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Recent Posts

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1
General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors
« Last post by wasker on May 10, 2009, 08:51 PM »
Nice review. I'd also recommend you guys to look at TwistPad -- I love this editor. The most Visual Studio-like environment from what I tried.
2
Living Room / Re: Article: Open source thrives in downturn
« Last post by wasker on December 25, 2008, 02:36 PM »
I think you're begging the question here by deliberately selecting a minor  app like Keypass as your example. We were talking about enterprise apps rather than desktop weren't we?

Finally you got it! Now you have a number (85%) and NO additional information and you're so happy to read about 85% completely neglecting the fact that you don't know a thing about what this number consists of.

And it's also instructive to remember that many large and successful corporations (Microsoft included) started out as very small businesses.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but 99% of Mom and Pop's businesses will either stay as Mom and Pop's businesses or go out of business altogether.

PS.
No, I'm not working for Microsoft.
3
Living Room / Re: Article: Open source thrives in downturn
« Last post by wasker on December 25, 2008, 01:06 PM »
I'm reading the headline as saying nothing more than this:

Based on a survey, 17 out of 20 companies that responded stated that they are currently using open source software; and furthermore, those respondents who aren't currently using open source software have stated that they are planning to do so in the upcoming year.

I don't see anything that begs for belief there. Nor do I see much reason to be overly skeptical of Gartner's survey. Although Gartner's trend predictions have sometimes proven wrong, they are not in the habit of making up numbers, or fudging survey results.

Again, I'm not exactly sure about what you're getting at. Can you give me an example of how it might "read a little bit different, than you might think"?

Okay, let's say I'm a big corp who decided to deploy KeePass all over the place: is it a big win for OSS community, considering that big corp is still using Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint and IIS for their day-to-day business?

Or, my company went 100% FOSS: Linux desktop, whatever else FOSS software you can think of. Is it a huge gain for FOSS community, given that my company is a mom and pop's shop around the corner?

Can you see my point now?


So... what trends regarding open source are you seeing with your clients?


They don't use it. I kid you not. When my company is in discussion of new project for a huge corp client, they explicitly say they don't want to use OSS, because they want to have someone behind the software.
4
Living Room / Re: Article: Open source thrives in downturn
« Last post by wasker on December 25, 2008, 12:21 AM »
The details are available. Unfortunately, the cited survey was conducted by Gartner Group, so it will cost you some serious money to read them.

That is exactly why getting one number (85%) and publishing an article about the pervasiveness of (F)OSS is a pure sensationalism. Without actually answering the questions like those I posted above the number alone doesn't make any sense.

Thanks for Netcraft stats, but it has nothing to do with this survey.

Out of curiosity, how would you know, unless you have a spare $1295 lying around? (see above)

Because if you count in Internet in whole and web infrastructure in particular, your 85% would be 100%.

Still, I have to disagree. Web is at the heart of much of what is considered "enterprise." And Apache deployment is steadily growing.

Oh yeah? Are we looking at the same chart? Starting from 2006 Apache's share goes down and Microsoft's up...

(Although, it's funny that Microsoft's stacks is in comparable numbers with FOSS' -- check the numbers like 5 or 10 years ago).

I'm not sure what you're saying here...but OK. ;D

See above.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a cheerleader for open source. FOSS will ultimately stand or sink on its technical and economic merits - not its philosophy or good intentions. But I hardly think it's unreasonable to believe that just about every company will be using some open source app in the near future. I can't think of a single company or client that I'm dealing with that hasn't deployed at least one piece of FOSS/OSS software in the last two years. I find that interesting, since four years ago, only one of them had.

Actually you do sound like a cheerleader. ;) See, I'm not debating the fact that companies use (F)OSS, I'm debating the fact that 85% number doesn't make sense without any supplemental information that may make this number read a little bit different, that you might think.
5
Living Room / Re: Email etiquette How to Decline Fowards/Junk?
« Last post by wasker on December 24, 2008, 06:22 PM »
A good one! Although mine's better:

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8409/delkeyyl4.jpg


Never mistype this one! :D
6
Living Room / Re: Article: Open source thrives in downturn
« Last post by wasker on December 24, 2008, 06:18 PM »
40hz, I'm talking about this particular survey which throws a number out of nowhere without any details and breakdowns.

Thanks for Netcraft stats, but it has nothing to do with this survey. (Although, it's funny that Microsoft's stacks is in comparable numbers with FOSS' -- check the numbers like 5 or 10 years ago).
7
Living Room / Re: Email etiquette How to Decline Fowards/Junk?
« Last post by wasker on December 24, 2008, 03:43 PM »
My netiquette goes along with Delete button nicely.
8
Living Room / Re: Article: Open source thrives in downturn
« Last post by wasker on December 24, 2008, 03:41 PM »
According to research firm Gartner, open source software is present in 85% of enterprises and the remainder expect to deploy it in the next year.

Unfortunately for FOSS advocates the number doesn't say anything. 85% of what kind of enterprises? What kind of software they've deployed? What portion of the enterprise is actually using this software?

Sensationalism at its best.
9
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows UX overhaul: YOUR input required
« Last post by wasker on June 06, 2008, 07:46 AM »
I think it's non-official, but there're some connections @MS who are willing to listen.
10
General Software Discussion / Windows UX overhaul: YOUR input required
« Last post by wasker on June 04, 2008, 09:50 AM »
Hey there.

There's an initiative of Windows UX overhaul and the more people participate, the better. Here's the tool to submit and vote for UI glitches and inconsistencies in Windows Vista. So please, people, go and make your input on the matter.

Thanks!
11
General Software Discussion / Re: Shut Up About Vista, Already
« Last post by wasker on December 09, 2007, 07:16 PM »
And it's suggested to have at least 2 gigs of mem if not 6 or 8.

