Recent Posts

8276

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2011, 09:38 AM »

Just as an aside (and to take a break from all the template arcana  ) Website Baker has a portable edition to make it easy for you to try it or work on developing your website. It's an all-in-one that includes a small webserver plus the needed additions, so all you have to do is click and run it.

Drop a copy on a USB key along with a few other portable apps and you can work on developing your website anywhere. I do the same thing with my Python dev toolkit. Works like a charm. 

I have clients that use WB. They're say they're very happy with it.  

8277

Living Room / Re: Unable to compete with the Kindle, Apple wants a cut of ebook sales

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2011, 06:41 PM »

And like johnk said, one can use Calibre to load up darned near any content you want, so while technically Kindle is a closed, proprietary system, in fact it's open to anything you're likely to want.

-CWuestefeld (February 03, 2011, 11:51 AM)

I didn't know that.

Hmm...now I may have to reconsider. That would make it great for hauling around something like the Microsoft Inside-Out series of books - or a complete copy of the LDP archive.

8278

Living Room / Re: Wow!! Are Any of You THIS limber?

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2011, 06:34 PM »

Probably would make for a very interesting evening if you and she were ever to...uh....never mind!   

8279

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Agree or Disagree? It is not just focus, it is also about perspective

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2011, 06:27 PM »

I tend to avoid using timers for anything other than monitoring network performance - or baking cookies.

I seldom time myself doing anything because I find timers annoying and disruptive to my concentration. Maybe if I were a professional athlete; or responsible for launching a nuclear counterstrike, my performance and work times would be something worth staying on top of. But I am neither that well compensated, nor that important to the world at large. I have a regular job and a fairly regular life. And something like Pomodoro does IMO add an additional layer of "doing" I neither want nor need to get my stuff done.

So (speaking only for myself) I agree with  the comment in the article that Pomodoro may well be guilty of: "over-analyzing the issue and creating complexity where none is needed."

But that can be said of any technique once it gets promoted as a "one size fits all situations" solution. "Babies and hammers," as the saying goes.

I believe in fitting the technique to the task rather than the other way around. So while something like Pomadoro may be helpful in certain situations, I can't see where it would be a universally beneficial for every task or personal work style. 

I mean hey - if it works - go for it!

But just for the record: Pomodoro doesn't work for me.

Not even in conjunction with that slick looking "tomato timer" (PomodoroPro) someone talked me into loading on my iPhone. (see below) 



My work style is pretty basic. I simply put in whatever time and effort the task requires. I don't push myself to exhaustion. But I don't lock myself into a rigid work/break cycle either. I'm quite good at detecting when additional effort on my part is becoming counterproductive. When I feel that happening, I'll either take a break, or move onto something else.

Not too formal or scientific. But it works for me. 

8280

Living Room / Re: Unable to compete with the Kindle, Apple wants a cut of ebook sales

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 02:53 PM »

But Sony never gave in to that.

-superboyac (February 02, 2011, 01:05 PM)

Largely because the American recording industry threatened to sue and legislate Sony into oblivion if direct digital to digital copying was implemented on the minidisc system.

This was right after the major labels had effectively prevented DAT tape decks from finding an American market via a combination of legal threats and political pressure to get legislation passed restricting its use. So Sony was more than a little nervous. Especially since they also wanted to start selling commercial music recordings on the minidisc format, and therefor couldn't afford to alienate the rest of the recording industry.

Sony may have been shortsighted in caving in. But at the time it was probably the only option they had, even if it did ultimately doom their snazzy little disc.

8281

Living Room / Re: preparing for an expedition to the treacherous land of Drupal

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 02:34 PM »

Make life easy for yourself and waltz on over to TurnKey Linux to download a preconfigured Drupal server appliance for free.

Versions are available for installation onto hardware (ISO), virtual machine (VM), or Amazon's EC2 cloud.



TurnKey has over 40 additional appliances available. They work much like Bitnami's stacks. But unlike Bitnami, Turnkey's offerings are more up-to-date and designed for production deployments.

