Was just searching for the date: "DESQview was released in July 1985, four months before Microsoft introduced the first version of Windows. It was widely thought to be the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to DOS, but in fact there was a predecessor, IBM's failed TopView, released in 1984, from which DESQview inherited the popup menu."
Nothing wrong with the protocol. That's like saying there was something 'wrong' with IP if all the DNS servers were nuked...
Re:Chumby homepage stinks, article OK
on
Inside Factory China
·
· Score: 3, Informative
He has it wrong. Unlocked communication devices are different, because they can cause additional costs/damage on the network they are connected to. This is the reason smartphone makers cripple their devices.
If the cell phone network eventually becomes as robust *cough* as the Internet, then the need for unlocked devices will go away. But right now, there is a lot of "trust the client" built in to the way the cellular network operates.
Me confused. Depends what you're meaning by 'communication device' and 'unlocked', definitions of which seem to vary during your post.
IMHO existing GSM cell phone networks are *very* robust, (at least in Europe), and either nuke or tolerate 'unlocked' devices pretty well. Working upwards:
1. You/service provider can (optionally) link your account/SIM to the device IMEI. Service providers can block devices at IMEI level, regardless of the SIM inserted. They don't like what your device is doing? It dies. See:
2. If you clone a sim card, the network will block the account linked to the SIM as soon as you fire up two simultaneously, or just fry the 'defective' first one.
3. Assuming you get your 'open' device working, then access to the network and its associated services is fairly tightly controlled, and is in any case linked to your ID and - more importantly - method of payment.
4. Most devices are 'sold' @ less than list/cost price as part of a package deal. It's understandable that you can then only use them on the SP's net - they're 'locked'. Of course, options exist to 'unlock' them for use on any network, but again, your priviledges on that network will depend on your SIM, not the device.
5. Finally, some devices - most notoriously the iPhone - are 'locked' as to what apps you can install on them. The ingenuous excuse offered by Apple is that 'this is to prevent damage to the device/network', which is, of course, complete bollocks. I own one of the most 'secure' GSMs around - a Blackberry - and it's quite happy to let me install 'unauthorised' apps...
Locked clients are all to do with business models, not (unfortunately) robustness.
Aware of that - but check out the trackers on isohunt; plenty of options other than Piratebay. If it goes down, people will use the alternatives, simple as that.
How long did it take to recover from mininova? Not long...
Might force more people to 'member-only' or subscription sites, for a short time, is all.
Meanwhile, isohunt (among others) is going strong.
Finally, could also push more people into IRC, which I'm sure the MAAFIA would just adore.
Chumby homepage stinks, article OK
on
Inside Factory China
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Link to Chumby page Flash-infested, but interview with creator quite refreshing, for example:
JT: There seems to be a running battle between the users of equipment and the manufacturers, be it jail-broken iPhones or hacked Xboxes. How much control do you think a manufacturer legitimately should be allowed to have over the use of their hardware?
AH: Well, I think that a manufacturer, basically once the hardware leaves the factory, and someone's paid whatever the market price is for it, then the user owns it, right? So I mean you could take that piece of hardware, melt it down and use it for the component metals if you want, use it for a doorstop. You could use it for something completely other than the computer, that you had not imagined it to be used for. So the hardware itself is pretty much -- I kind of believe you buy it, you own it.
So many other things could also do with a panic button to shut things down "should something inappropriate occur"; the list is endless, but we could start with: - The international banking system, (too late) - The North Korean politburo - The Australian parliament - The Canadian parliament and, - The European parliament!
Excellent. Parody, satire & humour in general has always been one of the best ways of showing up these types of ridiculous auhoritarian practises IMHO.
It's intereresting that people feel it necessary to point things out that are actually in the summary:
"The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system."
I mean, we'fre not supposed to read TFA, but c'mon, the summary!?
Still, you actually got modded 'informative' for it, so I guess the mods don't read the summary either...so, good call!
