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So you are a chick. No surprise, with personal attacks all over the place, clearly a chick SOP.

As to specific cases - clearly I am not going to be provoked on the web to put myself into a situation where I actually start naming names, times, locations. But I do have a resume on line and obviously the cases are linked to the places where I have worked.

Again: this is none of your business. Oracle, MS and others, including HP, IBM, etc. ALL are participating bribing the officials.

As to an UNRELATED TO ME case of Microsoft giving out bribes, that's just TOO EASY,

LMGIFY

and nothing gets done in Russia with buttering the way

As to Oracle, why let's see more.

So you can yell till you are blue in the face. All you are good for is some 'smelly socks' jokes.

Somewhat. Windows 8 is the first OS from MS to support the UEFI secure boot feature. In that way it's much like the DMA for Blu-Ray, meaning all links in the chain must support it in order for the disc to be legally decrypted (in theory at least..lol).

I've found other references to this rootkit though and apparently the flaw is actually exposed in the legacy BIOS, not in UEFI, or Windows 8.

According to Kleissner the new Windows 8 hack does not attack UEFI ’secure boot’ feature and currently only works on systems running legacy BIOSes.

Ref: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/security-researcher-creates-windows-8-bootkit/16365

essentially, the browser is now the new plugin.

Sad, but true. And we saw how that model played out with Google's Chromebooks. A bunch of hype, then .... nothing. Even people who spend most of their time using a browser will find that 5%-10% of the time when they need more than a browser to be a deal-breaker - especially now that standard laptops that can do more are selling for less.

When I said that chromebooks were garbage nobody would want, everyone dumped on me - and yet, here we are, and even lousy sellers like the Blackberry Playbook beat it.

People haven't yet caught on that the browser is on the way out. The "app craze" is the camel's nose. If there's an app for everything and everywhere, including for discovering sites, and instead of downloading a mess of html+javascript+css every time you visit a site, you can just grab an updates to its' app on the fly, why would you need a browser?

That's one good thing about flash - run the same code in the flash player, and you've got a full-screen app (it's how I wrote a game that works on pretty much everything, including the Wii, with zero code to do crap like browser sniffing or dynamic scaling. Flash might suck, but html5+css+javascript+dom sucks even more for anything but web pages).

An oldie but goodie: The Ballmer Stagnation

Not only does that chart use an irregular Y axis that makes Gates' performance seem more steady and reliable than it actually was...

...but it doesn't bother to mention the dot-com bubble popping in ~2000. The fact that Ballmer kept their stock price up, while everyone else was losing theirs, is no small feat.

Please don't post any more dishonest crap from zdnet. I passionately distrust and loathe Microsoft, especially now that the B&N revelations are out. There is so much to hate about them, we don't also need to fabricate indictments of Ballmer.

Over the last 10 years, MSFT is near 0% growth, GOOG is a little under 500% growth.... AAPL is around 4000% growth.

That makes MSFT a poor long-term investment choice.

Except that, as the disclaimer says, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Not that I'm buying any MSFT.

An oldie but goodie: The Ballmer Stagnation

They were never evil. They're not MS/Apple. Do you have a short term memory loss? Honeycomb was withheld, and they told people why.

They said basically honeycomb was a bad implementation, they didn't want people to move forward with it, they do want people to move forward on ICS. It's not like a "honeycomb is a goddamn secret!" This has been announced like 500x. It's like a design for a car that they say "this design causes engines to explode" so they don't release the design. Is this a surprise that they then release ICS source? Did you hear them say "ICS is a bad implementation"? No.

That's not a lack of transparency either, they announced this repeatedly.

[Andy] Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience. We have no idea if it will even work on phones." "Android is an open-source project," he adds. "We have not changed our strategy."

The point usually made is that this applies to the android kernel source, which has indeed been promptly released directly to the kernel developers (and for download for anyone who cares). Much more promptly, by the way, than required by the licence.

It does *NOT* apply to the full android system, nor will it ever. Android itself (the various subprojects have separate licences, which I think you'll find, are all proprietary).

Just distributing a linux kernel running distribution does *not* make it GPL.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-on-android-the-linux-fork/9426

Unfortunately, Mozilla Foundation suffers from poor management. The rapid unexplained major version changes are only the most visible evidence.