   

I've been experimenting with a few (Fileserver, Domain Controller, and Django). So far, I'm quite impressed by them.

Have to do a write up on these guys if I ever get a few free hours.

 

8282

Living Room / Re: Google's overweening conceit (anti-Eric Schmidt rant)

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 11:11 AM »

^There you go man!
Keep as cool as you can.
Face piles of trials with smiles.
It riles them to believe
That you perceive
The web they weave.
And keep on thinking free.
------/-----

Bet you know this song too!  

8283

Living Room / Re: Unable to compete with the Kindle, Apple wants a cut of ebook sales

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 10:53 AM »

Not a week goes by without something reassuring me I made the right decision by not investing in a proprietary ebook reader.

This week's no exception.  

8284

Living Room / Re: Google's overweening conceit (anti-Eric Schmidt rant)

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 09:28 AM »

I am so much more than any of the technologies I choose to employ.

Why can't  "I'm a Mac" and "I'm a PC" understand that? 

8285

General Software Discussion / Re: sublime text: some innovative text editor!

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2011, 07:41 AM »

+1 w/Zaine. Much as I love the bird's eye view feature, it's still missing a little too much to woo me away from Vim.

If you're new to Vim - or coming to it for the first time from Windows - try the Cream editor.

Why Cream?

Vim is a powerful and full-featured text editor, the popular descendant of the 1976 Vi text editor.

But Vim has a steep learning curve. It was not primarily designed to be easy to use, favoring performance and technical flexibility instead. Because it is so different, learning to use Vim takes time.

Cream shapes Vim into an interface you probably already know (sometimes called Common User Access [ext.link] ). Whether you are writing emails or developing large software applications, Cream saves you time and gets you up and running quickly.

I'll confess, this is what I use most times in NIX. I'll only run vanilla Vim when I need to do something I can't more easily accomplish in Cream.

8286

Developer's Corner / Re: "competitive upgrade" - is it ethical?

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 10:46 PM »

Regarding corporations as evil:

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. (Devil's Dictionary)

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 08:37 PM)

Much the same thing can be said of the so-called middle class. Herman Hesse handled that subject very nicely in his book Steppenwolf.

Here's what he had to say in the section entitled Treatise On The Steppenwolf, which was a fictional booklet quoted in full within the larger story. You can read the whole treatise here if you're curious.

(Note: below emphasis added.)

Now what we call "bourgeois," when regarded as an element always to be found in human life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.
 
It is clear that this weak and anxious being, in whatever numbers he exists, cannot maintain himself, and that qualities such as his can play no other role in the world than that of a herd of sheep among free roving wolves. Yet we see that, though in times when commanding natures are uppermost, the bourgeois goes at once to the wall, he never goes under; indeed at times he even appears to rule the world. How is this possible? Neither the great numbers of the herd, nor virtue, nor common sense, nor organization could avail to save it from destruction. No medicine in the world can keep a pulse beating that from the outset was so weak. Nevertheless the bourgeoisie prospers.

Just like corporations.  

8287

Living Room / Re: I'm Confused

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 10:26 PM »

Imagine a Microsoft car! Takes 15 minutes to start 

Then again, I'd rather have that than the Apple car, where you can only fill up at Apple gas stations...

-timns (February 01, 2011, 09:14 PM)

Hahahah~!

I suppose gas for Linux cars is free, but you need to refine it yourself...

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 10:21 PM)

And allow anybody else who wanted to use it to do so. 

8288

Living Room / Re: I'm Confused

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 10:25 PM »

How about if they just perfect cars that drive themselves and then it won't matter if you're drunk or blind or a dog, you'll be able to get where you want.

-Deozaan (February 01, 2011, 09:10 PM)

It would get even better than that, as Rodger Zelazney noted in his 1965 Nebula Award novella He Who Shapes.

It would allow us to blindspin...

Blindspin.

