For all Microsoft's sleazy business practices, this article is evidence that they are exercising great integrity when it comes to publishing Slate. That article completely (and justifiably) ripped Internet Explorder a new one.
I'm not as impressed as you are. Paul Boutin is still dismissive, insulting and pulling the party line. He gives the wrong reasons for using Firebird and stops short of placing blame where it belongs. It's not just the browser, it's the OS that's got problems.
Here's a flamebait quote:
You've probably been told to dump Internet Explorer for a Mozilla browser before, by the same propeller-head geek who wants you to delete Windows from your hard drive and install Linux. You've ignored him, and good for you.
Paul does not go on to tell us why anyone who did not dump Windows after Melissa should be happy. Instead he gives us the now usual FUD equating M$ and Linux security and the M$'s lame excuse for poor security:
Even Mozilla's spokespeople stress that no software can be guaranteed to be safe, and that Firefox's XPInstall system could conceivably be tricked into installing a keystroke logger instead of Sun's Java engine. But for now, there's safety in numbersâ"the lack of them, that is. Internet Explorer is used by 95 percent of the world. Firefox's fan base adds up to 2 or 3 percent at most. Which browser do you think the Russian hackers are busily trying to break into again?
Sorry Paul, this normal user is very happy to have dumped Windoze 98 in favor of Red Hat and Debian years ago. I've had perfectly usable browsers, email clients, digital music, and everything else I've ever wanted with far less hastle and trouble than my Windoze suffering peers and relatives. The browser is just the tip of the iceburg. I've enjoyed stable systems that stay up longer than my utility company's electricity, and a plethora of superior programs and features without having to drive to a store and periodically "rebuild" my computers. Learning Linux has been easy, fun and never required me to wear a propeller on my head.
You can't praise yourself until you have truly been subject to the same level of attack and focus as windows.
DMZ is not a default zone. That screenshot is showing off the program's flexibility. Most grandmothers, however, would remember the Korean War and know exactly what a DMZ is.
The usual stuff is more like the second screenshot. There, Tildy can follow the phone Icon for chat to turn on and off Yahoo Chat services and the like.
That's much easier than Zone alarm asking her if she wants, BLAH123.EXE talking to the internet. If making windoze more secure depends on knowing if BLAH123.EXE should be turned on or not, then about 50% of average users will lose out.
You can't praise yourself until you have truly been subject to the same level of attack and focus as windows.
Sure, and Apache has a greater "marketshare" as far as servers go. Yet with IIS, Microsoft's "Enterprise" pride and joy, we still see thousands of well maintained machines hacked in a way that screws the end user. Apache is subject to the same kinds of attacks, but does much better.
That's why Apache is winning. In the no BS world of real business, where losers go broke, free software rocks. All praise to free software is earned.
...that the first few posts, as well as several posts afterward, will be easily-swallowable generalizations about how Service Pack 2 (not even RC2)...
Gosh, you mean that Microsoft's past is no indicator of current or future offerings? You are right about reading the article though. When we do, we see each of your points proved in detail. I'll take the trouble to pick through the five individual advert burdened pages for you. Let's watch!
"isn't good enough" Article says:
Windows Firewall may be the largest feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2, but from an enterprise perspective, it's pretty small potatoes.... For my money, either ZoneAlarm 4.5 or 5.0 Pro or Symantec's Personal Firewall 2004 would be better bets for protecting road warriors out in the wild.... WSC does sense protection levels for the worst threats out there, but it offers no help for adware, spyware, trojans, privacy invasion, and spam. So it's no panacea.
"actually worsens security" Article says: The desktop security products of vendors that have the largest installed base of users, Symantec and Zone Labs, aren't properly detected by the RC2 version of SP2. So, this might defeat your properly tuned Zone Alarm, which was determined to be superior.
"is just another ploy" OK, I won't find anything like this in an article that enthusiastically but without any basis in fact proclaims Windoze only has a problem because it's the only "interesting" target but that things will get much better in five years. In other words, despite the seaming criticism, the author is a major fanboy.
"is too risky to download" Not exactly: Download RC2 now and test all your internal applications, as well as your intranet and your public Web site. That's the only way to be sure that you won't have significant problems... Testing is prudent, but a joke for Joe Average with his single Windoze PC or a small office where there's no "spare".
