Slashback: Deception, Fusion, Membership

Slashback arrives tonight with updates on the lukewarm path to cold fusion, one more update on what Microsoft claims is "the way out" (really, this time), a hopeful look at Mandrake's Club, and more -- read on below for the details.

"Congratulations! You may already own goats.cx!" King Mongo writes: "Well, well. First Verisign sent mail to trick domain owners into switching registrars ( as described earlier on Slashdot ); today I received a similar letter from Verisign asking me to renew cruel-intention.com with them. The problem is, I never bought cruel-intention.com and I've never used Verisign as a registrar. But what's this? Whois says I've owned it since September 2001? And the Technical Contact is Verisign? And it's registered for 10 years? You can bet I'll be contacting my state AG, as well as the USPS Inspectors' office; what if the domain name was offensive, or actionable (it may even be a DMCA violation)? Verisign has taken it upon themselves to hijack my identity and expose me to litigation! At least they let me know!"

Port softly, and carry a big Club. joestar writes: "Just seen in Mandrake Linux news... It seems that the recent call for Mandrake Club subscriptions had a double effect: it was a financial success for MandrakeSoft ($390,000 since the Club was first created on November 28th, 2001), and at the same time it generated lots of questions about this new approach of doing business with Free-Software. In a really interesting message, MandrakeSoft's CEO Jacques Le Marois gives all details about the Club results and why and how they are currently inventing a new business model dedicated to Free-Software oriented companies, since the traditional business models fail for these companies. Actually I'm impressed."

OK, perhaps we only have the way sideways. gh0ul writes "news.com is featuring an article regarding Microsoft and Unisys' joint venture to steer companies/individuals away from Unix and branch in to the corporate servers based on Windows2000. With all the negative impact towards 'wehavethewayout.com', im supprised they kept it going.. guess that $28 million matters.."

We've patented that way to think, sorry. An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Symantec marketing droids are on the rampage again. After patenting their definition update technology, this time they patented heuristic virus scanning. When will this insanity end? :P"

I'll believe it when it's powering my air-car. abburdlen writes: "A month ago an article in the Journal Science appeared hyping the possibility of tabletop fusion. Quick summary: Sonoluminescence in heavy acetone ... temperature of collapsing bubbles reaching temperature hotter than the Sun ... evidence of fusion. There was some excitement. There were also many initial skeptics. Looks like the doubtful win again. From the APS, 'The possibility of a major discovery has been obscured by substandard experimental techniques.' Ouch."

One day we'll all have decent bandwidth, right? Pathway writes "I know this has been looked at by slashdot before, but here's a good update comparing the Zipp Fiber to the Terabyte Triangle in Spokane at thelocalplanet.com. In the article, they compare how one prodject is so successful, while the other is foundering. It's a good read."

Comments

Mirrors.

[saintlupus]

why and how they are currently inventing a new business model dedicated to Free-Software oriented companies, since the traditional business models fail for these companies.

Hey, how about some dedicated FTP bandwidth for club members? I know the release of the PPC-8.2 may well flatten the public servers.

--saint

Re:Mirrors.

[fmaxwell]

Hey, how about some dedicated FTP bandwidth for club members? I know the release of the PPC-
8.2 may well flatten the public servers.

I am sure that all 26 of you guys will be able to get your copies without too much of a problem.

PowerPCs make up all of about 5% of the market. What percentage of PowerPC users run something other than a Mac OS? About a tenth of a percent? Yeah, that's going to be a crushing demand. I hope that the Internet backbone providers can handle the traffic. Maybe Mandrake can add a few dozen OC-3 lines to handle the traffic if they release a DEC Alpha version of Mandrake 8.2.

Note to moderators: If you feel the need to mod this comment down, may I suggest Flamebait? "Troll" is really not right since I'm expressing my actual opinion, though in an offensive and confrontational manner. Also, since I am at 50 Karma points, I suggest first modding this up to +5 and then down to -1 to get the maximum effect (-6 karma points).

Re:Mirrors.

[saintlupus]

I am sure that all 26 of you guys will be able to get your copies without too much of a problem.

Hrm. Good point. I suppose Mandrake did well to stay with PPC rather than venturing into the high demand world of Linux on m68k or MIPS.

[/sarcasm]

--saint

Re:Mirrors.

[bcrowell]

Yeah, you're right -- they're definitely going to need to offer members something real for their money in order to reach the membership numbers they're talking about. Right now, basically all you get is the ability to download some closed-source software, which is kinda lame -- people don't run Linux in order to run closed source. I bought one of Mandrake's boxed distributions, and am using it now, but I'm not even tempted to join the club based on what they're offering now.

I also don't understand how they can claim 3 million users worldwide. Where would numbers that high come from? They'd have to be desktop users, since most users are desktop users. Let's say there are a billion computer users worldwide, and 0.5% of them (according to a recent Slashdot story) use Linux. That makes 5 million desktop Linux users worldwide. How can 3 million of them be using Mandrake? Is Mandrake really more popular on the desktop than every other Linux distro put together?? I suspect they're double-counting people. After all, it's notoriously difficult for web sites to get accurate counts of unique visitors.

Re:Mirrors.

[BlueLines]

when i first read this, i though this was a new "BSD is Dying" troll. heh.

-BlueLines

Re:Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 0.5% figure was a really strange figure. From the stats of sites I manage it's closer to 4 or 5%.

Re:Mirrors.

[agallagh42]

...and what kind of sites do you manage? Geek related, or sites of interest to the general public? I'm sure it would make a hell of a difference in the stats.

Re:Mirrors.

[dev_sda]

Actually a large percentage of us actually run linux. Sure, 5% doesn't sound like a big number but when you apply that to the number of desktop systems in use out there today, there's definitely a PPC market.

Going with pure speculation, lets assume 50 million desktops in use out there today. 5% of 50 million being 2.5 million machintosh systems.

Now assume, just for fun, that only about .5% ( an underestimate just to be on the safe side) of us mac users are curious about linux enough to want to try installing, that leaves 125,000 people who want to or are running linux on their Macs.

And specifically, of those 125,000 people say about half of them are absolutely fanatical geeks who probably also have a PC, and other systems, and try out EVERYTHING, you're looking at 75,000 people who are going to want to download the latest ISOs AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Sounds like a bandwidth issue to me.

When Yellow Dog Linux released the ISO's for YDL 2.0 for public download, they ended up with a SEVERE network issue which lasted for the better part of a month, finally requiring them to upgrade their line.

/dev/sda

Re:Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Government websites, mostly. Though on my personal site (not really geeky - it's a blog) it's about 3%.

Re:Mirrors.

[amaprotu]

First, .5% of 2.5mil is 12,500 not 125,000, putting your "people downloading" number at 7,500. Or did you mean 1 it 20 people with a PPC is going to try linux?

Well the PC market they deal with every release, if we use your same percentages, is:

95% of 50mil = 47,500,000. .5% of that is 237,000, half of which you think will download as soon as it comes out - 118,500 people. Unless you did mean 5% not .5% in which case 1,185,000 people try to download on every major release.

Since their system is set up to handle, at least marginally well, the 118 thousand people, I don't think it will have a problem with 7.5 thousand people.

Re:Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that in a way upset the open source community because of the "favoritism" that we would profess that they were having and the "elitism" we would probably accuse them of if they were to allow higher bandwidth for some.

"We have the way out"

[andres32a]

Both Microsoft and Unisys have declined to comment on the cause of the outage. It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

Yeah sure... millions of slashdotters thought that they could actually find a way out from Micro$oft!!!!!

Re:"We have the way out"

[hobbesx]

It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site

Uhm... Wouldn't they be able to count the submitted records of the site?

MS PR Guy #1: They want a statement to explain why the site went down!

MS PR Guy #2: I got it! Our product can't handle a load; on top of that, it was so bad, we don't even know if we actually got any data from the form!

Wait a tic...

Re:"We have the way out"

[Equinox]

Reminds me of when they're DNS servers were hac^H^H^H altered. They said it may have been a DoS or a failing router...

Re:"We have the way out"

[DuncanMurray]

That's not true - I rang them and they said it was caused by 'SOLAR FLARES'

Re:"We have the way out"

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests"

They didn't know in time to tell the press because they're still on the phone waiting for Support to help them figure out their problem.

Re:"We have the way out"

[Jaysyn]

You have got to admire M$ spindoctors...

Jaysyn

Re:"We have the way out"

[darien]

Blaming everything on Sun again. :)

Re:"We have the way out"

[smyle]

Well, it was capitalized.

"hotter than the Sun" is no big deal
"hotter than the sun" is

cool! (oh wait)

[phrontist]

Desktop Fusion would be incredible but I doubt this will work. I mean if it reaces temps hotter then the sun how can I keep it on my desk?

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[NanoGator]

Obviously you're not an AMD owner...

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Anonymous Coward]

By never going within a few miles of your desk.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Cenam]

umm..your a moron..lmao..it is in a very small area, it barly puts out enough energy to warm the water, though that was probably the room warming it and they just fucked up, it dosn't look like sonoluminescence has enough energy to fuel it..

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[thelizman]

The trick is between thermal energy and heat. In order for thermal energy to become heat, it has to move. That basic symantic trick is why you can hold the edges of a thermal tile off of the space shuttle in your hand while the inside is nearly a thousand degrees.

Too bad it turned out to be for not...I was having dreams of fusion powered beowulf clusters...(had to say it : )

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[MegaGremlin]

Here's a vastly oversimplified reason you could probably keep it on your desk:

If you have enough energy to raise one molecule of acetone by 1,000,000 centigrade degrees, you also only have enough energy to raise 1,000,000 molecules of acetone by 1 centigrade degree.

That one molecule would be spectacularly hot, but the amount of energy in relation to the mass of surrounding fluid (assuming a couple of liters of fluid) is fairly low. The problem would be if you get the rate of fusion too high, and raise the whole mass 1,000,000 centigrade degrees.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Winand]

Yeah, i have a hard time seeing that too. When I think of anything like a fusion reactor, I think of something at least the size of that EMP bomb used in Ocean's Eleven, the new one. You'd probably want to cover your crotch before you flipped the starter switch on.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[macrom]

Or a PIII laptop owner. My Compaq Evo will sear skin if you don't get some good ventilation on it. I guess a burned thigh is one way to get me to stop playing EverQuest.

greg

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[tzanger]

Or a PIII laptop owner. My Compaq Evo will sear skin if you don't get some good ventilation on it. I guess a burned thigh is one way to get me to stop playing EverQuest.