A single name of a multitude of practices centered about the
auto-driven auto. Flashing across the country in the sure hands
of an invisible chauffeur, windows all opaque, night dark, sky
high,  tires  assailing  the  road  below  like  four  phantom
buzzsaws and starting from scratch and ending in the same
place, and never knowing where you are going or where you
have been it is possible, for a moment, to kindle some feeling
of individuality in  the  coldest brainpan,  to  produce  a
momentary awareness of self by virtue of an apartness from all
but a sense of motion. This is because movement through
darkness is the ultimate abstraction of life itself.

At least that's what one of the Vital Comedians said,
and everybody in the place laughed.

Actually now, the phenomenon known as blindspin first
became prevalent (as might be suspected) among certain
younger members of the community, when monitored high-
ways deprived them of the means to exercise their automobiles
in some of the more individualistic ways which had come to
be frowned upon by the National Traffic Control Authority.

Something had to be done.

It was.

The first, disastrous reaction involved the simple engineering
feat of disconnecting the broadcast control unit after one had
entered onto a monitored highway. This resulted in the car's
vanishing from the ken of the monitor and passing back into the
control of its occupants. Jealous as a deity, a monitor will not
tolerate that which denies its programmed omniscience; it will
thunder and lightning in the Highway Control Station nearest
the point of last contact, sending winged seraphs in search of
that which has slipped from sight.

Often, however, this was too late in happening, for the roads
are many and well-paved. Escape from detection was, at first,
relatively easy to achieve.

Other vehicles, though, necessarily behave as if a rebel has
no actual existence. Its presence cannot be allowed for.

Boxed-in, on a heavily-traveled section of roadway, the
offender is subject to immediate annihilation in the event of any
overall speedup or shift in traffic pattern which involves
movement through his theoretically vacant position. This, in
the early days of monitor-controls, caused a rapid series of
collisions. Monitoring devices later became far more 'sophisti-
cated, and mechanized 'cutoffs reduced the collision incidence
subsequent to such an action. The quality of the pulpefactions
and contusions which did occur, however, remained unaltered.

The next reaction was based on a thing which had been
overlooked because it was obvious. The monitors took people
where they wanted to go only because people told them they
wanted to go there. A person pressing a random series of co-
ordinates, without reference to any map, would either be left
with a stalled automobile and a "RECHECK YOUR CO-
ORDINATES" light, or would suddenly be whisked away
in any direction. The latter possesses a certain romantic appeal
in that it offers speed, unexpected sights, and free hands. Also,
it is perfectly legal; and it is possible to navigate all over two
continents in this manner, if one is possessed of sufficient
wherewithal and gluteal stamina.

As is the case in all such matters, the practice diffused
upwards through the age brackets. Schoolteachers who only
drove on Sundays fell into disrepute as selling points for used
autos. Such is the way a world ends, said the entertainer.

End or no, the car designed to move on monitored highways
is a mobile efficiency unit, complete with latrine, cupboard,
refrigerator compartment, and gaming table. It also sleeps two
with ease and four with some crowding. On occasion, three can
be a real crowd.
...

8289

Living Room / Re: Intel Sandy Bridge Build

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 09:49 PM »

UPDATE - looks like I'm on hold till the end of February. Intel just issued a recall of all Series-6 chipsets due to the SATA degradation problem. Replacements won't be back out for a month or so.

So right now, the Sandy Bridge CPUs looks to be ok. They just don't have the required chipset ready as of yet.

The defect affects approximately 5% of all chipsets. Nice to see Intel is doing a 100% recall at an estimated cost of $1 billion just to make it right. Apparently they learned something after the public reaction to their initial mishandling of the Pentium FP division bug back in the 90s.

AnandTech has an excellent analysis of the story here.

8290

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 08:50 PM »

^ You are correct. There is a 32 and a 64bit version. Completely forgot about that.

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 01:05 PM)

The 64bit version included is for Intel Itaniums, (ia64), won't work on x64 installations.

-4wd (February 01, 2011, 07:09 PM)

No wonder I forgot about it!  

Has anybody here ever even seen an Itanium-based machine, let alone worked with one?

