Next month, an IM worm will install not just a browser, but an entire operating system. It will be Linux, but it will be setup to give the worm owner complete remote ops.
You need to distinguish between vandalism and profit motives. Installing Linux is far too complicated for profit.
This is an obvious defacement attack of the kind that becomes more prevalent six months before the new M$ OS is released. The user will haul their computer into a local store and be told it's obsolete and that they had better upgrade to the next M$ dissaster.
Profit motivated attacks don't want performance degradation or to be noticed. They install keyloggers and ad servers of one kind or another. Ideally, the user thinks the net just sucks more as advertisements become more frequent and obnoxious. The goal is to keep them watching and to rob them. You can't do that when they wipe and reload, so performance degradations are a accidents or the result of an attack by a rival group. Typically, the cracker wants to keep the box from other crackers so they close up the holes they crawled though themselves. Eventually, a multitude of crappy code will break the machine.
A Linux replacement, while granting better control than Bill Gates' commercial nightmare, would be far too complicated to pull off. Something would be different or not work and the user would notice. It's much easier to swap out 50k worth of binary and registry files using Microsoft's own closed source vendor friendly code. Windows was make to keep things from the user.
Or is IM safety a lost cause? -The question is sensationalist given the context.
No, it's the wrong question. It's not IM, it's Windows.
no information on the distribution of IM attacks is given. We have no idea if they are rare or frequent.... one cannot have a meaningful opionion about IM safety in general given only information about the *existance* of a particular, new threat.
No, but you can have a meaningful opinion about the "safety" of Windows. Despite claims of being "a safe and secure" OS and then years of promisses to fix the mess, Windoze remains a security dissaster that threatens users and the internet itself. Vista, if it ever runs, won't be much better because the priorities are DRM and locking out free software.
This is a great step in the right direction, but it won't change the underlying law and it can still be gamed. The biggest problem is not a lack of reviewers, it's what can be granted a patent. If business method patents are valid, more reviewers will only make more dumb business method pattents happen. Worse, those with money may be able to hire lots of people to mod bomb competing patents. Carefully qualified peer input will be very useful if patents once again are restricted to non obvious inventions.
Microsoft and other upgrades are binaries, and installable by end users. Telling a normal user to download source code... This is particularly egregious in projects that never release final binaries except once a blue moon.
You mean projects like Windows? XP to Vista has taken five years already.
Oh yeah, there have been "bug fixes" since then and recently M$ even started making them easier to get than calling a support line and being told to browse though numbered indexes of binary crap. Yes indeed, M$ support has almost come up to free software standards with that annoying little yellow pop-up that tells you about "critical updates". Woot. There you can get the distilled goodness of all of the few programmers M$ can afford to hire. Free software comes out cleaner than commercial code and stays that way because anyone can fix the problem.
The non free way of making code broke down a long time ago.
Your distribution makes things easy, so get off the developer's back. Using your distribution's binaries is the easiest way to get go and an all free system is much easier to keep up than one with non free binaries. The less free you get, the harder things are to work with. When something does not work for me in the free software world, and that's rare, there's always another project that does it.
It's only a cop-out if the developer/development team leaves it at "fixed in source".
They could even do that and it would be OK. Who ever said the development team is obligated to compile to your favorite architecture and distribution? More often than not they do but it does not matter if the code is free. Your distribution can and will pick up the changes soon enough, and that's the way the vast majority of users should get the vast majority of their software.
I'd like to hear of a situation where leaving it in source was not actually good enough. The only one I can think of would be where the user has upgraded a production system. They did this to get a new feature that might be nice but discovered a few bugs that were costing them money. The solution is to test and fix the bugs before moving the production system. I'd love to hear the story if anyone has one.
Could this mean that Safari, which is based on Konqueror, might be able to at least view ODF files?
You will probably have to install KWord. If you have that, Konqueror already opens kwd. When KWord does ODF, it will work in Konqueror.
KWord, by the way, is a nice word processor. One of the main authors worked on LyX and the influence shows. KWord already works by styles and is extremely flexible and light for such an easy to use GUI word processor. Like all gnu/linux word processors, KWord makes it easy to share with your friends because it exports to pdf out of the box. Good ODF support will be a great way to avoid firing up OO2, which is nice but heavy.
The vast majority of internet-facing computers that function as zombies are in that state thanks to user intervention. I dare you to prove otherwise. Because if that wasn't the case then every single "Windoze" computer on the internet would be a zombie, and that is not the case, now is it?
