Aside from the already-stated DRM and pr0n possibilities, I can see a use for this with promotional items. CD business cards, trial/AOL software, and (if you can do it on an audio disc) music singles.
The main problem I had with GnuPG is that it's a command-line program. I really missed some of the nice GUI features in the Windows version of PGP. Then I found out about WinPT, which is a GUI shell for GnuPG.
Companies do not always hire the most experienced programmers. The reason being that they are more expensive. If the job is entry-level or only requires a few years of experience, companies do not want to pay 70K+ for a programmer when they can get by with 40K.
In fact this type of hiring is quite common. I think your problems may be due to a glut of programmers in general, rather a glut of experienced ones.
Just for kicks I decided to switch to Dvorak after reading the article. The thing I miss most is being able to easily use the Windows keyboard shortcuts (CTRL-C, CTRL-V, and CTRL-Z) with just my left hand -- I use them a lot!
Also of interest is the cleanliness of the keys in the new configuration. (My keyboard has accumulated some sort of gunk, and the keys are discolored based on how frequently they are used.) In the new configuration, the entire home row is clean with the exception of the underscore/hyphen. In addition, all keys in the center of the keyboard are clean. As you move away from the center towards the periphery, the keys gradually become darker, with more dirt on the left half. So I have some empirical evidence to support the efficiency of the Dvorak keyboard.
Perhaps you should consider a different calling plan. I had one where the first minute of an incoming call was free. This easily handled telemarketers, wrong numbers, etc.
The competition for cell phone customers is intense, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a plan where you can safely ignore telemarketers.
Re:GCC 2.x and 3.x compiler
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
Let me double-check this. You didn't use ANY of the built in routines -- which means that you didn't #include any of the gcc include files and didn't even use standard C functions like memcpy() or vsprintf()?
Re:Apple instructor pointer invalid
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
My favorite method to swap 2 variables (in C):
a ^= b ^= a ^= b;
It works.
Re:GCC 2.x and 3.x compiler
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps gcc has a kybd.o file in one of its libraries. Libraries are organized by filename (not function name). Your kybd.o would take precedence over the other one.
I have a DSP board from a company that shall remain unnamed. When you perform a DMA between the PC and the DSP board, the board's PCI controller is driving the board's external bus and nobody is refreshing the RAM. (All DRAM must be periodically refreshed, or the memory chip discharges). The hardware design team solved this problem in a particularly bad way. They assumed programmers would set up a DMA operation and then continuously poll the DMA status register until the transfer was complete. Thus, they configured a PLD to handle the refresh, as long as the PCI controller's DMA status register was being polled.
So what happens if you try to do an interrupt-driven DMA in the background? The system crashes because RAM isn't getting refreshed. The tech support person suggested a test: have one DSP chip do nothing but poll the PCI controller's DMA status register. Suddenly it worked fine. There is no way I could have figured this one out on my own. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my code, except that the hardware design engineers didn't expect anyone to use interrupt-driven DMA.
Fortunately this was a known issue and the company had an update, although we had to purchase a $150 cable so we could re-program the PLD.
There was a precision error in the Apple II that was very easy to recreate. If you typed:
7^2
It would display something like this (the number of zeros is probably wrong):
49.00000000001
Re:Windows Registry Access Security
on
Pet Bugs?
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· Score: 1
I should clarify the preceding post. My non-administrator account had access to the key for read and write -- it simply didn't have some of the more esoteric access levels. By default, only administrators have all levels of access to all registry keys. Even though my account had the necessary access, the program was requesting full access -- so it could not open the key.
Windows Registry Access Security
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 2
I found this bug in several commercial programs I've purchased in the past. I would install a program on my WinNT machine and discover it could only be run from an administrator account -- even though it wasn't doing anything that would normally require special access. The tech support people didn't seem to think this was much of a problem, but I go by the philosophy that my run-of-the-mill userid should not have adminstrator authority.
I tracked it down to the security settings for some of the registry keys. The call to open the key requested full access, which required administrator authority. Apparently the software had been developed and tested on Win9x or administator-level NT, where security does not really exist in the registry. The program did not require full access (read/write would be sufficient), but the coders probably didn't even bother with security.
The solution was to change the security level for a few registry keys. Once I did that, everything worked fine. I had to use a registry monitor to figure out what was happening.
The NTFS file system keeps track of how many times a file is opened/closed, while the older FAT filesystem (and maybe FAT32) do not. We had code that would run perfectly on a FAT partition but failed on an NTFS partition (the OS didn't matter).
It boiled down to the fact that a data file was opened multiple times without being closed. NTFS would only allow one read/write access at a time, so subsuequent read/write fopen() calls would fail. The FAT filesystem did not have this problem, because it would happily allow you to open the same file multiple times.