Mozilla Foundation is a rich, rich corporation. No one should make the mistake of thinking that work on Firefox is done mostly by volunteers.

Did you see $78.6 million worth of improvements in 2008?

Did you see improvements suggesting that Mozilla Foundation had $168 million in assets in 2010? (Official PDF file, see page 2. Numbers are in thousands, as it says at the top of the page.)

Firefox is a world-class asset. Firefox is extremely important partly because those who need to do a lot of research online depend on Firefox and Firefox add-ons such as Session Manager, Session Manager Export Tool, Mozilla Archive Format, Flashblock, Multi Links, and Tab Mix Plus. There is no substitute for the capabilities of Firefox together with Firefox Add-ons. (Add-ons are also known as extensions and plug-ins.) For those who do research, Firefox is simply the best browser. Firefox is literally a world-class asset.

Biggest flaw: Firefox is unstable. The first step in good management would be to fix the instability of Firefox. There would be a huge additional advantage in doing that, as someone else mentioned. Investigating how Firefox can be so unstable under Microsoft Windows might reveal flaws in Microsoft Windows that make the OS so unstable when using Firefox.

Firefox instabilities are experienced most frequently by those who open many Firefox windows and tabs and leave them open while putting the computer into standby or hibernation several times. That is the pattern of use of those who do a lot of online research.

An example of research: For example, in researching HDMI cables there are numerous manufacturers, distributors, online sellers, explanations of HDMI standards, explanations of the U.S. National Electrical Code, and online reviews. The research is made far more complicated by the many companies that try to take advantage of the ignorance of the average person about cables. Good research is important because HDMI cables are often embedded in the infrastructure of buildings. Poor cables may need to be replaced when video equipment is upgraded, sometimes requiring the tearing apart of walls. Equipment upgrades may be years away, but are almost certain to happen.

One condition of instability: Windows XP 32-bit with Service Pack 3, for example, becomes unstable when Firefox has taken all the available memory, and is beginning to require the OS to use virtual memory. It seems a reasonable guess that Microsoft will be slow to fix Windows instabilities since poor experiences encourage people to buy new versions. Microsoft requires payment of the full price for each new version of Windows. Microsoft does not allow upgrade pricing even when a previous version has had many flaws, as with Microsoft Windows Vista. The laws against unfair business practices of those who have virtual monopolies have had no effect on Microsoft, apparently.

Firefox crash info: Here are some links for those who want to discover more about the instabilities in Firefox.

about:crashes
Put about:crashes into your URL bar and press ENTER. Firefox will then show a list of crashes of the copy of Firefox on that computer.

Crash info for all users and all versions
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox

Crashes per 100 active daily users, version 7.0.1, last week's version
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Fir

Because THIS kicks your ass publicly, first -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957838 (which all you HAD was off topic illogical adhominem attacks in reply to it, here http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957792 )

Man - U FAIL, lol, & PUBLICLY in front of ALL /.!

Additionally?

Well = This does the rest on slashdot's editorial staff as well -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957572

* QUESTION: Does BMO stand for Bullshit Massively Online, or what? LMAO...

APK

P.S.=> You FUD spreading little Linux CHUMPS are so full of it, you only make what Ed Bott said the other day the truth (requoting it here):

"The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." - Ed Bott/ZDNet from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

HELL, I EVEN POST A WAY TO KILL DUQU IN THIS THREAD HERE TODAY (as I did recently in others spots on slashdot this week too) AND, WITH TOOLS WINDOWS FOLKS ALREADY OWN, HERE:

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=37958532

And, what did the Linux dorks say, in more "effete retaliation"? More off topic adhominem attacks, but as per their bullshit usual, NO FACTS!

You penguins, you KNOW I GOTTA SAY IT, as-is-per-my-usual-style: THIS? This was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2EZ'"

... apk

Disprove these recent documented facts on security (Linux vs. Windows) -

Hell - Yesterday, I even submitted the FACT that MS has issued a fix (temp until Patch Tuesday that WORKS) & it was rejected here 2x -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957572

(Merely illustrating that this site, & others like it, is full of FUD spreader "penguins"... Just as Ed Bott said the other day on "penguin bullshit" to put it bluntly, right @ the outset of his article here http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539)

I'll even requote his words there now:

"The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature."