Well, the majority of M$ computers ARE infected. It does not take long and it requires no "stupid" action by the user. Indeed, no action is required other than plugging the thing in. Study after study has shown this, but here are two for you:
Things have gotten worse not better and the numbers match personal experience all of us have. I've seen people bringing broken computers into stores. I've seen broken computers in banks, you know, the ones so far gone nothing can be done. While a user can help the process by going to net nasty sites, it's still not the user's fault. Their computer should not fail them that way.
Computer makers who meet higher requirements will be able to tout their machines as "Pre
mium Ready," indicating the PCs are able to take advantage of higher-end features, such as
Vista's Aero graphics.
A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero, that is:.
Has a WDDM Driver. Wonder how much the SDK for that will cost.
Supports Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware.
Supports 32 bits per pixel.
64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels (1280 x
1024)
128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to
2,304,000 pixels
256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,
000 pixels
Vista Upgrade Advisor running on Windows XP will tell you.
128 MB of graphics memory. WTF? it't 64M but it's really 128M
40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
DVD-ROM Drive3.
Audio output capability. What, no mention of drivers?
Internet access capability.
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performan
ce. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is th
ere, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis g
ives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of comput
er. I've run with a lot less.
a more integrated browser, KDE's Konquerordoesmuchmore We're talking seamless network integration, like ftp, sftp, htt
p, smb, whatever to local files on top of the rest, not to mention complete user choice ins
tead of the "helpful" world of extension stealing and Google blocking "integration" M$ is s
o fond of.
Transparency, finally. This has already been compared above. Welcome to th
e late 90s, Mr. Gates.
Computer makers who meet higher requirements will be able to tout their machines as "Pre
mium Ready," indicating the PCs are able to take advantage of higher-end features, such as
Vista's Aero graphics.
A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero, that is:.
Has a fucking WDDM Driver.
Supports Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware.
Supports 32 bits per pixel.
64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels (1280 x
1024)
128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to
2,304,000 pixels
256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,
000 pixels
Vista Upgrade Advisor running on Windows XP will tell you.
128 MB of graphics memory. WTF? it't 64M but it's really 128M
40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
DVD-ROM Drive3.
Audio output capability. What, no mention of drivers?
Internet access capability.
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performan
ce. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is th
ere, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis g
ives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of comput
er. I've run with a lot less.
a more integrated browser, KDE's Konquerordoesmuchmore We're talking seamless network integration, like ftp, sftp, htt
p, smb, whatever to local files on top of the rest, not to mention complete user choice ins
tead of the "helpful" world of extension stealing and Google blocking "integration" M$ is s
o fond of.
Transparency, finally. This has already been compared above. Welcome to th
e late 90s, Mr. Gates.
Just a few more exploits like this and we will finally put an end to word attachments. Yes, RMS warned about viruses back then too:
Receiving Word attachments is bad for you because they can carry viruses (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_virus). Sending Word attachments is bad for you, because a Word document normally includes hidden information about the author, enabling those in the know to pry into the author's activities (maybe yours). Text that you think you deleted may still be embarrassingly present. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm for more info. But above all, sending people Word documents puts pressure on them to use Microsoft software and helps to deny them any other choice. In effect, you become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly. This pressure is a major obstacle to the broader adoption of free software. Would you please reconsider the use of Word format for communication with other people?
Email is supposed to be collaborative. It sucks when people force others to chose between working with them and their software freedom.
what did you expect him to say? Our model sucks, and please, let me now genuflect in the hotbed of OSS dev?
That's gnuflect.
No, really, this just shows that M$ has not changed. You can't trust anything they say and they will say anything to market their inferior junk.
What I expect from an honest company is an honest effort. Name calling and lying do nothing for their product. Microsoft is simply and wholly dishonest.
If people put the time into Windows that Linux-users put into Linux/OSS (by way of customization, and finding apps and drivers), they'd have a much more reliable machine (than their current Windows install... I have no desire to compare Windows and Linux). The biggest unreliability with Windows is the stupid things that users do.
You can't blame the user. Apple, Sun and Linux don't have Windoze problems. In the Apple case, the user is less expected to fiddle and may know less about their computer than any other kind of user. Viruses and worms for any system other than Windoze never last long outside a lab. It's not the user's fault that Windows botnets form the backbone of every computer crime network, it's Microsoft's.
Oh yeah, I put much less time and effort into my computers running Linux than I ever did when they ran Windoze. I don't need a firewall for anything more than sharing my cable connection. I don't need to fool with installation and upkeep three or four vendors worth of programs I don't need. With the time it took to work two Windoze computers, I can easily take care of nine gnu/linux boxes. They work faster and better and require much less upkeep. I've never had a virus or lost a file to a system failure. Even hardware failures have been graceful.
