I wish there was a more secure OS that was popular. There is no such thing as security, it's all an illusion. You can't stop bad people from getting at your data, you can only make it enough of a pain in the ass to do it that they don't think it's worth the bother, and then you've got to worry about it still being available to the people who need it. Everything involved is a trade-off. You want to 100% fool-proof keep people from accessing your computer? Turn it off. If that's not good enough, (Hey, someone might break in to your house!) wrap it in a mile or so of copper wire, plug it in for a few minutes, and once the fire dept. has put out your house, toss the slag down to the bottom of the ocean. And then, if you're really lucky, there won't be anyone twisted enough to try and dredge it up... Seriously though, it's better and more 'secure' to have an OS that gets fixed right away when one of the million problems that exist is located, instead of a few months from now, maybe, if the makers want to recognize the problem as worth their time.
I thought the bit at the end about the other guy planning to use live neurons in a computer was neat, it could lead to some great tech support calls... CALLER: My computer won't let me change my password, and it keeps asking where the dog went - we don't have a dog! What's wrong? ANSWER: I'm sorry sir, your computer has Alzheimer's. Opens up a whole new field of computer psychology, professional PC therapists making sure you've got a well-adjusted machine.:)
I am amazed that a lot of you are actually supporting this. Funny, most of the posts I see are opposed to it, although not for the reason you're saying. It is true though, Intel should be allowed to make any chip they want to - they could make a chip that costs $2Million and makes a "Ping" noise if they wanted to, and nobody should be force them not to. Of course, that dosen't mean anyone else has to buy it, and we all have the right to tell them it's a dumb idea.:) The other problem with that law is (as previously mentioned) the sheer number of other systems that it would ban, which are already in use. Big Corp's like Chrysler tend to have a lot of SGI boxes around the place, and they'd have to replace all of them with dumbed-down weak boxes that wouldn't do the job right. Sorry, but there is no PC on the planet that can match a loaded down Challenge-XL, even with an equal ammount of cash dumped into it, and as far as I know, the equivalent Sun and HP servers have on-chip ID's as well. Hopefully someone who's around there will think to point this out to the lawmakers in question, I'm sure they wouldn't want to be responsible for a massive chunk of industry up and leaving their state. They're targeting the wrong problem anyways, since chip-IDs are pretty much old news anyhow, and can be usefull in identifying stolen equipment. (Kinda like the serial number on a bicycle, but even harder to get rid of.) What they should be doing is banning the use of chip-IDs as a form of verification for supposedly secure commerce - they're too easy to fake, and would lead the unknowing masses into a false sense of safety, while they all get ripped off.
These must be fake, is that even possible to do? I've got my machine to do about 11.00 load and it was completely unusuable *grin*. I can't even imagine that telnet would work with a 78 load average. Hehe... nope, they're not fake. I've taken a 16 processor SGI Challenge up to 500 all by myself without the use of fork-bombs. (and promptly got yelled at by the admins) The highest I've hit on a Linux based PC was about 450 or so on a PII-233. Yes, that's the load not the processor speed (this isn't the overclocking discussion!), and no, I didn't need to reboot, I just went for a lunch break and when I came back it was a nice, manageable 50 or so... 50-80 is still nasty, especially if you want to actually do anything (like serve web pages?) but it's not a record. Once somebody hits 4 digits, then I'll boggle.
Are those people actually using their machines for something besides making screenshots? At times I wonder... once they come back online, look in the 'screenshot archive' a few days back, there's one guy who set his Netscape up to have some kind of black-and-red pattern on it which may look neat (from a distance) but I can't imagine anyone actually being about to use it... You couldn't read any of the text on the buttons/menus! Personally I use my desktop machine (With E 0.15 CVS) to run Netscape, x11amp, and a big whack of telnet windows to all of the other local servers, and to those who seem to think you can't do anything productive with E on your system, I've been using it since 0.13 with no problems. Phthtpt!:) I actually use it because I like the floating desktops, and the window roll-up option, and I haven't even bothered downloading any themes other than the default since version 0.13. (Couldn't stand the default back then, too messy. It looks much better now.)
Sure, there are some usefull applications of this stuff, (wetdrives, replacing damaged nerve paths, and stuff from that previous article about the brain-sensors and implants.) but the demonstration this guy gave would be more likely to get applied in prisons for keeping track of prisoners and enforcing curfew. Seriously, what does his chip do? It reports his location and ID to sensors in the building. Do you really want to be permanently stuck with something like that? I'd rather carry ID like that outside of my body, thanks.
One of the best arguments that could be used to support their main cause (Marijuana use that is) is the fact that their response to this was a lot more lucid and concise than the initial message appears after you've looked at both sites. The first thing that occurs to me to ask when I see that lawsuit is "What were the Yahoo people smoking?" Evidently it wasn't Marijuana...
