Recent Posts

9801

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 04:03 PM »

He loses me when he goes on to dis fairness and people who expect to be treated fairly. It smacks of the whole "blame the victim" mentality, which for some reason is typical to exactly the kind of people who write blogs and books about how great they are.

-tranglos (October 10, 2009, 03:41 PM)

Oh, that's just Steve Pavlina trying to convince himself he's not being arbitrary - even though he is. Nothing unusual there. If you read him regularly you'll soon notice how often he tries to have things both ways.

Just one of the reasons I lost interest in reading his stuff.


(FWIW: "Pav" is a lot less obnoxious about this stuff than some. Texas' own Ken Starks over at The Blog of Helios has him beat by a mile. Just watch the reaction to any comment that raises an skeptical eyebrow at some of Ken's more incredible true adventures as he pursues his exciting and dangerous crusade to get...erm...free Linux PCs out to disadvantaged kids.)

9802

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 03:42 PM »

I have been a recipient of some form of this and I would respectfully disagree.

-Paul Keith (October 10, 2009, 03:21 PM)

Don't blame you a bit Paul. It bugs me to no end too.

But being a former dialup BBS operator, and current forum moderator, I've seen this issue from 'both sides' so to speak. And despite my many misgiving, I was eventually made to conclude that there are times when posting and comment policies do become necessary. And this was as true way back in the late 80s as it is today.

I don't advise setting conditions like that right out out the chute. (I greatly prefer letting things work rather than making them work. But that's mainly because I'm lazy pragmatic...)

But still, sometimes it's unavoidable.

The key is to avoid it until you can't.

And just how long you do avoid taking certain actions says as much about the kind of person you are as it does about the amount of abuse your website is experiencing.

 

9803

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 03:21 PM »

Basically he seems to be using a lot of words to say "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one", which is certainly a correct observation, if somewhat cynical. But he seems to forget, unless he owns his physical delivery infrastructure, that the site he calls his isn't really, because it's most likely hosted at another commercial entity, who will exercise the same rights he enjoys. A bigger fish than him, or a whole school of smaller fishes, can get Steve disconnected for his online speech almost as easily as he can moderate comments on his blog. In the end it's his legal budget against the legal budget of his ISP and whoever owns them.

-tranglos (October 10, 2009, 08:51 AM)

True, but he could always drop about $500/mo on his own T1 line + $3K (one time) for two very capable servers (configured for load balance with failover) and save mega on legal bills and hassle time. And if he's making one tenth what he claims, it would still be a drop in the bucket.

And yes, while "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one," the price tag for said ownership isn't all that high any more.

FWIW, I'm not a big fan of Steve Pavlina. I think a lot of what he thinks and says is  a part of what's wrong with the whole blogosphere. And I can't comment of the specifics of what he may or may not be censoring on his site - mainly because (for a lot of reasons) I gave up and stopped reading him a long time ago.

But I don't have a problem with the notion of: Be civil - or begone! The way I see it, it's a simple case of "Pav's house - Pav's rules." I don't have an intrinsic problem with that.

But by the same token, I don't visit his website either.

9804

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 02:56 PM »

Plus, how do you know someone is giving you his real identity? Yet another major problem of the internets

-urlwolf (October 10, 2009, 02:38 PM)

You don't really. But again, just asking serves to give notice that you take your site membership rules seriously. Which is better than nothing. And it does get rid of the casual gits.

Personally, I have no problem with the concept of web anonymity. I think it should be the right of the individual to remain anonymous. By the same token, it should also be the option of a given website to decide whether or not to allow absolute anonymity as a condition of posting comments.

Much like getting a safe deposit box in my bank: they ask you for your social security number as a form of ID. You're not required, by law, to provide it. And they're not required, by law, to rent you a box if you refuse.

Seems fair enough to me.

9805

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 02:39 PM »

Well I have no experience with such sites because I like to keep my anonymity but judging by the way the IMDB forums are, I would say the system of real identity looks only good in theory.  

