML. MS is free to make their own format, patent the hell out of, and then watch people use OpenOffice, but it's their right.
Yeah, my biggest problem with client support is that when they've done something *that they know they've done* (installed spyware, deleted something, whatever) and don't tell me (family members are the worst). I just get some vague, well my Outlook isn't sending and receiving mail now... tells me smtp error. "Did you change anything?" "hmmm, I don't know." So after a lot of work, I figure what they did, ask them if they had done X recently, and they sheepishly say something like, "Well, I didn't think THAT would have any effect."
THAT's what's annoying, wasting MY time with bullshit... it's not like I've never NOT helped them either. I'll always stay until the end, but it never fails. Although, I'm starting to get pretty good at smelling the cover-up now.
I usually disarm them with something like, "Don't worry, I won't delete your porn *G*." They perk right up.
I actually have an old domain dedicated to just that... collecting 100's of spams a day to train the bayes filters. Identical spams sent a hundred times just help me confirm what spam looks like. I use my other users to train the ham side, and guess what, it works like a charm. We get considerably less spam. So, yes catchall domains are useful... as spam honeypots.
Er, mono is "monkey" in Spanish, following in Miguel's inexplicable primate fetish.
1) If a project is behind schedule or over budget, who's fault is it?
If they answer anything but their own fault, show them the door.
Ahh, now it all makes sense, Norton is Dogbert.
I have this little chiuaua mutt/mix thing that I rescued from the street, and he's got this little quirk. Every time I get the hose, he starts spinning around and around and around in a circle yipping and going nuts, like some kinda berserker rage, but directed at his ass.
It is most amusing, and since the TV is on the fritz, it's all I've got.
Slashdot readers must be as equally amusing when they call customer support.
"Hey, Dave, I've got a caller irrate that we billed him $.05 too much. Let's have some fun."
"Okay, I'll file it with collections."
"Yeah, that'll drive him nuts."
*High fives*
IBM thinks software will be free. They make hardware.
Sun/Microsoft think hardware will be free. They make software.
I ordered my free pc the other day. Still waiting on it.
Neither do the guys sitting on top of the Amway pyramid.
Hah, you know how many gophers you've got to plough under to grow an acre of corn? EVERYTHING we do impacts nature, kills living stuff, and reduces resources.
We need only to be aware, to respect, to manage, and to not be cruel. Give a little respect to that cow that made that delicious burger. Honor that wonderful salmon steak.
It's not wrong to kill to eat/survive/learn. It's wrong to not appreciate or to carelessly waste life.
Bah! I started this shit in 1995, with The Edifice... now defunked. But my second project which was an actual web log started in 1996
The problem with technologists deciding where technology goes is that they are not customer focused. They are technology focused. From the Microsoft blog featured here the other day, MS was at one time (and probably still is) extremely customer focused. Maybe they've lost it a bit, I don't know.
It's always an internal battle within organizations. Should we embrace some cool tech or not. Boss asks why, IT guy says, "'cause it's the future." Which begs the question.
Is it going to help ME in MY business?
I think the beauty of OS in general is that we make commodity blocks, which we can then adapt to a wide range of uses. When I meet with a client, I ALWAYS start with business questions.
"What are are your current challenges? What would you like to do better?"
Sometime they respond with specific answers about technology. I usually back them up one more step and try to get them to think about the bigger picture, macro style. They have an "A-ha" moment, and then the flood gates open. It usually boils down to wasted time and effort performing some repetitive task.
"Ah, well you know, that's the stuff computers are really good at. Repetitive tasks, that is. Let's reduce the time your people spend managing computers, and put them to work managing your business."
It's so simple, it's revolutionary. Microsoft did a lot for computing, but they mostly were able to make people slaves to their personal computers.
OS turns it back into what it should have been all along, Business Automation.
And all this talk about MS's new tech, or .NET or whatever... I have only question: Can a technology by itself really be a magic bullet?
It takes more than smarts to say, "I don't know." JV seems like a reasonable guy. He's probably a bit too entrenched in his thinking, but he said that he didn't know. I think any time someone in a position of power says they don't know, it reflects very well on their sincerity. It takes guts to say, I don't know, let me investigate further and get back to you.
Seems like an upright guy, just misguided or out of touch with the present day realities. We'd probably get much much further with the MPAA and RIAA if we had better diplomacy skills and stopped flaming injudiciously. They're like your grandparents. They may not get all this new fangled stuff that seems wrong, but beating them over the head isn't going to solve it.
IMHO Steve Jobs, is our best advocate in this arena, somebody who bridges the gap between media and technology successfully and is a leader and visionary.