I'm typing on a Compaq Evo N160 right now. It actually keeps a pretty decent (warm) temperature on my lap. No searage here. (P3/1G, 256M, 14.1 TFT, 20G + DVD)

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[jamesc]

Desktop Fusion would be incredible but I doubt this will work. I mean if it reaces temps hotter then the sun how can I keep it on my desk?

Others have addressed your confusion between temperature and actual energy content, but there's one thing more: The surface of the sun is not hot enough to cause nuclear fusion. They need to get near the temperature of the Sun's core to have a chance of fusion.

Actually, it's worse than that. To get fusion you have three factors involved: temperature, time, and pressure. All three multiplied together form a fusion quality number:

temperature * time * pressure * constant

In the Sun's core all three are enormous. In the experimental reactors, the time is short (milliseconds vs. millenia) and the pressure is much less (whatever they can manage with magnetic fields and/or inertia vs. the weight of an entire star). As a result, the temperature has to be even higher than that in the Sun's core.

They can offset this by using isotopes that are easier to fuse (deuterium and tritium), but that only helps so much.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[wintermute512]

Wait, isn't the sun's corona/surface hotter than the core itself? i think i read that at one point or another. doesn't matter. virtualy no pressure in the corona, thus no fusion. and it fluxuates.
Maybe this can help explain why MS server software doesn't work. (aka, solar flares)

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Anonymous Coward]

"umm..your a moron..lmao.."

LMAO indeed, my stupid, stupid friend...

The word phrase you were going for is (i'm guessing) "you are a moron."

A contraction (combining 2 words to make 1) ALWAYS has an apostrophe. Thats this mark -> ' ' -)

Therefore, the contraction for You Are would be "you're"

When you say "your a moron" you are really telling us all that you dont have even the most basic grasp of what I assume is your mother tongue. That's pretty pathetic.

Next time, before you flame someone about looking stupid, look in the mirror.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Anonymous Coward]

No you didn't.

Re:cool! (oh wait)

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it turned out to be for not...

Should be: Too bad it turned out to be for naught.

Goats.cx?

[toupsie]

"Congratulations! You may already own goats.cx!"

I would rather own goatse.cx instead. Imagine the number of hits from losers you would get!

Re:Goats.cx?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bastard, I just clicked on your link, YYAARRRRKKKKK. >:( >:( >:(

Re:Goats.cx?

[quantaman]

Just think of all the poor /. newbies who just clicked on your highly rated link to see what it was! I never saw I would see a goatse.cx higher than -1.

Re:Goats.cx?

[s20451]

They gotta learn somehow. Come to think of it, maybe we should have some elaborate initiation ritual for newbies ... where they have to endure the trials of goatse.cx and JonKatz before earning their Slashdot membership.

Re:Goats.cx?

[Anonymous Coward]

where they have to endure the trials of goatse.cx and JonKatz before earning their Slashdot membership

You say that as if they're two different things... :P

Re:Goats.cx?

[packeteer]

hehe haha i just found out that it is I who own www.wehavethewayout.com and it turns out that it has been running off of MY apache server but the other day i had to install windows for a fmaily member and somehow it switched over ... :) who knew....

Re:Goats.cx?

[Anonymous Coward]

where they have to endure the trials of goatse.cx and JonKatz before earning their Slashdot membership

You say that as if they're two different things... :P

They ARE separate things.

...unless you know something about JonKatz we don't.

Re:Goats.cx?

[ajmarks]

The real question is: which is more painful to see, a Katz rant (also known as crapflood, a katzflood, and socialist ramblings) or goatse.cx?

Re:Goats.cx?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, they were!

Re:Goats.cx?

[PhxBlue]

I'm wondering how long it'll take Symantec to patent this, too. . .

Re:Goats.cx?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are different. One is like looking at a gaping shithole opening up and the other is a site with some odd pictures.

Check out this bullshit

[1010011010]

Both Microsoft and Unisys have declined to comment on the cause of the outage. It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

Oh yeah! Spin, baby! spin!

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Anthony Boyd]

It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

Oh yeah! Spin, baby! spin!

Couldn't this kind of almost-blatant lying (OK, OK, marketing spin) backfire? I mean, might this piss off the very people who are pounding the site? Instead of taking the site down, the black hats might instead leave the site running, but with banners such as "MS SECURITY HAS BEEN CRACKED"???

Whatever. If I were running a major public site, I might try to avoid exposing myself to crackers. I suspect a good security policy involves: patch, patch again, disable everything but the servers/daemons you need, and try not to paint a target on your ass.

Re:Check out this bullshit

[dimator]

or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

"We have the way out! (except when you get a whole mess o' hits, then we can't find the way.)"

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Toddarooski]

This ain't exactly Microsoft-spin. (I think in this case they were smart enough to keep a low profile.) Note that Microsoft and Unisys refused to comment -- the sentence you're quoting was written by the news.com reporter, and not some Microsoft PR dude.

I think instead, it's a subtle bit of sarcasm on Mr. Kanellos' part. Go back and read it again.

--

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe Verisign hijacked wehavethewayout.com and gave it to King Mongo for a few days.

"If I were King Mongo for just one day..."

Re:Check out this bullshit

[alexburke]

This amount of spin can only be generated by a buttered cat drive, thereby proving the existence of this highly secretive technology!

Re:Check out this bullshit

[cpeterso]

Both Microsoft and Unisys have declined to comment on the cause of the outage. It is unknown whether there was a technical problem at the hosting site or whether the site was merely bombarded with requests from IT managers clamoring for copies of the free papers on the site.

Not to be a wet blanket, but that sentence is obviously the article author's tongue-in-cheek comment. If Microsoft and Unisys declined to comment, then how could they say anything about clamoring IT managers?

Re:Check out this bullshit

[1010011010]

I like that theory, but I think a lot of management types are sarcasm-deaf.

Re:Check out this bullshit

[elfkicker]

The best part is, that after the mad dash to change from a BSD/Apache setup over to IIS is that they are still running a MySQL backend.

This is about as embarrassing as the time I accidentally mixed up my boss's 12 year-old son's site with shemalesonline.com

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Tony-A]

Notice the light coming from the window.
Come out of the light (of Unix) and into the darkness (of Microsoft Windows).

Re:Check out this bullshit

[MsGeek]

the sentence you're quoting was written by the news.com reporter, and not some Microsoft PR dude.

And news.com reporters *AREN'T* Microsoft PR flacks?

Re:Check out this bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to continue spinning here...

Re:Check out this bullshit

[SkyLeach]

Or perhaps the light is comming through the window, and the maze is the way out?

Very Interesting Read on Cold Fusion

[BigBlockMopar]

Professor David Goodstein of Caltech has a very interesting paper on the physics of cold fusion and the history of the initial "discovery". He doesn't predict Mr. Fusion reactors strapped to the backs of our DeLoreans anytime soon.

Re:Very Interesting Read on Cold Fusion

[Hott of the World]

But it would make those guys with white labcoats and wierd sunglasses that dig through My trash cans reeeeaaally happy! "Roads? Where we're going, we wont NEED roads." -Doc, BTTF.

Re:Very Interesting Read on Cold Fusion

[zer0*ryok0]

ashcroft: "if you purchase weapons grade plutonium... you might be a terrorist"

doc: "great scott! im supporting terrorism"

Re:Very Interesting Read on Cold Fusion

[axlrosen]

Another good overview, a little more recent, from Scientific American.

Re:Very Interesting Read on Cold Fusion

[benjaminbishop]

This new work is actually not claiming to be "cold fusion". Its actually claiming to be hot fusion in a very small place (inside a collapsing bubble). See the work for more details.

Maze

[phrontist]

wehavethewayout.com has that image with the window at the end of a maze, and it leads off to a drop. very good analogy :-) ---------- Phrontist=Geek

Re:Maze

[Anonymous Coward]

Found on LWN.net

wehave thewayin

Re:Maze

[Tony-A]

The light is coming from the maze side of the window.
They have the way out of the light into the dark.

Re:Maze

[Anonymous Coward]

wehavethewayout.com has that image with the window at the end of a maze, and it leads off to a drop. very good analogy :-)

yeah... wonder if its the same abyss the person on the win2k cd's appeared to be jumping into...

Support alternate roots

[davidu]

There is a way to begin to move away from Verisign
OpenNIC :: http://www.opennic.unrated.net/

The OpenNIC is a user owned and controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic, non-national, alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries.

Membership in the OpenNIC is open to every user of the Internet. All decisions are made either by a democratically elected administrator or through a direct ballot of the interested members and all decisions, regardless of how they are made, within OpenNIC are appealable to a vote of the general membership.

Using their root zone will have NO adverse effects on your current websurfing but it will allow you to view alternative roots which have been democratically decided upon.

Check it out!

--davidu

Re:Support alternate roots

[JLester]

The problem though is that if I want everyone to access my OpenNIC site, their ISPs must also add the OpenNIC root servers. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Jason

Re:Support alternate roots

[Anonymous Coward]

Use it anyway. When your friends discover they cannot access your site, they have a good reason to complain to their ISP, or add openDNS to their own computer.

Re:Support alternate roots

[Pathwalker]

Using their root zone will have NO adverse effects on your current websurfing but it will allow you to view alternative roots which have been democratically decided upon.

Technically, I think that this is not quite right. I believe that OpenNic does not support the icann .biz zone.
Personally, I would have a hard time finding a way to care less than I already do about anything under .biz, so I use OpenNIC as my DNS root.

Re:Support alternate roots

[krogoth]

Yes, I tried that once but they make it extremely hard for anyone who's not using OpenNIC to contact them, so I wasn't able to get it working. I might try again someday.

Re:Support alternate roots

[nicklott]

Good idea, but it doesn't fill me with confidence when the last news article is dated 2001-11-12, and half the links look broken cos they're pointing to .glue or .geek sites (Of course they would look even dumber if they didn't use their own domains, so i guess they can't win on that score). At least they have the sense to put the instructions on how to change page on the .net domain...