There are supposedly a couple of hundred thousand deployed systems that use this chip. I've been around for a while as well as been in a few places. I've seen RISC, supercomputers, prototype advanced graphics workstations, SPARC boxes, SGI Indigos, a Cray-3, and even a working Connection Machine.

But so far I haven't seen one IA-64 system out in the wild.  

Where are they?  

8291

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 07:01 PM »

No worries! Just 2 bottles of Samuel Adams Double Bock  (yummy!) twice a day, combined with very little exercise, and you'll soon have one too! Just ask my nephew. (Who is reading this and is not amused.)
 (see attachment in previous post)
If the gods of brewing make anything better, they're keeping it for themselves AFAICT.

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 05:16 PM)

Is that a real bock? If it is... Jeez... You don't need 2 a day to get fat! Bocks are the heaviest things out there. I usually split a bottle with someone if there's anyone willing.

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 05:26 PM)

Me too. A half pint at a time is plenty when it comes to a quality bock. Especially this one.

Ages well, so don't be afraid to stock up if you have a dark cool place to cellar it. Haven't enjoyed something this complex since O'Hanlon's stopped brewing its legendary Thomas Hardy Ale.

This is the grande vin burgundy of dark beers IMO. I'm normally an ale fan who has scant interest in lagers. I make an exception for this one.

Here's what Sam Adams has to say about it:

Intense and warming, a meal in a bottle.

One cannot help but appreciate Samuel Adams® Double Bock's huge malt character.  We use an enormous amount of malt, half a pound per bottle, to brew this intensely rich lager.  Its deep brown-ruby color is all made in the kettle, no black malt is used, resulting in a rich sweetness that is free of the rough taste of burnt malt.  All that remains is the velvet smooth flavor and mouth feel of the two-row malt. Samuel Adams Double Bock's intense malt character is balanced with a subtle piney, citrus hop note from the Noble hops.

Awesome stuff. 

8292

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 06:41 PM »

^Yep. That's the tricky part of the equation. You'd need to get that information somehow. If not through devcon, then some other way. I'd guess polling the registry would be how a pro would get it.

8293

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 05:41 PM »

unless the SMF guys didn't want to release the bridge under the GPL

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 04:03 PM)

I think that's exactly where the crux of the issue rests.

Who knows? Maybe the SMF people think they have some 'really good code' in there that they just don't want to reveal to other people. Their prerogative. Be triff cool for them if that were the case.

Either way, we have to respect all the player's opinions on the matter. Especially since both sides apparently made a good-faith effort to come to an accomodation that would satisfy everybody.

Too bad it didn't work out.

Life moves on...

But you can do it for commercial software -- create functional copies -- it happens all the time. I've seen it several times in the JoS forums and ASP newsgroups.

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 04:03 PM)

Oh you can.

And heaven help you if they:

• can show you purchased a copy of their software (which makes you subject to their EULA)
• can show you ever used a copy of their software (which makes you subject to their EULA)
• have deeper pockets or better attorneys than you have

...and included a reverse engineering or "agreement not to make an equivalent product" clause in that EULA.

Because lawsuits over this sort of thing "happen all the time" too. 

And it doesn't matter that most of these lawsuits have absolutely no legal merit. In a civil suit, those with the deepest pockets usually win.

8294

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 05:16 PM »

I need a gut...

-superboyac (February 01, 2011, 03:49 PM)

No worries! Just 2 bottles of Samuel Adams Double Bock   (yummy!) twice a day, combined with very little exercise, and you'll soon have one too! Just ask my nephew. (Who is reading this and is not amused.)



If the gods of brewing make anything better, they're keeping it for themselves AFAICT.

8295

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 03:42 PM »

AFAIK it is ok. The rules don't apply upstream. Nor has anyone in FSF ever tried to argue it overrides any licenses in the tool chain developers use. GPL conditions only apply to the GPLed code itself and downstream code that incorporates it's source. The FSF has stated numerous times that the GPL does not (and legally cannot) override any existing software licenses.