-Paul Keith (October 10, 2009, 02:21 PM)

True. But that's because they're movie buffs. You can't shame somebody who's shameless to begin with.

9806

Living Room / Re: What's the Ultimate How to Be Steve Jobs Guide?

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 02:31 PM »

Based on my close observation of Steve Jobs and Apple over the years, I'd like to propose an additional factor:

Be the sort of person who is fortunate enough to be surrounded by very smart people who are willing to give you credit for their ideas and innovations; and who are also willing to 'hype up' your contributions, no matter how minor.

Look at these quotes from a Wharton School interview with Steve Wozniak as just one example:

Steve's role was to learn how to run every aspect of a company, to be an executive at every level. I had already come to a very non-political point in my life where I didn't want to run a company, because I didn't want to push other people around, act superior to others, tell them what they had [done] was lousy. So I just said: I will do my engineering as well as it can be done, and I'll do that perfectly. I won't tromp into other people's territory.

So we went into two parts of the company. And from then on, we were very much working on different things almost forever.

Steve did an excellent job of melding the marketing, operations and technology. He understood which technology was good and what people would like.

It was a weird situation. He couldn't design a computer -- he was never a designer or a programmer -- but he could understand it well enough to understand what was good and what was bad.

I think that was more important -- having one mind that could put the entire landscape together. Whereas I just did one piece excellently.

 

When you judge Steve as a person -- the great things he brings to the world versus, maybe, these encroachments on personal decency or personal honesty with other people or disrespect of people when they've worked very hard and do a great job and he'll say, "Oh, that's just shitty," that sort of thing -- those are probably outweighed by the good that he does for the world.

We can sometimes see the future -- that, for example, all of our television signals are going to come over the Internet, all our entertainment and phone calls and music. Movie theaters even might go away some day because the Internet has taken their place.

How do you actually get there? It is so difficult to try to move the world to change, especially when there are money interests involved.

What Steve does on the good side -- like the music scenario [in which] we didn't bring just a music device called the iPod, we brought a whole music system: a store that sells it, a computer that manages and organizes it. And an iPod is just a satellite to your computer. Plug it in and it works. You don't have to do anything.

You've got to admire Steve for that kind of thinking.

Nobody's perfect. [Everybody is] going to have cases where they did something bad to somebody, said something nasty to them and maybe regret it later.

Link to full interview here: http://knowledge.wha...e.cfm?articleid=1903



Almost reminds me of the father of a friend of mine. He made absolutely horrible homebrew ice cream. This stuff was so bad it gave whole new meaning to the concept of badness. Everybody in his family knew it. And everybody DIDN'T know it. They loved him. So they just ate it when it was offered and heaped on the praise. Now that it's been some years since he quit this mortal clay, the memory (of that wretched, tasteless, godawful crap he used to heap in front of his suffering family and friends) has now been transformed into a dish fit for the gods themselves. The grandchildren (who never had the misfortune of tasting it) now talk about it with a tone of reverence, almost resentful they were born too late.

I think a lot of Steve's professional bio works like that.

9807

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by 40hz on October 10, 2009, 01:48 PM »

re: reputation mechanisms

I'd like to think the average forum regular is perfectly capable of spotting flamers, trolls and other boorish types without needing someone (or some bit of technology) to handbill them as such.

If a website is committed to stopping trolls and other troublemakers - and if it's actually a problem* -  there are two very simple mechanisms that will eliminate most of the nonsense:

1) Require registration in order to post comments. This gets rid of virtually all the 'drive-by' flamers, and most 'feedback spammers.'

2) Limit the amount of anonymity for participants.

Require actual names and verifiable e-mail addresses when registering. Registration e-mail information can (and probably should) be kept private and restricted to site moderators. Nicknames or 'handles' can optionally be allowed - as long as real names are available to the moderators.

