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3926

General Software Discussion / Re: Aaron Seigo on Canonical's recent memory lapses and new corporate vision

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 03:53 PM »

Just for lack of time and interest, I lost track of the landscape, so I don't know anymore what distro I'd use. I think I like the Debian family, but now it would have to be some kind of non-Ubuntu newbie distro.

-TaoPhoenix (March 05, 2013, 02:18 PM)

I'd suggest

Mint (Cinnamon edition) for ease of use, a very polished desktop, and minimal learning curve coming fresh off Windows.

CrunchBang if you like things clean and mean, actually have work to do, and aren't opposed to learning something.

Debian if you want to forgo everybody else's nonsense and get back to she who is magna mater to us all.

And Arch if you're dead serious about Linux, want to stop pretending, intend to learn how Linux works from the inside out, and don't mind getting dirty or busting your hump for about the first three months you're using it. If it's still on your machine - and you're actually still using it at the end of six months - you will grok Linux as few others do...

Also:

With the newest version of KDE (now at 4.10) showing so much promise, Suse (the traditional bastion of KDE admirers everywhere) will also be meriting another look once 4.10 becomes their default desktop. Few have done as nice a job of providing a beautiful and well integrated KDE experience as Suse has. And now that KDE's development team has abandoned some of the inadvisable and overly ambitious design directions they've embarked on over the last few years, KDE looks to be back on track. (Even if Linus Torvalds recently ditched it and went back to using Gnome. )

If none of that works for you, there are another zillion or so alternatives to choose from. Like dogs - there's at least one penguin out there for everyone.

--------------------

Servers are an easier matter IMHO. Two words: CentOS or BSD. End of script.   

3927

Living Room / Re: Internet Explorer 10 arrives on Windows 7

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 01:14 PM »

Microsoft has a tool to block automatic UE10 upgrades through Windows update. You can always manually update to 10 later should you decide you want it. Info here.

There's also a compatibility inspector that will help flag potential issues IE10 may experience with your own webpages. More here.

FWIW, I have it running on a test machine and haven't run into any issues so far. It also seems to link to and navigate all the financial sites I've tried it on. But I haven't extensively tested it on those sites, so there may be some site-specific features that have been broken without my realizing it. YMMV.

3928

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 12:49 PM »

Ohhhh!  The point is that clients are stupid.  That's a statement I can get behind!


...unless I'm the client...

-wraith808 (March 05, 2013, 12:44 PM)

I'd probably characterize it more as 'inattentive to what's being said,' 'insufficiently focused on the task at hand,' and 'occasionally naive.'

But...yeah...pretty much.

Unfortunately, there's a whole industry out there that prefers they remain that way.

3929

General Software Discussion / Aaron Seigo on Canonical's recent memory lapses and new corporate vision

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 12:42 PM »

This one probably won't be of interest to anyone other than the people (i.e. Deo) who read my last post here.

Here we have KDE president and FOSS developer Aaron Seigo calling Canonical out on some of the reality warping that seems to be going on with Ubuntu lately.

A couple of highlights from his post:

The biggest issue I see is that they are going it on their own and diverging from the rest of the Free software ecosystem with a software stack they have been developing behind closed doors and which will require you to sign over your copyright in order for you to contribute to it.

So perhaps in a year's time (probably more) they will have delivered what they have said they are doing right now, and my objection will then be erase. If that happens, it will be at the cost of becoming another "not really Linux" Linux that lives in its own universe. It will be Android minus Google.

the practice of changing the names on everything they use that could remotely be traced back to others says something about the thought processes. See, they don't use Status Notifiers .. no, they have Application Indicators. They don't do "device spectrum" they do "device convergence", etc. It would be understandable if they were the first to any of these ideas, but they aren't; and it makes having conversations about these issues so much more complex than it needs to be.

The truly crazy part is that they are writing their own display manager to accomplish this. They dismiss Wayland, though it has pretty much the same design. The main differences are that Canonical doesn't control Wayland development and Canonical's system will weld everything into one process: display manager, desktop shell, window management, output management, input event handling ... It's an interesting approach. Not one I'd take for technical reasons, but hey ..

The biggest issue I see is that they are going it on their own and diverging from the rest of the Free software ecosystem with a software stack they have been developing behind closed doors and which will require you to sign over your copyright in order for you to contribute to it.