"is another sign of bad programming" Article says: Mainstream Web [that use nonstandard M$ junk] may encounter difficulty with SP2 version IE 6.... a lot of Web stuff is going to be broken--or, at least, temporarily halted.... That doesn't mean nothing works properly... in my tests of SP2 RC1, I found that it could take more than half an hour for your computer to turn off because of this feature. Wow, something worked? What could indicate better planning or programming than a service pack that turns off your dinky, second rate services? What could be a better practice than updating a computer when it's being turned off? How is the user going to know the differnece between that and the good old shutdown hangs they are used to?
Looks like more of the same from M$ to me. More heartache with no real result or benefit for the end user.
ZoneAlarm also asks questions that are impossible for most users to answer without a course in Windows XP internals, like "Do you want to allow SVCHOST.EXE to access the Internet?" I can see why Microsoft decided to leave this functionality out.
If knowing stuff like that is required to "secure" a Windoze box, you can imagine why it's impossible for the average user to do.
Compare to Gaurddog. It has a fine icon based GUI to manipulate IPTables. The GUI is well organized with a clear category based tree of services and even little icons. With programs like that, it's easy to turn on and off the services you want.
All that time you're wasting now, in the "difficult to maintain" department, you know... re-formatting every PC in the office, re-installing c:\winnt32\, removing IE, 'fixing the e-mail system', installing new Virus patches, etc. will now be free time you can apply to actually customizing your -one computer office system- to the task of your business, easily, and maybe learn a few Open Source skills on the side, as well.
I guess I'm talking about relative efforts for each platform. In absolute terms, Windows still blows.
Windoze on it's own is very difficult to maintain if it is connected to a network and exposed to the internet. The only solution to the problem is re-image every day as is done at public libraries. That sucks for the user, in all the ways you noted. Still, on the Windoze side going with the "twin" software will reduce your current effort.
The Linux side difficulty I'm talking about is minor compared, but large for someone like me who's been spoiled by tools like apt-get update and upgrade. If you don't go with Debian stable and want to stay current, you will get changes that blow out your mods that will be difficult to automate away. If you have the money or spare PCs, going with packaged Linux is far easier than customizing.
I'm also spoiled by cheap hardware. I only have one computer that runs faster than 1GHz and most run sub 500MHz. I have several P1 class machines and have run KDE 3.2 on one without problem. I can see how a lab at a premier University would rather opt for the multihead solution from a noise, heat and performance standpoint. The rest of us can get buy on other people's discards.
Sooner or later, someone is going to make a deb package and the minor increase in effort will be obliterated for everyone.
I find it amusing that Microsoft reps can't handle the fact that Linux comes BUNDLED - LEGALLY - with TONS of applications and utilities.
The funniest thing of all is that Microsoft could bundle all of the same software. It's free and everyone can use it. Lots of the killer software is already ported to M$'s crappy OS. All M$, or any vendor for that matter, has to do is distribute their changes to the source code if they bother to make any. So what keeps them from doing that? It would further validate free software and drive home the fact that M$ is just another software distribution. The only thing special about Microsoft is how expensive and restrictive their distribution is.
Ha ha, M$ reps, you cling to a corpse. Though the word is out, M$ refuses to grow, change or even move. That's death in any industry. In software, they were dead six years ago. The overwhelming superiority of software choice and the quality of that choice is the direct result of Microsoft's business model and refusal to change.
From what I've read, one of the biggest problems is a dreadful non standardization of USB keyboards and the way they report devices. Some, with those stupid shopping cart and music playing buttons, can report up to five separate devices and the Xserver and kernel have to to be hacked as the site specifies. Problems are reduced by using the same keyboard and I'll bet that the PS/2 keyboards are easier to deal with.
Also, you don't need 4 cards, You could do it with two. NVidia's twinview allows you to run two seperate X-servers off of one card (provided of course that it has two outputs).
You could do it that way, but regular pci cards are less expensive and requires no fancy software.
Well, you can, but it's third party, very hardware specific and leaves you stuck with M$ XP. The Linux system demonstrated is a clear winner for schools, libraries, banks, casinos and other places where economical use of hardware is desired. While the Linux system might be difficult to maintain, it can be done. The Windoze solution leaves you dependent on the vendor. The people at Jetway have done an outstanding job but such is the world of proprietary software.