If Joomla is insisting anything that attaches to Joomla must also be GPL purely because of GPL, I think they're misinterpreting the rules. Commercial add-ons get developed for GPL products all the time. If they're saying an add-on which incorporates actual Joomla code must also be distributed to the public under GPL, then they are correct.

Note: GPL only applies to code. Nothing else  It does not recognize the notion of IP. If you make a functional lookalike of a GPL product, call it something else, and release it under a commercial license, that's your business and it's ok by them. It's only when you incorporate GPL code into something that the rules go into effect.

Try doing that to a commercially licensed piece of software.

8296

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 03:06 PM »

Since I've switched to MSE from Kaspersky, there is one thing I miss: the "block all network traffic" button.

-superboyac (January 30, 2011, 12:03 AM)

Have you ever actually used that feature? And if so, what was happening that made you decide to turn your network off?

I've seen that (big) switch in ZoneAlarm ever since it was introduced, years ago, and I never understood what would have to happen, that I should switch the connection off

-Ath (February 01, 2011, 01:49 PM)

I've used a network kill switch a few times.  

I'll zap my network link anytime something goes down that makes me suspicious. In the world of law enforcement, there's a phrase they use to cover those times when you're suddenly feeling very edgy about something, but for no specific reason you can put your finger on. The term is JDLR (Just Doesn't Look Right). It's pure gut. But it works more often than not.

Any time something just doesn't look right, I'll hit the kill switch.

Usually what will happen is something gets redirected and I suddenly see drive activity go through the roof; or my browser lands on what appears to be a static webpage and finishes loading, yet my network interface continues to show a high level of packet activity.

Most times, my network security systems catch any baddies. But there was one time a while back when I was reading something on a tech website, clicked on a link, and (very obviously) got redirected somewhere else. That's when something hit the PC I was using. And it hit so hard - and destabilized things so badly - that I ended up restoring the OS from an image.

Whatever tried to sleeze its way onto that poor little box walked through a heavy duty 3rd-party firewall and a top shelf antivirus/antimalware package like they didn't exist. And it completely ignored the fact this machine was fully up-to-date with it's security patches and system updates. It put oddball files all over the place and did a number on the Windows directory itself. And it did so in less than 15 seconds.

Very scary.

Subsequent scans on the drive (with every AV package known to mankind) found nothing other than a half dozen "suspicious" items. I sent these to various AV developers for analysis. The conclusion most drew was that "something" tried to install itself on this PC, but got interrupted before it could finish.

It likely didn't finish because I unplugged the network cable in the wake of all the drive activity I was seeing. Drive activity that included polling the CD and floppy drive! Never a good sign when that happens.

After that I stopped rolling my eyes at all those "hyped-up" news stories about killer zero-day exploits.

Nowadays, I always make sure there's some sort of kill switch on anything I've got connected to the internet. I haven't had cause to hard kill a network connection for some time now. But I'm glad I easily can if I want to.

 

-----

Addendum: I think it's important to be able to kill all activity on your network card. Because if something occurred that justified killing off an Internet connection, it also justifies isolating the affected machine from the rest of the network. At least until you get a chance to make sure everything is ok with the PC itself.

Just my  


EDIT: fixed some grammar and punctuation. Reads much better now.

8297

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 01:05 PM »

^ You are correct. There is a 32 and a 64bit version. Completely forgot about that.

Good catch.

Note: Once you've got devcon extracted, be sure you either rename the self-extracting download file or move it off the desktop. If you don't, and you attempt to run devcon via a batch file, the batch will glom onto the download rather than the executable in the SYSTEM32 directory. And you'll go crazy wondering what's going on. 

Why Microsoft called the archive the same thing as the contained executable is anybody's guess.

8298

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 12:09 PM »

Wouldn't it be easier to use DEVCON?

(Note: This is the real "oldie" way to do it. Can't remember where I first read about this.)

You'd need to download it from Microsoft if devcon.exe isn't in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.

Once you've got it installed, open a command prompt and use

DEVCON FIND  * > C:\device.list to get a list of your devices.

Once you've identified the device you want to control you can use

DEVCON [ENABLE|DISABLE] *device_id to control it.