And yes, while it is true that some people will contrive a way to spoof that information, most won't bother. By putting every participant on notice that your site cares about knowing who they are, you get rid of 99.99% of the idiots out there.

I can't speak for every website. But based on my own experience, once you require registration and a real name, you don't need to worry too much about people going overboard with their comments. Which IMHO  is a far better way to encourage people to behave responsibly. Or at least it's better alternative than to engage in removing/editing posts, getting into hairsplitting debates on 'acceptable use,' or invoking ban mechanisms.



Just my 2¢

--------

* Note: I think it's important not to take these steps unless you actually do have a problem with people misusing comments or forum posts. Getting smacked by the occasional twit is unavoidable. Those individuals can usually be dealt with on a case by case basis, and in such manner as the occasion warrants. Creating excessively restrictive policies almost always does more harm than good.


----- ADDENDUM:

All of this is assuming the site in question is genuinely in favor of free speech. Many sites believe they are - but aren't!  

9808

General Software Discussion / Re: Wndows Home Server as a SOHO business server. Your thoughts?

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 07:03 PM »

You can get a decent generation old server (with a 1 year warranty) from the company I mentioned earlier and most (not all) come with a valid SBS COA (no media, but that's not too hard to find) for $600-$800.

-Stoic Joker (October 08, 2009, 06:36 PM)

Yeah, definitely a good time for picking up decent hardware for a song. One fellow tech I know just scored a decent dual-CPU HP server (minus disk drives) but with manuals and driver CDs at a cost of exactly zero!

Somebody had apparently vacated an office suite, yanked the disks, and did an "abandon in place" decommission on the rest. My buddy was working for the people in the suite next door. The building manager let him have it (along with a beefy APC Smart-UPS and a box of miscellaneous goodies) in return for the effort needed to remove them from the building.

Not bad. About $1200-1500 worth of stuff, just for making three trips out to his car with a handtruck.

9809

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea: A content management system that lives up to the name

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 06:43 PM »

A friend just pointed me to this CMS:

CMME means "Content Management Made Easy". It is a web content management system that is easy to use, doesn't have a lot of requirements and allows for reasonable flexibility. Have a look at the user manual if you want to see how it works.

Some key features of CMME:

    * Easy installation, small requirements.
    * Page layout using templa­tes and page parts.
    * Markup using cascading style sheets.
    * WYSIWYG page editing.
    * Page(part) inclusion.
    * Syntax highlighting for code parts on pages
    * RSS Feeds.
    * Web Log functionality.
    * Statistics and page visit counters, including charts.
    * Built in backup functionality, using ZIP.
    * Supports Firefox and Internet Explorer. Safari is not yet supported. It will be supported with the next version of xinha.
    * Simple installation.
    * Technical clarity.

This content management system is completely file based. It doesn't need a database to work like most other content management systems.

Link: http://cmme.oesterholt.net/

Like the blurb says, it doesn't use a database - which is what piqued my interest.

Not much in the way of details or documentation on the site. Looks like a labor of love. But it looks to be pure PHP. And since I know pretty much 'squat' about that language, it should make for some interesting code reading.

CMME has been developed for technical clarity. It has been developed to do one task and do it with simplicity. It's design is to be extendable, using plugins that are themselves simple (sub)programs. Only the parts of the program that need to be a script are so, the rest is kept cleanly functional and object oriented. This is contrary to the common PHP way of creating scripts that mix HTML with PHP code.

I'm crawling through it to get an idea of how you'd put together an app like this. Not being a PHP coder (yet!) it's taking me a while. Like you, I'm sitting with O'Reilly close at hand.

Still, I figure it will ultimately be time well spent.

Might be worth a look.

9810

General Software Discussion / Re: Google steals the Web

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 06:12 PM »

  I can provide you with a 50% discount + earn cash and prizes

-BlockSideWiki (October 08, 2009, 04:16 PM)

- sorry, but such an offer just tells me that the price was too high in the first place.