On the other hand, I almost never watch television. Television? What's that? Is it like that big thing shaped like a monitor in my living room that I put stuff on top of?
$15 @#%@%# tax on 'em according to the Gov't page on it. ($0.50 per 15 Min. 6 Hours a tape... you can record digital audio on them.) I can see blockbuster going out of buisness fast, between rising cost of videos, and pilferage of tapes ('losing' a tape from the video store costs less than buying a $17 blank...) I've also heard from a Chrysler employee that about 5 skids of video tapes (ie: 4-5 foot cubes) were seen being loaded into a storage room and locked up, so it seems that they had the same unpleasant feeling about it.
Do we have to set your capital on fire again? Or did you mean that the Canadians should invade the states and pillage their supply of non-ludicrously-taxed CDR blanks and video tapes?
We were discussing OSes. The prices on Office Suites are very comparable, Lotus and Wordperfect both have charged nearly 500 bucks for their professional versions... Ok, here we go: Inmac, Volume 186, pages 72-73 (Canadian prices, U.S. people make exchange as needed): Software Graphics & Design/Operating Systems/Office Suites: MS-Office 97 Professional: $839.95 MS-Office 97 Pro Upgrade: $499.95 MS-Office 97 Standard: $679.95 MS-Office 97 Standard Upgrade: $343.95 Corel WP Suite 8: $529.95 Corel WP Suite 8 Upgrade: $ 159.95 Sorry, I couldn't find the price on the Win95 version of Applixware. A shame, since it has everything MS-Office does, and the last time I saw it it was less money by far than any of the others here.) Hmmm... initial purchace... $839.95, $679.95, or $529.95 Hmmm... Upgrade? $499.95, $343.95, or $159.95. Hmmm... I think I see a trend here. And what's more, the Corel one includes Dragon NaturalySpeaking (page 76, $69-$199, depending) Plus, there's a $50 mail-in rebate from Corel, nothing of the sort for M$. But you're right, we're talking about OSes, like OS/2's 'integrated browser' that they gave up on in favour of Netscape 2.01 long ago. (Of course, the OS/2 people I know are still stuck with Netscape 2.01, but it's better than the bloated beast 4.x turned into anyways.) As for the battle for the desktop being over? Neah, it's only just started. Heck, it dosen't even matter if MS wins or loses the trial, the damage is done, the lights are on, and people have been made aware that something's not right. That's really all that was needed, and the DOJ has served it's purpose quite nicely. Honestly, the best thing that could happen here for the sake of the general consumer and the OS/Software market in general is Microsoft being let off with a hefty (for anyone else) fine, and a "warning". Why? Microsoft can go back to being complacent in their 'Monopoly', the DOJ can say "We sure showed them!", and in the mean time, people everywhere will have been getting actual information about what's going on that wasn't spoon-fed to them by Micro$oft's advertizing people.
Well, $99 is less than the $120 that it costs for a non-upgrade install of Win98.(Not much, but still less.)
Both are at the most the equivalent to the differences between 98 and 95. They hardly add anything new anymore, and force uses of the older machines to upgrade to use them. Can't say I've got much experience with the differences between the various flavours of MacOS (I need three buttons, dammit!) but from the people I know who use it, none have complained that the more recent versions were any less stable than the older ones (Unlike Win95/8) so maybe there's even less difference? Besides, I seem to recall seeing Win95 (temporarily) on several Mac machines, so there is a common market for both, even though the owners of those machines generally go back to MacOS rather quickly. (You have no Idea how upset some Win95 users get when they see '95 on a machine, but only one mouse button.) That means that (at least for some of their machines) Mac dosen't have a comercial monopoly after all.
Sorry, a hundred bucks isn't cheap. 40 is. Ah! I see you've been looking at the Linux/FreeBSD CDs available in many bookstores. You can get the same CDs for less elsewhere, but the packaging isn't as pretty, and in some cases you get less commercial tech support. Other than that, or maybe Be, I'm not sure what OS you can get for your computer that costs that little. A pirated copy of Win98 on a burnable CD bought here in Canada? (99% of the cost is for the blank CD, the rest for the Jewel case, right? Ok, that's a bit exagerated. I'm still feeling bitter about that.) Personally, I don't think either of Win98 or MacOS is that badly priced, but maybe that's because I had to go out and buy a copy of IRIX. *shudder* Now that is an OS with a large price tag.
Here in Windsor, University Students get the special discount of about 3% from the regular store price, for both OS, and Office Suite, more than twice the price of the competing Office Suite from Corel's normal edition, which is available for around $35 for students, with no time restrictions. Anyone wonder why Windsor switched it's intro to computers course over to teach Corel's suite instead of Micro$oft's?
It's more like comparing a Peterbuilt (or Mercedes truck) to a blow-molded plastic tricycle. But when the tricycle crashes, how can the tech support tell you to close all of the windows, shut it down and restart it? Tricycles don't have windows! (Or is that option available in Tricycles Plus?)
