I won't lie, I'm still bitter about my own personal experience in high school (nearly 10 years ago now, wow). But yeah, I suppose I don't really paint the most fair picture of the situation.
And naturally, you hear about the problems, not the majority of places that don't have them.
Ineptitude of the admin accounts for 99.9% of student hacker stories.
This kids are not discovering some new exploit and utilizing it. In the most malicious of cases, the kids are taking advantage of a well known issue that they found an app for on the net, or installing a keylogger on a teachers machine before class.
And if you've got junior high kids who have managed to learn enough on their own, at that age, to do that; give them a free pass and ship them off to MIT.
I don't know why schools are this giant black hole of suck - but they are. My school was very well-to-do, and had some of the highest paid teachers in the country. I don't know why they could find an IT guy who could follow industry accepted best practices.
If you can't stop a curious, bored, student - who really doesn't know jack; you have no business working in IT.
I love how everyone wants to attack the kids in these school + computer security cases. Nobody ever wants to talk about the trained 'professional' whose job is to prevent these things - getting schooled (haha) by a kid.
Instead of kicking the kid out of school - why not fire the IT guy, get a real IT guy, and then, let the kid (who will proudly offer it up) show the new IT guy what he did. The new IT guy will shake his head and go, 'Yeah - that should be locked down'.
Nobody cares - but here is my evil 'hacker' story.
When I was in high school, I was kicked out of my programming class, along with five other of my friends. We were marched down to the principal's office. I was given the title of 'ring-leader'. It was interesting stuff. Apparently, I was an evil hacker.
At first, I was like, 'Don't worry guys' because, after all, I didn't do anything bad. I did some cool stuff - like a program to change the desktop resolution, so I could write code in 1024xwhatever instead of 800x600. We'd also enabled sharing of our network drive so that we could work on our class stuff from anywhere in the building (which meant I could do homework in the library).
When I was in the room with the principal, she asked me to explain what increasing the resolution did, exactly. I tried my best, I told her....'Well, ummm....it means there are more pixels on the screen than you'd have otherwise....and it....ummm....gives you more space.'
She paused....and said.....'So, you mean to tell me, you were able to see parts of the screen you weren't supposed to? Did you ever think that maybe there was a reason those parts of the screen were hidden!'
I'm not joking. I'm not exaggerating. And at that point, I was basically forbidden to speak. Her mind was made up, my fate was sealed.
I thought it was a pretty good explanation from a 16 year old kid who didn't really know jack and who was fairly nervous at the time.
I was threated with expulsion from my school, kept out of class, given an F in my programming class (prior to this, I had an A+ and would literally go around and help other kids, the same as the teacher would. I'd spend hours in the library making my program do things far beyond the scope of the assignment. I was a great student).
Eventually, after much drama, it was decided that I could remain in my school - but that I couldn't touch any school computers for the rest of my high school years. That's to say, for the entirety of my senior year, if I was in English class and we were supposed to type a paper - I had to sit there and not touch a computer.
The stupidity is overwhelming to the point where it seems unfathomable.
I still don't know what trigged it all. The things I did, I had permissions and access to do - so I don't see how that really fits as hacking. We had an idiot running the school, and apparently, an idiot running the IT department. I'm guessing that nothing was locked down and someone did something actually malicious and they looked and saw that, OMG, some kids are working on their homework in the library via their network drive! And so, we (and more specifically, I) became the target of their rage.
There is no point in providing a complex network/security infrastructure to hand over to a computer illiterate parent.
There is no benefit.
The parent will not be able to manage it in any meaningful way and the kids will do whatever they would have done anyway.
"CAN SOMEONE HELP ME? My baby sitter cancelled and I need to keep an eye on my 6 month old. Can someone tell me how to stream a live webcam feed of my babies crib to my android phone so that I can still go out and know that my baby is safe"
The question was asking for the best course of action in a given situation. It would be silly to ignore given information because we know that some people will be offended by the appropriate response to it.
Here's what we know from the question....
* Three kids: 12, 14, 15 - The oldest is probably a sophomore in high school. Many high schools offer computer classes, including computer programming. Even if the eldest child is not a computer geek, he or she certainly has friends that are.
* Parent is not computer savvy. Needs a simple web interface to do everything. Needs everything to be setup correctly in advance and will be unable to make significant changes/updates.
* Parent wants the ability to forcefully shut down computers remotely, restrict content, etc....
Given the situation; a technology based solution is not optimal. The kids will out-geek Mom in no time flat. The only way to ensure that Mom stays in control of the PCs is to lock them down the point that they are no longer useful in any meaningful way.
Will the computers allow USB devices to be connected? If No - that's a gimped computer. If Yes - nothing will stop the 15 year old kid from brining a portable HD with 500gb of all the content the parent would want blocked. Plenty of his friends will be glad to supply the content.
If yes - nothing will stop the kids from getting a wireless network adapter and connecting to the neighbors unsecured wireless router and getting on the internet whenever they want.
Will the computers allow CD/DVDs/Floppy disks? If No - that's a gimped computer. If yes - same as above, but the size of the medium is limited.
And if the kid can plug in any of those things; he or she will be able to boot off of one of those devices. And that means they'll be able to partition the hard-drive and have their own sandbox environment that is free from the rules and restrictions imposed otherwise.
If you setup a bios password, nothing will stop the kids from opening the case and resetting the bios. Most consumer-type PCs don't have physical locks on the case.
Any web filtering you do is either going to be a strict whitelist which will gimp the usability of the web, or a blacklist. If it's a blacklist they'll have no trouble finding a proxy they can use to surf all the sites you would want blacklisted. They'll even have a friend who can show them how to do it - who will run a proxy on their home PC so your kid can connect. I did that for my buddy back in high school.
And, any local filtering you do will fail to stop anything once they kid hits an open wireless router at your neighbors house.
Beyond that, nothing stops the kid from running a cat-5 cable his computer straight to the modem - bypassing the router and the server you've got setup.
You'd need to physically secure the modem/router/server machine in a locked room that the children cannot possibly enter. Then you'd need to physically secure the insides of the computers you give them so that they cannot open the case (you'll also need to inspect the case regularly - because it's fairly trivial to cut them open anyway). You'd also need to prevent them from connection any USB device; possibly there is a bios setting for this, I've never tried. You'd need to remove any floppy/cd/dvd reading devices that are on the machine. You'd also have to prevent the installation of any software you don't approve. You'd have to prevent them from using any chat programs, because you can't moderate it and they can receive files. You'd have to block the vast, vast majority of the web because it would give them content you don't want them to have (but many of the sites you block would also have other really useful applications, aside from the content you don't like). You'd also have to either block or monitor all of you child's e-mail; otherwise his or her friends would provide the content.