-Curt (October 08, 2009, 05:57 PM)

@Curt - MilesAhead made a similar comment a few days ago in this thread:

...
 I noticed a similar thing about devices/programs/products/services .. if you give the thing to the person for nothing, they'll never stop griping.  If you charge them a month's salary, then wow!! It must be valuable!! After all, look how much they paid for it!!  

Somebody told me the way to make a customer happy is double the price, then give them 10% off.  

-MilesAhead (October 05, 2009, 08:59 PM)

But here, you're being offered 50% off + the chance to earn cash and prizes!!! Might be a good deal... (Doh!)

9811

General Software Discussion / Re: Google steals the Web

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 06:09 PM »

You do not have to have it installed for your competition, child molestors, warez users, and etc to post comments on your sites...

-BlockSideWiki (October 08, 2009, 04:35 PM)

Hitting all the "hot button" phrases aren't we? Especially the "child molesters" part.

Why is it that so many people who want to sell you something web related always seem to feel the need to wedge the child molester bogeyman someplace in their sales presentation? Are there that many frightened and technologically challenged parents and school officials out there that people still get away with using this argument?

---

@BlockSideWiki - could you add a little more to this discussion than just dropping a thinly veiled sales pitch?

9812

General Software Discussion / Re: Wndows Home Server as a SOHO business server. Your thoughts?

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 04:00 PM »

"$400K annual revenue" and they're tight for cash?!?

-Stoic Joker (October 08, 2009, 02:10 PM)

Thx for the feedback.

I'm not too inclined to go with SBS because they need to be mostly self supporting. I've done a lot of support for that product, and I'm firmly convinced it's more trouble than it's worth for 90% of the companies that buy into it. I'm much more partial to the doing plain vanilla servers since most small companies are only looking for centralized user account admin & backups, file & print sharing, and remote access. And if you actually do need SQL or Exchange, you're far better off contracting it out if you can't afford a full time IT person who knows what they're doing.

FWIW: add up salaries for 3 people + medical  & liability insurance + legal fees + business taxes + property taxes + vehicle expenses + cost of goods sold + fulfillment services + general business overhead expenses and $400K suddenly isn't that much money any more. Sure, if it were all going straight into their pockets it would be a goldmine. But it ain't.

(Heck, if what I bill hourly was pure gravy and personal income, I could have retired ten years ago. )

9813

General Software Discussion / Wndows Home Server as a SOHO business server. Your thoughts?

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 12:19 PM »

I'd like to bounce this one off the DoCo community.



I have a friend who asked whether or not it would a good idea to use Windows Home Server as the general office server for her small (3-person, <$400K annual revenue) company.

My initial reaction was to say "not really," and point her towards one of the regular MS server offerings. But now that I've done some research, I get the impression that all of the earlier reliability and showstopper issues have gotten sorted out and the current release is good to go.

I loaded up a test copy to play with it a bit. From what I can see, WHS appears to be very solid. It's extremely easy to administer. Some of the disk management features are actually quite innovative. (Or at least they are for Microsoft! ) The account security model is adequate enough for what she needs. And the overall feature set (especially the implementation of remote access) should be able to handle everything she wants to do.

Since money is an issue (when isn't it?) and a NIX/FOSS solution would be well outside of her technial comfort zone, WHS could be a nice simple way for her to go.

So here's my question: does anybody out there either (a) use WHS for their SOHO server; or, (b) have direct experience/involvement with someone who does?

Any feedback or relevant experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thx!

9814

General Software Discussion / Re: Google steals the Web

« Last post by 40hz on October 08, 2009, 11:20 AM »

Ha true. I'm sure there are advertising laws which prevent just this type of situation. The UK to the best of my knowledge has very good laws for protecting people for example.

Applying them to the internet though is a very different story.

-Eóin (October 08, 2009, 10:44 AM)

Applying a law is seldom the problem.  Enforcing one almost always is.