Which one is best for implanting life?
on
Fly Me To Which Moon?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Let's go to the best place for living there some day. (Sounds like neither)
So, we're always careful about not infecting extra-terrestrial ecosystems the way we have here on Earth. We're obsessed with finding some kind of 'life', (but have not so far). Well and good, and I've always supported those points of view.
But we might want to consider the chilling possibility that one day the Earth might become uninhabitable, (asteroid strike, nuclear war, superbug, whatever). OK, it's improbable, but then again so is finding 'life' on some barren, frozen moon.
If that did happen - maybe hundreds of years from now - our descendants would be pretty glad if we'd shipped out bugs that had quietly been transforming methane into oxygen (for example) over the centuries...
Expecting government contractors to do anything more than provide the bare minimum to get the next contract is foolish.
The whole point of Apollo was that nothing fundamentally *new* was required. "All" that was needed was to put the existing technology together. The same cannot be said of RLVs.
Agree with the first pont, but the second - you're kidding, right?
The entire point of the Apollo programs was to funnel huge amounts of cash into the public/private sector so the USA could 'catch up' with the Sovs. (If they were really 'in the lead' could be debated endlessly).
Huge advances were required in many fields, including materials science, rocket motor design and construction, computers for simulation and guidance...
As often, Wikipedia says it better than I could:
"The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and manned spaceflight. These include major contributions in the fields of avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The program sparked interest in many fields of engineering, including pioneering work using statistical methods to study the reliability of complex systems made from component parts. The physical facilities and machines which were necessary components of the manned spaceflight program remain as landmarks of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering..."
Others here done a good job on the 'security' bit. Now, in these tough economic times, let's not forget the cold, hard cash.
If your existing customers are happy with their current installations, in terms of functionality, ease of use, maintenace and - of course - security, then why should they change?
That's why the m$ salespeople are pitching the 'security' line - you'd have to be really scared in order to pony up the huge cost of switching in today's tough times.
I'd (briefly) address the security question, then give the customer a rough cost of moving from FOSS to m$. Dont forget the cost of upgrading any hardware, (for Vista), if required and of course the anti-virus software, too;-)
As you say, parent may/may not have been trolling, but was interesting. Thank you for taking the time to do an in-depth negation rather than just the usual "he's an anti-FOSS heretic, stone him!!!!"
You're right, of course. Although when I was there, Customer Engineers were typically in such short supply that the Sales Engineers often had to get out here and fix stuff.
You are right, but only because the French and the Brit Govs wrote off the development costs.
"Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners."
However:
"With only 20 aircraft ultimately built, the costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft.
Try finding a 1960s aircraft that is rated to fly for 208 minutes, or nearly 3 and a half hours, on one single engine. Thats how far the technology has come, its extremely reliable.
It may be strange for those not in the networking field, but when things really go bad, the only place to be is physically in the data center.
Heh. I've heard that in the old day you could find broken Token ring hardware by listening after a high pitched whining noise. Guess one really has to be there for stuff like that.
Was there, and confirm true. Whining noise normally came from IBM SE who was trying to fix problem.
I'm for it - too many services are automatically started for you by both Windows & many flavors of *nix. This leads to slow boots and reduced performance therafter...
Otherwise I'm less than impressed with this article which seems to be a sloppy Infoworld astroturf. The second link goes to one about XP, and not windows 7 for example...
Slashdot Mirror
Was just searching for the date:
"DESQview was released in July 1985, four months before Microsoft introduced the first version of Windows. It was widely thought to be the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to DOS, but in fact there was a predecessor, IBM's failed TopView, released in 1984, from which DESQview inherited the popup menu."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
From the the entry for TopView:
"TopView ran in real mode on any x86 processor and could run well-behaved MS-DOS programs in windows. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopView
So I guess there's plenty of prior art.
Of course, there's MVS also which came out in 1974 IIRC...not sure if that counts, tho.
Nothing wrong with the protocol. That's like saying there was something 'wrong' with IP if all the DNS servers were nuked...
He has it wrong. Unlocked communication devices are different, because they can cause additional costs/damage on the network they are connected to. This is the reason smartphone makers cripple their devices.