THEN, I'LL LET THE REST OF THESE FACTS ON SECURITY MOSTLY DO YOU IN, easily:

---

1st - Linux also doesn't have as high quality drivers or as many because board makers KNOW what is "running the show/market " out there, Windows - so, they cater to it immensely!

2nd - Nor does Linux have as many games, by FAR, either (this is mostly the home market in fact!)

3rd - Not only that. but Linux, in its KERNEL ONLY mind you? Has 4x the unpatched security vulnerabilities Windows 7 has (which IS a complete "distro" with all of its parts, not just a kernel only)!

4th - Despite all those "Open 'SORES'" eyes (most of whom couldn't code to SAVE THEIR LIVES mind you) allegedly poring over Linux code, how come it has that many more unpatched bugs than Windows 7 has, hmmm??

Closed source is HARDER for hacker/crackers to attack as well, because you're stuck either disassembling it (especially tough with kernel level debuggers) OR fuzzing it, either is tougher than searching out problems in Linux, which you just load into a compiler & step trace its "Open 'SORES'" code with to find screwups in security... hence it still has more security bugs, AND, they are unpatched (despite all the "Open 'SORES'" eyes poring over it, lol!)

Fact, period!

5th - In fact, Linux's kernel ALONE has 4x the # of unpatched bugs the ENTIRE SUITE/ARRAY OF WHAT MICROSOFT GIVES YOU TO DO BUSINESS & DEVELOPMENT WITH!

Proof? Ok:

This data's ALL from a respected source (secunia.com) for known security vulnerabilities unpatched:

---

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft SQL Server 2008: (11/05/2011)

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21744/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 1 Secunia advisories)

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.x: (11/05/2011)

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/17543/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 6 Secunia advisories)

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010: (11/05/2011)

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/28234/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 0 Secunia advisories)

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010: (11/05/2011)

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/29809/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 3 Secunia advisories)

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010: (11/05/2011)

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/34343/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 1 Secunia advisories)

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Bas

Those need NOT apply vs. facts, where myself, "Mr. Anonymous" has KICKED YOUR ASS with facts (& with mostly VERY RECENT DATA on security & more) right here-> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957838

Yea... Ed Bott's COMPLETELY RIGHT about Linux Penguin FUD & said it @ the start of his article here the other day (which I will requote it in fact):

"The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." Ed Bott - ZDNet from -> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

* Your EFFETE & WEAK illogical off topic adhominem attack FAILS HUGELY in light of that, & the documented, concrete, visible & verifiable FACTS about security (mostly) in the 1st URL link above...

APK

P.S.=> So, "read 'em & weep" you FUD spreading little bullshit artist "penguins", especially in the 1st link above

Face it - you made the WRONG choice & you're nearly extinct as is in marketshare and YOU KNOW IT!

(However, every reply to those facts here? I saw NOTHING but resorting first to FUD, & then when you're shot-down as I have yourself & others here? Well, we see how you respond with illogical off topic adhominem attacks instead... not disproving my facts, that's NOT possible, but instead acting like GOSSIPING HAGS & FUD SPREADERS!)... you all make me LAUGH!

... apk

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2510534&cid=37957572

"Eat your words" & don't wonder WHY Linux is in "last place" amongst the "big 3" OS out there and why /.'s losing readers

* Yes... it's largely because folks are WISE TO YOUR FUD SPREADING BULLSHIT!

(Slashdot's known to have been losing readership, & fud spreading dorks like you ARE the cause of it!)

APK

P.S.=> Little dickweeds like you make me ill... & small wonder /.'s losing readers - others are more informed too & are realizing the FUD campaigns you losers are resorting to, like Ed Bott said here -> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539 & I will quote him on it:

"The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature."

You exemplify his point there, right @ the outset of his article, to a tee...

... apk

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Just as Mr. Bott said right @ the outset of his article: "The campaign to spread FUD about Windows 8 is picking up momentum. In the past week, high-profile Linux advocates have tried to add fear, uncertainty, and doubt into what should be a smooth process for implementing a new next-generation security feature." from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/leading-pc-makers-confirm-no-windows-8-plot-to-lock-out-linux/4185?tag=nl.e539

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Don't leave out the big boys... McAfee has twice released an update that deleted (not quarantined) critical Windows system files with no confirmation; those files were not infected, they were bog-standard OS files.