9815

General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!

« Last post by 40hz on October 07, 2009, 06:49 AM »

But as I said, I'll shut up.

-Curt (October 06, 2009, 10:30 AM)

Please don't, it's always interesting to hear about new stuff, even if I'm not going to be a fan of it

-f0dder (October 06, 2009, 10:43 AM)

@Curt - Yeah, seriously. Don't.

I've read many of your other posts.

You always find neat stuff I'd never know about if you didn't bring it to our attention.

9816

Living Room / Re: DIY - Home made in-car camera mount

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 07:12 PM »

Don't forget my 5% consulting fee.

-MilesAhead (October 06, 2009, 02:41 PM)

At least. I usually pay 15% on the first project.

9817

Living Room / Re: Federal Trade Commission (USA): Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 12:22 PM »

Unfortunately, it's not law. Check out this weasel:

The guides are not binding law, but rather interpretations of law that hope to help advertisers comply with regulations.

Same old "same old" as far as I can see.

9818

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 09:46 AM »

4/10 using a strategy similar to f0dder's. I automatically assumed any answer that seemed intended to provoke controversy as coming from Jobs. Glad to see I got the JFK and Woz one right at least.

9819

Living Room / Re: DIY - Home made in-car camera mount

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 09:31 AM »

Somebody told me the way to make a customer happy is double the price, then give them 10% off. 

-MilesAhead (October 05, 2009, 08:59 PM)

Like it! Maybe I'll give it a try next time I'm working up a price quote for a difficult client.

Thx Miles!

9820

Living Room / Re: Help? Learning how to drive...

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 09:24 AM »

And besides that, a BMW is a rear wheel driven car. Those behave (really) different when you encounter a traffic situation where drastic action is required. Front wheel driven cars are behaving more "friendly" in those situations.

Having said this, I like the driving experience that is BMW (yep, I'll admit it....BMW fanboy here).  

-Shades (September 28, 2009, 08:38 PM)

In Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash, there are numerous traffic scenes where BMW drivers "immediately took evasive action."

Later on, he remarks that BMW drivers always seem to feel the need to be taking "evasive actions" - and wonders if this is how they justify, to themselves, the high price they paid for their cars.

From my experiences on the highways around where I live (and where skittish lane-changing BMWs abound) I truly believe Stephenson was on to something.

@Shades - So since you own one...is that true?

9821

General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!

« Last post by 40hz on October 06, 2009, 08:56 AM »

Sounds something like an Encapsulated PostScript or EPS** file.

It's a great idea if you only want to support a single file format for your music files.  

But it's still a bit of a kludge. I would have liked it more if it were able to retain the old MP3 file sizes and still be lossless. Now that would have been the absolute killer format.

Thanks for the heads up Curt! I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this one.

(But in the mean time, I'm still gonna stick with FLAC for hi-def.)

-----
** (EPS basically embedded a low resolution "preview" graphic image in a regular PS file. Since most machines didn't have the memory or power to render a PS file directly, EPS allowed you to see what your file looked like before you sent it to a laser imaging device. Before most of the printing industry switched over to using PDFs for 'direct to plate' pre-press, EPS ruled the world. Quark Xpress and the Adobe product family were the driving forces behind the EPS format.)

9822

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2009, 09:28 PM »

IMHO: Yes, it is.

-40hz (October 05, 2009, 06:01 PM)

I'm surprised you don't have much to say about the two.  

-Paul Keith (October 05, 2009, 08:25 PM)

I guess that's because your outliner is about as personal a choice as your favorite brand of single malt scotch would be. In my case, my former lovers were: MaxThink (PC); Acta (Mac); ecco Po (PC); Inspiration (PC/Mac); OneNote (Win); and OmniOutliner (Mac).

I'm currently between outliners right now. When I absolutely do need to use one however, I usually find myself loading up my old copy of ecco Pro.