Re:Support alternate roots

[simonb]

And this has what to do with the price of fish?

Re:Support alternate roots

[Royster]

Use it anyway. When your friends discover they cannot access your site, they have a good reason to complain to their ISP, or add openDNS to their own computer.

I can just imagine the conversation.

friend: Dude, I can't get your site it says something about Unresolved Host Name.

you: Get your ISP to use OpenNIC!

Scenario 1:
friend: Yeah, right.

Scenario 2:
friend (to ISP): Hey I want to visit my friend's site, www.goat.geek , but he says you guys need to use OpenNIC.

ISP: Yeah, right.

friend: Dude, no go. AOL won't change nothing.

you: You can set your machine to use OpenNIC

friend: Yeah, right.

Re:Support alternate roots

[SmittyTheBold]

Maybe wehavethewayout.biz can be registered to a "our product can get you away from ICANN" site. =)

The editors are morons

[Anonymous Coward]

All these stories have been posted before. You guys are actually paying for this stuff?

I own goatse.cx

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't have it.

Re:I own goatse.cx

[Anonymous Coward]

Cory is that you?!@#?

I'm looking for "the way out"

[Pinball Wizard]

so I'm writing Perl functions to serve as drop-in replacements for people porting asp applications to perl. (I'm porting an application now, unfortunately Chilisoft asp couldn't handle the traffic this site gets).

So far I've gotten Trim, InStr, InStrRev, Left, Right, and a few others done. Having these functions really make translating the code a lot easier.

I wonder, is this too trivial to post on sourceforge? I'd love to share.

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Daniel Dvorkin]

No, it's not too trivial. Sounds like a great idea to me. Actually, I could see the use of a number of codebases to help people escape from ASP: one for Perl, one for PHP, one for JSP, etc. ...

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Why Should I]

Reply or moderate? hmmmm

I gues I just made that decision.

Some would argue that porting these functions to other languages (PHP namely) is a redundant exercise. PHP already has a wealth of string manipulation functions that go above and beyond what VB script in ASP can do.

Why not just use the superior functions in PHP?

Or better yet, why not start using the superior ones in php, whil at the same time writing wrapper calls which translate the VB calls to actual PHP calls?

Quick to comment, are you, hmmm

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple years ago, I did a project in JScript/ASP. I ended up creating a library of VBS-like string functions (well, actually String and Date methods .left() .trim() .formatDate() etc). Seemed to help some of the greener guys we had, even though the JS stuff is 'superior' (regexp based).

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Negadecimal]

so I'm writing Perl functions to serve as drop-in replacements for people porting asp applications to perl.

Ummmm... you can cover a lot of ground if you just install Apache::ASP.

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Pinball Wizard]

I thought about that, but that only solves the issue of asp's intrinsic objects(Request, Response, Session, Application, Server), not VBScript functions which still would have to be ported as Apache::ASP still requires you to use perl.

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Osty]

I wonder, is this too trivial to post on sourceforge?

Nothing is too trivial for SourceForge.

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Reality_X]

You have looked at asp2php right?
Why don't you just copy that, and make it output perl instead?

Re:I'm looking for "the way out"

[Negadecimal]

which still would have to be ported as Apache::ASP still requires you to use perl

And I'll admit that Apache::ASP has performed very poorly for me. A great idea, but probably not implemented too cleanly.

Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Jelloman]

domainnamebuyersguide.com was mentioned here about a year ago, but it's since been bought by a registrar (which is why I didn't make it a link).

Since there are so many ill-behaved registrars out there (starting with the root of all DNS evil, Verisign), I would really like to see some unbiased reviews of some of them. But Googling around, I'm having a hard time finding anything.

I'm mostly looking for a registrar whose customer agreement does not state somewhere in subparagraph J that they actually own my domain and can take it away anytime they feel like it for no good reason. I know the courts have said that they have that right anyway, at least in the US, but I'd at least prefer that they not shove it in my face.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a very happy customer of http://www.joker.com for years now. At $12/year, it's a great deal. I've never received a piece of spam from them.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[daanger0us]

I really like Dotster.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Mr_Person]

Gandi has worked great for me. Only 12 euros per year (about $10) and their terms of service are very good (you actually own the domain). They also do website and e-mail redirection for free.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

these guys seem ok... 000Domains.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[ClarkEvans]

I've also been using Gandi to great success.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Azog]

Well, back before domainnamebuyersguide was bought out, I used it to pick Domain Discover

Their prices have gone up a little since I originally registered arnor.net and my other site, but their domain registration agreement is still readable, clearly states that you own the domain, and they can only take it away according to ICANN policies or non-payment. The web site makes it easy to modify the configuration for your domains. The free features like email and web site forwarding are really useful. If I register more domains, I'll keep going there.

And I should also mention Hosting-Network, Inc where I've got my site. I'm on the $60/year plan, they don't mess with your site, server is BSD/Apache with PHP,CGI and Perl, you get email addresses, lots of webspace, and your own IP address. It rocks.

At prices like this, everyone should have their own domain, website, and set of email addresses...

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

<AOL>Me too!!!</AOL>

I've got about 12 domains hosted there, and I've gotten most of my friends to use them as well. They're great!

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[washirv]

I can't recommend gandi (www.gandi.net) highly enough. In addition to the small and entirely pro-consumer terms of service, it's really cheap: a mere $10. And since I switched to them, the email address that I use to register domain names has stopped getting spam. (The old one that I used with netsol still gets plenty). These guys are the best.
--
kurukshetra all the desi news and views you could use

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[krogoth]

Joker is an excellent registrar. They charge 12 Euros per year, they have good service, they never spam you...

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my domain is at gandi.net. They have an excellent contract in that the buyers rights are protected. And French law is pretty pro-consumer in this regard. You can update your email redirection, etc. from the web. Cheap, too.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[dOxxx]

Likewise for me as well. I haven't had any problems with Gandi except my inability to remember my password when it comes to renewing the domain... :P

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[alexo]

I got my domain name from eNom through a reseller

So far I'm happy with my decision.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've gotta throw in a plug for gkg.net, they're good, and cheap, 10/year, and I've never had a problem with them.

Re:Is there a good registrar review site anywhere?

[James_G]

Just do a search for the words 'network', 'solutions', and 'sucks' in google and you'll find everything you need to know about them.

Personally, I use gandi.net - it's cheap, and it works for me.

I utterly hate netsol/verisign and everything they represent. There's a domain I wanted to buy recently that had expired almost a year ago, and I emailed to ask when I could expect it to be deleted from their database. Here's their response and my subsequent reply:

On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 CustomerService@networksolutions.com wrote:

> >
> Thank you for contacting VeriSign.
>
> VeriSign, Inc., periodically deletes domain names that are up
> for deletion in bulk since bulk deletion better enables us to
> insure that only those domain names that are actually up for
> deletion are properly deleted (as compared to running a deletion
> process).

Excuse me?

> The dates on which these bulk deletions occur are arbitrarily
> selected by our engineering department based upon system loading
> and other technical factors. In order to protect against
> an overload of our systems, we do not disclose these deletion dates.

So, to answer my question, it appears the answer is "When we feel like
it". Since this domain has been expired for almost a year, and you do
deletions in bulk, I think it's safe to extrapolate this to mean "Never".

> You may, therefore, either continue to check our site for the
> availability of the domain name and attempt to obtain it through
> the public registration process, contact http://www.snapnames.com

Who will charge me $45 for the privilege of monitoring a domain that I'll
never be able to buy because you won't delete it from the database.

> to attempt to back-order this domain, or, in the alternative, contact
> the listed registrant directly and discuss the possibility of
> executing a registrant name change agreement.

Since the current owner is a domain squatter, indicating my interest in
the domain would undoubtedly trigger them to charge an extortionate price.
This seems extremely bizarre considering the fact that they no longer
actually own this domain. By not deleting expired records, you're
effectively saving domain squatters huge amounts of money since they don't
actually need to renew the domain to retain ownership.

> Best regards,
> pat002

Thanks, pat002. Your answer is pretty much what I had expected. I know
that there's nothing you can personally do to help me, so I'd ask that you
pass my email onto whatever superior you can. Perhaps eventually someone
will realise that it's these sort of questionable business practices that
are driving many many people to use alternate domain registrars.

Re:Twenty-first Century Slashdot Man

[NanoGator]

heh I thought this was amusing. Offtopic maybe.

Other instances? More Proof?

[sourcehunter]

"Verisign has taken it upon themselves to hijack my identity and expose me to litigation! At least they let me know!"

Has this happened to anyone else? I'm a bit skeptical of this. This could really land Verisign into some HOT HOT HOT water. It ain't like Verisign is going to target ONE person. If this has only happened to ONE person, then perhaps someone else registered the domain. What other domains does this guy have? Anything similar? Info Info info!!!! The slashback doesn't give much!

Re:Other instances? More Proof?

[simetra]

I'm guessing that some flunky at Verisign make a type on someone's NIC handle, and it all went to hell from there.

Re:Other instances? More Proof?

[drudd]

A very similar thing happened to me, except I actually recieved a bill for someone else's domain!

I notified (networksolutions at the time) them about their error and they actually wanted me to fax them a copy of my driver's license to verify my identity!

I finally emailed the admin contact listed for the domain and told them if they wanted their domain they needed to sort things out.

As it turned out, it was a stupid data entry error by some minimum wage slave... they mistyped one character and assigned me as the billing contact rather than the correct person...

For the life of me I can't understand how this company is still in business.... I have had nothing but problems whenever I delt with them, and their prices are inordiate...

Doug

Re:Other instances? More Proof?

[jachim69]

Besides the fact that they're at least twice as expensive, their update and change system is a piece of crap. There's no way (that I've seen) to do instant updates through a web form. You want me to send a perfectly formatted email from one specific email address? I don't think so.

We've migrated all our clients to jumpdomain.com com and saved them $20 a year and ourselves loads of headaches.

Re:Other instances? More Proof?

[slykens]

You want me to send a perfectly formatted email from one specific email address? I don't think so.

Ah, and some of us still long for those days when that was the only way. Not NetSol being the only registrar but the simplicity of emailing in a change and having it go in the next database update.