From my experience 2 gigs required, when you're using the shitty onboard video card, which cuts a huge portion of your lovely gig. I've had Vista Ultimate running on 1 gig with dedicated video card -- works as fast as XP.
12
I cannot recall when I ran antivirus last time. Like five years ago?.. But I don't work as admin.
13
Only del.icio.us to store bookmarks (I need to share same stuff between home and office) and also I regularily use SkyDrive for sharing files and tinyurl.com to make shortcuts for files on SkyDrive. For online forums I use imageshack.us to host images I don't care of.
14
Developer's Corner / Re: C++ Development: win32 or .NET?
« Last post by wasker on August 09, 2007, 06:55 PM »
C++ and .NET -- I'd better stay out of this combination. The code in C++.NET is sorta clunky. If you plan to develop for .NET, then C# is what you want to use.
For Win32 C++/MFC is very good.
15
General Software Discussion / Re: User settings storage debate
« Last post by wasker on August 09, 2007, 06:44 PM »
With the advent of Windows vista, microsoft is pushing users and developers to move from the age old idea of storing settings in the program's program files folder

Gosh, Microsoft was talking about proper places for storing data FOR YEARS. NT line had file access permissions very long time ago. In Windows 2000 (1999) the whole system was stabilized. And MSDN repeats over and over again: use user profile/documents folder to store per-user data and documents, maybe settings, use user's registry hive to store small portions of settings, use r/o all users profile to store common data. Let me emphasize: this was here for years. And you just noticed that? :mad: The reason behind that is separation different users' data plus easy roaming user support (this is when the app is being used in Active Directory environment).

I was using Windows XP under LUA. Sometimes it's such a pain to have application which doesn't follow the guidelines.

OK, about portability. The wish to make your app portable doesn't mean that you need to store everything in app's folder. Create another edition of the program and do what you want, but don't do this at the expense of users who don't need any portability.
16
General Software Discussion / Re: What's your music player of choice?
« Last post by wasker on August 09, 2007, 06:32 PM »
Before going Vista I was using WinAmp. Now I am with Windows Media Player 11. Also use Walkman w810i as a portable player.

Will never use iTunes and iPod.
17
General Software Discussion / Re: Web 2.0 Poll
« Last post by wasker on August 09, 2007, 06:31 PM »
I like that web apps became richer now, but c'mon, most of them is just another way to get moneys from VCs while being on a hype.
18
General Software Discussion / Re: Stop Windows from calling home
« Last post by wasker on July 11, 2007, 09:43 AM »
Small tool which disables the default threats of a Windows XP installation. Besides disabling Windows and some of its components to communicate with Microsoft servers, xpy improves privacy settings and your system’s security.

Features:
• Disable Windows “calling home”
• Disable questionable services
• Disarm Internet Explorer
• Disarm Windows Media Player
• Remove Windows Messenger
• Improve privacy and security
• Improve performance

• Crash my Windows at some random time and blame Gates for the lame software.
19
General Software Discussion / Another launcher software - ViStart
« Last post by wasker on July 05, 2007, 08:39 PM »
Recently found on the internet: ViStart.

Personally I LOVE new Vista start menu and I was very happy to find this tool which tries to mimic it on XP. Firstly, no more huge MENU, but normal, scrollable menu tree, like in Vista. As a huge bonus ViStart also offers search through the whole Start menu.

It has some keyboard glitches, but overall I highly recommend this sucker.
20
Word Processor Roundup / Re: Biased
« Last post by wasker on June 17, 2007, 09:58 AM »
Then what's the point of showcasing new/enhanced features if everything boils down to open sourceness or document format? Just several words -- "OOo rule, because it's open source" -- end of review.
21
Word Processor Roundup / Biased
« Last post by wasker on June 16, 2007, 07:08 PM »
Good research, but biased results.

Major Word Processor: StarOffice/OpenOffice, because of its universal file format in ODF, it's roadmap, and the fact that it is Open source.

Sorry, but when I think of productivity software (word processing app is from this category) things I care first are features and productive UI as a way to get these features used. OOo is a good product, but it's definitely not better than MS Office from this point of view.

Source code availability is not a virtue for products like that: I'm not going to spend any time with compiling or modifying Writer for my needs.

ODF is an open format -- so what? I created document, printed it or converted to HTML/PDF -- I don't care about file format. But if you care, MS has opened formats.

In the end, despite its "open" moniker, the Microsoft MS-OOXML format remains strictly proprietary, as Microsoft refuses to disclose the difference between its published file specification and its actual one to other vendors and developers.

This is biased conclusion again. "Proprietary" doesn't mean "they have some other format for themselves". C'mon -- they're pushing their format to standards bodies! They need it to be open standard, because this is the key to govt institutions which are under open source influence now. Don't be open source zealot here!

Below is what a 6039-page spec looks like, and ask yourself if anyone other than Microsoft will ever be able to fully and correctly implement the specification.

Again, opiniated conclusion! First you complain they're not opening file formats, now you complain they have a huge doc for file formats.
22
dhuser: where're you? Maybe I should stop by and shop... :)
23
MrCrispy I beg to differ. The problem with the ribbon is that it wasn't researched using Microsoft users, only a few Microsoft Office developers.

Oh yeah? I should check my badge -- maybe I'm 'softie already. :P
24
I tried O2007 beta -- Ribbon is fantastic.

About screen real estate: it could be "auto hidden", so I don't see any problems here.
25
Living Room / Re: Oh no, not another social network site...
« Last post by wasker on April 22, 2007, 09:25 PM »
I've got a glimpse on some of Twitter pages and wondering: how long the one will keep his phone on receiving TONS of "I just farted" messages. Who needs this kind of "presence"?
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