I'll link to Bott's post on the subject, for additional irony.

Okay, I'll bite. Let's take this article as a fine example of his work:

Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:

People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems.

Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, thatâ(TM)s actually pretty close to the truth.

Bott takes a provocative approach by claiming to "turn the argument around" using "equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish"--then implicitly claims it's "close to the truth." In other words, he's essentially linking malware authors with people who are attempting to drive users toward alternative OSes like Linux. Is it a joke? Maybe, but his last statement leaves one wondering if he really does believe it.

He claims that UEFI will magically prevent rootkits from working simply because the BIOS will then be able to detect mangled files. I'm not sure Bott fully understands the purpose of a rootkit, but if one were well designed, UEFI will achieve nothing toward this goal. Indeed, unless UEFI contained signatures for all Windows system files, I'm quite certain that it would be fairly easy for an interested party to circumvent. After all, the objective of a rootkit is to hide the rootkit from examination, and running one under UEFI would simply require hooking into the OS at points that the UEFI does not check. But no, Bott seems to espouse this technology as magical!

Let's not stop there.

In this article, Bott's original post immediately presumes that the reports of MSE incorrectly flagging Chrome as malware were the fault of the users downloading compromised versions or installing on a compromised Windows install. It seems that it never occurred to him that it could have been a false positive in MSE until after it was confirmed with MS.

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Oh, and then there's this wonderful masterpiece in which Bott proudly declares Microsoft's victory. While this may be true--Linux on the desktop is unlikely to become a reality--you have to dig a bit to find that he concedes, quote, "On the server side, of course, Microsoft continues to acknowledge that Unix and Linux are strong competitors." You can tell he was salivating over the prospect, though, never mind that Android is, essentially, Linux under the hood.

And what about his article The Hidden Costs of Running Windows on a Mac? Not only does he go out of his way to point out that you have to buy licenses (hint to you, Mr Bott: you're still buying OEM Windows licenses when you buy a Dell), but he points out possible performance issues and the likes. Honestly, I think this is a true shill piece; if someone has decided that they want to run Windows on their

Okay, I'll bite. Let's take this article as a fine example of his work:

Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:

People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems.

Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, thatâ(TM)s actually pretty close to the truth.

Bott takes a provocative approach by claiming to "turn the argument around" using "equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish"--then implicitly claims it's "close to the truth." In other words, he's essentially linking malware authors with people who are attempting to drive users toward alternative OSes like Linux. Is it a joke? Maybe, but his last statement leaves one wondering if he really does believe it.

He claims that UEFI will magically prevent rootkits from working simply because the BIOS will then be able to detect mangled files. I'm not sure Bott fully understands the purpose of a rootkit, but if one were well designed, UEFI will achieve nothing toward this goal. Indeed, unless UEFI contained signatures for all Windows system files, I'm quite certain that it would be fairly easy for an interested party to circumvent. After all, the objective of a rootkit is to hide the rootkit from examination, and running one under UEFI would simply require hooking into the OS at points that the UEFI does not check. But no, Bott seems to espouse this technology as magical!

Let's not stop there.

In this article, Bott's original post immediately presumes that the reports of MSE incorrectly flagging Chrome as malware were the fault of the users downloading compromised versions or installing on a compromised Windows install. It seems that it never occurred to him that it could have been a false positive in MSE until after it was confirmed with MS.

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Oh, and then there's this wonderful masterpiece in which Bott proudly declares Microsoft's victory. While this may be true--Linux on the desktop is unlikely to become a reality--you have to dig a bit to find that he concedes, quote, "On the server side, of course, Microsoft continues to acknowledge that Unix and Linux are strong competitors." You can tell he was salivating over the prospect, though, never mind that Android is, essentially, Linux under the hood.

And what about his article The Hidden Costs of Running Windows on a Mac? Not only does he go out of his way to point out that you have to buy licenses (hint to you, Mr Bott: you're still buying OEM Windows licenses when you buy a Dell), but he points out possible performance issues and the likes. Honestly, I think this is a true shill piece; if someone has decided that they want to run Windows on their

Okay, I'll bite. Let's take this article as a fine example of his work:

Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:

People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems.

Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, thatâ(TM)s actually pretty close to the truth.

Bott takes a provocative approach by claiming to "turn the argument around" using "equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish"--then implicitly claims it's "close to the truth." In other words, he's essentially linking malware authors with people who are attempting to drive users toward alternative OSes like Linux. Is it a joke? Maybe, but his last statement leaves one wondering if he really does believe it.

He claims that UEFI will magically prevent rootkits from working simply because the BIOS will then be able to detect mangled files. I'm not sure Bott fully understands the purpose of a rootkit, but if one were well designed, UEFI will achieve nothing toward this goal. Indeed, unless UEFI contained signatures for all Windows system files, I'm quite certain that it would be fairly easy for an interested party to circumvent. After all, the objective of a rootkit is to hide the rootkit from examination, and running one under UEFI would simply require hooking into the OS at points that the UEFI does not check. But no, Bott seems to espouse this technology as magical!

Let's not stop there.

In this article, Bott's original post immediately presumes that the reports of MSE incorrectly flagging Chrome as malware were the fault of the users downloading compromised versions or installing on a compromised Windows install. It seems that it never occurred to him that it could have been a false positive in MSE until after it was confirmed with MS.

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Oh, and then there's this wonderful masterpiece in which Bott proudly declares Microsoft's victory. While this may be true--Linux on the desktop is unlikely to become a reality--you have to dig a bit to find that he concedes, quote, "On the server side, of course, Microsoft continues to acknowledge that Unix and Linux are strong competitors." You can tell he was salivating over the prospect, though, never mind that Android is, essentially, Linux under the hood.

And what about his article The Hidden Costs of Running Windows on a Mac? Not only does he go out of his way to point out that you have to buy licenses (hint to you, Mr Bott: you're still buying OEM Windows licenses when you buy a Dell), but he points out possible performance issues and the likes. Honestly, I think this is a true shill piece; if someone has decided that they want to run Windows on their

Okay, I'll bite. Let's take this article as a fine example of his work:

Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:

People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems.

Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, thatâ(TM)s actually pretty close to the truth.

Bott takes a provocative approach by claiming to "turn the argument around" using "equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish"--then implicitly claims it's "close to the truth." In other words, he's essentially linking malware authors with people who are attempting to drive users toward alternative OSes like Linux. Is it a joke? Maybe, but his last statement leaves one wondering if he really does believe it.

He claims that UEFI will magically prevent rootkits from working simply because the BIOS will then be able to detect mangled files. I'm not sure Bott fully understands the purpose of a rootkit, but if one were well designed, UEFI will achieve nothing toward this goal. Indeed, unless UEFI contained signatures for all Windows system files, I'm quite certain that it would be fairly easy for an interested party to circumvent. After all, the objective of a rootkit is to hide the rootkit from examination, and running one under UEFI would simply require hooking into the OS at points that the UEFI does not check. But no, Bott seems to espouse this technology as magical!

Let's not stop there.

In this article, Bott's original post immediately presumes that the reports of MSE incorrectly flagging Chrome as malware were the fault of the users downloading compromised versions or installing on a compromised Windows install. It seems that it never occurred to him that it could have been a false positive in MSE until after it was confirmed with MS.

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Oh, and then there's this wonderful masterpiece in which Bott proudly declares Microsoft's victory. While this may be true--Linux on the desktop is unlikely to become a reality--you have to dig a bit to find that he concedes, quote, "On the server side, of course, Microsoft continues to acknowledge that Unix and Linux are strong competitors." You can tell he was salivating over the prospect, though, never mind that Android is, essentially, Linux under the hood.

And what about his article The Hidden Costs of Running Windows on a Mac? Not only does he go out of his way to point out that you have to buy licenses (hint to you, Mr Bott: you're still buying OEM Windows licenses when you buy a Dell), but he points out possible performance issues and the likes. Honestly, I think this is a true shill piece; if someone has decided that they want to run Windows on their

Yes, consumers might put up with that shit, but businesses won't.

If you say so.

I did a bit of research and you appear to be right that Microsoft later ended up releasing a correction stating that "no x86 emulation" doesn't mean "no desktop applications".