Then you've got a computer that is mostly worthless, but a fighting chance of kee
And, even if you are going to try and put the lockdown on the kids - you'll also need to physically secure the incoming connection and the server.
It's pretty easy to plug your PC directly into the router and bypass the server. And, again, since the admin doesn't really know jack about PCs, the kids have an awfully good chance of being able to screw around with the server directly, if they have physical access to it.
You don't need fancy high-tech solutions to simple low-tech problems. You want to know if your kid's computer is turned on or off? Walk into the family room and see if the kid is sitting on the computer. You want to make sure your kid isn't on the PC after 11pm? Turn off the computer.
Having a fancy software based solution for the generic single Mom isn't going to work.
Beyond that, kids aren't stupid. If you give the kid a PC that some central server monitors to see if it's turned on, particularly if it's being administered by a n0ob Mom; they are going to realize they can disable the software that provides that info to the server. Or, that by disconnecting the network cable/wireless adapter, the server views the machine as off.
Same deal with the internet. Odds are, there are unsecured wireless connections your kid can use to get on your neighbors connection and they can surf anything they want without your detection. Aside from that, unless you are going to completely cripple the usefulness of the internet; they'll always be able to connect to some proxy and get content that way.
And, whatever material you don't want them seeing on the internet - their buddy Tom, he's got a portable hard-drive filled with 400 gigs of that stuff. And he'll gladly let your kid copy it to his PC.
When I was in junior high, my and my loser friends would install Linux partitions on my family computers. With a boot disk, we could load up into Linux and access the content we didn't want our family to know about (IE - porn).
Bottom line is - this won't work. The amount of effort that would go into setting up and monitoring this system would be huge for a non-techie AND it wouldn't be effective. The better solution is to be a good parent, spend time with your kids, and realize you can't stop them from ever doing or seeing anything bad or scary on the internet.
If the parent is too lazy to do that; you are better off just installing spyware on the kid's PCs. Then Mom can get weekly e-mail of what nasty stuff her snowflakes were doing on the internet. But in either case, the kids will get around the security measures.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there all sorts of ways to limit the rights of the consumer with DVDs? And even VHS before that? And before that, even the old Cassette Tape had copy protection.
Your PC won't be able to read the physical storage media of the future without upgrading it's hardware. Likewise, given enough time, your PC will be unable to meet the requirements to play the media.
It'd be like trying to watch a high-def/blu-ray movie on a 486 DX2. The old CRT won't properly display the video anyway, and even if so, it'll be choppy and crappy because the 486 can't handle playing the movie.
But sure - if you keep upgrading your PC - yeah - you can handle anything. Unless they come out with content that can't play played on a PC. Like a console video game, for example.
I don't mean this as a personal attack against you; but I see this sort of thing a lot and it always annoys me.
You've got this big 'evil'/'greedy' entity that everyone seems to agree is out to make money, even if that means screwing over the customer. And it's normally not just one evil/greedy thing; it's a whole lot of them, fighting, to get customers (to screw over) because really, all they want is money.
But then, in the same breath, we get people (like you) who seemingly have found a BETTER business model - that would get the company MORE MONEY. I mean, it's not like these big evil/greedy things don't have full-time employees whose job is to come up with ways to get more money. Because, apparently, even if they've managed to beat out all the other evil companies to get a monopoly on the industry - they are also stupid. And you have found a much better model. That not only makes them more money; but makes the customer happier.
People use this argument against CDs and the RIAA ("Yeah man - they like totally should sell CDs for like a dollar!") or ("Yeah man, I'd totally pay to download this stuff I'm downloading illegally - if it were like 25 cents - plus they'd make more money!")
People use this argument when they pirate software ("Yeah - well, lolz, like I'm gonna pay $50 dollars for a game? Pssh! They should just make it $2 dollars and they'd like totally get a ton of money and I'd buy it then!")
I guess I just find the argument hard to believe.
I'd guess they have some pretty smart people who spend a lot of time deciding what the optimal pricing strategy is.
Then you've got bank staff trying to step 'Grandma RobDude' through downloading the windows driver for her wireless card, installing ndiswrapper, and then you still have to explain to her that, since her wireless card isn't 'good', at best, even with all the hacking, she can't enable any encryption on her wifi.
Which pretty much defeats the whole, 'it would be more secure' angle.
And for the record; I'm not trolling. I'm a computer programmer, reasonably tech savvy, and I've tried to install two different versions of Ubuntu in the last two years. Both resulted in multiple pages on the Ubuntu forums and ultimately ended with 'Well, ummmm, buy something new!'.
I've never seen or heard of a study that accurately measured people's diets over a period of decades. It's self-reported nonsense, about as reliable as self-reported penis size surveys.
In controlled experiments, there are certainly measurable differences in body composition based on changes in hormones and *type* (not amount) of food consumed.
There is *more* to losing weight/gaining weight/body composition than calories in vs. calories out. That's why I object to the statement being thrown around everywhere. It's an oversimplification that doesn't address real issues that play important roles in weight/body comp.
When you say something like, 'Well, all other things being equal - if you eat 1/10th of what you eat now....you'd lose weight'. Okay - sure, assuming someone is eating whatever they burn and aren't gaining or losing weight; reducing the calories and keeping everything else the same should result in a reduction of weight. But again, it's a GROSS oversimplification.
Here's a list of true things that calories in vs. calories out ignores/neglects....
Different foods provide different levels of satiety. That means if you eat as much of A as you want, and as much of B as you want - you'll eat more of B. If you control your calories - you'll eat the same amount of both; but you'll be hungry sooner if you eat B.
Foods affect your hormones, especially insulin, but other things like testosterone. Hormones have a much larger impact than a lot of people want to acknowledge. This is why two groups of rats, one feed a high GI diet and one feed a low GI diet end up with vastly different amounts of body fat. Hormones are also why a guy can inject steroids, and without changing diet or exercise increase lean mass and lose fat.
Exercise doesn't just burn calories while you are doing it. It affects the amount of calories you burn afterwards as well.
Exercise affects your hormone levels as well.
Other external factors affect hormone levels and can have a dramatic affect on hunger, weight gain, lean mass, strength, etc....
Diet and Exercise both can have positive or negative affects on energy levels. Either encouraging or discouraging activity.