Anyone know of a better system? If you say citrix terminal services, I say, Linux Terminal Project and, cool as those things are, get thee back to 1975.
Yep, the fancy features don't get in the way of the ones you want first. GNU cash has very sophisticated accounting, but I'm easily able to use it to just balance my check book. Other stuff, like being able to deal with Yen, stocks, taxes and the very powerful reports are all there but not obtrusive. When I use GNUcash, I'm not bowled over by feeling of gee wiz bang, and doubts about trusting my money to the program.
Kmoney, I'm sure is another excellent program. Everything else KDE rocks and everytime I do a review of a KDE thingy, I end up hooked. GNUcash is good enough that I have not made the effort, yet.
Microsoft was clearly dumbfounded. Their three-step plan didn't work. What could they do?
They kept doing the same thing as always. They are buying magazine reviews and declaring victory. Heck, they are even making web blogs like Apple Switchers. The usual BS, convince people it's true and they will spend their money, the fools think. More amazingly, but all in line with their new propaganda, the author claims competition hurt users! This article is an amazing admission of Microsoft greed.
They realize that purchases like money are all review driven and have bought those reviews. They are using Wintel rags and every other outlet they have to try to convince reviewer at the Wall Street Journal that M$ Money is the best. Note that later he brags about having "won" more of those reviews and how Ituit realized, "Quicken's raison d'etre is to drive TurboTax sales" and that they don't have a place in personal finacne. Gee, thanks for the news everyone's more mature since the losing money on stocks in the late 90's and realizes they can't fight Microsoft. I don't buy it.
I don't buy one of the central points of the blog, that "competition" made things bad for everyone. He claims that feature creep made it difficult for people to do basic things with their programs. Nonsense, poor design makes it difficult for people to do things with your program. I've been using GNUcash for a while now. I'm not bothered by features I don't know how to use yet, but I'm very happy to have a simple, accurate and free PFM. Competition and freedom have made things very good for me.
If you took this article at face value, you would imagine the M$ Money is something worthwhile. How can it be, when it's tied to a platform that's just gone through another round of security problems? Trust is an important consideration when you start dealing with money, and trust is something Microsoft has squandered. I'm not interested in some twenty something's goals of making lots of money for Microsoft, so that he can spank Intuit with thousand dollar bills. I'm interested in making sure my bank and people I deal with don't make mistakes with my money and free software does that. Why would anyone spend money to trust themselves to some web driven nightmare that's been able to tell just how long the user has been on the program, send adverts at the user and all of that other BS?
Lynx does images, you simply have to select the one you want to look at and it pulls up in your choice of image viewer. Links does table and other formating, so the placement of images gives you a clue about what's a picture you want to look at.
This is what Russinovich means when he says that Linux has been playing catch-up - he doesn't talk about portability, security, etc, he's only looking at one particular side of things.
and point to an article from 1999 where Mark tells us:
... significant problems with kernel threads and multiprocessor scalability in Linux 2.2 will prevent it from competing head to head with NT and Linux's UNIX cousins for enterprise applications.... I hope that by revealing these problems, I will encourage Linux developers to focus on making Linux ready for the enterprise. I also want to dispel some of the hype that many Linux users have uncritically accepted, which has given them the false impression that Linux is ready for enterprise prime time.
So, it seems, his whole point was not technical but a business opinion. The evidence was already there against this business opinion, regardless of technical issues. Poor Mark lacked business vision.
Google was already up and running and so was Hotmail and both proved the value of free software. Hotmail, I believe, was running BSD which was even less developed than Linux at the time. If Google was not "prime time", I'm not sure what is. Microsoft's repeated attempts to make "NT" work for Hotmail were a terrible embarrassment.
Mark, regardless of his technical knowledge, clearly lacks business understanding and "can do". People who had those things back in 1998 were making plenty of money using Linux and clearly benefitted from a lack of license fees. No "catch up" was required, though companies that adopted also benefit from free software growth.
Perhaps Mark was not misquoted after all. He wrote that entire wintel rag article. The ZDNet article was written by a reporter who has learned nothing from the last five years. Mark might not have either.