If the cell phone network eventually becomes as robust *cough* as the Internet, then the need for unlocked devices will go away. But right now, there is a lot of "trust the client" built in to the way the cellular network operates.
Me confused. Depends what you're meaning by 'communication device' and 'unlocked', definitions of which seem to vary during your post.
IMHO existing GSM cell phone networks are *very* robust, (at least in Europe), and either nuke or tolerate 'unlocked' devices pretty well. Working upwards:
1. You/service provider can (optionally) link your account/SIM to the device IMEI. Service providers can block devices at IMEI level, regardless of the SIM inserted. They don't like what your device is doing? It dies. See:
http://www.babt.com/gsm-imei-number-allocation.asp
2. If you clone a sim card, the network will block the account linked to the SIM as soon as you fire up two simultaneously, or just fry the 'defective' first one.
3. Assuming you get your 'open' device working, then access to the network and its associated services is fairly tightly controlled, and is in any case linked to your ID and - more importantly - method of payment.
4. Most devices are 'sold' @ less than list/cost price as part of a package deal. It's understandable that you can then only use them on the SP's net - they're 'locked'. Of course, options exist to 'unlock' them for use on any network, but again, your priviledges on that network will depend on your SIM, not the device.
5. Finally, some devices - most notoriously the iPhone - are 'locked' as to what apps you can install on them. The ingenuous excuse offered by Apple is that 'this is to prevent damage to the device/network', which is, of course, complete bollocks. I own one of the most 'secure' GSMs around - a Blackberry - and it's quite happy to let me install 'unauthorised' apps...
Locked clients are all to do with business models, not (unfortunately) robustness.
Thats an index >.
Aware of that - but check out the trackers on isohunt; plenty of options other than Piratebay. If it goes down, people will use the alternatives, simple as that.
How long did it take to recover from mininova? Not long...
Might force more people to 'member-only' or subscription sites, for a short time, is all.
Meanwhile, isohunt (among others) is going strong.
Finally, could also push more people into IRC, which I'm sure the MAAFIA would just adore.
Link to Chumby page Flash-infested, but interview with creator quite refreshing, for example:
JT: There seems to be a running battle between the users of equipment and the manufacturers, be it jail-broken iPhones or hacked Xboxes. How much control do you think a manufacturer legitimately should be allowed to have over the use of their hardware?
AH: Well, I think that a manufacturer, basically once the hardware leaves the factory, and someone's paid whatever the market price is for it, then the user owns it, right? So I mean you could take that piece of hardware, melt it down and use it for the component metals if you want, use it for a doorstop. You could use it for something completely other than the computer, that you had not imagined it to be used for. So the hardware itself is pretty much -- I kind of believe you buy it, you own it.
It's not dual-booting really, you either run Linux on an ARM, or Windows on a Core2.
Link at end to the original EE article, rather than gushy blog.
Did we not cover this earlier this week?
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=3TF41VYEZTQY0QSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=213402554&printable=true&printable=true
So many other things could also do with a panic button to shut things down "should something inappropriate occur"; the list is endless, but we could start with:
- The international banking system, (too late)
- The North Korean politburo
- The Australian parliament
- The Canadian parliament and,
- The European parliament!
Excellent. Parody, satire & humour in general has always been one of the best ways of showing up these types of ridiculous auhoritarian practises IMHO.
It's intereresting that people feel it necessary to point things out that are actually in the summary:
"The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system."
I mean, we'fre not supposed to read TFA, but c'mon, the summary!?
Still, you actually got modded 'informative' for it, so I guess the mods don't read the summary either...so, good call!
Let's go to the best place for living there some day. (Sounds like neither)
So, we're always careful about not infecting extra-terrestrial ecosystems the way we have here on Earth. We're obsessed with finding some kind of 'life', (but have not so far). Well and good, and I've always supported those points of view.
But we might want to consider the chilling possibility that one day the Earth might become uninhabitable, (asteroid strike, nuclear war, superbug, whatever). OK, it's improbable, but then again so is finding 'life' on some barren, frozen moon.