Changes in your body composition impact the amount of calories burned in any activity you do; including sitting around doing nothing.
There is absolutely no way for a regular person to accurately measure the calories in/calories out and account for the changes that their body is going through, including hormonal changes.
Calories in Vs. Calories out fails to address body composition or athletic performance. If I want to look like Arnold Swartzenager in his prime, armed with the knowledge of Calories in vs. Calories out - I'd eat a lot. He was some 200+ pounds and I'm not. So, clearly, I need to eat more and burn less to gain weight.
Calories in Vs. Calories out also fails to address the dietary requirements of the human body. Essential amino acids/vitamins/etc that can't be produced by the body need to be supplied by our diets. CiVco doesn't have any such concept.
Finally, there are studies that show correlations between sleep and weight loss (again, CiVco has no concept of sleep). And, there are studies that show correlations between WHEN you eat and weight gain or weight loss. That can be explained, scientifically, thanks to hormone levels....but not by CiVco.
Calories in Vs. Calories out is worthless. You really would be just as correct/silly to say, 'The key to gaining weight is to weigh more today than you did yesterday'. It is meaningless, but correct.
It's called the internet. It's amazing. In the time it took you to write your post you could have found several studies that show differences in body compositions based on the TYPE of diet, not the calories consumed.
In the future, I'd recommend www.Google.com - it's a pretty cool, new thing, you can use to search for stuff on the internet.
Anyway - here is the result of about 2 seconds of searching....
"In one study,[14] male rats were split into high and low GI groups over 18 weeks while mean body weight was maintained. Rats fed the high GI diet were 71% fatter and had 8% less lean body mass than the low GI group"
In that study - body weight of the rats was maintained, but one group ate a high GI diet and another ate low GI diet.
That's just one - but like I said, if you look, you can find lots more.
Then, you've got other studies that also invalidate calories in vs. calories out. I'm not talking about studies on WHAT you eat; but studies on hormones. Specifically, I'm thinking of testosterone, cortisol, and myostatin.
For example, there are studies in which one group of guys received testosterone and another group didn't. They were given instructions not to alter their diet or their exercise. Guys who received testosterone experienced an increase in lean body mass and a decrease in fat. Without altering their diet or exercise.
Calories in vs. calories out fails to account for the very real and very dramatic affects hormones have on our body. And yes, diet and exercise does impact our hormone levels.
Aside from all that - even if you don't want to acknowledge any of the medical studies, for whatever reason (Well, I'm not a rat - so it doesn't count!!!! Or - Testosterone, that's steroids and evil and doesn't count!); we're still left with the very real problem of the 'calories in vs. calories out' statement being MEANINGLESS.
Even if it's true, it's meaningless.
Let me give you an example. Let's say we've both taking a multiple choice test, each question has exactly one correct answer. You say, 'RobDude - what is the answer to #3' and I say back, 'It's the one that isn't wrong'.
That's a TRUE statement. But it's meaningless. It doesn't help you in anyway. It's pointless.
Calories in vs. calories out involves two factors. First, you've got calories in. But what does 'in' mean? In doesn't mean 'what you eat' - it means what is absorbed by your body. If you vomit immediately after eating, or take a laxative, your calories consumed might be X - but the calories your body took 'in' is much less.
But how much less?
We don't know.
Unless you live in a lab or something; we don't know how many calories go in. We know how many calories we *eat*. But we don't know how many calories we crap out. I know, it's a crazy concept, but our bodies aren't 100% perfectly efficient machines. A regular person has no means of accurately measuring how many calories go in.
Even if you want to argue semantics that calories in is anything you consume and calories out is everything you lose - in any way - you are still left with the inability to measure how many calories go out. You aren't crapping in a box and mailing it to a lab. And even if you were; that wouldn't give you the whole picture.
Calories out has to include the energy used by your body. How the hell do you or I measure that? Good luck. Again, in a lab somewhere, I'm sure some smart people have this figure out. But a regular joe - it's all just wild guesses. For example, caffeine pills. It's a staple of weight-loss pills. They contain zero calories, but they cause your body to burn more calories.
How much more?
I don't know. And neither do you. How many additional calories your body will burn because of caffeine is not something a normal person can accurately measure.
If your brain glitches allow you to see into the future you have no excuse for not being ungodly rich. The insight you'd gain - just in seeing what line of clothing is particularly popular or what the logo is on the front of cars would give you insight to make you the best investor the world has ever seen.
On top of that, demonstrating super-natural abilities - like seeing into the future - would net you millions in rewards from people who claim it can't be done. That James Randi guy will give you a million; probably others too.
Deja Vu is when your brain screws up and you 'feel like' the thing that just happened, already happened. You 'feel like' you are recalling something from memory rather than experiencing it for the same time.
It's a 'feeling'.
Plenty of people have 'felt' Deja Vu - nobody has ever demonstrated an ability to see into the future. There is a huge, huge, huge difference between, 'Holy crap everyone - here is a really specific list of things that I know are going to happen next week that I couldn't possibly have known about without seeing the future' and 'Oh wow, I swear, I totally saw this happen before'.
I'm not an MS hater or anything; but it really seems like it was more a case of being in the right place at the right time, more than anything else.
You actually see this in a lot of dramatic changes in industry. Something new comes along and people who are in a good position to take advantage of it, do, and quickly grow into large, rich companies. Those companies make it very, very, very difficult for someone new to come along and do the same thing.
It happened with Computers, but also with the telephone, the automobile, oil companies, trains, etc.
I've never understood why people feel the need to address the lowest common denominator.
I mean, if you are blind or retarded or whatever, I am truly sorry. That sucks. But don't ask me to walk around for the rest of my life with a blind fold on. That's stupid. Sight is *awesome*. It let's me do a ton of really nice things. I'm sorry you can't do that; but me not doing it also isn't going to help you much.
I guess misery loves company?
Technology is advancing and we're getting to a point where we don't *have* to use text for everything. We still use it a lot - images and video are growing in popularity all over the net. It's GREAT.
Yeah - it sucks that Timmy The Blind Kid Nobody Likes feels left out from YouTube; since he can't see the funny videos. But, what is more humane....to give a good thing to as many people as you can - or let everyone suffer because you can't give it to everyone?
"I'm some rich guy and I've got enough money to feed 99% of the starving children in the entire world. So, I'm burning all that money. Obviously, it's not fair that 1% of the starving kids would still be starving....so I think we should let all of our kids starve. I'm buying up as much food as I can, to drive up costs, and then burning all that food so that all the kids can starve equally!"