Fond memories.

Re:Other instances? More Proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

On a similar note, I sent in a change request to my contact record to update my address and it was rejected because it said I had multiple contact records. It said to delete the extra contact record and try again. I looked it up and, sure enough, there were two contact records. It was setup as a technical contact to a domain earthlink used to deliver mail to our company. In this case it was a domain for our company but it always bothered me that I could be assigned to a domain without my knowledge.

What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[(H)elix1]

Jumping over to The Register

But is the site itself entirely clean? The server yesterday revealed that some interesting ports were left open. The most interesting of which is port 3306, which is used by MySQL and Postgres. Since wehavethewayout.com was a BSD/Apache combination, it was almost certainly running an open source database, too. While Unisys has switched the front-end server to Windows IIS, the most likely explanation for keeping this port open is that the back-end still interfaces to a MySQL database. MySQL is cross platform, and there's a Windows version too. This would certainly make for a rapid port, as it doesn't require a rewrite of the cgi scripts.

Oh, will the pain never end (grin)...

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[plugger]

Surely those ports should be closed to traffic originating from the internet? I would have expected the actual database box to be behind the firewall, and only accepting requests from the public webserver.

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[brer_rabbit]

fyi-- port 3306 is typically MySQL, not PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL typically runs on 5432.

Still, it's a fair assumption they were running MySQL. Possibly just out of the box -- does MySQL listen to a network port by default? PostgreSQL only listens on unix domain sockets by default, you actually have to edit the config to get it to listen to the network.

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[tzanger]

The most interesting of which is port 3306, which is used by MySQL and Postgres.

Postgres (at least on my systems) defaults to tcp/5432.

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[G Money]

Ya, MySQL listens on 3306 by default, open to the whole world on my machine. It also uses root as the default account (not that it's any better than the default of postgres on PostgreSQL).

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[brer_rabbit]

Ya, MySQL listens on 3306 by default, open to the whole world on my machine. It also uses root as the default account (not that it's any better than the default of postgres on PostgreSQL).

wait a minute, how can you argue that using root is better than a non-priveleged account? Is the postgres account is compromised, they get postgres data. If root is compromised, they get the keys to your car.

Re:What DB is wehavethewayout.com?

[spauldo]

The 'root' mysql account isn't related to the 'root' unix account. Mysql traditionally doesn't run as root anyway - it runs (usually) as user mysql.

They just chose 'root' rather than 'postgres' or 'sa'. Doesn't really make a difference.

heuristic might actually be useful...

[Anonymous Coward]

different techniques of scanning for virii exist. patenting the hueristic algorithm was actually in the best interest of Symantec. it's nothing to get all up in arms about. would you react with "oh the insanity" to the (patented) RSA algorithm?

Re:heuristic might actually be useful...

[wirelessbuzzers]

would you react with "oh the insanity" to the (patented) RSA algorithm?

Yes.

I am just one of the many people who are pissed at RSA for patenting their algorithm. That's why I use DH/DSS. Not only is it free, it's also faster and more secure than RSA.

Re:heuristic might actually be useful...

[Anonymous Coward]

you missed my point. at the time, RSA was (and still is) a VERY good idea and it was seriously in their best interest to patent it. Patents for One-Click and "revolving circular movement facilitation devices" are clearly frivolous. The poster was suggesting that the anti-virus algorithm was a frovolous one, yet it wasnt by a longshot. Hueristic scanning gives faster results and reduces false-positives, and took a long time to develop. therefore i think semantec was in the right for patenting it. there are a bunch of other virus detection algorithms out there, and i'm sure they'll get patents too.

(note: comparing secureness of DH to RSA is apples/apples. they're basically similar in secureness)

Re:heuristic might actually be useful...

[connorbd]

Er... the patent is expired. RSA is as free as it gets. You're free to remain ticked off at the idea of the patent, mind you, I think most of us here are annoyed by it, but principles aside this particular case is no longer relevant.

/Brian

Re:heuristic might actually be useful...

[Arandir]

I can think of about four or five software patents in history that might have been justified. But RSA is not one of them.

Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[BigBlockMopar]

Is it possible (easy?) for someone to register a domain name using someone else's information? That could be an explanation for Verisign sending you a letter about a domain you never registered...

Uhh... yeah. I guess you've never bought a domain.

Okay. For *.com, *.net and probably *.org:

1. Type the name of the domain you want.
2. Read the message that it's already been taken.
3. Choose a new domain name.
4. Repeat 1-4 until you hit paydirt.
5. Type your name, country, address, telephone, e-mail address. Note: this e-mail address will be spammed, and all this other info will be visible in whois.
6. Whip out your credit card. Pay $35/year. Make sure your browser is using HTTPS before you click the form submit button and send your credit card across 400 unsecured routers.
7. Enter the hostnames of your nameservers. If you're hosting the site yourself, you will need to create a host record including name and IP address for each of your primary and secondary DNS.
8. Wait for confirmation e-mail, telephone call, etc.
9. Look your domain up in whois and find yourself!
10. Wait an agonizing two days or so before top-level DNS servers catch up with the whois database and people can see your Apache test page.

It's really not very difficult.

Re:Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[khuber]

Make sure your browser is using HTTPS before you click the form submit button and send your credit card across 400 unsecured routers.

Silly -- the TTL field in TCP has a maximum value of 255, so you could only send insecure credit card data through 254 routers. And the default TTL is usually 64 on Linux and FreeBSD, though it is higher on Solaris and Windows.

Realistically and conservatively you should only expect to be able to send your insecure data through about 60 routers. You'd need multiple routes or multicast to exceed 255 routers, so you may want to consider mass email or mass Usenet posting instead.

-Kevin

Re:Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[BigBlockMopar]

Silly -- the TTL field in TCP has a maximum value of 255, so you could only send insecure credit card data through 254 routers. And the default TTL is usually 64 on Linux and FreeBSD, though it is higher on Solaris and Windows.

Yeah. Hyperbole.

Realistically, however, less than 30 hops by traceroute.

Realistically and conservatively you should only expect to be able to send your insecure data through about 60 routers. You'd need multiple routes or multicast to exceed 255 routers, so you may want to consider mass email or mass Usenet posting instead.

Calling Mastercard: "Hi, I'd like to cancel my card. No, I didn't lose it... I accidentally spammed over 1.3 million e-mail addresses and 40,000 newsgroups with it. Yeah. I think you can expect a little activity on that number over the next few years...."

Re:Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[gkhopper]

Whip out your credit card. Pay $35/year

Except I wouldn't pay $35. There are plenty of places that charge less. Check internic.net for the full list.

You can also transfer an existing domain to another registrar to save money, but you need to transfer it before it expires.

Re:Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this kind of response is why I generally don't post to slashdot. Whiny little nothing posts criticizing you for something not even relevant. (400 instead of 40? Does it really matter?) Jeez.

Re:Steps to Buying a Domain Name For Dummies(tm)

[khuber]

Now this kind of response is why I generally don't post to slashdot. Whiny little nothing posts criticizing you for something not even relevant. (400 instead of 40? Does it really matter?) Jeez.

I was obviously not being serious, Beavis. And it was 255 instead of 400.

-Kevin

Slashback. Hmm.

[joestar]

Strangely, the Mandrake Club story, which is great, went to Slashback among other stories. Slashdot editors somtimes act strangely.

this is a very interesting concept

[i am nude]

...or at least it would be if half of it weren't covered up by a HP ad. I guess this is the wave of the future then. Oh well, nothin a little script editing can't fix...

Clarification regarding "the way out"

[Jayde Stargunner]

Last time I checked, the site really wasn't touting IIS for web hosting, but using Windows servers for enterprise solutions. That's a pretty different situation.

It's also quite possible that since this really isn't an "in-house" Microsoft deal, they didn't have their web developers working on it...they probably farmed it out to some starving web-heads from SF for an absurdly low price. That said, most web developers don't develop for MS boxes simply because hosting companies charge twice as much for Windows space as a general rule.

Sure, it may seem like some mass hypocricy or something...but if the website isn't about "Use IIS for hosting two-page, temp web pages!" there really isn't much of an issue.

Also, notice the page has at the bottom:
"©1994-2002 Unisys Corporation. All rights reserved."
NOT
"©1994-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

-Jayde

Re:Clarification regarding "the way out"

[gad_zuki!]

Sure, it may seem like some mass hypocricy or something...but if the website isn't about "Use IIS for hosting two-page, temp web pages!" there really isn't much of an issue.

I agree with the sentiment that this isn't about web hosting, but then again its about business. Appearances are important and downtime just looks bad period for potential customers. It may not be logical, but if my storefront is falling apart you probably won't walk in to check out my products regardless of their merits.

Well maybe it is logical, if a company can't properly set up a marketing site how much faith can one have in its other decisions in outsourcing. At a certain point you just have to ask yourself, "Who is making these outsourcing decisions and why do they still have a job?"

On top of that, this is a marketing attempt against open source which has very little marketing muscle. Its just plain embarassing to see the world's wealthiest corporation falter in front of some geeks and some IBM marketing.

Re:Clarification regarding "the way out"

[Tony-A]

Appearances are important and downtime just looks bad period for potential customers.
You don't pull the plug on the old system until the new system is ready. If you don't know when the new system will be ready, that itself speaks volumes.

Speaking of IBM marketing, I keep remembering the Cheddar.com commercial, although in the case of wehavethewayout.com, Swiss and Limburger seem more appropriate than Roquefort.

Re:Clarification regarding "the way out"

[Trepalium]

Lets put it this way. If they can't use the platform they're promoting for hosting a simple set of webpages, why should I trust it with mission critical data? They promote the idea that inexspensive MSCEs can handle their machines, and what do they have after they switch the server to Windows -- downtime. If it was just the fact they were using non-Windows servers to host this, that would be one thing, but changing the platform, and then having mysterious "configuration problems", does not paint a good picture for what they're trying to sell.

Re:Clarification regarding "the way out"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, many people have pointed this out - however:

If it can't even handle basic web serving, why would I trust it in an enterprise data center?

cruel-intention.com

[__aawavt7683]

I dunno about other /.ers around here, but I read the domain name and the thing that instantly came to mind was "cruel-intentions".. the movie. Then I eventually caught on that it didn't have the s on it. I agree with his comments about litigation, and with how trademark-sue-happy companies are nowadays.. I'm surprised the makers of that movie haven't already contacted verisign (that's where the contact was.)