Yea, during year 2006, Office in fact was a big target of zero-day attacks, forcing MS to released Office 2003 SP3 in Sept 2007, and also MOICE around the same time which converts files to OOXML in a sandbox before opening it. Later MS introduced Office File Protection in Office 2010 and later backported this to 2003/2007 which validates Office binary formats before opening it.

What I wonder is what the differences are between the PA-RISC design from HP and the various ARM chips. They are both RISC types and I am sort of surprised that HP does not go with its own CPU architecture. What is the "magic sause" in ARM?

They are probably scared of oracle "doing an Itanium" on them.

I think it is in place to post the following information about files systems and the risk of data corruption:

(the information within this post is derived from a forum discussion with a user named "Kebabbert" so credits should go to him(/her never met him irl) for the excellent information on this post)

Regarding shortcomings in hardware RAID, here is a whole PhD dissertation showing that normal file systems are unreliable:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/ [...] t-risk/169

Dr. Prabhakaran found that ALL the file systems shared

...ad hoc failure handling and a great deal of illogical inconsistency in failure policy...such inconsistency leads to substantially different detection and recovery strategies under similar fault scenarios, resulting in unpredictable and often undesirable fault-handling strategies.

We observe little tolerance to transient failures;...none of the file systems can recover from partial disk failures, due to a lack of in-disk redundancy.

Regarding shortcomings in hardware RAID:

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/adsl/Public [...] fast08.pdf

"Detecting and recovering from data corruption requires protection techniques beyond those provided by the disk drive. In fact, basic protection schemes such as RAID [13] may also be unable to detect these problems.
..
As we discuss later, checksums do not protect against all forms of corruption"

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/adsl/Public [...] icde10.pdf

"Recent work has shown that even with sophisticated RAID protection strategies, the "right" combination of a single fault and certain repair activities (e.g., a parity scrub) can still lead to data loss [19]."

CERN discusses how their data was corrupted in spite of hardware RAID:

http://storagemojo.com/2007/09/19/ [...] -research/

Here is a whole site that only talks about the lacks and shortcomings in RAID-5:

http://www.baarf.com

Lacks and shortcomings in RAID-6:

http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel [...] /raid6.pdf

"The paper explains that the best RAID-6 can do is use probabilistic methods to distinguish between single and dual-disk corruption, eg. "there are 95% chances it is single-disk corruption so I am going to fix it assuming that, but there are 5% chances I am going to actually corrupt more data, I just can't tell". I wouldn't want to rely on a RAID controller that takes gambles :-)"

In other words, RAID-5 and RAID-6 are not safe at all and if you care about your data you should migrate to other solutions. In the past the disks were small and you were much less likely to run into problems. Today when the hard drives are big and RAID clusters are even bigger you are much more likely to run inte problems. Assume that there is a 0.00001% chance that you run into problems, if the hard drives are large and fast enough you will run into problems quite frequently.

Here http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704

and here http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1885098&cid=34360492

* So - Not only are you an admitted "self-absorbed jerk", but you have a tendency to open your mouth & insert foot (as you did vs. myself regarding multithreaded coding, how it's done, with actual EXAMPLES I've written that still exist online in actual programs... which mind you? You have NONE to show for yourself, and yet you said I was just "talk"? LMAO!)

APK

P.S.=> I also agree that Steve Jobs was just a mass of rich man money "p.r.", he's FAR from an "inventor" that the presses seem to be trying to make he out as, posthumously. In fact, I respect Bill Gates FAR MORE, because he actually did do work in coding @ least, ala http://www.zdnet.com/blog/murphy/bill-gates-programmer/640 ...

Yes, because it was and STILL IS, guys like Steve Wozniak that actually DO create things for the better, & not just some "10,000 foot view idea outline" that any dimwit "visionary" (that makes me laugh that term, it honestly does) can merely state, but it's an entirely DIFFERENT THING, actually doing the work & details ("where the devils are"), to make them happen...

A trait you've already SHOWN you're not very good at demonstrating yourself (per the url links above) showing YOU ARE "ALL TALK", & no actual visible proofs of things you've done whatsoever, whereas when you confronted myself on that note?

LMAO - You had to "EAT YOUR WORDS, flavored with 'the bitter taste of your own defeat' you only brought on yourself, with your BIG mouth (lots of hot air/wind, but no proofs of having done what was discussed, multithreaded code, yourself, above)...