Gee, my computers are almost never beige... Usually they wind up a kinda dull silvery-grey, with wires and parts hanging out the sides/sitting on boxes beside it, because they didn't all fit into the frame... What I look for in a computer case is lots of room, and edges that won't slice my fingers open when I try to pick the thing up. (Not that I've bought a whole computer all from the same place in the last 6 years or anything, but I'm quite fussy about what cases I buy.:)
Well, there's a fair chunk of Doc's on e.themes.org, as well as a message board there (looks full of questions and answers to me) Plus, there's Hilarion's (slightly outdated, but still valid) doc's over on enlightenment.org that might even get updated now that exams are over (hint hint!), and of course, if you've installed correctly (ie: installed imlib, gtk+, glib, and all that, in the correct order) then clicking on the little '?' button at the bottom right of the screen (between the dustpan and the swirly arrows) will pop up 'dox', the Enlightenment help program. If the buttons in the upper right area aren't doing anything, it's because you don't have the associated programs installed. The best one to start with is the 'web' button - the left mouse button starts Netscape. If you don't have Eterm installed, don't use the left button on the little computer, use the right button instead, since it gives you an Xterm. Plus, if you're using a current CVS, there's bubble help (ok, cloud help) that pops up when you leave your mouse over a button for a few seconds. Personally, I'm not sure what other Documentation you could want, execpt maybe an O'Reily 'in a Nutshell' book, which will have to wait for version 1.0.:)
Really? I had a 486 chugging away as a web server for about 8 months on 2.0.0 with no upgrades, patches, reboots or anything... it would have lasted longer, but one of my University's Generators exploded, and they shut the power down to fix it... I guess I just got lucky on the setup for that one... all cheap stuff that for the most part Win95 refused to associate with.
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I wish there was a more secure OS that was popular.
There is no such thing as security, it's all an illusion. You can't stop bad people from getting at your data, you can only make it enough of a pain in the ass to do it that they don't think it's worth the bother, and then you've got to worry about it still being available to the people who need it. Everything involved is a trade-off. You want to 100% fool-proof keep people from accessing your computer? Turn it off. If that's not good enough, (Hey, someone might break in to your house!) wrap it in a mile or so of copper wire, plug it in for a few minutes, and once the fire dept. has put out your house, toss the slag down to the bottom of the ocean. And then, if you're really lucky, there won't be anyone twisted enough to try and dredge it up...
Seriously though, it's better and more 'secure' to have an OS that gets fixed right away when one of the million problems that exist is located, instead of a few months from now, maybe, if the makers want to recognize the problem as worth their time.
I thought the bit at the end about the other guy planning to use live neurons in a computer was neat, it could lead to some great tech support calls... :)
CALLER: My computer won't let me change my password, and it keeps asking where the dog went - we don't have a dog! What's wrong?
ANSWER: I'm sorry sir, your computer has Alzheimer's.
Opens up a whole new field of computer psychology, professional PC therapists making sure you've got a well-adjusted machine.
I am amazed that a lot of you are actually supporting this. :)
Funny, most of the posts I see are opposed to it, although not for the reason you're saying. It is true though, Intel should be allowed to make any chip they want to - they could make a chip that costs $2Million and makes a "Ping" noise if they wanted to, and nobody should be force them not to. Of course, that dosen't mean anyone else has to buy it, and we all have the right to tell them it's a dumb idea.
The other problem with that law is (as previously mentioned) the sheer number of other systems that it would ban, which are already in use. Big Corp's like Chrysler tend to have a lot of SGI boxes around the place, and they'd have to replace all of them with dumbed-down weak boxes that wouldn't do the job right. Sorry, but there is no PC on the planet that can match a loaded down Challenge-XL, even with an equal ammount of cash dumped into it, and as far as I know, the equivalent Sun and HP servers have on-chip ID's as well. Hopefully someone who's around there will think to point this out to the lawmakers in question, I'm sure they wouldn't want to be responsible for a massive chunk of industry up and leaving their state.
They're targeting the wrong problem anyways, since chip-IDs are pretty much old news anyhow, and can be usefull in identifying stolen equipment. (Kinda like the serial number on a bicycle, but even harder to get rid of.) What they should be doing is banning the use of chip-IDs as a form of verification for supposedly secure commerce - they're too easy to fake, and would lead the unknowing masses into a false sense of safety, while they all get ripped off.
These must be fake, is that even possible to do? I've got my machine to do about 11.00 load and it was completely unusuable *grin*. I can't even imagine that telnet would work with a 78 load average.