I really do hope versign gets dealt a heavy blow for their tactics lately.

-DrkShadow

Substandard techniques?

[quantaman]

reaching temperature hotter than the Sun ... evidence of fusion.

From the APS, 'The possibility of a major discovery has been obscured by substandard experimental techniques.

What kind of experimental technique could account for that kind of error? Oops! Maybe maybe we shouldn't have set it up in a nuclear reactor that must be where the heat is coming from!!

Re:Substandard techniques?

[Cato the Elder]

What the hell are you talking about? The APS article stated that the temperatures produced by caviation were widely accepted. They criticized other parts of the experiment, pointing out some inconsistencies in the detection times for related events and possible sources of noise.

Patents

[felipeal]

When will this insanity end?

I don't know if this is the case with Symantec, but I have a friend that works for a company in the semi-conductors business, and that company has a patent-incentive policy: for each patent request filled, the author receives a US$500 bonus. If the request is approved (and the company - not the author, of course - gets the patent), he/she gets another US$2000.

That would explain a lot of crazy/stupid/useless patents...

Re:Patents

[hsenag]

that company has a patent-incentive policy

I think that's pretty standard. Big companies want to build a big patent portfolio (mostly to get leverage cross-licensing with other big companies) so they encourage their employees to work towards that. Certainly both IBM and Microsoft do it, couldn't say for certain about any others.

Re:Patents

[brer_rabbit]

getting a $2500 bonus hardly explains the crazy patent scenario. For the extra effort involved you might as well get a paper route, you'd make similar money either way. And that's even with the help of the big company lawyers assisting with the writeup.

Whats more important is that your name is on a patent. This makes a big difference to some folks, and employers as well. For the individual, it's kinda the professional equivalent of getting a research paper published.

Re:Patents

[zmooc]

I think the main reason for this bonus-system is to stimulate employees with good innovative ideas to "give" the idea to the company. most employees of most companies are required to do that by their contract anyway. This is probably just meant as an extra bonus for not keeping the idea to yourself (and making money of it yourself). This is pretty standard actually; a lot of good ideas come from education/experience you get by working at the company so they'd like to profit from that. I don't think it was meant to have as many patents as possible.

Re:Patents

[felipeal]

I agree with you, the companies implement this system with good intentions.
The problem is that the employees could abuse the system for a couple of bucks (at least that's the impression I got when I talked with my friend).

Re:Patents

[dachshund]

getting a $2500 bonus hardly explains the crazy patent scenario. For the extra effort involved you might as well get a paper route, you'd make similar money either way. And that's even with the help of the big company lawyers assisting with the writeup.

Sure, but it's your job anyway. You could spend the same number of hours doing something that doesn't result in a bonus. Or you could spend just as much time and receive a modest bonus to boot. This is all aside from the real reason that researchers seek patents-- to pretty up their CVs.

Re:Patents

[tif]

I use to work for IBM and they would regularly have the IP
lawyer (That's Intellectual Property of course, not Internet
Protocol) come around and "beat the bushes" for patents.
They'd tout how they have more patents than anybody
else and how that gives them leverage at the negotiations
table for cross-licensing.

I sure felt like they were asking for you to patent stuff
that shouldn't be patented. At least, they were asking
you to put in the paperwork if there was any doubt and
they'd decide.

I got a bonus because a coworker did all the legwork and
filed on my behalf (so he'd get a bonus too). But the
whole time I was just shaking my head and saying "This
would be obvious to anybody that encountered the same
problem."

Re:Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it was meant to have as many patents as possible

In reality the exact opposite is true, each company will have a portfolio of patents. These patents are used as a bargaining chip. i.e i'll give you my 320 patents for your 260 patents, and the two agree not to charge for their use. Those companies with a low number of patents will have to buy the rights to use other peoples as they won't have enought to bargain with.

The IP guys in a company will talk about numbers of patents with little regard to what they cover.

Personally I think that patents are the worst possible thing for advancement in technology and should have a very limited life time, but the guys in IP would be happy for me to create one patent a week and for them to run forever.

[Quick example of a patent in my line of work:
When you change channel on a TV it mutes the audio to stop you from getting a burst of white noise between the change - inventive, yeah right]

Re:cruel-intention.com

[Rick the Red]

Oh, it's very easy. My wife got a similar letter from Verisign; someone stole her identity last year and signed up for several domain addresses.

We naturally checked out the domain and it's unused -- probably because the initial payment to Verisign bounced (we had to cancel all our credit cards and start over) -- but Verisign's still trying to get us to pay for a renewal! Gotta love their optimism; too bad we can't get 'em arrested for fraud, but then I guess Verisign itself has technically done nothing wrong here, just tried to perpetuate someone else's fraud.

Wow!

[wiredog]

A goatsex link that's on-topic and in context.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's like this place is turning into geekizoid or something.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

When slashdot is down to 5 hits a day, and introduces a disgusting new web design, and is run by idiotic shitwit... then it'll be like geekizoid.

Ok, so it's 1/3 the way there already.

wehavethewayout.com FTP

[silvaran]

They really did a number on this one. For a few days, while the site was down, they were running the default anonymous FTP server. It's still up, but they removed all traces of FreeBSD.

You can still log in as anonymous, but there's just a dummy html file there. Before, you could find /bin/ls. Doing a 'file' on it revealed it was a FreeBSD binary. Hmm.. hanging around on an IIS server? Wow, imagine that.

The PR people know their stuff. I would imagine they took plenty of courses during those several days of downtime to learn how 'cp -R *' actually works.

Re:wehavethewayout.com FTP

[q-soe]

Who ever said it was IIS ?

It's BSD/Apache as a quick check of a million other posts on this and other sites would have found out and even the site in question would have told you. Microsoft runs BSD and UNIX very heavily internally and has done since the network was first set up

Now why they would choose apache over IIS is up to you to guess ?

Re:wehavethewayout.com FTP

[silvaran]

I know they were running Apache/BSD... A quick check of Netcraft would show they switched to IIS5/Win2k, or at least changed the headers; additionally they changed the IP address and redirected the DNS entry to the new server. I'm not saying they didn't run FreeBSD, I'm saying that they either switched to IIS5/Win2k and did a recursive copy of the web root (hence the leftover FreeBSD binary), or they forged the headers.

Woohoo!

[Acideous]

I just patented karma whoring! Let the lawsuits for karma profit sharing begin!

yahoo post in the sub100 range!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

predators posing as a house cat.

irony of ironies i bet the "IIS" server is still freeBSD while they figure out another way to decieve the general population and harm average joes.

hi im joe dont burst my cold fusion bubble. whats that? substandard what? d'oh.

Off topic, but I have a question

[Winand]

Are there any general news, like world news, health, science and so on, sites that have a comment system like slashdot's? I don't know where else to ask this question. If there aren't any, then are there any sites at all like slashdot in the way of comments or forums?

Re:Off topic, but I have a question

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a similar kind of site at www.kuro5hin.org

Also, check out Usenet. You'll need a newsreader and the address of a newsserver (your isp should have a server). I use Pan for newsreading on Linux, get it here

If you use Windows, try Freeagent, available here

Re:Off topic, but I have a question

[timothy]

Go to http://slashcode.com/sites.pl -- there are a lot of them, but it's not a comprehensive global listing ... lots of different sites there, though.

Cheers,

timothy

Re:Off topic, but I have a question

[colonelteddy]

I'm at -1 karma anyway, so I might as well answer you.
Yes, there are lots of sites that have a slashdot style comment system, a lot of them use the same code. Go here and have a look, someone might be able to give you a list of some sites that that use the slashcode.

But you're right, this isnt the right place to ask that question.

I'm not defending them but...

[DeadBugs]

Unisys has been in the computer buisness from the beginning long before Microsoft was around. After the fallout between Microsoft and IBM, Unisys became deeply involved with Micorsoft providing servers and direct tech support for Microsoft products. They are not as fortunate as IBM to have jumped off the boat long ago. Their siding with Microsoft because they have so much invested, if everyone went to Linux tommorow Microsoft would not be the only company to suffer.

Re:I'm not defending them but...

[gorilla]

That's slightly right. Unisys is the result of many mergers over the years, most recently (1986) between Sperry and Burroughs. Sperry was a 1955 merger between Remmington Rand and Sperry. Remington Rand were the producers of the 409, aka the Univac 60, which was in 1949, the first commerical business computer. So while part of Unisys was in from the begining, they're not a huge percentage of the modern Unisys.

Re:cruel-intention.com

[ShaunC]

This is probably exactly what happened. King Mongo doesn't mention whether or not the email address used in the registration (myuniq_id@themail.com) is his, but I tend to doubt it, since he seems to have other domains and wouldn't need a freebie mail account.

Sounds like someone just registered the domain to him for no good reason - most of mine are or were registered to fictitious addresses, it's easy enough to do. The record was updated in December; perhaps since the poster is listed as the owner, Verisign would be willing to give him information regarding the history of the domain. The state of the record prior to December might bear some information regarding who actually registered it.

In any case, I have my doubts that Verisign was behind this. Most likely it was some sort of prank, or maybe an undelivered gift?

Shaun

going with 2000, not XP

[Alien54]

Interesting that even though they managed to get another box up with win 2k, that they are going with the older OS for their flag ship promo site.

And we are supposed to trust them when they don't even bother getting a site up running XP as the OS?

Given that this is a flag ship promo site, you would think they would have all the OS issues sorted out well in advance.

If I was witty, I would think up something to do with the activation screwing them up.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[cmowire]

Not really. XP is for the consumer and workstation versions. The server is Windows.NET and that's not out yet. So as far as they are concerned, everybody should be using Win2k for serving still.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[donutello]

And we are supposed to trust them when they don't even bother getting a site up running XP as the OS?

Aaaargh. Win2K is a server OS. Windows XP is a desktop OS. Why would you use a desktop OS to host a website? That's almost as asinine as expecting palm.com to be running on an array of palm pilots.