... the point is that almost all programs can be run on either, regardless of where they originate.... it sorta works
Sure, with days of mind numbing effort you can download and install dozens of different free programs to make Windoze sorta bearable. Then in less than four months that machine that sorta worked will sorta be owned by viruses anyway and you get to start all over again unless you imaged your whole drive using yet more free or expensive tools. Or you could spend less than an hour getting all of it on any modern Linux distro and not have to worry as much.
The choice is obvious. Windoze is nothing like Linux, no matter how much free software you port to it.
Poor Mark, the reporter made him look like a raving M$ fanatic with no grasp of reality. Let's take a few choice quotes of this grotesque article, shall we?
Linux is paying catch-up with Windows and the gap is narrowing.
What crap. If you asked me, I'd tell you that Linux has clearly superior feature set, organization and portability. It runs cleaner and better on more hardware than Bill Gates can dream of. Who would argue otherwise?
"Both operating systems had their origins in the 1970s and their real birth in the 1990s and have been evolving quickly since then. The two operating systems are very similar from a kernel perspective, because as engineers work on problems they look around to see what's working elsewhere.
A kind admission of borrowing on M$'s part that sounds very similar to SCO "theft" FUD. I was not aware that Microsoft's kernels had UIDs, SMP or file system integrated permmision systems. But hey, it runs your computer so it must be the same, right? Surely, there are some details our reporter has left out.
No, I'm afraid not, the reporter goes on to accuse Linux of stealing Minux and blither some BS about how integrating a GUI into your kernel is good for performance. Nuts, the reporter has clearly seized onto something out of context and crammed it into some SCO generated fantasy world of "stolen" software.
Don't blame the summary, blame the article for clear famebait. No real engineer would say such things.
... the point is that almost all programs can be run on either, regardless of where they originate.... it sorta works
Sure, with days of mind numbing effort you can download and install dozens of different free programs to make Windoze sorta bearable. Then in less than four months that machine that sorta worked will sorta be owned by viruses anyway and you get to start all over again unless you imaged your whole drive using yet more free or expensive tools. Or you could spend less than an hour getting all of it on any modern Linux distro and not have to worry as much.
The choice is obvious. Windoze is nothing like Linux, no matter how much free software you port to it.
Refuting the parent poster with good logic, you say:
If the zombie is actually using the user's proper (sender) domain and sending through the ISPs mail server, then SPF doesn't help directly, it gives the ISP the power to simply monitor what is sent and shut the zombie down if spam is being sent.
So, SPF contributes nothing. ISPs already have the ability to monitor their clients for spam and shut them down. It also shows that Vixie is not correct about the only benefit he sees for SPF, prevention of domain spoofing. The owner of a zombie machine will send out spam with the targeted domain. Spammers will simply slow the number of messages from each zombie to whatever does not trigger the ISP's monitoring program. The spam will go on and it will come from every big dumb ISP until people quit using crap from M$.
I don't think that I could use this device at all, even if I wanted to get sucked up into their DRM scheme and let them root a computer. I learned this when I tried to get my "Bigmac Meal Track" from Sony that was promissed with a fast food meal. What I found was:
We know you are interested in using the Connect music store. Unfortunately SonicStage only works on Windows 98SE and above. We have no immediate plans to support other operating systems at this time. However, we believe this is an important user base and we hope to support it in the future.
Gee, thanks I say.
A quick look around for something to mimic Sonicstage comes up with zero, so forget it. I'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars for a device I have no hope of using. I'm not willing to purchase Windoze for the privilege of spending weeks of my life converting all of my music to Sony's ownership with a file format I can't use anywhere else.
As a side note, I'm still very happy with my Zaurus' performance as a music player. With a large enough CF, I get plenty of play time out of it with ogg or mp3.
You can encrypt your e-mail (--> gpg, pgp, s/mime) and -if you have to- send it out via your provider's SMTP-server, no problem. Why would you need your own mailserver for using crypto?
Because the people who needlessly block your ports would needlessly block your gpg attachments. How far do you want to go around the problem rather than fix it right to begin with? The email I run costs less to my ISP than the server they run and it's more secure too. It's also way more secure than the garbage (M$ Windoze) most people hook to their network.
I quit reading Byte back in 1986 or so, as it had morphed from an interesting hobby tech magazine into one of the first WinTel rags.