They have effectively sealed themselves off from the rest of the Free software world. They will shoulder porting and maintaining Qt, Gtk+, XUL, etc. to their system. They will shoulder porting applications to the integration points (most of which will be delivered in Qt apps). They will not be sharing desktop shell infrastructure with anyone else, and using their Free software on other platforms will become increasingly more difficult.

Before closing, I would like to point out that Canonical is once again trying to rewrite the present as well as history as can be seen in the intro of the UnityNextSpec: "From the very beginning, Unity's concepts were tailored with a converged world in mind, where the overall system including the UI/UX scales across and adapts to a wide variety of different form factors." Looking at the very beginning of Unity right up until today, this is obvious nonsense. The rest of the spec spends its time explaining why none of the original design decisions in Unity will also translate other than it being a shell "a shell, with a launcher, indicators, switcher, dash etc.". Well .. yeah.

What is perhaps a more accurate statement is that Canonical fumbled through various ideas and technologies iteratively until they landed on the current concepts, dictated in part by technology and in part by business. There is nothing wrong with this, it's often how creativity happens. It is not, however, the 6 year prescience being claimed .. especially as we're still at least one year away from possibly seeing the current vision being achievable in practice.

So we have a new separate silo competing with the rest of the silos plus the open efforts (e.g. Wayland) while we are asked to accept a rewrite to a history Canonical is evidently not proud of ... "but this time it will be different, guys!"

Love it.

Those contemplating getting involved with or exploring Linux (as opposed to Ubuntu) had best start looking elsewhere. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that Ubuntu does not consider itself to be a part of the established GNU/Linux community any more. Assuming (in the light of their current reality warping) they ever really did.



 

3930

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 12:07 PM »

It's pretty obvious in the setup, IMO. 

-wraith808 (March 05, 2013, 11:59 AM)

Yeah. In mine too. But I'm talking about two clients. Not you or me.

So um...maybe I'm missing the point you're making here...

3931

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody is in Los Angeles

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 11:20 AM »

We need a picture of him in one of the Os of the Hollywood sign!

-Carol Haynes (March 05, 2013, 10:04 AM)

That would be great. Just don't get arrested going up there. I understand they've gotten a little rabid about the security around that landmark recently. Hmm...maybe Photoshop to the rescue? Or better yet, a little trick parallax photo technique just to keep it real?

3932

Living Room / Re: It's a beautiful day

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 11:13 AM »

I live in the northeastern USA.

After putting things back together after hurricane Sandy a couple of months ago, and then digging out from beneath a major blizzard only a few weeks ago, almost any close to normal day seems beautiful. Having so much recent downside to compare things to provides a quick refresher in gratitude.

Like Keith Richards has been known to say: "It's nice to be here. But then, it's nice to be anywhere."

3933

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 08:22 AM »

It's only going to get worse as consumers are pushed to cloud services - hell if you buy a Windows 8 machine most people seem to think that HAVE to sign up for a Windows Live (aka hotmail) account and have their machine permanently linked to Microsoft's servers.

-Carol Haynes (March 05, 2013, 02:44 AM)

Precisely.

Once again Carol is spot on.

Right now I'm dealing with two small companies that have brought in Windows 8. Every single Win 8 installation they've done so far was set up with Windows Live. When I asked them why they did that, they said (as Carol observed) they didn't think they had a choice in the matter. And if Microsoft's app store ever catches on, you really won't have a choice since you'll need to have a Live account to use it.

Sorry. But this really sucks.

3934

Living Room / Re: Microsoft may be after-taxed $1 Billion by Denmark

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 08:18 AM »

The megacorp in question moans and groans and threatens to move abroad, the politicians shit their pants and shut their mouths, and we're back to psychopathic business as usual.

-f0dder (March 05, 2013, 07:46 AM)

Bingo!   That's the real problem with unchecked population growth. What to do with all the people above and beyond what's needed for a given society to actually function and thrive.

The answer (so far) has been to create jobs and keep them busy. Otherwise they'll have too much time on their hands. And people with too much time on their hands eventually get bored with their own lives and start trying to run other people's. That is a practice known as "going into politics."

And as far as our existing politicos are concerned, those positions have already been adequately filled. By them...

3935

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone else building Hadoop Clusters?