I'm not sure why you think this is so funny. An equivalent action might be the Chinese government banning the use of Microsoft products in government offices.
If that happened we'd never know what they were up to! Holy crap, say it ain't so!
I've perused a few of these bot squads on IRC and while there are many zombied Windows machines there are also many *nix boxes which succumbed to the brute force ssh password attacks because they had user accounts with stupid passwords.
ssh worms are a problem, but one that's several orders of magnitude smaller than the windoze threat and it's being dealt with. This is not and never will be a problem of the scale Microsoft has created.
Newbies are being protected and looked after. Newer distributions come with the ssh server turned off, so that newbies don't get burnt. The scans are easy to identify, and my university automatically cuts you off if your box starts spewing ssh scans. ISPs should do the same for ALL obvious signs of compromise. So, if you did not learn your strong password lesson by the time you set up a ssh server, you will learn it when you figure out why your networking is down. The fix is pretty simple - wipe and reload your binaries then pick a reasonable phrase based password.
Though an individual machine can and must spew a lot, there are not that many machines out here, especially compared to Windoze. This is a slow attack taking an average of one second per attempt, thanks to random time outs all distributions come with for incorrect passwords. It takes thousands of hits to find a correct user name and a typical crack of an easy password takes tens of thousands of tries. Because of this, the infected machine must scan and attach to many machines at once to have any chance of spreading. The number of ssh infected machines is a small fraction of a fraction of the world's computers. Windoze, on the other hand, has anywhere between 25% and 75% infection at any given time because of it's infamous 12 minute half life and "services" you can't turn off.
Getting a laptop from IBM Certified Used is supposed to be a good deal. They are in good shape and come with a warranty. Think pad service manuals are available as PDF files at no charge and are excellent. The system 76 deal looks good too, with a better chance of working the way you want than a Dell.
I've used Thinkpads since 1997 or so. They are well designed tanks. If you do a lot of text input, you will want the joystick mouse control. Touch pads, drive me bats now. Over the years, they have gotten a little less sturdy but they are still very good. My favorite is still a 600 for it's small size and reliability. My current model is a poorly kept T23, which I did not buy from Certified Used. Power management works flawlessly on all models, with some tweaking - usually as simple as turning off ACPI and using APM for sleep.
The only strenuous advice I have is to avoid "desktop replacement" pigs. All computers look "obsolete" in a few years. The small difference in performance between small, cute laptops does not justify the extra weight. You might think it does today, but two or three years from now, when clock speeds have doubled again, you won't. As an extreme example consider two 10 year old laptops, a 560 and a 380 thinkpad. Today, the 560, is still cute but a technically superior 380 is an ugly brick. At the time, the 380 was 50% faster and had twice the memory and a much better screen. The screen is still better, but the fan is loud, the case is huge, the 16MB of RAM is laughable and it's just too heavy. Unless your hands are unusually large, consider an X series.
Avoid high school castoffs and other poorly handled and maintained notebooks. Screws should be replaced every time because they depend on a nylon coating to work. When you take them out, you mess that coat up and things get loose. Really badly maintained models will have missing screws and broken structural parts. They are not reliable and you might have to boot them daily like a Windoze machine. Yes, that's the worst I've ever seen in a Thinkpad. Lesser computers might not boot at all after such bad treatment.
While many executives at GE, NBC and Microsoft have been moving in this direction, I think there are some serious flaws with continued Indian outsourcing. Russians are cheaper and better suited for the work proposed.
After many decades of English subjug^H^H^H^H partnership with India, Indians are far to expensive and skilled for operations work. It's much better to use such an well known and educated work force for research and development. What a crime it would be to make PhDs push buttons and monitor mind numbing panels for a living. It would be better for them to stay home like their US counterparts, and they will have to if they keep get much more expensive.
For operations work, we need the educated and inexpensive discipline that can be found in all the former Soviet territories. The people who built and named the Kurks obviously have the discipline and razor sharp focus demanded for the job. Moreover there's great economic need for such a thing. I hear there are still many people displaced and unemployed by the Chernobyl dissaster. Remote operations of Nuclear power plants is just the break they need. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, they are cheaper than the happily employed people who live next to you. Just think of the savings and how much more money people like Neutron Jack deserve. Their compensation is hardly enough for all the hard exercise they get. Expect the paper value of such forward looking companies as GE, NBC and Microsoft to skyrocket.
