I have kids, and they use the social sites (really, how are you going to stop a 15- or 16-year-old from doing this). I added an account for me and asked them to friend me. Sure, it's possible they have other accounts they share with their friends, but they use the "main" accounts so frequently that it's more likely that so long as I don't blow up over small stuff they forget I'm friended.
When I was a kid, we had BBS's. This is a whole 'nother level of danger. Better to be aware than uninformed.
Yes, I understand the sarcasm. I get it. But other than the relatively high cost of Macs versus Linux machines for something as mundane as firewalls / proxies is the only thing stopping it -- so you're really not that far off. I know our firewalls are Linux- and CIsco-based (Cisco IOS runs on top of Linux or POSIX-compliant OS's).
I’d rather fiddle with it myself than spend an extra few hundred dollars to have it set up already and I can’t change much of anything.
You obviously have never used a Mac. Why don't you look up MacPorts or Fink and see how a very large number of *NIX utilities / apps are available on the OSX platform. While individual Apple software may require you to do something a certain way (just as Microsoft's Outlook / Outlook Express requires you to do something a certain way, for example) there are plenty of 3rd party apps available. Burning disk images for instance has SimplyBurns, Burn, Toast, Disk Utility etc etc. It's your choice depending on what you want.
As to the fiddling comment, I'd rather spend time using it than patching it. Very well, if that's your idea of fun, go right ahead. I think most people want to actually USE the system though, and Macs give a superior user experience there. You might be surprised, it's like a polished Linux experience.
Add in your recurring antivirus costs and the costs in time you spend to maintain that Windows machine, and the possibility (which gets higher every day) of getting owned and the result is not what you think. A cost analysis shows the Mac to be far cheaper in the long run.
It's all location, location, location. I get 1.7Mb/s down and 400+Kb/s up in most places using the SpeedTest app. Then when I walk to the back of the house sometimes I'm on the EDGE (or whatever) network and it's slow as molasses. This is the Palm Beach / Martin County / Broward county area in SE Florida.
Surely you're not so naive as to accept all Windows updates blindly? Obviously you've never administered hundreds of Windows machines spread over multiple geographic locations.
I've used Windows since Windows 1.0 (the Executive Manager or whatever it was called). I was installing coax networks and pushing clients into WfWg 3.11 back in the day. I've coded on dozens of systems, things such as the Commodore PET and TRS-80 Model 3. I'm not exactly new to this. That said, I decided to get off the monkey wheel and "bailed out" at XP for my desktop OS. I rdesktop into the Windows servers I manage and SSH into the Linux servers. When I have to run Windows, I launch a VM.
OSX Tiger has been extremely stable and quick and makes my work much quicker and easier than a Windows host OS. I'm anticipating the upgrade to Snow Leopard will be even better. The machine is a joy to use -- something I hadn't felt in awhile with the HP Evo's and Windows XP.
Guess what? My next machine will be another Mac. I still have a DVSE G3 400 that works -- it was bought in 1999. Another is a G3 800 iMac. ALL of my Windows machines (including a few I built) have died since then, without exception. Are you going to tell me that Dell / Gateway / Micron / etc builds a better box than Apple? Proof is in the pudding for me. The only reason I'm getting rid of the G3's is they're too old to upgrade to the latest browsers / software. I feel like I got my money's worth and then some.
Nope. My billable rate is high enough that wasting time mucking with a Windows OS is far more expensive than simply using something that works. Of course if you don't value your time, go ahead and buy the cheapest commodity OS around, just don't go whining when you find it's not the best solution long-term.
Have fun with your Antivirus updates (and how they slow your machine), your Microsoft Malevolent Software of-the-Month tool, etc etc. I will be working while you are patching.
RTFA. Everything I've read clearly states that Microsoft, a US corporation, obtained this motion on the sly and without following established legal proceedings. You and I would have been laughed at had we asked for such a thing, which should tip you off that it's probably not right.
It may be different where you live, but in the US, our legal system requires evidence to be presented in a court of law. In non-law-enforcement cases (which have exceptions to this rule) that also means the other party gets the chance to respond and be present for those accusations... the right to face your accuser is an important right. That's what makes it "proof" rather than "information" or "evidence" -- the way it's presented in a court of law and the legal proceedings around that presentation.