I'll still look at RC aircraft model, National Geographic and Travel magazines. Some hobby magazines still have good content even the advertisements. The other stuff is good for pretty pictures only.
And what exactly prevents you from being 0wned the moment you try to connect to the install server, twit?
With Windoze, nothing, and I've heard stories of people getting virused up before they have finished Windoze update. Of course, with Windoze you get owned even if your computer is on the Redmond campus.
With reasonable distros, you download a nice recent net install from a server you trust and check it with an MD5 sum. You then get all the packages you want. This compares favorably with the average Windoze user installing from their two year old CD, which itself was mass produced with year old code and stored in a warehouse for months before they ever got it.
The other thing that prevents mass ownership of Linux computers through net install attacks is the cluelessness and pathetic numbers of people who would actually do such a thing. M$ is desperate for bad news about free software, but all he can do about it is pay liars, like yourself.
How about lame cable companies that do stupid shit like block ports, especially email ports? Cox, I'm talking about you. They have done this at the request of AOL and M$, or so said their tech when they finally blocked outgoing mail. The chain of devolution from At Home was:
start DHCP for all new accounts.
block ports 80, 25 and others inbound.
force DHCP on all accounts except for $75/month sub DSL speed "business" accounts.
Crimp upload speed to 30K/s.
Block outbound port 25 except to Cox SMTP server.
M$ and AOL threatened to blackmail all mail from Cox if they did not do take the last steps, and I'm sure they pressured them on the first few too. How disgusting that they would force a competitor to spend money to degrade their service.
How are you supposed to build a crypto email system whey you can't run your own email server? Don't give me BS about using other ports, they will block whatever people want to use. If you don't run it, you can't trust it. Even when you do run it you need to be careful you are not owned.
Email servers are easy to make and I'm sure there would be a market for them, as appliances, if there was legal certainty to the application. As it is, broadband ISP is monopoly ISP and they can do and charge what they want. Any popular service can be owned and charged for.
Think the legal framework is an accident? Ask yourself how Carnivore would work if everyone could just go buy a $100 encrypted mail server from Best Buy. I hate the direction my government is going. We beat the Soviet Union so we could act like them?
The situation must be changed to respect individual privacy and dignity.
On previous installations of various Linux distros, the first step I've taken is to download the various patches and updates. Same procedure with Windows.
Too bad you don't just use a net install to begin with. It's very different from Windoze, which always comes from an old CD.
I'm typing this using Firefox 0.9 under XP. I don't particularly like Windows, but there are other people who need to use this machine.
Too bad for you and them. You could be running something nice like KDE 3.2.
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I'm not as impressed as you are. Paul Boutin is still dismissive, insulting and pulling the party line. He gives the wrong reasons for using Firebird and stops short of placing blame where it belongs. It's not just the browser, it's the OS that's got problems.
Here's a flamebait quote:
You've probably been told to dump Internet Explorer for a Mozilla browser before, by the same propeller-head geek who wants you to delete Windows from your hard drive and install Linux. You've ignored him, and good for you.
Paul does not go on to tell us why anyone who did not dump Windows after Melissa should be happy. Instead he gives us the now usual FUD equating M$ and Linux security and the M$'s lame excuse for poor security:
Even Mozilla's spokespeople stress that no software can be guaranteed to be safe, and that Firefox's XPInstall system could conceivably be tricked into installing a keystroke logger instead of Sun's Java engine. But for now, there's safety in numbersâ"the lack of them, that is. Internet Explorer is used by 95 percent of the world. Firefox's fan base adds up to 2 or 3 percent at most. Which browser do you think the Russian hackers are busily trying to break into again?
Sorry Paul, this normal user is very happy to have dumped Windoze 98 in favor of Red Hat and Debian years ago. I've had perfectly usable browsers, email clients, digital music, and everything else I've ever wanted with far less hastle and trouble than my Windoze suffering peers and relatives. The browser is just the tip of the iceburg. I've enjoyed stable systems that stay up longer than my utility company's electricity, and a plethora of superior programs and features without having to drive to a store and periodically "rebuild" my computers. Learning Linux has been easy, fun and never required me to wear a propeller on my head.
DMZ is not a default zone. That screenshot is showing off the program's flexibility. Most grandmothers, however, would remember the Korean War and know exactly what a DMZ is.