On the PC I'm currently sitting at, the NIC is identified as follows:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1039&SUBSYS_2009107B&REV_82\4&29817089&0&40F0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

All I need to do now is grab a unique chunk of the string (I picked 1039&SUBSYS)

Check to be sure it's both the device I want - and a unique string using:

DEVCON FIND *1039&SUBSYS

Devcon returned the following which shows the string is unique to the device I want to control:

C:\Documents and Settings\ek>devcon find *1039&SUBSYS
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1039&SUBSYS_2009107B&REV_82\4&29817089&0&40F0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
1 matching device(s) found.


Now all I need to do to disable it is enter:

DEVCON DISABLE *1039&SUBSYS

C:\Documents and Settings\ek>devcon disable *1039&SUBSYS
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1039&SUBSYS_2009107B&REV_82\4&29817089&0&40F0: Disabled
1 device(s) disabled.

And to enable it:

DEVCON ENABLE *1039&SUBSYS

C:\Documents and Settings\ek>devcon enable *1039&SUBSYS
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1039&SUBSYS_2009107B&REV_82\4&29817089&0&40F0: Enabled
1 device(s) enabled.

From here you could just do up a batch file for each and throw their shortcuts in your Quick Launch Tool Bar (if you're lazy) or do up the commands in a fancy script or tray tool if you're more ambitious.

Real code wonks (which I'm not) could write a whole program to check for and optionally install devcon, get the device list, and verify the correct device was selected before writing the command settings to a file. That would make it a nice general purpose end-user type utility squatting in the tray all ready for immediate action.

Note: If you're using a third-party firewall, many have a stop-all-network-activity button which accomplishes the same thing without needing to actually disable the NIC hardware.

 

8299

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 10:58 AM »

Honestly this is now getting outside of the range of my own understanding of GPL and licensing law. It *is* complicated stuff, which is unfortunate because it needs to be understood by many "lay" people to really be properly respected. This is part of the problem with the way the GPL is constructed; it asks things of the developer and, in some cases, the user that are not necessarily intuitive. Software use and selection shouldn't be this complicated...

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (January 31, 2011, 08:52 PM)

Contemplating the GPL is a dizzying decent into madness.        

-Renegade (January 31, 2011, 11:25 PM)

When it first came out, GPL was very easily understood.

It still is very easy to understand.

It only gets complicated if you try to come up with a way to talk your way around it.

The GPL got "wordy" once certain businesses and people started looking for ways to "legally" beat it. That's when all the verbiage and details started getting added. Not because anybody in FSF wanted it that way. It was because their attorneys determined things needed to be added to the text if there was to be any hope of making the GPL enforceable.

There was once a time when Microsoft argued that GPL was both illegal and unenforceable because it ran (in their opinion) counter to US commercial, copyright, and IP laws. If I recall correctly, Steve Ballmer even went so far as to say something about it being "unconstitutional." But that's Ballmer for you.

Apparently offering software to the public for free is a violation of the rights of the monopolists to squeeze as much out of the people as possible.

IF the GPL has gotten complicated, thank Microsoft, Verizon, D-Link, Fortinet, TomTom, and all the other jokers who tried (and failed) to find a way to incorporate FOSS software into their own products and not live up to their side of the bargain.

 

8300

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2011, 10:27 AM »

By the way, i found a new CMS while registering to blogcritics.org. And unfortunately i lost the login details last month so i don't find any way to go inside and check the name of it. But it's very simple multi-author CMS for blog and magazine sites.

-mahesh2k (February 01, 2011, 01:02 AM)

For commercial multi-author magazine type sites, ExpressionEngine is the best IMO. (Note: Not open source and not free - licenses run from $100-300 USD. Usage restrictions also apply. See user and developer licensing for details.)

EE is a great product. One of the best working and supported CMS products out there. No bad surprises with options since 22 add-ons and 100+ plug-ins have been fully vetted and ship with it.

And because it's a commercial release, there's none of those pesky and annoying GPL issues to worry about.

Doesn't get much better than that I suppose.