If that did happen - maybe hundreds of years from now - our descendants would be pretty glad if we'd shipped out bugs that had quietly been transforming methane into oxygen (for example) over the centuries...
Expecting government contractors to do anything more than provide the bare minimum to get the next contract is foolish.
The whole point of Apollo was that nothing fundamentally *new* was required. "All" that was needed was to put the existing technology together. The same cannot be said of RLVs.
Agree with the first pont, but the second - you're kidding, right?
The entire point of the Apollo programs was to funnel huge amounts of cash into the public/private sector so the USA could 'catch up' with the Sovs. (If they were really 'in the lead' could be debated endlessly).
Huge advances were required in many fields, including materials science, rocket motor design and construction, computers for simulation and guidance...
As often, Wikipedia says it better than I could:
"The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and manned spaceflight. These include major contributions in the fields of avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The program sparked interest in many fields of engineering, including pioneering work using statistical methods to study the reliability of complex systems made from component parts. The physical facilities and machines which were necessary components of the manned spaceflight program remain as landmarks of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
Others here done a good job on the 'security' bit. Now, in these tough economic times, let's not forget the cold, hard cash.
If your existing customers are happy with their current installations, in terms of functionality, ease of use, maintenace and - of course - security, then why should they change?
That's why the m$ salespeople are pitching the 'security' line - you'd have to be really scared in order to pony up the huge cost of switching in today's tough times.
I'd (briefly) address the security question, then give the customer a rough cost of moving from FOSS to m$. Dont forget the cost of upgrading any hardware, (for Vista), if required and of course the anti-virus software, too ;-)
Mod up.
As you say, parent may/may not have been trolling, but was interesting. Thank you for taking the time to do an in-depth negation rather than just the usual "he's an anti-FOSS heretic, stone him!!!!"
You're right, of course. Although when I was there, Customer Engineers were typically in such short supply that the Sales Engineers often had to get out here and fix stuff.
You are right, but only because the French and the Brit Govs wrote off the development costs.
"Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners."
However:
"With only 20 aircraft ultimately built, the costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft.
Wikipedia, of course, so it must be true.
Glad you liked it :)
Yup - see it here:
http://www.aviationexplorer.com/707_roll_video.htm
It looks impressive, but it's 1G (positive) all the way. Has been done in all sorts of big stuff, including a Concorde and a VC10 (with me in it!).
Try finding a 1960s aircraft that is rated to fly for 208 minutes, or nearly 3 and a half hours, on one single engine. Thats how far the technology has come, its extremely reliable.
Well, there was this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_st_louis
It managed more than 33 hours, on a single engine, in 1927.
Now get off my cloud.
It may be strange for those not in the networking field, but when things really go bad, the only place to be is physically in the data center.
Heh. I've heard that in the old day you could find broken Token ring hardware by listening after a high pitched whining noise. Guess one really has to be there for stuff like that.
Was there, and confirm true. Whining noise normally came from IBM SE who was trying to fix problem.
No-one in science calls themselves a Darwinist anyway, they'd say they were an evolutionary biologist.
Or just 'biologist' instead of 'nutjob posing as a scientist'...
You can start here:
https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/daisy/bsi/articles/knowledge/principles/358-BSI.html
And for specifically for web apps:
https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/daisy/bsi/articles/best-practices/assembly/639-BSI.html
Then you frighten yourself by playing with the toys here:
http://insecure.org/
It's available now - just get an old Eee PC on ebay.
More featurs and have fun rolling your own distro.
"My institution has thousands of computers, and is looking at starting an IT policy to encrypt everything"
You're looking at a world of potential support pain. Lost passwords, lost unrecoverable files...
For those advocating Truecrypt, my understanding is that it lacks the enterprise deployment and management tools of something like PGP.
You're talking about a fundamental change in your IT landscape, with significant implications for implementation & support cost. Get help.
I'm for it - too many services are automatically started for you by both Windows & many flavors of *nix. This leads to slow boots and reduced performance therafter...
Otherwise I'm less than impressed with this article which seems to be a sloppy Infoworld astroturf. The second link goes to one about XP, and not windows 7 for example...