The usual stuff is more like the second screenshot. There, Tildy can follow the phone Icon for chat to turn on and off Yahoo Chat services and the like.
That's much easier than Zone alarm asking her if she wants, BLAH123.EXE talking to the internet. If making windoze more secure depends on knowing if BLAH123.EXE should be turned on or not, then about 50% of average users will lose out.
Sure, and Apache has a greater "marketshare" as far as servers go. Yet with IIS, Microsoft's "Enterprise" pride and joy, we still see thousands of well maintained machines hacked in a way that screws the end user. Apache is subject to the same kinds of attacks, but does much better.
That's why Apache is winning. In the no BS world of real business, where losers go broke, free software rocks. All praise to free software is earned.
Gosh, you mean that Microsoft's past is no indicator of current or future offerings? You are right about reading the article though. When we do, we see each of your points proved in detail. I'll take the trouble to pick through the five individual advert burdened pages for you. Let's watch!
Looks like more of the same from M$ to me. More heartache with no real result or benefit for the end user.
If knowing stuff like that is required to "secure" a Windoze box, you can imagine why it's impossible for the average user to do.
Compare to Gaurddog. It has a fine icon based GUI to manipulate IPTables. The GUI is well organized with a clear category based tree of services and even little icons. With programs like that, it's easy to turn on and off the services you want.
I guess I'm talking about relative efforts for each platform. In absolute terms, Windows still blows.
Windoze on it's own is very difficult to maintain if it is connected to a network and exposed to the internet. The only solution to the problem is re-image every day as is done at public libraries. That sucks for the user, in all the ways you noted. Still, on the Windoze side going with the "twin" software will reduce your current effort.
The Linux side difficulty I'm talking about is minor compared, but large for someone like me who's been spoiled by tools like apt-get update and upgrade. If you don't go with Debian stable and want to stay current, you will get changes that blow out your mods that will be difficult to automate away. If you have the money or spare PCs, going with packaged Linux is far easier than customizing.
I'm also spoiled by cheap hardware. I only have one computer that runs faster than 1GHz and most run sub 500MHz. I have several P1 class machines and have run KDE 3.2 on one without problem. I can see how a lab at a premier University would rather opt for the multihead solution from a noise, heat and performance standpoint. The rest of us can get buy on other people's discards.
Sooner or later, someone is going to make a deb package and the minor increase in effort will be obliterated for everyone.
The funniest thing of all is that Microsoft could bundle all of the same software. It's free and everyone can use it. Lots of the killer software is already ported to M$'s crappy OS. All M$, or any vendor for that matter, has to do is distribute their changes to the source code if they bother to make any. So what keeps them from doing that? It would further validate free software and drive home the fact that M$ is just another software distribution. The only thing special about Microsoft is how expensive and restrictive their distribution is.
Ha ha, M$ reps, you cling to a corpse. Though the word is out, M$ refuses to grow, change or even move. That's death in any industry. In software, they were dead six years ago. The overwhelming superiority of software choice and the quality of that choice is the direct result of Microsoft's business model and refusal to change.
Also, you don't need 4 cards, You could do it with two. NVidia's twinview allows you to run two seperate X-servers off of one card (provided of course that it has two outputs).
You could do it that way, but regular pci cards are less expensive and requires no fancy software.
Well, you can, but it's third party, very hardware specific and leaves you stuck with M$ XP. The Linux system demonstrated is a clear winner for schools, libraries, banks, casinos and other places where economical use of hardware is desired. While the Linux system might be difficult to maintain, it can be done. The Windoze solution leaves you dependent on the vendor. The people at Jetway have done an outstanding job but such is the world of proprietary software.
Anyone know of a better system? If you say citrix terminal services, I say, Linux Terminal Project and, cool as those things are, get thee back to 1975.
Yep, the fancy features don't get in the way of the ones you want first. GNU cash has very sophisticated accounting, but I'm easily able to use it to just balance my check book. Other stuff, like being able to deal with Yen, stocks, taxes and the very powerful reports are all there but not obtrusive. When I use GNUcash, I'm not bowled over by feeling of gee wiz bang, and doubts about trusting my money to the program.
Kmoney, I'm sure is another excellent program. Everything else KDE rocks and everytime I do a review of a KDE thingy, I end up hooked. GNUcash is good enough that I have not made the effort, yet.