Ten years ago, I read a joke but some people must have taken it litterally. The joke was, a clever executive noticed the value of their company increased 10% every time they fired five percent of their workforce. The bold executive soon got into a boasting contest with others. Everyone was fired and the Dow hit 10,000. Oh yeah, well just own all the ideas other people come up with and implement that will work.
What, is someone going to be afraid or uncertain about the quality of Vista? What with M$'s stellar reputation for innovation, how could I? Everyone remembers how much worth the money XP was, right? Piffft, more of the same.
I'm not sure why anyone would listen to someone with a troll name like "RzUpAnmsCwrds," but your BS is easy enough to refute.
All of the claims of supposed improvement I made came from M$'s own site.
Windows 2000 & XP have full transparency support, and it's hardware accelerated if your GPU supports the feature (NVIDIA and ATI GPUs do)
Don't confuse nvidia and ati work with M$'s crappy GUI and don't tell me they worked well until very recently. I've seen them then and now. People with those specific cards usually turn those features off because they suck performance. Meanwhile X delivers without cost. Microsoft is pretending this is something new and that they are responsible. It would not be surprising if they are simply touting other people's work as their own again.
Windows 95 had a search item in the Start Menu, years before KDE even existed.
And it called their crappy file finder. The new one is doing what KDE's did, which is to find menu items in the program menu. The funny thing is that M$ needs it much more than KDE does, thanks to the insane vendor name organization forced on Windoze users. The average gnu/linux distro has more programs but organizes the program menu by function, so the menu is easy to browse.
a more integrated browser... Explorer has supported HTTP since 1997 (IE4's Active Desktop). Windows 98 and later support WebDAV and FTP in the browser. SMB/CIFS has been supported since Windows 95.
Once again, the claim is Microsoft's, and they sorely need it. Don't confuse the Active Desktop abortion with a truly integrated browser. Microsoft has continued to draw a bullshit distinction between local area network files and internet files, which is a continuation of their artificial asymmetric (master and slave) computing model. Windoze users have always had to get third party applications to drag and drop files from ftp and sftp sites because M$ has only cared about NetBIOS. Indeed, M$ has done everything in their power to thwart standards based file transfer and I don't really expect them to live up to the new and improved claims.
Vista is approx. 6.8GB on my system. Office 2003 is ~2-3GB. That's less than 10GB total.
Do you realize how pathetic that is? Open Office, including artwork and fonts, takes up 200MB and I consider that a pig. Mepis, which includes the latest and greatest Open Office, KDE's excellent music player, PIM and contact management system, real databases, web servers etc, takes up less than Office 2003 alone. That's a factor of 10 for Office and a factor three or four for the OS. Your system must take forever to start up and load applications. My computer will load faster than yours, even if your disks work ten times faster than mine and they are not. I'm using nice old 80MB/s scsi drives, for my 1.7 GB of system files, which have transfer rates SATA is finally catching up to.
If what you say is true, Vista is a pig that no CPU or disk subsystem will be able to save. It will need gigs of RAM to use as swap space and even then, it will take all sorts of time to start so it better have excellent uptime. Code so crappy that it sucks up 10 GB of disk space, is going to be anything but stable or secure. This is indeed a Train Wreck.
Some people walk on coals. Others sleep on nails. Still others eat glass. They at least amuse themselves and their friends. Watching people use Vista is going to be a lot like watching people do other silly things.
I think you'll find the vast majority of people buy the hardware in order to run some software on it (such as Windows).
If you can tell me something Vista actually does that people care about, I might understand that. Only Microsoft enthusiasts are going to buy "Premium Ready" Computers in the next six months and most of them won't bother to upgrade. This is all about marketing, nothing else.
How many people will buy Vista-ready PC's but not actually bother to buy it when it comes out?
Something like 100%?
Unless MS bundle coupons for Vista with Windows XP this buying season, they can forget about people making any effort to do buy it and do the upgrade.
Unless that "upgrade" is "perfect" it's not going to happen even if they give it away. This is an issue M$ is familiar with and it's why they fight tooth and nail for their vendor choke hold. If a computer is not good enough to do what the user wants, they typically buy a new one. A computer a user gets used to is by definition good enough and they don't like moving. The easiest way to move a user is for the user to have two machines, one as a safety blanket. The world of non free software is so brittle, most users don't trust themselves to install an alternate text editor. An OS replacement is something most don't think possible.
Macs are nice, but most people have a Peee Ceee sitting around. It's a shame, I know, because powerPC offered more per watt. Still, why go out and buy a new computer when you already have one?