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 07:54 AM »

Here's a good visual.  Traditional Database is like you searching thru a deck of shuffled cards searching for the Ace of Spades.  Hadoop is like getting a group of 52 10 year-olds  and giving each a card.  You ask who has the Ace and you get the answer instantly.  They smaller and less intelligent than you, but they can still find the card faster.

-Rover (March 04, 2013, 06:44 PM)

Interesting concept - and one I first learned about while reading Yale University professor David Gelernter's 1992 book Mirror Worlds which described the exact same approach - along with some other even more interesting ideas such as "plunge" and "squish." It's also the first place I ever read about the concept of linking generic networked computers together in order to create ad hoc massive parallelism. Something we now refer to as "clustered computing."

Much, if not most in this book, that was once dubbed 'sci-fi.' 'fantasy,' and 'speculation' back in the early 90s has since become our daily reality. (And also the basis for numerous patent disputes. )

From Kirkus Reviews

Within ten years, Gelernter (Computer Science/Yale) predicts here, scientists will deploy computer systems able to capture extensive data about a particular ``reality'' (hospital, city, etc.), and to present a constantly updated model on a desktop computer.

``A Mirror World is some huge institution's moving, true-to- life mirror image trapped inside a computer--where you can see and grasp it whole,'' Gelernter writes. Citizens will be able to visit these computer models like public squares, gaining unprecedented access to data on what's going on (and the officials in charge, the author intimates, will presumably welcome a chance to have their performance monitored). Building such mirror worlds will be extraordinarily difficult: streams and rivers of raw data need to be constantly flowing; thousands of computers must process the data in parallel fashion; and tying it all together will demand new kinds of software of immense complexity.

Gelernter explains clearly the problems to be solved and describes pieces of the technology already working in research labs. Left unchallenged is his assumption that such technology will remain benign--giving honest folk a way of grasping an ever-more complex world instead of providing the powerful owners of such technology a superb way to distort and control ``reality.''

Plausible but potentially frightening view of what the future could hold if those who view ``reality'' as merely a vast array of numbers waiting to be crunched have their way.

(Twenty illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Well worth hunting down a copy if you're interested in parallel computing and data analysis. (Also available on Kindle)

3936

Living Room / Re: Microsoft may be after-taxed $1 Billion by Denmark

« Last post by 40hz on March 05, 2013, 07:22 AM »

Microsoft bought Navision for 10.8 billion DKK, then sold it to Microsoft Ireland for a lot less than that - and substantially less than it's worth. That's tax evasion - and it's illegal.

-f0dder (March 05, 2013, 06:18 AM)

It think that would depend on who's tax code you're basing that argument on. Laws vary greatly. There's no universal agreement since each nation so fiercely defends its own sovereignty and niggling 'cultural identity' that any attempt at establishing a uniform set of laws gets torpedoed less than a day after it's proposed.

Doesn't stop the psychopathic megacorps from using all sorts of tricks to try and do it, and they often get away with it due to loopholes. Might make it technically legal, but it doesn't make it morally acceptable.

A large part of the ethical conundrum with this is that taxes are assessed by governments and based on laws written by them. And we all know ethical our governments are. To say nothing of the incredibly moral and ethical ways our tax monies often get used.
 

3937

Living Room / Re: Seriously 'funny' idea - what if DRM was applied to physical objects?

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 09:32 PM »

Um, this chair is a fire hazard.

Notice the smoke?

Yeah, that nichrome is getting too hot while melting the wax, the chair could ignite the flammable wax and cause a far more serious problem than just a DRM'd chair.

-SeraphimLabs (March 04, 2013, 05:22 PM)

They originally wanted it to blow up rather than just fall apart. But supposedly none of them was willing to 'test sit' a chair that could do that.

What can I say? They're obviously not stupid.

3938

Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 03:27 PM »

^@K - Hey!  You never know. Take a look at Proxmox if you're getting bored. The Linux Action show did a whole show segment on it. Link here.

That would be a good use for 16Gb if the processor has enough grunt.  

3939

Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 03:14 PM »

@kyrathaba - +1!!! I've had good luck with eMachines myself.