That's STUPID.
Not adopting a new technology that does something cool or does something better, simply because it introduces difficulty to some segment of the population is equally stupid.
I'm not sure I agree. I mean, maybe a little. Mostly, I think the rules are pretty clear. They only seem confusing because the things required aren't easily obtainable (if they are obtainable at all).
I think the real reason for the popularity of MMORPGs and why they consume some people's entire lives, really come down to two things.
1.) In a video game everyone is equal In WoW, if you are a paladin, you are have the same abilities as other paladins If you want to be a priest - you can be a priest. Whatever image of yourself you want; you can be, and you can be it as good as anyone else.
In real life, that's not true. If you are 5'2" and want to play in the NBA - that's too bad. We aren't all equal. You can't decide to roll a character with the base stats that support what you want to do. You can't reroll to get more +INT to be a famous scientist. You are, you. And you can work to improve yourself, but you're very limited and what is worse - other people aren't.
Most of us are just 'average' at most things. We don't like to think that, but it's true. If you have an average aptitude and work really hard, you might be 'really good'...but you won't be great. Most of us won't be great at anything. Do you think the popular guy who banged the hottest girls in high school was more deserving than the unpopular, ugly nerd? Or did he just happen to be more with symmetrical features that made him popular with the ladies?
In life, you are stuck with your base levels and other people are blessed with higher base levels and can outperform you with minimal effort. In WoW, you roll whatever you want and know you are equal.
2.) Effort In games there really isn't much effort at all. The trend has been to remove skill from the game play and replace it with 'time'. If you spend a lot of time playing, your character becomes better. The time spent isn't particularly hard. It's lazy. You click a mouse, hit a button. That's not tough.
You can just sit back, spend a lot of time not doing much, and be rewarded! Your character grows and improves and you get cool stuff and respect from other players and you rock.
In real life, things are *hard*. Like, really hard. A lot harder than people think they should be. In Wow, you hit '2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1' for a few hours and your Warrior levels up and now he's stronger and has more hit points. But to increase *your strength* you have to get up and go to the gym and train properly. And then, the rewards are an order of magnitude less.
The difference between what a world-class power lifter can lift is 2-3x what an average high school lifter can lift. Countless hours and imaginable effort to obtain, let's just say a 5x gain in strength doesn't compare at all to the difference between a level 1 warrior and a level 80 warrior. The level 80 is easily 1000x stronger in terms of what it can do.
Even nerdy stuff - like the rubiks cube. I had one in high school, learned the solution included and could solve it in under 120 seconds. The world's best solvers who train for hours and hours each week can consistently solve it in under 20 seconds. Years of work and dedication to get six times better than a loser high school kid.
In terms of effort, the fictional rewards of a video game far, far out weigh the rewards of real life. And even in my examples; the fastest rubiks solvers and the best power lifters - not only did they work, they also had a higher aptitude than most. Something they can't change or control.
We all joke that the hardcore WoW players are losers; but the more of a loser you are, the more appealing WoW becomes. The popular guy in high school - he's going to go to a party and mess around with a cheerleader....WoW seems lame. But to the below average looking kid with few friends - well, life isn't offering him much. He can work really, really hard for below average results in whatever he chooses - or he can go to WoW where he is on a level playing field with others and where he can see serious improvements, magnitudes better than real life offers.
Without some actual numbers, it's all just speculation.
I remember back when Slackware 7 came out and there were people who just as easily dismissed my install/hardware troubles.
"It works on *my* machine. You must be an idiot or have some crap hardware or something."
Now, looking back, it seems like even the most hardcore Linux fans will agree that there were a ton of issues *in the past*. And that pattern hasn't really changed, IMHO.
Every year, since as far back as I can remember (1998ish), people on the web proclaim that *THIS* is going to be the year of the Linux desktop. Typically, this claim will come with a side-to-side comparison of why Linux is better than Windows (It's easier to install! Four less clicks!) and it'll say how much more software the distro includes compared to windows (but it's not bloat because, well, we like it when Linux does it), and it'll come with admissions that, last year, things weren't as great as we said.
IE: 2003 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, there were network issues, but now it's fixed! Plus it's super easy to use'.
2004 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, there were video driver issues, but we've fixed that. Plus, it's super easy to use.'....
2009 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, we had problems with wireless networking...but we've fixed that. Plus, it's super easy to use.'
Linux is improving, certainly. I'm a fan, and I do run it. But the initial reaction from the community shouldn't be, 'WoW - you must be an idiot'. At the very least, pull the, 'Yeah well, you need to write the manufacture letters to get them to make a Linux Driver, because any problem you run into in Linux is the result of a bad driver because of the micro$uck paying companies not to make them' card. Or something.
I'm just tired of hearing, 'Oh man this works great....' then I try it and it fails. Then people admit that, okay, yeah, it doesn't actually work.
Example - 'Open Office is great it does everything Excel does, and it will open your old Excel stuff and it works great and it's free!'
I download it. I open my custom made Excel worksheet loaded with VBA code and macros and I go, 'Ummm, it doesn't seem to work for me'.
(2 pages of banter on some forum somewhere)
"Well, yeah, it doesn't support VBA. It has it's own that that is totally different and none of your worksheets that use VBA are going to work - but it's Microsoft's fault for that."
And then I say, 'Okay, that's fine, and this still seems like a great product - but why didn't you just say that, in the beginning, that it doesn't do everything Excel does?'
Example - 'Wireless works great in Linux!'
Many, many hours later, with NDISWRAPER installed and configured and pages on the forums asking for help and following mysterious instructions off the internet (many of which *could* have been malicious)...
'Yeah, it looks like, with your card, you'll only be able to get online if you disable WEP. So, you have to surf without encryption and all of your traffic is available to anyone who wants it....but I mean, OTHER THAN THAT, and the hours it took to setup, it totally just works'.
It just gets tiresome. And the name calling when you point out that something didn't work as advertised is also tiresome.
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Fair enough - that was an awesome post.
I won't lie, I'm still bitter about my own personal experience in high school (nearly 10 years ago now, wow). But yeah, I suppose I don't really paint the most fair picture of the situation.
And naturally, you hear about the problems, not the majority of places that don't have them.
The funny thing about it was that; right up until it happened - I really liked the class, the teacher and thought highly of my school.
But yeah - it is good to know that others have had better experiences than I did.
Ineptitude of the admin accounts for 99.9% of student hacker stories.