... apk

No, you talk as if someone is forcing rms' talks on us or rms is forced to give these talks. You can't complain about how trivial you think his conditions are without looking foolish for having been given a chance to see those conditions beforehand. Those people are now getting this information in advance of an rms talk and could choose to say to him that they find the terms too "extreme" to agree with and break the agreement. The point here goes to rms for being so straightforward about what he wants.

rms is not putting on a power display, getting "people [to] jump through flaming hoops for [him]", or "show[ing] their superiority" (although some people who ought to know better get his movement wrong so clearly he possesses superior knowledge of his movement). rms disagrees with some of the all-too-often unspoken underlying assumptions behind proprietary software, and he doesn't like the effects it has on the public.

Giving an arranged lecture is not like standing in line, and rms would never have anything to do with buying a computer he couldn't fully control. His dedication to an ethical standard that benefits the public without controlling them, keeping them on a purchasing treadmill, or denying them software freedom is what separates him from Wozniak. And we're all better off for having more people of rms' high ethical standards in our lives. "Normalcy" should be defined by our respect for our mutual freedom, not our subservience.

Therefore you should acknowledge how organized, honest, and complete rms is and thank him for being so clear with everyone he talks with, even if you don't agree with his values.

There are plenty of people who have never seen a line of source code and have no idea what a bootloader is, that still know enough to be interested in updates to the OSes of both their PCs and mobile devices. Information about major Android releases are found in fairly mainstream tech and news sites.

Example:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/top-10-features-in-android-23-gingerbread/2143

"User features

      1. New on-screen keyboard. The standard keyboard has been greatly improved in Android 2.3, with faster input and more intuitive typing. Even cut-and-paste got a makeover.
      2. Streamlined user interface. New color schemes and various UI changes and polish make Android more consistent and simpler to use.
      3. Application and power management. Android 2.3 provides better insight into what is running in the background, how much memory and CPU time it is using, and even lets you kill misbehaving apps. Yes, after months of telling us we don’t need a task killer, they give us a task killer. Enjoy your chuckle, iPhone fans.
      4. SIP Internet calling. Voice over IP is integrated directly into Android 2.3. Unfortunately you’ll have to get a SIP account from a third party, and the ability might be curtailed on some carriers.
      5. Download management. All your downloads from your browser, email, and other apps, can now be viewed and controlled from one place."

You don't have to know about rooting, bootloaders, open-source, or coding to have some understanding of the above points and potentially be interested. There are many levels of technical ability between "I compile my own Android builds for fun!" and "Does this here phone thing have the GeeBees and the Why-Fis and play them Angry Birds"

You thought wrong.

Did you actually read the article you linked to? Microsoft denies it, yes, but the article seems to come up with the same conclusion, that they did use Google to get some of their results (obviously, they can't use Google for **all** their results, because they'd lose their #1 ranking for many of their own internet properties, not something that they would want).

Just read the quote from Bing's Vice President, Harry Shum, on that very same article you linked to. His denial is so guarded, tangential, and so carefully well-crafted, that it's not telling us anything of what really happened. His failed attempt at obfuscation is pretty damning. If you ask me, he should just have kept his mouth shut.

You thought wrong.

They're suing Samsung because Samsung is ripping them off. That shot isn't from a iPad.

IBM Global Services is so badly run that customer have to sue them to get out of contracts:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/texas-warns-ibm-on-failed-data-center-consolidation/10370

And that's hardly an isolated incident. You can't believe how inept IBM GS is. Like, they have retarded people working as upper management.

No, I'm not exaggerating.

If this is the person who was in charge, IBM is so screwed. It will be fun watching them fail, as I have had to live with IBM's incompetence for years.

Post as AC for my job's sake.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/after-the-iphone-4s-android-just-feels-wrong/5068 Android - it's good enough! (TM)

The actual limit is 500 emails per day per recipient [1]. Still not optimal but much harder to run into for smaller businesses.