If our justice system didn't require evidence to be presented in this manner, and I want to play with words such as "proof" without understanding their legal implications, I could easily "prove" BlakeyRat is responsible for any crime I wanted to make up. If I'm presenting evidence, and I'm not a government police agency, I should have to face the accusers in court, like everyone else.
Or would you rather your sites be downed in the interim, like these people? Are you for losing freedom in the interest of "justice" or "safety"? Guilty until proven innocent, hmmm? I may not like the botnet or its creators *at all*, but I especially dislike the 3rd party legal maneuvering by a corporation (and future implications / precedent).
In this case, a US corporation has been allowed to shut down a large number of sites, without fair trial or normal legal proceedings. That the legal proceedings were allowed to be short-cutted by any entity is bad enough, but this corporation is not even the proper party to file this motion. The proper party is law enforcement.
Mod parent up.
I don't like where this is going -- at all. Too many times Microsoft has done something supposedly in the spirit of friendship, then turned around and stabbed someone in the back. So I question their motives even when it appears they are doing something "right".
A precedent is being set here, where a private company obtains an order to shut down a large number of sites, without warning and without proof of guilt. Yes, I think the botnet people are bad. But by destroying the *process* and doing things on the sly, you destroy the credibility of the action. Shutting down hundreds of sites based on little more than an accusation -- and without due notice -- seems to be a very large hammer for any 3rd party to wield.
Today it's a botnet. Tomorrow maybe it's your site, that just happened to host an anti-Microsoft comment. Whoops. Maybe you were "accidentally" included with their next scheduled monthly site shutdown. So sorry about that.
Punchdown tools... let's see the free (blue plastic) ones come with the boxes of ends... or you can buy such a tool for about $5 at Home Depot. I don't see any problem there. They're quite easy to use.
Actually on 1Gpbs LAN / 4Gbps fiber I spend most of my time waiting on the SAN or other physical storage, not the network. Call me uncreative, but I could think of only a few ways to saturate a 1Gbps link repeatedly before I got bored:
mirror large site(s)
start your own Google
provide ISP services to others
torrent a bunch of stuff
Move all your data to the cloud (stupid but possible)
Most of the US is inhabitable and there are actually people there. There are large swaths of Canada which don't have many people http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm . Now if these outliers are getting serviced at high speeds, then you are ABSOLUTELY right and we should be even more ashamed of our lack of progress.
Personally I think that politicians and broadband providers in the US are responsible for most of the hold ups.
Yeah, even in Palm Beach (in one of the larger developments) all I get from Verizon is:
We're sorry, but Verizon does not offer FiOS Internet in your area based on the address you entered below:
(redacted), Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33418 However, you may be interested in these Verizon services which may be available in your area.
My Sprint / NexTel aircard has absolutely horrible reception here too... but 1.5 miles directly east it has excellent reception.
Comcast will probably advertise 100Mb/s because of the "SpeedBoost" that downloads the first 10MB or whatever. I went to their site just now to check pricing (see other comments in this thread) and I couldn't find ANYWHERE what the actual speeds were. I had to read the disclosure just to see that their claimed speeds assumed you were downloading / uploading only small files which fit into their SpeedBoost scheme.
It's been my experience that both Comcast and BellSouth suck, and they both oversubscribe hugely.
But to be fair, we have a very very physically large country. It's much harder to design / install / implement the infrastructure required, and the cost is so much higher, than installing high-speed in Japan for instance.
Even with that excuse, I blame our politicians and media conglomerates from slowing adoption of new technologies and speeds. They're more worried someone might rip a movie or trade audio files than anything else. Anything to make the buck even if it means selling your soul.
Since most sites you connect to won't give you anywhere near that bandwidth, I'd argue that the difference between a "real" 1Mb/s and 10Mb/s connection is HUGE, 10 to 100 is big but not as huge, and 100 to 1000 is basically wasted on most people.
Even streaming video, streaming audio, torrenting etc I'd have trouble keeping a "true" 1Gbps link saturated for long.
* I keep saying "true" because so many providers in the US advertise one speed, but you really get something that's maybe half that. On a good day. From 12 pm to 2 pm. If the kids aren't home for summer or winter break. If it's not a National holiday. Etc.
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Actually your post says more about you than about anyone else.
Mod parent up. This is old news for USAA members.