Up until recently, my main PC for personal and fooling around use was an eMachine with an Athlon64 and 4Gb of RAM in it. I never had a Linux distro that didn't love that box or the odd assortment of cards I had plugged into it. Had a couple of inexpensive caddy/trays installed for quick drive swapouts. No need to get involved with multibooting or VM shenanigans with that machine. Just shutdown, pop in a different drive, reboot - and you were on your way running everything in native hardware mode. It was a beauty - even if it did eventually become a real hacker franken-PC because of all mods - plus things that were added to and removed from it at various times. (My GF said it reminded her of a Borg 'cubeship' with all the stuff I had glommed on, patched in, or left dangling off of it.)

I think I paid something like $400 for it new with XP Pro loaded on it. Easily the most reliable and unfussy of any machine I ever owned. Still have it. And it still boots. I keep it around mostly for vintage XP era gaming these days. But it's only a drive swap away from being pressed into service for a dozen other uses.

Great little box that is!

3940

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 03:01 PM »

The Shawshank Redemption

-tn_dang (March 04, 2013, 02:25 PM)

Good choice! A quietly brilliant film.  

Best prison-themed redemption story to hit the box office since Stu Rosenburg's 1967 classic: Cool Hand Luke.

3941

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 09:21 AM »

It's the same old "jam yesterday, jam tomorrow" argument.

I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to feel that if you're a company with the resources and budget Microsoft can bring to bear on product development, it's not unreasonable to expect a device that works as advertised - and have a company that is willing and able to stand behind it.

I am so sick of the whole "Oh well!" and shrug more and more companies seem to be ok with giving their customers.

You don't get quality from most big businesses these days unless you demand it from them.

Big computer companies need to "Think Different." And well before their customers start answering the question "Where do you want to go today" by saying "Far away from you!"
 

3942

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 09:07 AM »

Hmmm... this comment sums up my feelings after reading that article.

Seriously? You've "returned Surface Pro, and unlikely to purchase another piece of hardware directly from Microsoft ever again" because one Microsoft store you came to happened to be closed and another was too long a drive to make it that very night? And you think this is a story worth publishing to millions of people?

It's like those people on newegg that give 1 star reviews to Asus motherboards because FedEx took too long to deliver.

-wraith808 (March 04, 2013, 08:37 AM)

I think you need to take his words in context with the other information in his article.

It wasn't simply because the store had been closed. It was because he was directed (by a Microsoft employee) to a store located a half hour away that had been closed. And he was then directed (by another Microsoft phone rep) to two other locations which he independently learned had also been closed before he tried going to them. And then, when he was finally able to ask someone at Microsoft (who did seem to know what was going on) why he was misdirected, her lame excuse was that apparently some employees had "not gotten the memo" about those locations being closed.

He is also somebody who needs a reliable mobile platform for his job. So it's not like he was bitching about not being able to access his Steam account. He was also having hardware issues which annoyed him - yet did not go on a rant about any of that - which indicates (to me at least) he's been around long enough to know the score and therefor isn't expecting perfection from any hardware platform.

Point is, you can take any comment in a lengthy article out of context and present it in isolation to make the author appear unreasonable and petty.

I don't think Russell Holly was being at all unreasonable.

And FWIW, I know three people who have bought a Surface so far. One returned hers after it repeatedly crapped out on her right out of the box - and then for good when replacement they gave her started doing the same after a few weeks. Another simply didn't care for it and ended up giving it to one of his kids. And the third (an admitted 'gadget freak') boxed it up and added it to his very large collection of other "abandoned as unusable" devices. (But such is the frequent lot of those who are numbered among the 'early adopters' of any new platform.)

None of these people I know are noobs when it comes to computer tech. In fact, two of them are among the most hard-core "road warrior" users you'll ever meet. So I think there just might be some substance to Holly's article - and some of the criticisms we're reading about Surface in other places on the web.
 

3943

Living Room / Re: Long Range WiFi WITHOUT line of sight. HELP!!!!

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 08:28 AM »

I might go up on the roof to see roughly what obstacles I will be dealing with.

-Stephen66515 (March 04, 2013, 07:01 AM)

The biggest challenge will most likely be not to fall off.

(Seriously...be careful up there. I almost screwed up on a flat rooftop about a month ago. There are far better ways to get your 15-minutes of fame, and brief mention on the local evening news, than getting yourself killed in a semi-amusing way.)

3944

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 08:23 AM »

Is this accurate?
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Renegade (March 04, 2013, 08:08 AM)

Close. But a more visually...um...accurate image wouldn't be appropriate for posting here.