Rather than move to Vista, these people should seriously consider distributions like Mepis or Xandros. Both install in a snap and Xandros makes it easy to use Crossover Office for those few unfortunates who must still use M$ Word and other terminally kludged junk. I had a look at the Vista Ready page myself and here's are requirements and a feature compare with KDE, the desktop used by both distros. They work great on the computers your neighbors throw out too.
The Mac charge to X86 is starting to more G3s to the trash as well, and most of the same free software runs on them too.
Computer makers who meet higher requirements will be able to tout their machines as "Premium Ready," indicating the PCs are able to take advantage of higher-end features, such as Vista's Aero graphics.
A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero, that is:.
Has a fucking WDDM Driver.
Supports Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware.
Supports 32 bits per pixel.
64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels (1280 x 1024)
128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels
256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels
Vista Upgrade Advisor running on Windows XP will tell you.
128 MB of graphics memory. WTF? it't 64M but it's really 128M
40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
DVD-ROM Drive3.
Audio output capability. What, no mention of drivers?
Internet access capability.
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performance. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is there, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis gives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of computer. I've run with a lot less.
a more integrated browser, KDE's Konquerordoesmuchmore We're talking seamless network integration, like ftp, sftp, http, smb, whatever to local files on top of the rest, not to mention complete user choice instead of the "helpful" world of extension stealing and Google blocking "integration" M$ is so fond of.
Transparency, finally. This has already been compared above. Welcome to the late 90s, Mr. Gates.
I'd love to know exactly what benefit you'd get out of having a car running on open source software, or what relation it would have to stopping a kill switch being implemented.
That's a troll question, but I'll answer it anyway. Asking Slashdot what the benefits of free software are, give me a break.
There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it. As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way. In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing. Compare Windoze to Mepis, Rockbox to Iriver or Ipod and OpenZaurus to any other pocket PC to see how those improvements work in real life.
The UK is already (planning) installing a system of automatic licence plate recognising camera's throughout the country. The resulting database will allow a very comprehensive following of cars and thus persons.
It should complement the existing cell phone tracking system.
The US wants a kill signal and a black box for your car. The kill switch is to avoid all of those messy chases. It would turn off the non free computer in your car and stop you dead. The black box would include all sorts of things, including position from GPS, but only those allowed could read it. It's great to have non free software in things like cars isn't it?
Google's Search Appliance has been on the market for years. They have a page of user stories, which includes National Semiconductor, Nextel, Universities, government agencies, large and small companies.
Given an effective search, you can store the information on anything. That means you can deploy many cheap and fast servers close to the source of information creation, and have that information available everywhere. With 250 GB drives going for $50, you could have all 10TB of storage taken care of twice for $4,000.
Slashdot Mirror
You need to distinguish between vandalism and profit motives. Installing Linux is far too complicated for profit.
This is an obvious defacement attack of the kind that becomes more prevalent six months before the new M$ OS is released. The user will haul their computer into a local store and be told it's obsolete and that they had better upgrade to the next M$ dissaster.
Profit motivated attacks don't want performance degradation or to be noticed. They install keyloggers and ad servers of one kind or another. Ideally, the user thinks the net just sucks more as advertisements become more frequent and obnoxious. The goal is to keep them watching and to rob them. You can't do that when they wipe and reload, so performance degradations are a accidents or the result of an attack by a rival group. Typically, the cracker wants to keep the box from other crackers so they close up the holes they crawled though themselves. Eventually, a multitude of crappy code will break the machine.
A Linux replacement, while granting better control than Bill Gates' commercial nightmare, would be far too complicated to pull off. Something would be different or not work and the user would notice. It's much easier to swap out 50k worth of binary and registry files using Microsoft's own closed source vendor friendly code. Windows was make to keep things from the user.
No, it's the wrong question. It's not IM, it's Windows.
no information on the distribution of IM attacks is given. We have no idea if they are rare or frequent. ... one cannot have a meaningful opionion about IM safety in general given only information about the *existance* of a particular, new threat.
No, but you can have a meaningful opinion about the "safety" of Windows. Despite claims of being "a safe and secure" OS and then years of promisses to fix the mess, Windoze remains a security dissaster that threatens users and the internet itself. Vista, if it ever runs, won't be much better because the priorities are DRM and locking out free software.
You mean projects like Windows? XP to Vista has taken five years already.
Oh yeah, there have been "bug fixes" since then and recently M$ even started making them easier to get than calling a support line and being told to browse though numbered indexes of binary crap. Yes indeed, M$ support has almost come up to free software standards with that annoying little yellow pop-up that tells you about "critical updates". Woot. There you can get the distilled goodness of all of the few programmers M$ can afford to hire. Free software comes out cleaner than commercial code and stays that way because anyone can fix the problem.