Actually, this is not quite correct. The NPR interview said it took an hour to discover the password *and* determine the correct version of the software. Furthermore, the majority of the hour was used up in determining the version. Apparently the password existed in plain-text within the data file, and it only took a few minutes to discover it.
I'm using Mozilla 1.0rc2 (not 3, but...) under WinNT and they look the same. So I think your conjecture about the font change for Win2K may be the correct reason.
After all, the entire surface of the moon has already been legally claimed by one man. See the Lunar Embassy page.
I doubt it'll ever hold up in any court, but could you imagine someone trying to develop the moon and having to deal with a lawsuit from this guy? Or worse, criminal trespassing charges!
I've read nearly all of the posts on logging. Most people recommended using the firewall as a syslog client (to a printer, serial port, ethernet port, etc.).
I am unclear, however, exactly how this can be accomplished. Would we need to prevent another process from shutting down (like we did with ipchains and the network)? Also, how can one do remote logging to a serial port or printer when/dev isn't mounted?
I appreciate anyone who can explain the process and/or answer my questions. Thanks.
The new standard contains a sophisticated mathematical formula known as an algorithm.
Did anyone else find this to be hilarious? I can see a manager saying something like, "We need to write this at a 6th-grade level of comprehension. Be sure to define the word 'algorithm'."
I understand that setting the initial file associations (and changing them whenever you run Windows Update) is a very powerful ability that enhances Microsoft's dominance of the market. I'm not sure, however, that I completely agree with the proposed solution. Let's assume, for argument's sake, that Microsoft made it very, very easy to change file associations. We could then break users into 3 groups:
Power users (who aren't really affected).
Novice users for whom the concept of file associations is still beyond the scope of what they can (or want to) understand.
Novice users who fit into the gap between #1 and #2.
I believe that anyone sophisticated enough to understand and make changes to file associations can already be classified as a power user. I'm thinking that the concept of registered file types is beyond most novice users -- regardless of how easy it may be to change the associations. Let's say that I'm a novice user and want to open an MP3 file with WinAmp, but Windows Media Player comes up if I double-click. What are my options? I can run WinAmp and drag the MP3 file to it. If I'm a persistent novice user, then I may want to change the association. A quick trip to the WinAmp preferences will give me the ability to do that. And what if Microsoft had made it very easy to modify associated file types? Would I right-click? But a lot of novice users don't know much about right-clicking, especially if they were Mac users. Right-clicking is more of a power user thing. Would I go to the control panel? But a lot of novice users don't even know of the existence of the control panel, much less how to use it. The control panel falls into the system administration arena. By the time my hypothetical novice user learned enough about Windows to change the file association, I believe he/she would be well on his/her way to becoming a power user.
I suggest that group #3, above, is a relatively small percentage of computer users, and the solution presented in the article would not solve the underlying problem of Microsoft's dominance.
Slashdot Mirror
Just in case, here is a mirror.
- _AuthorEmailDisplayName
property is set to- Valerie Mallinson (Wes Rataushk & Assc Inc)
I guess that's hidden if you don't know much about computers.Aside from the already-stated DRM and pr0n possibilities, I can see a use for this with promotional items. CD business cards, trial/AOL software, and (if you can do it on an audio disc) music singles.
Am I the only one who took several minutes to figure out that "DiscT@2" is "Disc Tattoo"?
Guess my age is showing.
Love it. Use it all the time. Recommended.
In fact this type of hiring is quite common. I think your problems may be due to a glut of programmers in general, rather a glut of experienced ones.
Also of interest is the cleanliness of the keys in the new configuration. (My keyboard has accumulated some sort of gunk, and the keys are discolored based on how frequently they are used.) In the new configuration, the entire home row is clean with the exception of the underscore/hyphen. In addition, all keys in the center of the keyboard are clean. As you move away from the center towards the periphery, the keys gradually become darker, with more dirt on the left half. So I have some empirical evidence to support the efficiency of the Dvorak keyboard.
The competition for cell phone customers is intense, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a plan where you can safely ignore telemarketers.
Let me double-check this. You didn't use ANY of the built in routines -- which means that you didn't #include any of the gcc include files and didn't even use standard C functions like memcpy() or vsprintf()?
- a ^= b ^= a ^= b;
It works.Perhaps gcc has a kybd.o file in one of its libraries. Libraries are organized by filename (not function name). Your kybd.o would take precedence over the other one.
I have a DSP board from a company that shall remain unnamed. When you perform a DMA between the PC and the DSP board, the board's PCI controller is driving the board's external bus and nobody is refreshing the RAM. (All DRAM must be periodically refreshed, or the memory chip discharges). The hardware design team solved this problem in a particularly bad way. They assumed programmers would set up a DMA operation and then continuously poll the DMA status register until the transfer was complete. Thus, they configured a PLD to handle the refresh, as long as the PCI controller's DMA status register was being polled.