They kept doing the same thing as always. They are buying magazine reviews and declaring victory. Heck, they are even making web blogs like Apple Switchers. The usual BS, convince people it's true and they will spend their money, the fools think. More amazingly, but all in line with their new propaganda, the author claims competition hurt users! This article is an amazing admission of Microsoft greed.
They realize that purchases like money are all review driven and have bought those reviews. They are using Wintel rags and every other outlet they have to try to convince reviewer at the Wall Street Journal that M$ Money is the best. Note that later he brags about having "won" more of those reviews and how Ituit realized, "Quicken's raison d'etre is to drive TurboTax sales" and that they don't have a place in personal finacne. Gee, thanks for the news everyone's more mature since the losing money on stocks in the late 90's and realizes they can't fight Microsoft. I don't buy it.
I don't buy one of the central points of the blog, that "competition" made things bad for everyone. He claims that feature creep made it difficult for people to do basic things with their programs. Nonsense, poor design makes it difficult for people to do things with your program. I've been using GNUcash for a while now. I'm not bothered by features I don't know how to use yet, but I'm very happy to have a simple, accurate and free PFM. Competition and freedom have made things very good for me.
If you took this article at face value, you would imagine the M$ Money is something worthwhile. How can it be, when it's tied to a platform that's just gone through another round of security problems? Trust is an important consideration when you start dealing with money, and trust is something Microsoft has squandered. I'm not interested in some twenty something's goals of making lots of money for Microsoft, so that he can spank Intuit with thousand dollar bills. I'm interested in making sure my bank and people I deal with don't make mistakes with my money and free software does that. Why would anyone spend money to trust themselves to some web driven nightmare that's been able to tell just how long the user has been on the program, send adverts at the user and all of that other BS?
Lynx does images, you simply have to select the one you want to look at and it pulls up in your choice of image viewer. Links does table and other formating, so the placement of images gives you a clue about what's a picture you want to look at.
This is what Russinovich means when he says that Linux has been playing catch-up - he doesn't talk about portability, security, etc, he's only looking at one particular side of things.
and point to an article from 1999 where Mark tells us:
So, it seems, his whole point was not technical but a business opinion. The evidence was already there against this business opinion, regardless of technical issues. Poor Mark lacked business vision.
Google was already up and running and so was Hotmail and both proved the value of free software. Hotmail, I believe, was running BSD which was even less developed than Linux at the time. If Google was not "prime time", I'm not sure what is. Microsoft's repeated attempts to make "NT" work for Hotmail were a terrible embarrassment.
Mark, regardless of his technical knowledge, clearly lacks business understanding and "can do". People who had those things back in 1998 were making plenty of money using Linux and clearly benefitted from a lack of license fees. No "catch up" was required, though companies that adopted also benefit from free software growth.
Perhaps Mark was not misquoted after all. He wrote that entire wintel rag article. The ZDNet article was written by a reporter who has learned nothing from the last five years. Mark might not have either.
Sure, with days of mind numbing effort you can download and install dozens of different free programs to make Windoze sorta bearable. Then in less than four months that machine that sorta worked will sorta be owned by viruses anyway and you get to start all over again unless you imaged your whole drive using yet more free or expensive tools. Or you could spend less than an hour getting all of it on any modern Linux distro and not have to worry as much.
The choice is obvious. Windoze is nothing like Linux, no matter how much free software you port to it.
Linux is paying catch-up with Windows and the gap is narrowing.
What crap. If you asked me, I'd tell you that Linux has clearly superior feature set, organization and portability. It runs cleaner and better on more hardware than Bill Gates can dream of. Who would argue otherwise?
"Both operating systems had their origins in the 1970s and their real birth in the 1990s and have been evolving quickly since then. The two operating systems are very similar from a kernel perspective, because as engineers work on problems they look around to see what's working elsewhere.
A kind admission of borrowing on M$'s part that sounds very similar to SCO "theft" FUD. I was not aware that Microsoft's kernels had UIDs, SMP or file system integrated permmision systems. But hey, it runs your computer so it must be the same, right? Surely, there are some details our reporter has left out.
No, I'm afraid not, the reporter goes on to accuse Linux of stealing Minux and blither some BS about how integrating a GUI into your kernel is good for performance. Nuts, the reporter has clearly seized onto something out of context and crammed it into some SCO generated fantasy world of "stolen" software.