This kids are not discovering some new exploit and utilizing it. In the most malicious of cases, the kids are taking advantage of a well known issue that they found an app for on the net, or installing a keylogger on a teachers machine before class.
And if you've got junior high kids who have managed to learn enough on their own, at that age, to do that; give them a free pass and ship them off to MIT.
In my experience - this.
I don't know why schools are this giant black hole of suck - but they are. My school was very well-to-do, and had some of the highest paid teachers in the country. I don't know why they could find an IT guy who could follow industry accepted best practices.
If you can't stop a curious, bored, student - who really doesn't know jack; you have no business working in IT.
I love how everyone wants to attack the kids in these school + computer security cases. Nobody ever wants to talk about the trained 'professional' whose job is to prevent these things - getting schooled (haha) by a kid.
Instead of kicking the kid out of school - why not fire the IT guy, get a real IT guy, and then, let the kid (who will proudly offer it up) show the new IT guy what he did. The new IT guy will shake his head and go, 'Yeah - that should be locked down'.
Nobody cares - but here is my evil 'hacker' story.
When I was in high school, I was kicked out of my programming class, along with five other of my friends. We were marched down to the principal's office. I was given the title of 'ring-leader'. It was interesting stuff. Apparently, I was an evil hacker.
At first, I was like, 'Don't worry guys' because, after all, I didn't do anything bad. I did some cool stuff - like a program to change the desktop resolution, so I could write code in 1024xwhatever instead of 800x600. We'd also enabled sharing of our network drive so that we could work on our class stuff from anywhere in the building (which meant I could do homework in the library).
When I was in the room with the principal, she asked me to explain what increasing the resolution did, exactly. I tried my best, I told her....'Well, ummm....it means there are more pixels on the screen than you'd have otherwise....and it....ummm....gives you more space.'
She paused....and said.....'So, you mean to tell me, you were able to see parts of the screen you weren't supposed to? Did you ever think that maybe there was a reason those parts of the screen were hidden!'
I'm not joking. I'm not exaggerating. And at that point, I was basically forbidden to speak. Her mind was made up, my fate was sealed.
I thought it was a pretty good explanation from a 16 year old kid who didn't really know jack and who was fairly nervous at the time.
I was threated with expulsion from my school, kept out of class, given an F in my programming class (prior to this, I had an A+ and would literally go around and help other kids, the same as the teacher would. I'd spend hours in the library making my program do things far beyond the scope of the assignment. I was a great student).
Eventually, after much drama, it was decided that I could remain in my school - but that I couldn't touch any school computers for the rest of my high school years. That's to say, for the entirety of my senior year, if I was in English class and we were supposed to type a paper - I had to sit there and not touch a computer.
The stupidity is overwhelming to the point where it seems unfathomable.
I still don't know what trigged it all. The things I did, I had permissions and access to do - so I don't see how that really fits as hacking. We had an idiot running the school, and apparently, an idiot running the IT department. I'm guessing that nothing was locked down and someone did something actually malicious and they looked and saw that, OMG, some kids are working on their homework in the library via their network drive! And so, we (and more specifically, I) became the target of their rage.
Schaumburg High School/Sharon Cross - you suck.
U mad, Bro?
There is no point in providing a complex network/security infrastructure to hand over to a computer illiterate parent.
There is no benefit.
The parent will not be able to manage it in any meaningful way and the kids will do whatever they would have done anyway.
"CAN SOMEONE HELP ME? My baby sitter cancelled and I need to keep an eye on my 6 month old. Can someone tell me how to stream a live webcam feed of my babies crib to my android phone so that I can still go out and know that my baby is safe"
Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
That's not true.
The question was asking for the best course of action in a given situation. It would be silly to ignore given information because we know that some people will be offended by the appropriate response to it.
Here's what we know from the question....
* Three kids: 12, 14, 15 - The oldest is probably a sophomore in high school. Many high schools offer computer classes, including computer programming. Even if the eldest child is not a computer geek, he or she certainly has friends that are.
* Parent is not computer savvy. Needs a simple web interface to do everything. Needs everything to be setup correctly in advance and will be unable to make significant changes/updates.
* Parent wants the ability to forcefully shut down computers remotely, restrict content, etc....
Given the situation; a technology based solution is not optimal. The kids will out-geek Mom in no time flat. The only way to ensure that Mom stays in control of the PCs is to lock them down the point that they are no longer useful in any meaningful way.
Will the computers allow USB devices to be connected? If No - that's a gimped computer. If Yes - nothing will stop the 15 year old kid from brining a portable HD with 500gb of all the content the parent would want blocked. Plenty of his friends will be glad to supply the content.
If yes - nothing will stop the kids from getting a wireless network adapter and connecting to the neighbors unsecured wireless router and getting on the internet whenever they want.
Will the computers allow CD/DVDs/Floppy disks? If No - that's a gimped computer. If yes - same as above, but the size of the medium is limited.
And if the kid can plug in any of those things; he or she will be able to boot off of one of those devices. And that means they'll be able to partition the hard-drive and have their own sandbox environment that is free from the rules and restrictions imposed otherwise.
If you setup a bios password, nothing will stop the kids from opening the case and resetting the bios. Most consumer-type PCs don't have physical locks on the case.
Any web filtering you do is either going to be a strict whitelist which will gimp the usability of the web, or a blacklist. If it's a blacklist they'll have no trouble finding a proxy they can use to surf all the sites you would want blacklisted. They'll even have a friend who can show them how to do it - who will run a proxy on their home PC so your kid can connect. I did that for my buddy back in high school.
And, any local filtering you do will fail to stop anything once they kid hits an open wireless router at your neighbors house.
Beyond that, nothing stops the kid from running a cat-5 cable his computer straight to the modem - bypassing the router and the server you've got setup.
You'd need to physically secure the modem/router/server machine in a locked room that the children cannot possibly enter. Then you'd need to physically secure the insides of the computers you give them so that they cannot open the case (you'll also need to inspect the case regularly - because it's fairly trivial to cut them open anyway). You'd also need to prevent them from connection any USB device; possibly there is a bios setting for this, I've never tried. You'd need to remove any floppy/cd/dvd reading devices that are on the machine. You'd also have to prevent the installation of any software you don't approve. You'd have to prevent them from using any chat programs, because you can't moderate it and they can receive files. You'd have to block the vast, vast majority of the web because it would give them content you don't want them to have (but many of the sites you block would also have other really useful applications, aside from the content you don't like). You'd also have to either block or monitor all of you child's e-mail; otherwise his or her friends would provide the content.