So what happens if you try to do an interrupt-driven DMA in the background? The system crashes because RAM isn't getting refreshed. The tech support person suggested a test: have one DSP chip do nothing but poll the PCI controller's DMA status register. Suddenly it worked fine. There is no way I could have figured this one out on my own. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my code, except that the hardware design engineers didn't expect anyone to use interrupt-driven DMA.
Fortunately this was a known issue and the company had an update, although we had to purchase a $150 cable so we could re-program the PLD.
- 7^2
It would display something like this (the number of zeros is probably wrong):I should clarify the preceding post. My non-administrator account had access to the key for read and write -- it simply didn't have some of the more esoteric access levels. By default, only administrators have all levels of access to all registry keys. Even though my account had the necessary access, the program was requesting full access -- so it could not open the key.
I found this bug in several commercial programs I've purchased in the past. I would install a program on my WinNT machine and discover it could only be run from an administrator account -- even though it wasn't doing anything that would normally require special access. The tech support people didn't seem to think this was much of a problem, but I go by the philosophy that my run-of-the-mill userid should not have adminstrator authority.
I tracked it down to the security settings for some of the registry keys. The call to open the key requested full access, which required administrator authority. Apparently the software had been developed and tested on Win9x or administator-level NT, where security does not really exist in the registry. The program did not require full access (read/write would be sufficient), but the coders probably didn't even bother with security.
The solution was to change the security level for a few registry keys. Once I did that, everything worked fine. I had to use a registry monitor to figure out what was happening.
It boiled down to the fact that a data file was opened multiple times without being closed. NTFS would only allow one read/write access at a time, so subsuequent read/write fopen() calls would fail. The FAT filesystem did not have this problem, because it would happily allow you to open the same file multiple times.
Actually, this is not quite correct. The NPR interview said it took an hour to discover the password *and* determine the correct version of the software. Furthermore, the majority of the hour was used up in determining the version. Apparently the password existed in plain-text within the data file, and it only took a few minutes to discover it.
- "Novocin informed the depot, who said they did not want the parts and suggested he sell them on eBay."
Typical government incompetency. It was only after Newsweek contacted them that they began to realize there was a problem.I'm using Mozilla 1.0rc2 (not 3, but...) under WinNT and they look the same. So I think your conjecture about the font change for Win2K may be the correct reason.
I doubt it'll ever hold up in any court, but could you imagine someone trying to develop the moon and having to deal with a lawsuit from this guy? Or worse, criminal trespassing charges!
- "The Wichita State University team has offered a $500 prize to whoever returns the 500 millionth result!"
So the cash prize still exists, although the seti@home folks are not the ones providing it.I've read nearly all of the posts on logging. Most people recommended using the firewall as a syslog client (to a printer, serial port, ethernet port, etc.).
I am unclear, however, exactly how this can be accomplished. Would we need to prevent another process from shutting down (like we did with ipchains and the network)? Also, how can one do remote logging to a serial port or printer when /dev isn't mounted?
I appreciate anyone who can explain the process and/or answer my questions. Thanks.
- The new standard contains a sophisticated mathematical formula known as an algorithm.
Did anyone else find this to be hilarious? I can see a manager saying something like, "We need to write this at a 6th-grade level of comprehension. Be sure to define the word 'algorithm'."InfoWorld recently published a relevant article on this subject. It discusses the decline of Dell's support.
- Power users (who aren't really affected).
- Novice users for whom the concept of file associations is still beyond the scope of what they can (or want to) understand.
- Novice users who fit into the gap between #1 and #2.
I believe that anyone sophisticated enough to understand and make changes to file associations can already be classified as a power user. I'm thinking that the concept of registered file types is beyond most novice users -- regardless of how easy it may be to change the associations. Let's say that I'm a novice user and want to open an MP3 file with WinAmp, but Windows Media Player comes up if I double-click. What are my options? I can run WinAmp and drag the MP3 file to it. If I'm a persistent novice user, then I may want to change the association. A quick trip to the WinAmp preferences will give me the ability to do that. And what if Microsoft had made it very easy to modify associated file types? Would I right-click? But a lot of novice users don't know much about right-clicking, especially if they were Mac users. Right-clicking is more of a power user thing. Would I go to the control panel? But a lot of novice users don't even know of the existence of the control panel, much less how to use it. The control panel falls into the system administration arena. By the time my hypothetical novice user learned enough about Windows to change the file association, I believe he/she would be well on his/her way to becoming a power user.I suggest that group #3, above, is a relatively small percentage of computer users, and the solution presented in the article would not solve the underlying problem of Microsoft's dominance.