I have kids, and they use the social sites (really, how are you going to stop a 15- or 16-year-old from doing this). I added an account for me and asked them to friend me. Sure, it's possible they have other accounts they share with their friends, but they use the "main" accounts so frequently that it's more likely that so long as I don't blow up over small stuff they forget I'm friended.
When I was a kid, we had BBS's. This is a whole 'nother level of danger. Better to be aware than uninformed.
Please mod parent up. It's so stupid that cash payers pay more.
Yes, I understand the sarcasm. I get it. But other than the relatively high cost of Macs versus Linux machines for something as mundane as firewalls / proxies is the only thing stopping it -- so you're really not that far off. I know our firewalls are Linux- and CIsco-based (Cisco IOS runs on top of Linux or POSIX-compliant OS's).
I’d rather fiddle with it myself than spend an extra few hundred dollars to have it set up already and I can’t change much of anything.
You obviously have never used a Mac. Why don't you look up MacPorts or Fink and see how a very large number of *NIX utilities / apps are available on the OSX platform. While individual Apple software may require you to do something a certain way (just as Microsoft's Outlook / Outlook Express requires you to do something a certain way, for example) there are plenty of 3rd party apps available. Burning disk images for instance has SimplyBurns, Burn, Toast, Disk Utility etc etc. It's your choice depending on what you want.
As to the fiddling comment, I'd rather spend time using it than patching it. Very well, if that's your idea of fun, go right ahead. I think most people want to actually USE the system though, and Macs give a superior user experience there. You might be surprised, it's like a polished Linux experience.
Add in your recurring antivirus costs and the costs in time you spend to maintain that Windows machine, and the possibility (which gets higher every day) of getting owned and the result is not what you think. A cost analysis shows the Mac to be far cheaper in the long run.
It's all location, location, location. I get 1.7Mb/s down and 400+Kb/s up in most places using the SpeedTest app. Then when I walk to the back of the house sometimes I'm on the EDGE (or whatever) network and it's slow as molasses. This is the Palm Beach / Martin County / Broward county area in SE Florida.
Surely you're not so naive as to accept all Windows updates blindly? Obviously you've never administered hundreds of Windows machines spread over multiple geographic locations.
I've used Windows since Windows 1.0 (the Executive Manager or whatever it was called). I was installing coax networks and pushing clients into WfWg 3.11 back in the day. I've coded on dozens of systems, things such as the Commodore PET and TRS-80 Model 3. I'm not exactly new to this. That said, I decided to get off the monkey wheel and "bailed out" at XP for my desktop OS. I rdesktop into the Windows servers I manage and SSH into the Linux servers. When I have to run Windows, I launch a VM.
OSX Tiger has been extremely stable and quick and makes my work much quicker and easier than a Windows host OS. I'm anticipating the upgrade to Snow Leopard will be even better. The machine is a joy to use -- something I hadn't felt in awhile with the HP Evo's and Windows XP.
Guess what? My next machine will be another Mac. I still have a DVSE G3 400 that works -- it was bought in 1999. Another is a G3 800 iMac. ALL of my Windows machines (including a few I built) have died since then, without exception. Are you going to tell me that Dell / Gateway / Micron / etc builds a better box than Apple? Proof is in the pudding for me. The only reason I'm getting rid of the G3's is they're too old to upgrade to the latest browsers / software. I feel like I got my money's worth and then some.
Nope. My billable rate is high enough that wasting time mucking with a Windows OS is far more expensive than simply using something that works. Of course if you don't value your time, go ahead and buy the cheapest commodity OS around, just don't go whining when you find it's not the best solution long-term.
Have fun with your Antivirus updates (and how they slow your machine), your Microsoft Malevolent Software of-the-Month tool, etc etc. I will be working while you are patching.
Or you can skip all this malarky and just go buy a MacBook Pro like I did.
Here come the trolls...
So the score is... 254 to 1. Bravo.
Now who's going to clean up all the dead bodies of other companies that partnered with Microsoft? It's a bloody mess.
Yes. Much more eloquently put than I could have done. Because Microsoft is a 3rd party they should have had no ability to file this motion.
RTFA. Everything I've read clearly states that Microsoft, a US corporation, obtained this motion on the sly and without following established legal proceedings. You and I would have been laughed at had we asked for such a thing, which should tip you off that it's probably not right.