Anyway, the campaign was about Big Iron data servers, not web servers.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[mrmag00]

Because Windows XP is a desktop OS. .net server, which will replace windows 2000 server, is currently in beta/development.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24428.html

Asinine ????
Hundred bucks says microsoft has already finished .NET server and now they are trying to figure out ways to harden it against attack and maybe most importantly make sure noone can switch XP pro to the server version. ever.

ntswitch-- look it up.
workstation is the same as server.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. That's why they decided not to release it and make money off of selling it.

Moron.

Re:going with 2000, not XP

[Tony-A]

Anyway, the campaign was about Big Iron data servers, not web servers.
I assume that web servers are much easier and simpler than Big Iron data servers.

SHHHHH Don't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Around here it's considered bad form to point out that under linux life would be anything but rosy and warm and thus the halcyon days of computer technology.. Thus pointing out the fact that without MS the entire software and hardware industries would be cratered is a baad thing. As is pointing out that software communism works about as well as real communism did for russia - sure we will all have linux for free - just forget about stability and useability and consistency or else.

Linux - the 1960's operating system with a cute name - yep folks 40 years on and you can still bring a server to it's knees with i commmand if you have root.

Wow i love advanced software

Unix is the light

[Trevelyan]

look at the pic on www.wehavethewayout.com notice the light shines out from their unix represntation, in to the dark MS world.
which way would you go, from the light into the dark or from the dark in to the light?

thier PR ppl missed that metaphore =)

hehe

Re:Unix is the light

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this internal MS memo, written by MS employees, straight from microsoft.com and delivered via google to you.

Fair use:
. The multiple security concepts present in the Microsoft products, together with the slightly different roles that user categories have, makes their introduction at a site hard. In many cases, specifically trained personnel are needed. ÿ

The security mechanisms of Microsoft?s offerings and their interrelations are not easy to comprehend. At FairMarket, for example [7], they postponed the introduction of Exchange servers within the firewall of their eCommerce site because of the potential for security exposures.

Microsoft offerings have sacrificed security for flexibility and extended functionality.

It is also worth remembering that the cost of hardware is small compared to the cost of administration. At Microsoft?s own Canyon Park installation, the 9/00 cost per machine for various levels of service is on the order
of $5,000 per month.ÿ

Re:Unix is the light

[fizban]

HAHAHAHA

From February through July of 2000 we set out to identify software infrastructure trends of Internet computing. Our approach involved several different activities. We studied the needs and realities of eCommerce sites by visiting several of them and interviewing decision makers.

(We bought some stuff at Amazon and interviewed each other about our experiences.)

We analyzed appropriate fractions of current research activity by visiting universities and attending a few key conferences and workshops.

(We hung out at some colleges and went to some frat parties - sorority chicks rule!)

We also informed ourselves directly by exploring material available at appropriate Web sites [21, 23].

(We browsed the web.)

Re:Unix is the light

[smeng]

Schmuks. You would think that with the amount of money that they spend on marketing, they would at least have realised something like this. Oh well, free advertising for Unix I suppose :D

Re:Unix is the light

[Tony-A]

Hehe, I read it, partways at least. They are almost catching up with yesterday.
No wonder IBM mainframes are selling well. IBM knows something, and it's about tomorrow not just today.

From what I can tell, Microsoft offerings have sacrificed security, flexibility, and functionality for initial setup simplicity and wowser gizmos. Unix may be a maze (amazing? ;), but seems to be about as simple as anything can be that stands a reasonable chance of actually succeeding.

Re:Unix is the light

[Tony-A]

They do have the way out!
I closed a few IE windows, got back to the one for wehavethewayout.com, and Internet Explorer (5.0 on NT4) crashed on me.
Now what that has to do with going from the lighted and a-maze-ing unix side to the dark and bottomless pit Microsoft Windows side, I have no idea.

Re:Unix is the light

[srvivn21]

Watch the Windows XP commercials again. None of the people that use XP get to fly.

OpenNIC will never catch on

[Starship Trooper]

And there are a number of reasons why, but I can tell you the one most glaring and obvious reason: aesthetics. The original TLDs .com, .org, .net, .edu, and .mil are all short, easy to type, one syllable to pronounce (except for .edu), and most importantly look good at the end of a domain name.

From OpenNIC's TLD list, you have chosen the TLDs .glue, .indy, .geek, .null, .oss, .parody, and .bbs. All of these are either horribly narrow-reaching and have no reason to be a TLD (.geek, .oss, .parody), sound stupid (.glue, .indy), look stupid (.geek, .oss, .bbs), or are too long (all of them except .oss and .bbs).

These are the same reasons nobody wants a domain under .biz, .info, .museum or any of the other "official" new TLDs. Geeks seem to be naturally deficient at proper design, so I'm not blaming what is essentially a geek project for having this problem. An alternative to the monstrosity Verisign and ICANN have made of their root servers is severely needed. But, if I may, I would like to suggest you ditch these ugly TLDs and put some more thought into choosing names people actually would want on the end of their site names. Think to yourself, would you seriously consider getting a ".parody" domain? Here are some tips:

• The TLDs must all be short. Extremely short. No more than 3 characters. Preferably monosyllabic.
• Don't use ugly letters like 'y', 'k', or 'z', especially at the beginning or end of the domain.
• Avoid catering to special interests. ".com", ".org" and ".net" all work because they're broad and unspecific. TLDs like ".geek" and ".oss" are just going to make nongeeks roll their eyes and look elsewhere.
• Most importantly, before you approve a new TLD, seriously ask yourself (and preferably a few other regular people), "would I buy a domain under this TLD?" Few people are going to want a ".geek" domain, I can tell you.

I really want to see a project like this succeed, but you have to create domains that appeal to broad ranges of people, are easy to type and remember, and look good.

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[Anonymous DWord]

Really what we want is to have any top-level domain you can think of. Having just .coms is stupid - it was fine at the time, but now that everybody and their dog has a site, it's like trying to find a new hotmail address - there's none left. I don't accept thisismynewwebpagenamebecausealltheothersaretaken. com as a valid solution.

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[zer0*ryok0]

im actualy interested in getting a .null or .bbs
but my favorite tld is probably .ne.jp

if you ask me 'z' is the most beautiful letter of them all.

i have shrines to it in/on: bathroom,monitor,headboard,bike,necklace

this post brought to you by the letter 'Z'
shortest page in the dictionary and proud of it
"z, the only k-lame letter"

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[crucini]

That was a really good post. I think that the original tld's somehow had a good aesthetic character. .biz, .info and .museum make my stomach turn for some reason. It does seem logical to separate tld's in a way that minimizes trademark confusion and conflict. I think any such allocation should be based on the distribution of existing domains - essentially Huffman coding to insure that all tld's of equal length are roughly equally full. In other words, no .museum because there aren't nearly enough museums to matter. Instead, maybe domains like 'csf' - Company, Service Sector, Food or 'cta' - Company, Transportation, Air.

Then american.cta and american.csf obviously have no reason to sue each other. It's no cure-all, but it seems smarter than creating these narrow, ridiculous and ugly names.

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[Xenographic]

> I don't accept thisismynewwebpagenamebecausealltheothersaretaken. com as a valid solution.

Yeah; that forces people to give their site silly names like "slashdot" and "freshmeat" ...

Re:OpenNIC will never catch on

[dzero]

The reasons you give are interesting but sound an awful lot like the oft-mentioned FUD we hear about on Slashdot from time to time.

You are expressing a shocking (to me) level of doubt in something which is a clearly better alternative to the ridiculous conservatism in the TLD world. The TLDs OpenNIC has chosen aren't good enough for you. Suggest some! Isn't that the point? It's a system that's open enough that everyone can help make it better, instead of something like ICANN. That's the point of OpenNIC. Open. NIC. Not ICANN.

(For the record, I hadn't heard of OpenNIC until today)

Someone in another thread mentioned this, and it's true: what we really want is any TLD at all. Why append three letters to a URL when it's mostly meaningless now?

Most parties purchase .com, .org and .net of their chosen name -- effectively eliminating any meaning the TLDs were meant to have. VeriSign (admittedly, according to something I read on the OpenNIC site) no longer requests any justification for choice of TLD because they realize everybody just wants all of them.

So how is the TLD remotely meaningful?

And FYI there has been acceptance of the new ICANN-endorsed TLD's.

I live in New York City and am a regular user of the MTA's (Metropolitan Transit Authority) services, most obviously and frequently the subway. Everywhere the MTA's old URL used to be on posters and signs, there is a little circle with "new" or something, and their new URL: http://www.mta.info.

".info" used to look stupid to me, too, but now it looks pretty darn normal.

So, general acceptance or not, some people seem to be finding this useful. "Think outside the box" and you'll eventually realize that the TLDs can actually convey useful information about a URL.

All it takes to make the unfamiliar familiar and the awkward comfortable is a little love and clarity. Why wait?

Re:Twenty-first Century Slashdot Man

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, at first the idea of Linus Torvalds being an employee of Microsoft was kinda strange. But of course firing him would be of no use. The best way to deal with Linux is to change the creators mind. Encourage him to do otherwise.

Now look at the fact that Transmeta, which is steadily heading into deep financial waters has refused take-over bids . Or rather, it has refused unsolicited take-over bids. Its share price is bargain basement stuff. It's losing money hand over fist. It has a processor that is capable of running x86 code.

The Crusoe can also code morph. Transmeta could easily build a code morphing engine for MSIL - it has already demonstrated a Crusoe acting as an x86 and Java processor at the same time. It starts to make you wonder why two of the top executives at Transmeta left recently. It starts to make you wonder why they were refusing unsolicited take-over bids. So maybe Microsoft has already found the processor they want.

Yes, new TLDs are needed...

[Starship Trooper]

...but those new TLDs should be short, easy to pronounce and not make their owners embarrassed to say them, like the monstrosities OpenNIC and ICANN are offering up now.

Re:Yes, new TLDs are needed...

[Anonymous DWord]

Why have any restrictions at all? If somebody wants www.this-site.sucksass, why not give it to them?

Re:Yes, new TLDs are needed...

[ynohoo]

Yes indeedy!
What does all this .com, .co.uk, .org, .gov etc. do except make sites more difficult to find?
What is wrong with http://slashdot/ ?
Mercifully www. seems to have gone out of fashion, I hope tld's go the same way.