Then you've got a computer that is mostly worthless, but a fighting chance of kee
And, even if you are going to try and put the lockdown on the kids - you'll also need to physically secure the incoming connection and the server.
It's pretty easy to plug your PC directly into the router and bypass the server. And, again, since the admin doesn't really know jack about PCs, the kids have an awfully good chance of being able to screw around with the server directly, if they have physical access to it.
Forgot the computer crap and be a parent.
You don't need fancy high-tech solutions to simple low-tech problems. You want to know if your kid's computer is turned on or off? Walk into the family room and see if the kid is sitting on the computer. You want to make sure your kid isn't on the PC after 11pm? Turn off the computer.
Having a fancy software based solution for the generic single Mom isn't going to work.
Beyond that, kids aren't stupid. If you give the kid a PC that some central server monitors to see if it's turned on, particularly if it's being administered by a n0ob Mom; they are going to realize they can disable the software that provides that info to the server. Or, that by disconnecting the network cable/wireless adapter, the server views the machine as off.
Same deal with the internet. Odds are, there are unsecured wireless connections your kid can use to get on your neighbors connection and they can surf anything they want without your detection. Aside from that, unless you are going to completely cripple the usefulness of the internet; they'll always be able to connect to some proxy and get content that way.
And, whatever material you don't want them seeing on the internet - their buddy Tom, he's got a portable hard-drive filled with 400 gigs of that stuff. And he'll gladly let your kid copy it to his PC.
When I was in junior high, my and my loser friends would install Linux partitions on my family computers. With a boot disk, we could load up into Linux and access the content we didn't want our family to know about (IE - porn).
Bottom line is - this won't work. The amount of effort that would go into setting up and monitoring this system would be huge for a non-techie AND it wouldn't be effective. The better solution is to be a good parent, spend time with your kids, and realize you can't stop them from ever doing or seeing anything bad or scary on the internet.
If the parent is too lazy to do that; you are better off just installing spyware on the kid's PCs. Then Mom can get weekly e-mail of what nasty stuff her snowflakes were doing on the internet. But in either case, the kids will get around the security measures.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there all sorts of ways to limit the rights of the consumer with DVDs? And even VHS before that? And before that, even the old Cassette Tape had copy protection.
Not really.
Your PC won't be able to read the physical storage media of the future without upgrading it's hardware. Likewise, given enough time, your PC will be unable to meet the requirements to play the media.
It'd be like trying to watch a high-def/blu-ray movie on a 486 DX2. The old CRT won't properly display the video anyway, and even if so, it'll be choppy and crappy because the 486 can't handle playing the movie.
But sure - if you keep upgrading your PC - yeah - you can handle anything. Unless they come out with content that can't play played on a PC. Like a console video game, for example.
So yeah - I'm not sure a PC is really the answer.
I don't mean this as a personal attack against you; but I see this sort of thing a lot and it always annoys me.
You've got this big 'evil'/'greedy' entity that everyone seems to agree is out to make money, even if that means screwing over the customer. And it's normally not just one evil/greedy thing; it's a whole lot of them, fighting, to get customers (to screw over) because really, all they want is money.
But then, in the same breath, we get people (like you) who seemingly have found a BETTER business model - that would get the company MORE MONEY. I mean, it's not like these big evil/greedy things don't have full-time employees whose job is to come up with ways to get more money. Because, apparently, even if they've managed to beat out all the other evil companies to get a monopoly on the industry - they are also stupid. And you have found a much better model. That not only makes them more money; but makes the customer happier.
People use this argument against CDs and the RIAA ("Yeah man - they like totally should sell CDs for like a dollar!") or ("Yeah man, I'd totally pay to download this stuff I'm downloading illegally - if it were like 25 cents - plus they'd make more money!")
People use this argument when they pirate software ("Yeah - well, lolz, like I'm gonna pay $50 dollars for a game? Pssh! They should just make it $2 dollars and they'd like totally get a ton of money and I'd buy it then!")
I guess I just find the argument hard to believe.
I'd guess they have some pretty smart people who spend a lot of time deciding what the optimal pricing strategy is.
Right up until someone actually tried to use it.
Then you've got bank staff trying to step 'Grandma RobDude' through downloading the windows driver for her wireless card, installing ndiswrapper, and then you still have to explain to her that, since her wireless card isn't 'good', at best, even with all the hacking, she can't enable any encryption on her wifi.
Which pretty much defeats the whole, 'it would be more secure' angle.
And for the record; I'm not trolling. I'm a computer programmer, reasonably tech savvy, and I've tried to install two different versions of Ubuntu in the last two years. Both resulted in multiple pages on the Ubuntu forums and ultimately ended with 'Well, ummmm, buy something new!'.
I've never seen or heard of a study that accurately measured people's diets over a period of decades. It's self-reported nonsense, about as reliable as self-reported penis size surveys.
In controlled experiments, there are certainly measurable differences in body composition based on changes in hormones and *type* (not amount) of food consumed.
There is *more* to losing weight/gaining weight/body composition than calories in vs. calories out. That's why I object to the statement being thrown around everywhere. It's an oversimplification that doesn't address real issues that play important roles in weight/body comp.
When you say something like, 'Well, all other things being equal - if you eat 1/10th of what you eat now....you'd lose weight'. Okay - sure, assuming someone is eating whatever they burn and aren't gaining or losing weight; reducing the calories and keeping everything else the same should result in a reduction of weight. But again, it's a GROSS oversimplification.
Here's a list of true things that calories in vs. calories out ignores/neglects....
Different foods provide different levels of satiety. That means if you eat as much of A as you want, and as much of B as you want - you'll eat more of B. If you control your calories - you'll eat the same amount of both; but you'll be hungry sooner if you eat B.
Foods affect your hormones, especially insulin, but other things like testosterone. Hormones have a much larger impact than a lot of people want to acknowledge. This is why two groups of rats, one feed a high GI diet and one feed a low GI diet end up with vastly different amounts of body fat. Hormones are also why a guy can inject steroids, and without changing diet or exercise increase lean mass and lose fat.
Exercise doesn't just burn calories while you are doing it. It affects the amount of calories you burn afterwards as well.
Exercise affects your hormone levels as well.
Other external factors affect hormone levels and can have a dramatic affect on hunger, weight gain, lean mass, strength, etc....
Diet and Exercise both can have positive or negative affects on energy levels. Either encouraging or discouraging activity.
Changes in your body composition impact the amount of calories burned in any activity you do; including sitting around doing nothing.