It may be different where you live, but in the US, our legal system requires evidence to be presented in a court of law. In non-law-enforcement cases (which have exceptions to this rule) that also means the other party gets the chance to respond and be present for those accusations... the right to face your accuser is an important right. That's what makes it "proof" rather than "information" or "evidence" -- the way it's presented in a court of law and the legal proceedings around that presentation.
If our justice system didn't require evidence to be presented in this manner, and I want to play with words such as "proof" without understanding their legal implications, I could easily "prove" BlakeyRat is responsible for any crime I wanted to make up. If I'm presenting evidence, and I'm not a government police agency, I should have to face the accusers in court, like everyone else.
Or would you rather your sites be downed in the interim, like these people? Are you for losing freedom in the interest of "justice" or "safety"? Guilty until proven innocent, hmmm? I may not like the botnet or its creators *at all*, but I especially dislike the 3rd party legal maneuvering by a corporation (and future implications / precedent).
In this case, a US corporation has been allowed to shut down a large number of sites, without fair trial or normal legal proceedings. That the legal proceedings were allowed to be short-cutted by any entity is bad enough, but this corporation is not even the proper party to file this motion. The proper party is law enforcement.
Mod parent up.
I don't like where this is going -- at all. Too many times Microsoft has done something supposedly in the spirit of friendship, then turned around and stabbed someone in the back. So I question their motives even when it appears they are doing something "right".
A precedent is being set here, where a private company obtains an order to shut down a large number of sites, without warning and without proof of guilt. Yes, I think the botnet people are bad. But by destroying the *process* and doing things on the sly, you destroy the credibility of the action. Shutting down hundreds of sites based on little more than an accusation -- and without due notice -- seems to be a very large hammer for any 3rd party to wield.
Today it's a botnet. Tomorrow maybe it's your site, that just happened to host an anti-Microsoft comment. Whoops. Maybe you were "accidentally" included with their next scheduled monthly site shutdown. So sorry about that.
Sad part is, I was going for a funny...
Do you sell videos of the manufacturing process?
I Googled for stripper and all I kept getting were these Tiger Woods pictures. Am I doing something wrong?
Punchdown tools... let's see the free (blue plastic) ones come with the boxes of ends... or you can buy such a tool for about $5 at Home Depot. I don't see any problem there. They're quite easy to use.
Most of the US is inhabitable and there are actually people there. There are large swaths of Canada which don't have many people http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm . Now if these outliers are getting serviced at high speeds, then you are ABSOLUTELY right and we should be even more ashamed of our lack of progress.
Personally I think that politicians and broadband providers in the US are responsible for most of the hold ups.
We're sorry, but Verizon does not offer FiOS Internet in your area based on the address you entered below:
(redacted), Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33418
However, you may be interested in these Verizon services which may be available in your area.
My Sprint / NexTel aircard has absolutely horrible reception here too... but 1.5 miles directly east it has excellent reception.
Comcast will probably advertise 100Mb/s because of the "SpeedBoost" that downloads the first 10MB or whatever. I went to their site just now to check pricing (see other comments in this thread) and I couldn't find ANYWHERE what the actual speeds were. I had to read the disclosure just to see that their claimed speeds assumed you were downloading / uploading only small files which fit into their SpeedBoost scheme.
It's been my experience that both Comcast and BellSouth suck, and they both oversubscribe hugely.
But to be fair, we have a very very physically large country. It's much harder to design / install / implement the infrastructure required, and the cost is so much higher, than installing high-speed in Japan for instance.
Even with that excuse, I blame our politicians and media conglomerates from slowing adoption of new technologies and speeds. They're more worried someone might rip a movie or trade audio files than anything else. Anything to make the buck even if it means selling your soul.
Since most sites you connect to won't give you anywhere near that bandwidth, I'd argue that the difference between a "real" 1Mb/s and 10Mb/s connection is HUGE, 10 to 100 is big but not as huge, and 100 to 1000 is basically wasted on most people.
Even streaming video, streaming audio, torrenting etc I'd have trouble keeping a "true" 1Gbps link saturated for long.
* I keep saying "true" because so many providers in the US advertise one speed, but you really get something that's maybe half that. On a good day. From 12 pm to 2 pm. If the kids aren't home for summer or winter break. If it's not a National holiday. Etc.