Don't blame the summary, blame the article for clear famebait. No real engineer would say such things.
Sure, with days of mind numbing effort you can download and install dozens of different free programs to make Windoze sorta bearable. Then in less than four months that machine that sorta worked will sorta be owned by viruses anyway and you get to start all over again unless you imaged your whole drive using yet more free or expensive tools. Or you could spend less than an hour getting all of it on any modern Linux distro and not have to worry as much.
The choice is obvious. Windoze is nothing like Linux, no matter how much free software you port to it.
If the zombie is actually using the user's proper (sender) domain and sending through the ISPs mail server, then SPF doesn't help directly, it gives the ISP the power to simply monitor what is sent and shut the zombie down if spam is being sent.
So, SPF contributes nothing. ISPs already have the ability to monitor their clients for spam and shut them down. It also shows that Vixie is not correct about the only benefit he sees for SPF, prevention of domain spoofing. The owner of a zombie machine will send out spam with the targeted domain. Spammers will simply slow the number of messages from each zombie to whatever does not trigger the ISP's monitoring program. The spam will go on and it will come from every big dumb ISP until people quit using crap from M$.
We know you are interested in using the Connect music store. Unfortunately SonicStage only works on Windows 98SE and above. We have no immediate plans to support other operating systems at this time. However, we believe this is an important user base and we hope to support it in the future.
Gee, thanks I say.
A quick look around for something to mimic Sonicstage comes up with zero, so forget it. I'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars for a device I have no hope of using. I'm not willing to purchase Windoze for the privilege of spending weeks of my life converting all of my music to Sony's ownership with a file format I can't use anywhere else.
As a side note, I'm still very happy with my Zaurus' performance as a music player. With a large enough CF, I get plenty of play time out of it with ogg or mp3.
Because the people who needlessly block your ports would needlessly block your gpg attachments. How far do you want to go around the problem rather than fix it right to begin with? The email I run costs less to my ISP than the server they run and it's more secure too. It's also way more secure than the garbage (M$ Windoze) most people hook to their network.
I'll still look at RC aircraft model, National Geographic and Travel magazines. Some hobby magazines still have good content even the advertisements. The other stuff is good for pretty pictures only.
With Windoze, nothing, and I've heard stories of people getting virused up before they have finished Windoze update. Of course, with Windoze you get owned even if your computer is on the Redmond campus.
With reasonable distros, you download a nice recent net install from a server you trust and check it with an MD5 sum. You then get all the packages you want. This compares favorably with the average Windoze user installing from their two year old CD, which itself was mass produced with year old code and stored in a warehouse for months before they ever got it.
The other thing that prevents mass ownership of Linux computers through net install attacks is the cluelessness and pathetic numbers of people who would actually do such a thing. M$ is desperate for bad news about free software, but all he can do about it is pay liars, like yourself.
Suck away.
How about lame cable companies that do stupid shit like block ports, especially email ports? Cox, I'm talking about you. They have done this at the request of AOL and M$, or so said their tech when they finally blocked outgoing mail. The chain of devolution from At Home was:
M$ and AOL threatened to blackmail all mail from Cox if they did not do take the last steps, and I'm sure they pressured them on the first few too. How disgusting that they would force a competitor to spend money to degrade their service.
How are you supposed to build a crypto email system whey you can't run your own email server? Don't give me BS about using other ports, they will block whatever people want to use. If you don't run it, you can't trust it. Even when you do run it you need to be careful you are not owned.
Email servers are easy to make and I'm sure there would be a market for them, as appliances, if there was legal certainty to the application. As it is, broadband ISP is monopoly ISP and they can do and charge what they want. Any popular service can be owned and charged for.
Think the legal framework is an accident? Ask yourself how Carnivore would work if everyone could just go buy a $100 encrypted mail server from Best Buy. I hate the direction my government is going. We beat the Soviet Union so we could act like them?
The situation must be changed to respect individual privacy and dignity.
Too bad you don't just use a net install to begin with. It's very different from Windoze, which always comes from an old CD.
I'm typing this using Firefox 0.9 under XP. I don't particularly like Windows, but there are other people who need to use this machine.
Too bad for you and them. You could be running something nice like KDE 3.2.