Re:Yes, new TLDs are needed...

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Actually Rob wants http://slashdot.dot

MS confidential memo leaked

[Anonymous Coward]

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:r75ZUAiuFaoC: ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/TR/TR-2001-04.doc++ %22confidential%22+site:microsoft.com+filetype:doc &hl=en&ie=utf-8

Re:Twenty-first Century Slashdot Man

[(outer-limits)]

One of the great rock anthems of the 20th, and now 21st, century. While I cannot comment on the content, at least recognition of one of the geniuses of rock is being acknowldged. Also, check out, The Skyhooks - Smut, Supercharge - She Moved the Dishes First, The Divinyls - I touch myself, (Previuosly acknowledged by the otherwise mundane Lyrics Guy), and Marianne Faithfull - Why didja do what ya did.

Re:Twenty-first Century Slashdot Man

[Anonymous Coward]

No complaints here. I'd like to request The Salaminizer by Gwar for your next performance if I may.

Versign: They're Bastards!

[IronTek]

A friend of mine had registered a domain through Network Solutions (Verisign) and had renewed it for several years.

Last year, when his domain was coming up to expire, he didn't want to pay Verisign's fees...so he just figured he's let it lapse and maybe go reregister it with someone else...trouble is, though its expired, Verisign hasn't released the domain!

So my friend can't renew/reregister with anyone except Verisign b/c they won't release the domain back into the pool of available domains!

Re:Versign: They're Bastards!

[Electrawn]

Right now they are evaluating your expired domain and have put it on the expired domains list so some stupid korean will buy it before it is released back into the domain pool. Essentually, you are screwed. If you want it back, renew with verisign, or sue.

I speak from experience.

'wehaveawayout' debacle...

[ryanflynn]

This link to Unisys's ES7000 series http://www.unisys.com/hw/servers/es7000/default.as p (which is the series they're pushing in the campaign) has what on it? A Java applet! Didn't MS kill Java in XP? So someone using Microsoft's latest OS that is perusing the Unisys site will get a big empty grey block in their browser...

Re:'wehaveawayout' debacle...

[Osty]

Didn't MS kill Java in XP? So someone using Microsoft's latest OS that is perusing the Unisys site will get a big empty grey block in their browser...

No, they'll get a dialog asking them if they wish to install Java, and if so will then go ahead and download and install Microsoft's JVM. Subsequent visits to any site with java applets will work just fine without any prompting (because they already installed the JVM).

Re:'wehaveawayout' debacle...

[shird]

I had a look at that page, but didn't see any java applet. There was a flash animation however.

Re:'wehaveawayout' debacle...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were a Sun competitor trying to discredit them, I'd certainly put Java applets all over my page.

If your only experience with Java was applets, you'd think it was complete and total flaming shit.

what's up with the department? (slightly ot)

[Webz]

philipino-connection-#2 dept.

what is that supposed to mean? Filipino? what is that in reference to? i'm almost taking offense to this even though i don't even know what it's about...

Re:what's up with the department? (slightly ot)

[timothy]

I was just happy to find that The Philipino Connection (a very small restaurant here in Knoxville TN, basically takeout with one or two tables) has just opened up a new location near me. I stopped in there yesterday, ate way too much. It's not *great* food, but it's cheap, pretty tasty, and interesting. I would avoid the pepper steak in the future, but the eggrolls, rice dishes, noodles and friend bananas are good. They don't have any of the really exotic Philipino food, but perhaps on some days of the year ...

timothy

Re:what's up with the department? (slightly ot)

[/dev/trash]

I am guessing it is referring to goats.cx?

Yeah we all know cx is Christmas Island but for some it's close enough to the Philipines.

Re:Mirrors.- more then you think, some run IOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Booted up one of our new Cisco Systems Switch

guesse what ?
Power PC Procs inside

:-)

*powering the internet generation? *

No surprise about Mandrake

[Richthofen80]

Mandrake's finacial success doesn't suprise me. People are willing to pay for the membership in the club because Mandrake linux is perhaps one of the best distributions. Easy to use, reliable, but by no means just for a novice user.
I tried redhat at first, because thats what I heard was one of the best. But I found Mandrake to be friendlier to me, a windows user. It hasn't crashed in two months, and runs my apache server just fine. Also shares my home network connection, so I don't have to pay at&t the extra cash for extra IPs.

And I actually paid for my copy, bought it at staples. worth every penny.

Re:No surprise about Mandrake

[carm$y$]

Mandrake *is* a redhat spin-off, maybe friendlier, but stil, a "mee-too".

And their CEO says (quote) A temporary increase in capital by selling shares doesn't solve a company's financial needs. All businesses need to adjust their expenses relative to income -- this depends on having a sustainable long-term revenue model. A shareholder expects a financial return on investment. A customer pays for a service. (end quote)

Translation: you're just lousy users, we want you to pay. It's not 1999 any more, no more freebies here. We don't want to give anything more for your money. It's just that you have to pay for what was free until now, so that we can pay the people who already lost 90 cents to the buck in the last 3 years.

I don't have anything in particular against mandrake, just want to keep things in perspective. Like, comparing mandrake + club to redhat + rhn (redhat wins, imho)

Re:No surprise about Mandrake

[Fjord]

That's not a the translation at all. Notice they said "service". They can make money through deployment and training.

No no no.

[rahl]

When you get out of the maze and jump through the window, you become one of the Flying People.

-rahl

Verisign

[Anonymous Coward]

I was charged several times for domains by Verisign that I never registered. After reading this, it makes me think Verisign might have been highjacking my card, and not someone else.

Heuristics

[njug]

Geez. I used to use Gatekeeper on my Mac, 10 years ago. Even if it were non-obvious, it's obviously non-unique. Do these people _ever_ do _any_ research?

Just a continuation of the trend toward "supporting the artist," I suppose, and protecting whoever can cough up enough cash for the lawyers.

It should be www.WeHaveWebBugs.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the source of the first page:

img src="http://xtracker.xaphon.com/xtracker/xtracker. asp?T=L&U=20&V=2" height="0" width="0"

I worked for Univac a lo-ong time ago and

[crovira]

they haven't got a lot smarter since I left.

Wow your such an IDIOT

[B0zzLightyear]

So your the typical Anti-Linux troll making such ridiculous statements as "software communism works about as well as real communism did for russia - sure we will all have linux for free - just forget about stability and useability and consistency or else.". Linux has been stable and usable and consistent for quite some time, longer, I may add, then the Microsoft offerings.

And one doesn't even need to be root/administrator to bring a Windows installation to its knees. That must be actually a step backwards.

So if Linux is a 60's child, then that would make Windows prehistoric !

Anonymous Cowards usually aren't right, that's why they post anonymously!

Expensive Experts

[Gurp]

Remember how, according to Microsoft/Unisys, companies shouldn't need "expensive experts"?

So far, their non-experts:

1) Installed a system that has embarrassed the company (by using the competitor's OS)
2) While fixing this, it was down for ages (more embarrassment)
3) Now that it's up, it's a sitting duck (with MySQL bound to the external network interface) for crackers

Now, tell me again about how companies shouldn't use experts?

"hacking" see "Whining "

[autopr0n]

As a hacker, I felt it entirely natural to begin to attempt to encapsulate, measure, and then control reality with software. (For what I mean by the word "hack," see http://www.tuxedo.org/ ~esr/ jargon/jargon.html#hack:. To interact with a computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed way. 'Whatcha up to?' 'Oh, just hacking.' " Criminals need to get themselves another word, we had it first.)

Wank, wank, wank.

Well, keep that up and "hacker" will soon mean "a whinny little bitch." I'm so sick of that crap (well, thankfully it's mostly died down of late). It is entirely possible for words to have multiple meanings. The fact that a word you think sounds "cool" does not give you license to go out and try to change the English language. Sheesh.

Re:"hacking" see "Whining "

[neo]

The fact that a word you think sounds "cool" does not give you license to go out and try to change the English language. Sheesh.

Actually it does. English is a living language and usage dictates the meanings of words. A dictionary is not the guide to how words are spelled and what they mean, it is rather a reflection of usage.

From Ambrose Bierce:

"DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. "

Cold Fusion story and other things

[connorbd]

I once pursued a woman who happened at the time to be an Allaire employee, long before the Macromedia buyout. Beautiful girl, a little short in the brains department, but I didn't figure that out until long after she crushed my heart by hitting on my boss right in front of me. But anyway. Ever since then I've always thought that there was something weirdly appropriate about the fact that someone like her -- bimbo-in-geek's-clothing -- would work for a company whose flagship product was called Cold Fusion. (I met some people a while later who had worked with her -- I got the sense that my impression of her was not far off from the impression she gave around the office.)

As for the matter of wehavethewayout.com... Two companies that had it coming. The dinosaur and the Borg... wonder how much fingerpointing is going on right now. (Come to think of it, Rick Belluzzo... never mind.)

/Brian

More of the firestorm about that fusion experiment

[sunhou]

There were two more articles in Science about this "bubble fusion" stuff: one, called To publish or not to publish that explains why they published the article despite the controversy, and another one called 'Bubble Fusion' Paper Generates a Tempest in a Beaker which has some opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you need to be a subscriber or at a university which subscribes to access those (I access it through my university account).

It's all very interesting, and I'll be curious to see what the final conclusions are. I'm still not sure if I think it was best to publish now, or wait for more independent confirmation. At least they didn't try to hide all the controversy (they even point out that senior science managers at Oak Ridge Lab contacted the journal and asked them to delay publishing the paper..)

Physics Today has an article on cold fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an analysis called Skepticism Greets Claim of Bubble Fusion on Physics Today's web site.

Verisign Renewals

[Ark42]

Our hostmaster@ address received (about 8 months ago) numerous emails from versign asking us to renew domains we didnt really own.

If I remember correctly, there were all along the lines of:
fart-sluts.com
shitonmyface.com
..etc..

I wish I still had the list, there were so funny!

wehavetheway...

[Guido69]

...to Adobe? Anyone else think it's odd that the only format offered for the reports is pdf? Also noticed that there aren't any FrontPage headers in the site source. Hmmm. Perhaps Linux does have a chance on the desktop. I sense a new trend starting in Redmond.