The non free way of making code broke down a long time ago.
Your distribution makes things easy, so get off the developer's back. Using your distribution's binaries is the easiest way to get go and an all free system is much easier to keep up than one with non free binaries. The less free you get, the harder things are to work with. When something does not work for me in the free software world, and that's rare, there's always another project that does it.
They could even do that and it would be OK. Who ever said the development team is obligated to compile to your favorite architecture and distribution? More often than not they do but it does not matter if the code is free. Your distribution can and will pick up the changes soon enough, and that's the way the vast majority of users should get the vast majority of their software.
I'd like to hear of a situation where leaving it in source was not actually good enough. The only one I can think of would be where the user has upgraded a production system. They did this to get a new feature that might be nice but discovered a few bugs that were costing them money. The solution is to test and fix the bugs before moving the production system. I'd love to hear the story if anyone has one.
You will probably have to install KWord. If you have that, Konqueror already opens kwd. When KWord does ODF, it will work in Konqueror.
KWord, by the way, is a nice word processor. One of the main authors worked on LyX and the influence shows. KWord already works by styles and is extremely flexible and light for such an easy to use GUI word processor. Like all gnu/linux word processors, KWord makes it easy to share with your friends because it exports to pdf out of the box. Good ODF support will be a great way to avoid firing up OO2, which is nice but heavy.
Well, the majority of M$ computers ARE infected. It does not take long and it requires no "stupid" action by the user. Indeed, no action is required other than plugging the thing in. Study after study has shown this, but here are two for you:
Things have gotten worse not better and the numbers match personal experience all of us have. I've seen people bringing broken computers into stores. I've seen broken computers in banks, you know, the ones so far gone nothing can be done. While a user can help the process by going to net nasty sites, it's still not the user's fault. Their computer should not fail them that way.
"Premium Ready" is this and this:
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performan ce. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is th ere, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis g ives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of comput er. I've run with a lot less.
Hot Air Graphics are here compared to KDE :
"Premium Ready" is this and this:
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performan ce. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is th ere, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis g ives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of comput er. I've run with a lot less.
Hot Air Graphics are here compared to KDE :
Receiving Word attachments is bad for you because they can carry viruses (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_virus). Sending Word attachments is bad for you, because a Word document normally includes hidden information about the author, enabling those in the know to pry into the author's activities (maybe yours). Text that you think you deleted may still be embarrassingly present. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm for more info. But above all, sending people Word documents puts pressure on them to use Microsoft software and helps to deny them any other choice. In effect, you become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly. This pressure is a major obstacle to the broader adoption of free software. Would you please reconsider the use of Word format for communication with other people?
Email is supposed to be collaborative. It sucks when people force others to chose between working with them and their software freedom.
That's gnuflect.
No, really, this just shows that M$ has not changed. You can't trust anything they say and they will say anything to market their inferior junk.
What I expect from an honest company is an honest effort. Name calling and lying do nothing for their product. Microsoft is simply and wholly dishonest.
You can't blame the user. Apple, Sun and Linux don't have Windoze problems. In the Apple case, the user is less expected to fiddle and may know less about their computer than any other kind of user. Viruses and worms for any system other than Windoze never last long outside a lab. It's not the user's fault that Windows botnets form the backbone of every computer crime network, it's Microsoft's.
Oh yeah, I put much less time and effort into my computers running Linux than I ever did when they ran Windoze. I don't need a firewall for anything more than sharing my cable connection. I don't need to fool with installation and upkeep three or four vendors worth of programs I don't need. With the time it took to work two Windoze computers, I can easily take care of nine gnu/linux boxes. They work faster and better and require much less upkeep. I've never had a virus or lost a file to a system failure. Even hardware failures have been graceful.
[NSA Agent 2] AUUUUGH!
[Supervisor] Agent 1, report to drug testing.
If that happened we'd never know what they were up to! Holy crap, say it ain't so!
ssh worms are a problem, but one that's several orders of magnitude smaller than the windoze threat and it's being dealt with. This is not and never will be a problem of the scale Microsoft has created.
Newbies are being protected and looked after. Newer distributions come with the ssh server turned off, so that newbies don't get burnt. The scans are easy to identify, and my university automatically cuts you off if your box starts spewing ssh scans. ISPs should do the same for ALL obvious signs of compromise. So, if you did not learn your strong password lesson by the time you set up a ssh server, you will learn it when you figure out why your networking is down. The fix is pretty simple - wipe and reload your binaries then pick a reasonable phrase based password.