DoCo is a family-rated site.

3945

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 08:21 AM »

LOL - not much new there then ... MS suck at all forms of sales and aftercare for hardware and software - always have, probably always will.

-Carol Haynes (March 04, 2013, 08:07 AM)

+1. As anybody who suffered from the whole Zune "customer experience" will testify.

About the only good hardware Microsoft ever sold IMO was a mouse. An their quality has lapsed so significantly over the last couple of years that I'll no longer buy or recommend any Microsoft mouse. Even when Staples 'bargain bins' them for $15.

This decision was made following the discovery that their "go anywhere" Mobile mice could only be knocked off a tabletop once before they'd never work again. And also after having one of their mini-USB receivers short out and melt while plugged into my GF's laptop - completely destroying the USB port it was plugged into. Fortunately, her laptop still worked after that fiasco. And it also has four other (still functioning) USB ports. So she was only moderately enraged over what happened.
 

3946

Living Room / Seriously 'funny' idea - what if DRM was applied to physical objects?

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 08:02 AM »

Are you confused by the thorny and convoluted logic used by some parties to justify and preach the 'benefits' of DRM? Do you worry you're completely missing something? Or possibly suspect somebody is just trying to put one over on you?

Well, take heart!   Sometimes you just have to mentally flip things 180 degrees to get a whole new insight into an issue.

What exactly are the ramifications of single-play and limited-use DRM schemes? A group over at the University of Art and Design in Lausanne Switzerland provided an excellent illustration by creating a chair which you can only sit on eight times before it self-destructs.



Hackaday posted this article which is funny to read - and frightening to think about if the idea ever catches on!

Check out how the: DRM Chair only works 8 times

 

3947

Living Room / Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 07:43 AM »

Interesting personal article on Geek.com about why somebody who was absolutely sold on Microsoft's Surface Pro ended up returning it for a refund. (Hint : It's not so much his problems with the technology as it was having to deal with a company that is either incompetent - or just doesn't give a damn.)

I was a launch day Surface Pro customer. I sat in line with a smile on my face, eager to take home a piece of hardware that I knew, from prior experience, that I was really going to enjoy. Yesterday I returned my Surface Pro, and I am unlikely to purchase another piece of hardware directly from Microsoft ever again.

Read it here.
 

3948

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone else building Hadoop Clusters?

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 06:54 AM »

I'm curious - what exactly are you building with it - assuming you can talk about it?

Or, if you can't, can you at least recommend a good book on HAdoop?

I was never able to make it through the O'Reilly "Definitive Guide" on Hadoop because it was (surprise!) so poorly written. And there doesn't seem to be many other books out on Hadoop yet.

3949

Living Room / Re: Microsoft may be after-taxed $1 Billion by Denmark

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 06:36 AM »

I guess Denmark has unique tax laws?

Buying a business and transferring its legal address to some other country purely for tax purposes has been a standard operating procedure used by global corporations (and not just US-based ones) for about the last 40 years.

Be interesting to see how they pursue this case. And under which legal system they'd file it. Jurisdiction and venue is always a tricky thing when dealing with multinationals. I'm guessing about the only thing this will result in is Microsoft pulling Navision development out of Denmark; and (purely for PR purposes) negotiating something (but certainly not $1 billion) with Denmark if they feel it will work to their advantage long-term.

Oh well...I wish Denmark good luck with this one.

3950

Living Room / Re: Long Range WiFi WITHOUT line of sight. HELP!!!!

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2013, 06:19 AM »

Lacking line-of-sight or common 'bounce' point, about the only thing you can do to get serious data communications distances is to get an amateur radio license and then set up a packet radio link. At least AFAIK.

Do a google for "Amateur Packet Radio" and "AMPRnet" and have a look at what these super-geeks have been up to. Basically, they're using ham radio frequency bands and technology for data communications. The only challenge is that you'll need a government license (not too difficult to obtain in most places) to legally do any of this.

Alternatively, check out this guy's article here. He claims to get quarter-mile wifi connectivity using a high-power wireless setup using one of these plus a big honking antenna. Can't vouch for it since I've never done anything like that. But I remember enough from my radio amateur days that he's not saying anything that sounds wrong at least.

This sounds like an interesting project btw.