Nope. Cisco's trademark of the name iPhone had been lost through non-use. Cisco tried deception to claim they had still been using it. See the outrageously amateur mockup of a box with the word "iPhone" on a sticker outside the shrink-wrap.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/cisco-lost-rights-to-iphone-trademark-last-year-experts-say/236

1- I don't know of any good-quality power supply below about $60. Good quality means Japanese capacitor, low ripple, good resistance to micro cuts, no lead, good current on the 12V rail, at least bronze-level efficiency, silence, and so on. Cheap no-name PS eventually fail, sometime taking the whole PC with them. Most people dismiss the PS, but it is an essential investment in a piece of equipment that runs all the time.

Read this for instance.

2- On a homebrew NAS you want to run ZFS, you really do. In fact this is the number one reason to build a homebrew NAS because the commercial ones never support it. This requires approximately 1GB of RAM per terabyte of data for good performance. ZFS essentially eliminates the possibility that your RAID becomes invalid and unrecoverable due to too many bad silent blocks. Read this.

3- For ZFS, the recommended setup is the equivalent of RAID6 as soon as you hit 4 disks of data, and to split arrays beyond 6 disks of data.

RAID 6 is only needed when it's possible for a drive to fail, and then for another to fail while the array is still recovering

That is precisely the problem. Your array may have already failed without you knowing it. If there is a single unreadable bad block anywhere on the "good" disks while your array is being rebuilt, the reconstruction is impossible with most hardware and software RAID solutions. You have already lost your array completely.

RAID is far from the panacea it is sold to be, in fact it is now an obsolete solution to a real problem.

BAH! Sure,that's not bad to do, but if one drive does go tits up, then you (home user) order a replacement, wait, get new drive, try to rebuild, what's the chances just one in 7 of those remaining 2tb drives has just one read error? If so, raid array rebuild fails.

We're approaching the per-disk capacity and failure rate where raid 5 isn't enough (there's an EXCELLENT article on this somewhere - looked it up... I think this was it: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162)

For comments about backups... my only real plan on using some consumer level external raid array would be for backup purposes. I should have a backup for my backup, but then it's turtles all the way down.

Rene Engelhard , who is the principle maintainer of the OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice packages in Debian, is a member of LibreOffice’s Engineering Steering Committee. About the transition to LibreOffice, he said, "I am sure Debian and its users will benefit greatly from this transition; I expect not only an improved collaboration but also quicker development cycles." LibreOffice packages have already replaced OpenOffice packages in Unstable and Testing. There are backports for Debian 6.0 if you desire. When you upgrade to the next release, you will be migrated to LibreOffice. For more information see: http://debian.stevenrosenberg.net/index.php/2011/06/27/official-debian-announcement-on-the-move-from-openoffice-to-libreoffice/ http://ostatic.com/blog/debian-dumps-openoffice-for-libreoffice Red Hat is also a major contributor to LibreOffice: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/oracle-suse-red-hat-drive-70-of-libreoffice-development/9324 And it has the full support of Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/LibreOffice So, you are correct that not all Linux users have switched to LibreOffice. But it is true to say that all the Linux distributions have dropped OpenOffice.

And a few hours later right here on Slashdot (which IMO is *not* a social site like Facebook) comes a perfect example of why I say stay off of Facebook

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-releasing-your-personal-data-reveals-our-trade-secrets/4552

No, actually, you're supposed to be quite dead, I'm afraid:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/rest-in-peace-roland-piquepaille/11430

Censorship, not compliance[duh]

See also:
Here's the one Microsoft Windows 8 slide that everyone wants to redo

Anyway you look at it, C# isn't going anywhere.

...and phone call state (so that it can back off if you get a call)

No, all Android apps have to back off when you get a call. That's not a permission, that's an absolute requirement.

And yes, older Android apps have this permission required by default (so the user sees it), but you should be starting to see this permission used for no reason less and less now as this is only for apps that still target API level 3 (and that only represents 1.1% of the user phones right now).

IBM has donated their code to Apache and the OpenOffice.org project so hopefully IBM's code will make it into OO.o and perhaps LibreOffice http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/ibm-throws-its-source-code-and-support-behind-openoffice/9240

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ou/proof-that-antivirus-software-makes-your-pc-crawl/327 >>The desktop Antivirus suites all appear to make your PC run slower than a 5 year old computer when it comes to slowing hard drive I/O down which is the biggest factor in PC wait times. Norton Internet Security 2006 was the worst resource hog, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8 was the second worst, It's only the second worst! This is from 2006, but we both know they haven't improved since.