Though an individual machine can and must spew a lot, there are not that many machines out here, especially compared to Windoze. This is a slow attack taking an average of one second per attempt, thanks to random time outs all distributions come with for incorrect passwords. It takes thousands of hits to find a correct user name and a typical crack of an easy password takes tens of thousands of tries. Because of this, the infected machine must scan and attach to many machines at once to have any chance of spreading. The number of ssh infected machines is a small fraction of a fraction of the world's computers. Windoze, on the other hand, has anywhere between 25% and 75% infection at any given time because of it's infamous 12 minute half life and "services" you can't turn off.
I've used Thinkpads since 1997 or so. They are well designed tanks. If you do a lot of text input, you will want the joystick mouse control. Touch pads, drive me bats now. Over the years, they have gotten a little less sturdy but they are still very good. My favorite is still a 600 for it's small size and reliability. My current model is a poorly kept T23, which I did not buy from Certified Used. Power management works flawlessly on all models, with some tweaking - usually as simple as turning off ACPI and using APM for sleep.
The only strenuous advice I have is to avoid "desktop replacement" pigs. All computers look "obsolete" in a few years. The small difference in performance between small, cute laptops does not justify the extra weight. You might think it does today, but two or three years from now, when clock speeds have doubled again, you won't. As an extreme example consider two 10 year old laptops, a 560 and a 380 thinkpad. Today, the 560, is still cute but a technically superior 380 is an ugly brick. At the time, the 380 was 50% faster and had twice the memory and a much better screen. The screen is still better, but the fan is loud, the case is huge, the 16MB of RAM is laughable and it's just too heavy. Unless your hands are unusually large, consider an X series.
Avoid high school castoffs and other poorly handled and maintained notebooks. Screws should be replaced every time because they depend on a nylon coating to work. When you take them out, you mess that coat up and things get loose. Really badly maintained models will have missing screws and broken structural parts. They are not reliable and you might have to boot them daily like a Windoze machine. Yes, that's the worst I've ever seen in a Thinkpad. Lesser computers might not boot at all after such bad treatment.
After many decades of English subjug^H^H^H^H partnership with India, Indians are far to expensive and skilled for operations work. It's much better to use such an well known and educated work force for research and development. What a crime it would be to make PhDs push buttons and monitor mind numbing panels for a living. It would be better for them to stay home like their US counterparts, and they will have to if they keep get much more expensive.
For operations work, we need the educated and inexpensive discipline that can be found in all the former Soviet territories. The people who built and named the Kurks obviously have the discipline and razor sharp focus demanded for the job. Moreover there's great economic need for such a thing. I hear there are still many people displaced and unemployed by the Chernobyl dissaster. Remote operations of Nuclear power plants is just the break they need. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, they are cheaper than the happily employed people who live next to you. Just think of the savings and how much more money people like Neutron Jack deserve. Their compensation is hardly enough for all the hard exercise they get. Expect the paper value of such forward looking companies as GE, NBC and Microsoft to skyrocket.
Ten years ago, I read a joke but some people must have taken it litterally. The joke was, a clever executive noticed the value of their company increased 10% every time they fired five percent of their workforce. The bold executive soon got into a boasting contest with others. Everyone was fired and the Dow hit 10,000. Oh yeah, well just own all the ideas other people come up with and implement that will work.
What, is someone going to be afraid or uncertain about the quality of Vista? What with M$'s stellar reputation for innovation, how could I? Everyone remembers how much worth the money XP was, right? Piffft, more of the same.
I'm not sure why anyone would listen to someone with a troll name like "RzUpAnmsCwrds," but your BS is easy enough to refute.
All of the claims of supposed improvement I made came from M$'s own site.
Windows 2000 & XP have full transparency support, and it's hardware accelerated if your GPU supports the feature (NVIDIA and ATI GPUs do)
Don't confuse nvidia and ati work with M$'s crappy GUI and don't tell me they worked well until very recently. I've seen them then and now. People with those specific cards usually turn those features off because they suck performance. Meanwhile X delivers without cost. Microsoft is pretending this is something new and that they are responsible. It would not be surprising if they are simply touting other people's work as their own again.
Windows 95 had a search item in the Start Menu, years before KDE even existed.