There is absolutely no way for a regular person to accurately measure the calories in/calories out and account for the changes that their body is going through, including hormonal changes.
Calories in Vs. Calories out fails to address body composition or athletic performance. If I want to look like Arnold Swartzenager in his prime, armed with the knowledge of Calories in vs. Calories out - I'd eat a lot. He was some 200+ pounds and I'm not. So, clearly, I need to eat more and burn less to gain weight.
Calories in Vs. Calories out also fails to address the dietary requirements of the human body. Essential amino acids/vitamins/etc that can't be produced by the body need to be supplied by our diets. CiVco doesn't have any such concept.
Finally, there are studies that show correlations between sleep and weight loss (again, CiVco has no concept of sleep). And, there are studies that show correlations between WHEN you eat and weight gain or weight loss. That can be explained, scientifically, thanks to hormone levels....but not by CiVco.
Calories in Vs. Calories out is worthless. You really would be just as correct/silly to say, 'The key to gaining weight is to weigh more today than you did yesterday'. It is meaningless, but correct.
Waiting? For what?
It's called the internet. It's amazing. In the time it took you to write your post you could have found several studies that show differences in body compositions based on the TYPE of diet, not the calories consumed.
In the future, I'd recommend www.Google.com - it's a pretty cool, new thing, you can use to search for stuff on the internet.
Anyway - here is the result of about 2 seconds of searching....
"In one study,[14] male rats were split into high and low GI groups over 18 weeks while mean body weight was maintained. Rats fed the high GI diet were 71% fatter and had 8% less lean body mass than the low GI group"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index#Weight_control
In that study - body weight of the rats was maintained, but one group ate a high GI diet and another ate low GI diet.
That's just one - but like I said, if you look, you can find lots more.
Then, you've got other studies that also invalidate calories in vs. calories out. I'm not talking about studies on WHAT you eat; but studies on hormones. Specifically, I'm thinking of testosterone, cortisol, and myostatin.
For example, there are studies in which one group of guys received testosterone and another group didn't. They were given instructions not to alter their diet or their exercise. Guys who received testosterone experienced an increase in lean body mass and a decrease in fat. Without altering their diet or exercise.
Calories in vs. calories out fails to account for the very real and very dramatic affects hormones have on our body. And yes, diet and exercise does impact our hormone levels.
Aside from all that - even if you don't want to acknowledge any of the medical studies, for whatever reason (Well, I'm not a rat - so it doesn't count!!!! Or - Testosterone, that's steroids and evil and doesn't count!); we're still left with the very real problem of the 'calories in vs. calories out' statement being MEANINGLESS.
Even if it's true, it's meaningless.
Let me give you an example. Let's say we've both taking a multiple choice test, each question has exactly one correct answer. You say, 'RobDude - what is the answer to #3' and I say back, 'It's the one that isn't wrong'.
That's a TRUE statement. But it's meaningless. It doesn't help you in anyway. It's pointless.
Calories in vs. calories out involves two factors. First, you've got calories in. But what does 'in' mean? In doesn't mean 'what you eat' - it means what is absorbed by your body. If you vomit immediately after eating, or take a laxative, your calories consumed might be X - but the calories your body took 'in' is much less.
But how much less?
We don't know.
Unless you live in a lab or something; we don't know how many calories go in. We know how many calories we *eat*. But we don't know how many calories we crap out. I know, it's a crazy concept, but our bodies aren't 100% perfectly efficient machines. A regular person has no means of accurately measuring how many calories go in.
Even if you want to argue semantics that calories in is anything you consume and calories out is everything you lose - in any way - you are still left with the inability to measure how many calories go out. You aren't crapping in a box and mailing it to a lab. And even if you were; that wouldn't give you the whole picture.
Calories out has to include the energy used by your body. How the hell do you or I measure that? Good luck. Again, in a lab somewhere, I'm sure some smart people have this figure out. But a regular joe - it's all just wild guesses. For example, caffeine pills. It's a staple of weight-loss pills. They contain zero calories, but they cause your body to burn more calories.
How much more?
I don't know. And neither do you. How many additional calories your body will burn because of caffeine is not something a normal person can accurately measure.
That, from now on, posting that crap about 'Calories in vs. Calories out' is an offense punishable by death.
I've got a list of medical studies that show *what* you eat has a dramatic affect on your body composition; even when the calories are the same.
And yet - I still hear it....all the time....'Calories in vs. Calories out'.
Just sayin...
If your brain glitches allow you to see into the future you have no excuse for not being ungodly rich. The insight you'd gain - just in seeing what line of clothing is particularly popular or what the logo is on the front of cars would give you insight to make you the best investor the world has ever seen.
On top of that, demonstrating super-natural abilities - like seeing into the future - would net you millions in rewards from people who claim it can't be done. That James Randi guy will give you a million; probably others too.
Deja Vu isn't the same as seeing the future.
Deja Vu is when your brain screws up and you 'feel like' the thing that just happened, already happened. You 'feel like' you are recalling something from memory rather than experiencing it for the same time.
It's a 'feeling'.
Plenty of people have 'felt' Deja Vu - nobody has ever demonstrated an ability to see into the future. There is a huge, huge, huge difference between, 'Holy crap everyone - here is a really specific list of things that I know are going to happen next week that I couldn't possibly have known about without seeing the future' and 'Oh wow, I swear, I totally saw this happen before'.
Find a small to mid-sized company and just lie on your resume about your degrees.
I'm not an MS hater or anything; but it really seems like it was more a case of being in the right place at the right time, more than anything else.
You actually see this in a lot of dramatic changes in industry. Something new comes along and people who are in a good position to take advantage of it, do, and quickly grow into large, rich companies. Those companies make it very, very, very difficult for someone new to come along and do the same thing.
It happened with Computers, but also with the telephone, the automobile, oil companies, trains, etc.
That's an awfully big claim to make....
Do you have any supporting details to elaborate with? As someone who gets paid to write software, I'd be interested to hear more.
I've never understood why people feel the need to address the lowest common denominator.
I mean, if you are blind or retarded or whatever, I am truly sorry. That sucks. But don't ask me to walk around for the rest of my life with a blind fold on. That's stupid. Sight is *awesome*. It let's me do a ton of really nice things. I'm sorry you can't do that; but me not doing it also isn't going to help you much.
I guess misery loves company?
Technology is advancing and we're getting to a point where we don't *have* to use text for everything. We still use it a lot - images and video are growing in popularity all over the net. It's GREAT.