9823

Living Room / Re: DIY - Home made in-car camera mount

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2009, 08:40 PM »

I suppose what you could do is wear a hat that says Guiness Book or World Records.  Then people would invite you in and demand to show you how many quarters they could swallow in one gulp.  They'd let you photograph anything then. If anyone asks you just say you don't work for them but was hoping to get a free book if you wore the hat.

-MilesAhead (October 05, 2009, 05:59 PM)

I think it was Terry Pratchette who said that even though it's frightening what people will do for money, even more frightening is what they'll do for free.

9824

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2009, 08:15 PM »

Honestly, I like ubuntu. I've been using it as my main desktop since last year, it's great for working (and I code in C++,  consider it much handier than Vista). But I think "free software" won't get far. Developers don't like to fix these boring bugs, but these boring bugs drive any regular user crazy.

-jgpaiva (October 05, 2009, 05:08 PM)

zridling: for me, with linux, it's been an issue of programs being of generally inferior quality, often without proper documentation ("read the source" != documentation), very hostile "support" channels, sucky performance (graphics acceleration, the X11 platform (or at least the common widget toolkits), applications that load slowly, ...), the lack of proper C++ development tools, et cetera.

-f0dder (October 05, 2009, 04:29 PM)

Actually, I think Josh and f0dder might have hit on something that's at the core of the FOSS development model:

FOSS is primarily run by Coders. And Coders primarily want to code. Most don't want to run a business, write documentation, or do end-user support. They just want to code.

The reason this struck me as significant is because of an experience I had early in my career. I had gotten together with a few cohorts from work to produce a forecasting tool for small to mid-sized companies. We had written it using something called Clarion. Clarion Developer was a fairly advanced 4GL database tool for its time.

We had a ball writing and debugging our little project. We even enjoyed adding features as we fleshed out its capabilities and got to know Clarion better.

Then we made a mistake and started selling it ...

We had about five paying customers when it happened: Support calls. Feature requests. Customer employee training and hand holding...

We did our best. And we hated it. But since we only had a few paying clients, we couldn't afford to farm any of these responsibilities out.

Now, the question became what to do next?  Quit our day jobs? Seek venture capital? Start hiring and marketing? Turn it into a 'real' business? Get big?

So we talked to a few people. None of the folks who could actually help us really cared about the product itself. All they wanted to talk about was working out some sort of deal (which would basically chain the four of us to our PCs for five or so years) while they marketed the hell out of our app. In return we'd get stock (and a buy out option) if the product actually took off.

In short, it would be business as usual: a total crap shoot for us - and a 'sweetheart deal' with minimal risk for our backers if things didn't pan out.

Since we all had degrees and 'corporate experience' in finance and accounting, we had no illusions that our particular 'product' was anything more than a niche product. And a marginal one at best.

And that's when it hit all of us. We didn't really want to run a software business. We didn't even want to be in business at all. All we wanted to do was code and improve the thing we created. On our own schedule and according to our own priorities. Y'know, "Ars gratia artis." as the saying goes?

But we realized we couldn't that if we were also going to do it as a business.

So in the end, we stopped developing our little product. And to get out from under our obligations to our paying customers, we stopped charging and just gave them the source code. And in order not to leave anyone 'high and dry', one person in our group agreed to support our old customers on a part-time contract basis until they migrated to other software packages.

I think large segments of the FOSS development community feel the same way about their projects as we did about ours. Most are not out to prove anything. They just want to develop their code. Period. And "FREE - use at your own risk" is all the commitment they're willing to make.

Interesting....

<Edit: Oops. Dropped part of the final draft before I posted. Again. Added reference to and quote from f0dder that got dropped. Hopefully the whole thing now makes more sense.>

9825

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by 40hz on October 05, 2009, 06:01 PM »

Let's see... well... is OmniOutliner better than OneNote?

-Paul Keith (October 05, 2009, 03:41 PM)

IMHO: Yes, it is.