And it called their crappy file finder. The new one is doing what KDE's did, which is to find menu items in the program menu. The funny thing is that M$ needs it much more than KDE does, thanks to the insane vendor name organization forced on Windoze users. The average gnu/linux distro has more programs but organizes the program menu by function, so the menu is easy to browse.
a more integrated browser ... Explorer has supported HTTP since 1997 (IE4's Active Desktop). Windows 98 and later support WebDAV and FTP in the browser. SMB/CIFS has been supported since Windows 95.
Once again, the claim is Microsoft's, and they sorely need it. Don't confuse the Active Desktop abortion with a truly integrated browser. Microsoft has continued to draw a bullshit distinction between local area network files and internet files, which is a continuation of their artificial asymmetric (master and slave) computing model. Windoze users have always had to get third party applications to drag and drop files from ftp and sftp sites because M$ has only cared about NetBIOS. Indeed, M$ has done everything in their power to thwart standards based file transfer and I don't really expect them to live up to the new and improved claims.
Vista is approx. 6.8GB on my system. Office 2003 is ~2-3GB. That's less than 10GB total.
Do you realize how pathetic that is? Open Office, including artwork and fonts, takes up 200MB and I consider that a pig. Mepis, which includes the latest and greatest Open Office, KDE's excellent music player, PIM and contact management system, real databases, web servers etc, takes up less than Office 2003 alone. That's a factor of 10 for Office and a factor three or four for the OS. Your system must take forever to start up and load applications. My computer will load faster than yours, even if your disks work ten times faster than mine and they are not. I'm using nice old 80MB/s scsi drives, for my 1.7 GB of system files, which have transfer rates SATA is finally catching up to.
If what you say is true, Vista is a pig that no CPU or disk subsystem will be able to save. It will need gigs of RAM to use as swap space and even then, it will take all sorts of time to start so it better have excellent uptime. Code so crappy that it sucks up 10 GB of disk space, is going to be anything but stable or secure. This is indeed a Train Wreck.
Some people walk on coals. Others sleep on nails. Still others eat glass. They at least amuse themselves and their friends. Watching people use Vista is going to be a lot like watching people do other silly things.
If you can tell me something Vista actually does that people care about, I might understand that. Only Microsoft enthusiasts are going to buy "Premium Ready" Computers in the next six months and most of them won't bother to upgrade. This is all about marketing, nothing else.
Something like 100%?
Unless MS bundle coupons for Vista with Windows XP this buying season, they can forget about people making any effort to do buy it and do the upgrade.
Unless that "upgrade" is "perfect" it's not going to happen even if they give it away. This is an issue M$ is familiar with and it's why they fight tooth and nail for their vendor choke hold. If a computer is not good enough to do what the user wants, they typically buy a new one. A computer a user gets used to is by definition good enough and they don't like moving. The easiest way to move a user is for the user to have two machines, one as a safety blanket. The world of non free software is so brittle, most users don't trust themselves to install an alternate text editor. An OS replacement is something most don't think possible.
Rather than move to Vista, these people should seriously consider distributions like Mepis or Xandros. Both install in a snap and Xandros makes it easy to use Crossover Office for those few unfortunates who must still use M$ Word and other terminally kludged junk. I had a look at the Vista Ready page myself and here's are requirements and a feature compare with KDE, the desktop used by both distros. They work great on the computers your neighbors throw out too.
The Mac charge to X86 is starting to more G3s to the trash as well, and most of the same free software runs on them too.
"Premium Ready" is this and this:
Oh yeah, and you paid a freaking Premium for what's going to be XP + 128MB RAM performance. 15 GB for the OS, 25 GB for Office, there's no room on this system for Linux now is there, chuckles Bill Gates to himself. Meanwhile, Mepis gives you all the same programs and features for a mere 2GB disk space and 128 MB of RAM, and not a lot of computer. I've run with a lot less.
Hot Air Graphics are here compared to KDE :
That's a troll question, but I'll answer it anyway. Asking Slashdot what the benefits of free software are, give me a break.
There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it. As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way. In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing. Compare Windoze to Mepis, Rockbox to Iriver or Ipod and OpenZaurus to any other pocket PC to see how those improvements work in real life.
It should complement the existing cell phone tracking system.
The US wants a kill signal and a black box for your car. The kill switch is to avoid all of those messy chases. It would turn off the non free computer in your car and stop you dead. The black box would include all sorts of things, including position from GPS, but only those allowed could read it. It's great to have non free software in things like cars isn't it?
Given an effective search, you can store the information on anything. That means you can deploy many cheap and fast servers close to the source of information creation, and have that information available everywhere. With 250 GB drives going for $50, you could have all 10TB of storage taken care of twice for $4,000.