Yeah - it sucks that Timmy The Blind Kid Nobody Likes feels left out from YouTube; since he can't see the funny videos. But, what is more humane....to give a good thing to as many people as you can - or let everyone suffer because you can't give it to everyone?
"I'm some rich guy and I've got enough money to feed 99% of the starving children in the entire world. So, I'm burning all that money. Obviously, it's not fair that 1% of the starving kids would still be starving....so I think we should let all of our kids starve. I'm buying up as much food as I can, to drive up costs, and then burning all that food so that all the kids can starve equally!"
That's STUPID.
Not adopting a new technology that does something cool or does something better, simply because it introduces difficulty to some segment of the population is equally stupid.
I'm not sure I agree. I mean, maybe a little. Mostly, I think the rules are pretty clear. They only seem confusing because the things required aren't easily obtainable (if they are obtainable at all).
I think the real reason for the popularity of MMORPGs and why they consume some people's entire lives, really come down to two things.
1.) In a video game everyone is equal
In WoW, if you are a paladin, you are have the same abilities as other paladins If you want to be a priest - you can be a priest. Whatever image of yourself you want; you can be, and you can be it as good as anyone else.
In real life, that's not true. If you are 5'2" and want to play in the NBA - that's too bad. We aren't all equal. You can't decide to roll a character with the base stats that support what you want to do. You can't reroll to get more +INT to be a famous scientist. You are, you. And you can work to improve yourself, but you're very limited and what is worse - other people aren't.
Most of us are just 'average' at most things. We don't like to think that, but it's true. If you have an average aptitude and work really hard, you might be 'really good'...but you won't be great. Most of us won't be great at anything. Do you think the popular guy who banged the hottest girls in high school was more deserving than the unpopular, ugly nerd? Or did he just happen to be more with symmetrical features that made him popular with the ladies?
In life, you are stuck with your base levels and other people are blessed with higher base levels and can outperform you with minimal effort. In WoW, you roll whatever you want and know you are equal.
2.) Effort
In games there really isn't much effort at all. The trend has been to remove skill from the game play and replace it with 'time'. If you spend a lot of time playing, your character becomes better. The time spent isn't particularly hard. It's lazy. You click a mouse, hit a button. That's not tough.
You can just sit back, spend a lot of time not doing much, and be rewarded! Your character grows and improves and you get cool stuff and respect from other players and you rock.
In real life, things are *hard*. Like, really hard. A lot harder than people think they should be. In Wow, you hit '2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1' for a few hours and your Warrior levels up and now he's stronger and has more hit points. But to increase *your strength* you have to get up and go to the gym and train properly. And then, the rewards are an order of magnitude less.
The difference between what a world-class power lifter can lift is 2-3x what an average high school lifter can lift. Countless hours and imaginable effort to obtain, let's just say a 5x gain in strength doesn't compare at all to the difference between a level 1 warrior and a level 80 warrior. The level 80 is easily 1000x stronger in terms of what it can do.
Even nerdy stuff - like the rubiks cube. I had one in high school, learned the solution included and could solve it in under 120 seconds. The world's best solvers who train for hours and hours each week can consistently solve it in under 20 seconds. Years of work and dedication to get six times better than a loser high school kid.
In terms of effort, the fictional rewards of a video game far, far out weigh the rewards of real life. And even in my examples; the fastest rubiks solvers and the best power lifters - not only did they work, they also had a higher aptitude than most. Something they can't change or control.
We all joke that the hardcore WoW players are losers; but the more of a loser you are, the more appealing WoW becomes. The popular guy in high school - he's going to go to a party and mess around with a cheerleader....WoW seems lame. But to the below average looking kid with few friends - well, life isn't offering him much. He can work really, really hard for below average results in whatever he chooses - or he can go to WoW where he is on a level playing field with others and where he can see serious improvements, magnitudes better than real life offers.
It's and easy sell.
Without some actual numbers, it's all just speculation.
I remember back when Slackware 7 came out and there were people who just as easily dismissed my install/hardware troubles.
"It works on *my* machine. You must be an idiot or have some crap hardware or something."
Now, looking back, it seems like even the most hardcore Linux fans will agree that there were a ton of issues *in the past*. And that pattern hasn't really changed, IMHO.
Every year, since as far back as I can remember (1998ish), people on the web proclaim that *THIS* is going to be the year of the Linux desktop. Typically, this claim will come with a side-to-side comparison of why Linux is better than Windows (It's easier to install! Four less clicks!) and it'll say how much more software the distro includes compared to windows (but it's not bloat because, well, we like it when Linux does it), and it'll come with admissions that, last year, things weren't as great as we said.
IE: 2003 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, there were network issues, but now it's fixed! Plus it's super easy to use'.
2004 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, there were video driver issues, but we've fixed that. Plus, it's super easy to use.' ....
2009 - 'This is going to be the year for the Linux desktop. In the past, we had problems with wireless networking...but we've fixed that. Plus, it's super easy to use.'
Linux is improving, certainly. I'm a fan, and I do run it. But the initial reaction from the community shouldn't be, 'WoW - you must be an idiot'. At the very least, pull the, 'Yeah well, you need to write the manufacture letters to get them to make a Linux Driver, because any problem you run into in Linux is the result of a bad driver because of the micro$uck paying companies not to make them' card. Or something.
I'm just tired of hearing, 'Oh man this works great....' then I try it and it fails. Then people admit that, okay, yeah, it doesn't actually work.
Example - 'Open Office is great it does everything Excel does, and it will open your old Excel stuff and it works great and it's free!'
I download it. I open my custom made Excel worksheet loaded with VBA code and macros and I go, 'Ummm, it doesn't seem to work for me'.
(2 pages of banter on some forum somewhere)
"Well, yeah, it doesn't support VBA. It has it's own that that is totally different and none of your worksheets that use VBA are going to work - but it's Microsoft's fault for that."
And then I say, 'Okay, that's fine, and this still seems like a great product - but why didn't you just say that, in the beginning, that it doesn't do everything Excel does?'
Example - 'Wireless works great in Linux!'
Many, many hours later, with NDISWRAPER installed and configured and pages on the forums asking for help and following mysterious instructions off the internet (many of which *could* have been malicious)...
'Yeah, it looks like, with your card, you'll only be able to get online if you disable WEP. So, you have to surf without encryption and all of your traffic is available to anyone who wants it....but I mean, OTHER THAN THAT, and the hours it took to setup, it totally just works'.
It just gets tiresome. And the name calling when you point out that something didn't work as advertised is also tiresome.