I empathize. I started a Linux based company in late 1999. We got VC, hired people, tried to get the business going, expand it, realized that Linux was not going to peak any time soon in our geographical area, had to lay off people, went almost entirely broke... well, you know the deal. It's been over 4 years now, but we're still hanging in there, and now the Linux landscape is starting to look better, things are picking up, and who knows?
I understand the dilemma of a new family and a lot of debt. Been there, done that. But I think we're just on the cusp of something grand. I hope Daniel doesn't get so far out that he can't come back and reap some of the rewards when this thing pays off. I know it will! Gentoo and Linux are just too great to write off. And I hope that once a lot of the bottom feeders (myself included) making a living off X free distro, start taking responsibility, and budget R&D funds, maybe then we'll see some joy. We at least are looking ahead to make it part of our budget, a percentage of each sale.
Good luck, Daniel, hang in there.
I don't know, but I think View --> Online Layout is the layout you're looking for (no page style, just end to end text with line breaks showing inline).
Although, I agree you can do the whole Bold/Size/Style thing in OO to simulate structure, I find that people have an easier time of it in OO.
Even though style can be used in Microsoft Word, I find that in OO it's a sort of mandated policy. OO encourages you to, out of the box, use styles to define everything. It goes along with CSS web standards. Structure your data first, then style it up. OO forces you do that.
I find that when I get people using the stylelist they are more effective presenters, writers, motivators, can sell their ideas better, and waste less time reusing old documents for new purposes. They sat down and took the time to structure their thoughts.
If they want extra space around all Paragraphcs, bullets, headers (level1-levelx), fonts, backgrounds, anything you can think of, they just click it in their style dialog.
Makes re-using proposals a breeze. Change some content, one click, update table of contents, and bam - new proposal made specifically for that special client.
I find MS Word aids you in being sloppy in the short run. You want a heading, click "bold" change text size, etc. A lot of important documents are rendered un-reusable via this method. I've watched people literally spend all afternoon, changing font sizes, indents, bullets, just because the boss wanted a different look.
Get people on OO and they'll be more effective. It's a no-brainer.
I think it all boils down to agenda. Nature seems to have an agenda, and that agenda is balance. Stuff eats other stuff. If there is too much prey, more predators are bred. If there is not enough, they die off. The animal and plant kingdom has no ability to look ahead, adapt to coming changes. They only respond and they have no agenda save survival.
We humans, on the other hand, have our own agenda. For better or worse, our agenda does not at all times mesh well with nature's. We don't just die when there are too many of us.
And we certainly value comfort at a comparable level to survival *G*.
Problem is I've been running tons of these cheapo machines since 2000 and have not had a single problem with the sound cards (ens1371). They were desktop machines in the company, and we started out with Mandrake, but I've since switched them all to Gentoo. Sound system works just fine. The ONLY problem is that under kernel 2.6.x hotplug doesn't autoload the oss mixer. No problem, just load it manually. Worked find under 2.4.x, however.
Mandrake found it automatically.
It's not hardware. The only problem is a tiny one, one that a little bit of investigation would have solved. Maybe I missed it in the article, but did he at least try to call Xandros? He did buy the damn thing. Should have used their tech support.... or maybe he pirated his copy, and just conveniently mentioned it cost $99 (for someone else). What, journalists, exaggerate?!?! Lie!?! For shame!
Anyway, Linux is sometimes a little bit more difficult to configure (not true for Mandrake, however). But it has a LOT of other benefits that far outweigh a glitchy soundcard installation.
Open Data formats
Source Code
Security
Tons of nitch tools
No per seat licensing
Or how about just not permitting any sort of shell access? Provide services, like imap-ssl, pop3-ssl, web, etc but no shell accounts. Only login is from root over ssh2... keep it patched. If you're going to allow anonymous ftp access make sure folks can upload but not download until stuff gets moved to /pub... for God's sake make sure that you're chrooted into your user/anon directory and you can't check out /etc
Sounds to me like admin's aren't being responsible with server accounts, shame on them. We need the good ol' days of BOFH where you had to give up your left nut for a shell account. 'Course he'd be as likely to delete you files as a hacker so it's six of one, half a dozen of another.
One word: Huntsville, home of Redstone Arsenal and a host of high tech defense contracting.
Huntsville is actually growing extremely quickly.
CSS can also help people think more about the actual structure of their documents. If we apply CSS to LDP, then someobody's got to standardize the structure across all the documents. Take a look at Gentoo. From day one, they have presented their documentation with data structure being the number one concern.
CSS are like writing a business plan. It gets you thinking about the nitty gritty details of your document and just like a business plan gets you thinking about details in your business.
It's been done
I don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet. I wonder if the /. crew is working on it.