Good Registrar

[chmod4755]

I personally use gandi[http://gandi.net] for all of my domain registrations. I find them fast, very easy to deal with, and straight forward.

I would recommend Gandi to any person registering a domain.

Could Terabyte's tagline be any more obnoxious?

[nobodyman]

The slogan on their website reads:

"Nothing is more important than bandwidth."

Oh really? Well then PLEASE SHOOT ME NOW. Because I was hoping that the cure for AIDS and/or Cancer, the resolution of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, and perhaps cold fusion would be a big deal.

I recently had DSL installed, so apparently it's all downhill from here.

recent cold fusion conference

[Anonymous Coward]

The fat lady has not yet even taken the stage. There was an American Physical Society conference session on cold fusion about two weeks ago. It seems that researchers from MIT, UIUC, SRI, the U.S. Navy, and several other labs are publishing positive results.

Mail from VeriSign might be correct

[DavidYaw]

Don't forget, mail about your domains might not be spam... VeriSign has been buying up several Domain Registrars, so mail from them might have a valid purpose.

Success? They need 80.000 and have 5.600 ...

[egghat]

... subscribers, to keep their level of support for open source constant.

I wouldn't call this a success.

We need less dublication of efforts (gazillions of distributions).

And we need distros, that refocus on the hard things (hardware detection, setup of X, printing, adsl sharing, etc.) and not the 4th distribution, that supports 4.000 packages. If the basics are done in a goog way, installing an RPM/DEB with a package manager shouldn't be a problem.

Bye egghat.

Re:Success? They need 80.000 and have 5.600 ...

[ReinoutS]

I wouldn't call this a success.

Had you actually read the article; the 80.000 is a fictive number based on the numbers of an earlier quarter, and with the assumption there are no other sources of income.

If raising €440.000 in less than five months isn't a succes, I don't know what is.

Right on target

[dcavanaugh]

This whole thing has "lowball webhead" written all over it. M$ pays real money to some talented advertising and graphics people; this "Junior Achievement" project is out of character for them.

Strange how they have a budget that is supposedly $25+ million, yet none of it was spent on this little web fiasco. If I had that kind of money to spend, the site would be a "tour de force" of graphics, articles, and commentary. Then again, I wouldn't do it at all if I had to sell M$ products. This kind of advertising works best if you have a good story to tell. In the case of M$, it's just going to draw sniper fire. Using the web to tell IT people that M$ is scalable, stable, and secure is like trying to sell household nuclear power plants to environmentalists.

Just wait and see -- M$ and possibly Unisys marketing will soon be relegated to golf outings with technially clueless CEOs, as part of a "sell high" strategy. That's really the final frontier for products that depend more on salesmanship and less on quality, features, and value.

Sure - kick the danes, while you're at it!

[Hektor_Troy]

Don't use ugly letters like 'y', 'k', or 'z', especially at the beginning or end of the domain.

.dk is an official TLD for the "danish" part of the web.

Thank you for telling us, that our TLD is ugly.

Go suck on my.dk ;-)

Mandrake, Rude Hat and Freebies

[Glanz]

On the glitch count, Red Hat 7.2 comes embeded with every glitch known to mankind. They just slop together app and let the user solve their problems. The term "Dependency Hell" was invented by Red Hat users. Red Hat is a wannabe Micro$$$$$$oft of the Linux world. SuSE is not far behind with their "we don't like the "free software approach" attitude. Rude Hat is for suits...., and geeks of course.... but suits seem to be more attracted to it.Of course, RedHat does produce "mission Critical" stuff, but not for the desktop.
Mandrake, by comparison, has the desktop user in mind, listens to suggestions, and has never lost the debian-like spirit of what open source is all about.
As far as freebies go, talk all you want, but I have a smokin' Woody up and running that has more power and compiling ability than the most expensive RedHat Pro edition, and I didn't pay a cent, in money that is. A little time, a little development from time to time is my currency. Mandrake isn't far behind. It has got to be the best RPM distro around.

Verisign demanded my credit card's 'secret code!'

[Anonymous Coward]

Last year I tried to register a domain name with verisign and they demanded the 3-digit 'secret code' that is on the back of my mastercard!

I didn't do it, instead I called them, only to get the verbal run-around saying they had to have it to do the transaction.

I called Mastercard and they told me they'd investigate. Mastercard warned me never to give the code. Never heard back what the results were...

re: wehavethewayout.com

[charlesTheLurker]

Very Rich. I signed on to the site when it was run on FreeBSD and downloaded a couple of the papers. They were laugh-a-riffic. At noon on April 3, I got a call from a Unisys salesman, presumably interested in selling me one of those spiffin' ES7000 servers. I politely explained that I was a simple Open Source zealot trying to see how the Other Half Lived, then asked if the site was back up yet. He assured me that it was, but alas he was mistaken -- it didn't come up again until the next day. Tres amusing.

Setup time

[jhines]

So for an OS that they have a full year or so of experience with, it only took them two days to get it setup. And this is for a company with the resources to do it, I can only imagine how hard it must be for a mear mortal to setup.

desktop fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

"the lukewarm path to cold fusion"

I know this is nitpicking but this is neither lukewarm nor cold fusion and even if it were real (unverified as yet) it would not be a valid path to energy-productive fusion. The problem with fusion is not initiating a fusion reaction which we can already do it is controlling and containing the reaction and making it produce usable energy.

What the researchers here claimed was tiny (i mean TINY) fusion reations occurring at the atomic scale based on relatively conventional physical properties - the acetone is deuterated to promote fusion and the interior of the bubbles superheat due to collapse. This could never be a power unit, just something for experimental observation. Powerfula and fvaluable if it were for real, yes, and could result in research that led to small scale fusion power gereation, sure, maybe - but absolutely no guarentee of that.

Repeat after me: not cold. Just regular old hot fusion at a very small scale.

Pfft...

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually work for a web development firm that does strictly Windows-based web-hosting. (We make extensive use of ASP.)

To date, none of the sites we have ever hosted or developed have had any downtime issues whatsoever. On the other hand, I am an editor for an online publication which is hosted by CIHost on Linux servers...and it has 2-4 hours of downtime every week.

Our in-house Windows 2000 Server has been up for over a month and a half since last reboot. And that was only for installing new software. We haven't had a crash on our server(s) (we have two) in over 6 months.

Really, the issue is this... Hosting companies charge more for Windows hosting. The web page in question is not only absurdly tiny, but uses no IIS/Windows-specific features at all. (ASP, SQL Server, etc...)

It's not that a non-Windows system is better for the job, it's that a Windows system isn't needed for the job.

Re:Pfft...

[Trepalium]

As I was trying to say, the fact they started this with a non-Windows machine wasn't a real issue. If they had kept using FreeBSD, that would have been fine -- they were selling webservers. However, the real problem came when they changed to the Windows platform, and large amounts of downtime. As you said, hosting these simple little pages should have been a non-issue for any OS.

Microsoft and Unisys are advertising that you can use inexperienced (read: cheap, low paid) MCSE administrators to run their machines, without directly saying it. However, the nonsense with the webserver they're trying to run is proving the exact opposite. It's proving that you need to have experienced administrators (who expect to be paid well) even if you run Windows.

Re: wehavethewayout.com

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to speak French, you might as well do it right...

Très amusant.

mandrake & free water

[sniggly]

I just installed mandrake 8.2 ppc beta and i love it. On the server I use RH 7.2 since ive been using RH since 5.2 and there is no need to switch. I recommend customers to buy RH cd's for server installation because I know it, not because it would be a better choice. I'm certainly going to become a member of the mandrake club because 8.2 ppc is a lot better and less expensive (in additional software) than osx.

Open Source doesnt mean what you make with it has to be free. I don't understand the reaction of some of the people here who feel that they shouldnt ask for money or charge for website access.

Linux, GNU & open source arent religious concepts. They're quite natural events or forces in a world that is moving to ever greater complexity and hence needs to be more transparent. Open Source has to be a standard in the future because we will be using embedded systems with incredible complexity (like in robots and networked cars) that can cause serious damage when vulnerable to networked attack.

It's the water thats free not always the beer you make with it :)

Re:Port softly, and carry a big Satchel

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep it up dude. You rule.

Gandi's bank and those 3 digits

[RabidChipmunk]

Someone had posted about online banks requesting those last three digits on the back of your credit card.

I looked at Gandi, and they looked good. Totally automated.

I signed up, and the bank they used to handle the credit payment wanted those three digits. http://www.creditmutuel.fr/

They had a little radio button to select "There is no 3 digit code." However, it isn't an actual radio button; It just pops up a window, with a picture of where to find the three numbers. You can't continue without typing some numbers in the box.

So, I called CitiBank. They said the number was internal and I should never be needed, and never given out. (It is apparently on the magnetic strip though, so...) The operator at Citibank thought it was fishy.

I did want to complete the transaction. I just didn't want to give out those three numbers. Mozilla claimed the encryption was valid, and the key proper from Verisign. So I used my credit card, but filled the last 4 numbers of the card in instead of the "verification code." Low and behold it works fine. I didn't try again with a random number.

Before anyone coments, the card is set to be canceled next month.

Do credit cards in Europe have some use for this number? Is this normal for a French bank? They can't have used it during the validation. It didn't even complain that I gave them 4 numbers.

Any thoughts from the Europeans?

Re:Gandi's bank and those 3 digits

[RabidChipmunk]

I talked to a different person at citibank. Figuring that I would tell them what I did, for the record.

Apparently a "merchant" does have the right to those numbers, in order that they might verify that you actually have the card in hand.

It makes a very interesting twist once you are using it over the internet.

They didn't check them.
Therefor they wouldn't have any recourse (If I hadn't called my bank) should I claim that the charge was fraudulent.

If I had sent them and security was iffy enough for someone to sniff my card number, then the intercepting party would also have the verification codes. Rending the whole point moot.


I suppose if they can convince people with sloppy security not to ask for it...

Oy.

Re:Gandi's bank and those 3 digits

[Mr_Person]

That's odd. My credit card had that information on it (Visa). It's written in the signature area. I've seen it on other e-commerce websites, it's supposed to help protect against fraud.