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Comment Re:This is a good thing (Score 3, Informative) 712

by cjb909 (#42121147) Attached to: Windows Blue: Microsoft's Plan To Release a New Version of Windows Every Year

I was trying to put Linux on my desktop computer, but it doesn't support the wireless USB dongle I use. This was last weekend. The same dongle works perfectly in Windows.

I was trying to put Linux on my work computer, but it doesn't support my three monitor, two video card display out of the box. This was about a month ago.

I love Linux, and it's fun to use on computers that have supported hardware (I love it on my ASUS netbook), but if you don't have supported hardware, it's still a nightmare.

Comment Re:No PAE?! (Score 3, Insightful) 753

by cjb909 (#38373182) Attached to: Firefox Too Big To Link On 32-bit Windows

You mean some people still run a 32-bit OS?

Not only that, but apparently Windows cannot use PAE - Physical Address Extension to address more than 4GB (according to the WP entry, PAE is supported, but the 4GB limit is still enforced - due to some obscure licensing problems).

The problem is with virtual memory. A process still uses 32bit memory addresses to reference memory. This means that a process can still only address 4GB of memory. If you were to use more than 32bit memory addresses to get more memory, suddenly you aren't a 32-bit OS anymore.

PAE only helps the OS be able to manage more than 4GB of memory.

Comment Re:Its the compiler, stupid. (Score 5, Informative) 753

by cjb909 (#38373134) Attached to: Firefox Too Big To Link On 32-bit Windows

It is the compiler which is having ressource problems. The profile-guided optimiser needs more than 3GB to be able to do its optimisations. And apparently, the Windows its running on can't do PAE to use more than 3GB neither.

PAE allows 32-Bit computers to use more than 4GB of ram, but it doesn't allow Windows to assign more than 3GB to any single process.

Comment What's the point? (Score 1) 567

by cjb909 (#32030732) Attached to: Ubuntu Linux 10.04 Review (Lucid Lynx)
What's the point of the upgrade, or rather, what does it give me? I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 right now, and I've been installing the software and other updates as they come. What changes from one major version of Ubuntu to another? Obviously it's something more than just updated versions of all my software packages. What is it?
Image

Space Exploration Needs Extraterrestrial Ethics 162

Posted by samzenpus from the fly-softly-and-carry-a-big-laser dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Professor Andy Miah notes there's already international government policies taking hold on outer space — and a need for new ethical guidelines. 'For instance, what obligations do we owe to the various life forms we send there, or those we might discover? Can we develop a more considerate approach to colonizing outer space than we were able to achieve for various sectors of Earth?' And what rights do astronauts have? 'Could our inevitable public surveillance of their behavior become too much of an infringement on their personal privacy?' But more importantly, professor Miah notes that 'the goods of space exploration far exceed the symbolic value,' pointing out that 'A vast amount of research and development derives from space exploration ... For example, the United Kingdom's 2007 Space Policy inquiry indicated that the creation of space products contributes two to three times their value in GDP.'"
Software

Fixing Bugs, But Bypassing the Source Code 234

Posted by timothy from the wrapping-puzzles-in-enigmas dept.
shreshtha contributes this snippet from MIT's Technology Review: "Martin Rinard, a professor of computer science at MIT, is unabashed about the ultimate goal of his group's research: 'delivering an immortal, invulnerable program.' In work presented this month at the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Big Sky, MT, his group has developed software that can find and fix certain types of software bugs within a matter of minutes." Interestingly, this software doesn't need access to the source code of the target program.
User Journal

Captain Copyright Expires 114

Posted by kdawson from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you dept.
The Canadian superhero Captain Copyright has finally expired, not due to pirates or to the passage of 50 years after the death of the author, but because "the current climate around copyright issues will not allow a project like this one to be successful." The cartoon was intended to provide an education in copyright law for children, but it became a focus for criticism when even the Canadian Library Association condemned it for lacking balance because it ignored issues like Fair Dealing (Canada's version of Fair Use). Personally, I was hoping we'd see them get sued by DC & Marvel, who claim to own the trademark on the word "superhero", and vanish in a puff of logic.
Microsoft

Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax 661

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mac users wanting to run Vista on their Macintosh, alongside Mac OS X programs, will have to buy an expensive version of Vista if they want to legally install it on their systems. The end-user license agreement for the cheaper versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium) explicitly forbids the use of those versions on virtual machines (i.e., Macs pretending to be PCs)." Update: 02/08 17:50 GMT by KD : A number of readers have pointed out that the Vista EULA does not forbid installing it via Apple's Bootcamp; that is, the "tax" only applies to running Vista under virtualization.
The Internet

Do Syndicated Columnists Have a Future? 49

Posted by Cliff from the there's-always-weblogs dept.
DrMrLordX writes "With declining circulation numbers looming over the heads of major newspaper publishers, what fate awaits syndicated columnists? I am not syndicated, but I do write for a local independent paper with the ultimate goal of becoming successful (financially and otherwise) as a columnist. Every time I contemplate the possibility of seeking syndication, bleak future newspaper circulation forecasts make me question my own motives. Is it even possible to break into the editorial world with a shrinking reader base? Would it be better to get into socio-political blogging and rely on ad/referral revenues?"
Editorial

Greatest Task of Web 2.x: Meta-Validation 161

Posted by kdawson from the vetting-the-metadata dept.
CexpTretical writes "This Technology Review article about Web 2.x problems fails to mention the 800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to fulfilling the dreams of the Semantic Web — i.e., assumptions about the validity of metadata or tagging schemes. We can add all of the metadata and/or tags we want to web resources but that does not mean that the 'data about the data' honestly or accurately describe the resource or are 'about the data' at all. This is why Google does not place much importance on the metadata already contained in HTML document headers for search ranking, because it cannot be trusted. And to validate it would require more effort than to search and index that data from scratch. Ensuring or verifying the validity of metadata would be a task equal to that of initially creating it, but would have to be repeated on an ongoing basis. Hence all of the talk about 'trusted networks,' which then require trusting the gatekeepers of those networks. Talk about 'semantics.'" Slashdot's moderation and meta-moderation offer one example of getting useful metadata in a non-trusted environment.
Microsoft

The Soul of A New Microsoft 294

Posted by Zonk from the nice-picture-j dept.
BusinessWeek Online is running a front page story today about the new future of Microsoft. By 'looking beyond Windows', the company is utilizing fresh blood to come up with new products like the Zune, the Xbox 360, and various online sites. While the Zune probably isn't getting off to as successful a start as they might have liked, the article argues it's a positive sign that they're at least making the attempt. From the article: "The point is that Microsoft needs to find its un-Vista. Several of them, in fact. The software giant is entering perhaps the greatest upheaval in its 30-year history. New business models are emerging--from low-cost "open-source" software to advertising-supported Web services--that threaten Microsoft's core business like never before. For investors to care about the company, it needs to find new growth markets. Its $44.3 billion in annual sales are puttering along at an 11% growth pace. Its shares, which soared 9,560% throughout the 1990s, sunk 63% in 2000 when the Internet bubble burst, and they have yet to fully recover."

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