Hehe... nope, they're not fake. I've taken a 16 processor SGI Challenge up to 500 all by myself without the use of fork-bombs. (and promptly got yelled at by the admins) The highest I've hit on a Linux based PC was about 450 or so on a PII-233. Yes, that's the load not the processor speed (this isn't the overclocking discussion!), and no, I didn't need to reboot, I just went for a lunch break and when I came back it was a nice, manageable 50 or so...
50-80 is still nasty, especially if you want to actually do anything (like serve web pages?) but it's not a record. Once somebody hits 4 digits, then I'll boggle.
Are those people actually using their machines for something besides making screenshots? :) I actually use it because I like the floating desktops, and the window roll-up option, and I haven't even bothered downloading any themes other than the default since version 0.13. (Couldn't stand the default back then, too messy. It looks much better now.)
At times I wonder... once they come back online, look in the 'screenshot archive' a few days back, there's one guy who set his Netscape up to have some kind of black-and-red pattern on it which may look neat (from a distance) but I can't imagine anyone actually being about to use it... You couldn't read any of the text on the buttons/menus!
Personally I use my desktop machine (With E 0.15 CVS) to run Netscape, x11amp, and a big whack of telnet windows to all of the other local servers, and to those who seem to think you can't do anything productive with E on your system, I've been using it since 0.13 with no problems. Phthtpt!
None here, I bought my original computer back in the days of DOS 5.0, and upgraded it one piece at a time every few months... :)
Sure, there are some usefull applications of this stuff, (wetdrives, replacing damaged nerve paths, and stuff from that previous article about the brain-sensors and implants.) but the demonstration this guy gave would be more likely to get applied in prisons for keeping track of prisoners and enforcing curfew.
Seriously, what does his chip do? It reports his location and ID to sensors in the building. Do you really want to be permanently stuck with something like that? I'd rather carry ID like that outside of my body, thanks.
One of the best arguments that could be used to support their main cause (Marijuana use that is) is the fact that their response to this was a lot more lucid and concise than the initial message appears after you've looked at both sites. The first thing that occurs to me to ask when I see that lawsuit is "What were the Yahoo people smoking?" Evidently it wasn't Marijuana...
On the other hand, I almost never watch television.
Television? What's that? Is it like that big thing shaped like a monitor in my living room that I put stuff on top of?
$15 @#%@%# tax on 'em according to the Gov't page on it. ($0.50 per 15 Min. 6 Hours a tape... you can record digital audio on them.) I can see blockbuster going out of buisness fast, between rising cost of videos, and pilferage of tapes ('losing' a tape from the video store costs less than buying a $17 blank...)
I've also heard from a Chrysler employee that about 5 skids of video tapes (ie: 4-5 foot cubes) were seen being loaded into a storage room and locked up, so it seems that they had the same unpleasant feeling about it.
Do we have to set your capital on fire again ?
Or did you mean that the Canadians should invade the states and pillage their supply of non-ludicrously-taxed CDR blanks and video tapes?
We were discussing OSes. The prices on Office Suites are very comparable, Lotus and Wordperfect both have charged nearly 500 bucks for their professional versions...
Ok, here we go: Inmac, Volume 186, pages 72-73 (Canadian prices, U.S. people make exchange as needed):
Software Graphics & Design/Operating Systems/Office Suites:
MS-Office 97 Professional: $839.95
MS-Office 97 Pro Upgrade: $499.95
MS-Office 97 Standard: $679.95
MS-Office 97 Standard Upgrade: $343.95
Corel WP Suite 8: $529.95
Corel WP Suite 8 Upgrade: $ 159.95
Sorry, I couldn't find the price on the Win95 version of Applixware. A shame, since it has everything MS-Office does, and the last time I saw it it was less money by far than any of the others here.)
Hmmm... initial purchace... $839.95, $679.95, or $529.95 Hmmm...
Upgrade? $499.95, $343.95, or $159.95. Hmmm... I think I see a trend here. And what's more, the Corel one includes Dragon NaturalySpeaking (page 76, $69-$199, depending)
Plus, there's a $50 mail-in rebate from Corel, nothing of the sort for M$.
But you're right, we're talking about OSes, like OS/2's 'integrated browser' that they gave up on in favour of Netscape 2.01 long ago. (Of course, the OS/2 people I know are still stuck with Netscape 2.01, but it's better than the bloated beast 4.x turned into anyways.)
As for the battle for the desktop being over? Neah, it's only just started. Heck, it dosen't even matter if MS wins or loses the trial, the damage is done, the lights are on, and people have been made aware that something's not right. That's really all that was needed, and the DOJ has served it's purpose quite nicely. Honestly, the best thing that could happen here for the sake of the general consumer and the OS/Software market in general is Microsoft being let off with a hefty (for anyone else) fine, and a "warning". Why? Microsoft can go back to being complacent in their 'Monopoly', the DOJ can say "We sure showed them!", and in the mean time, people everywhere will have been getting actual information about what's going on that wasn't spoon-fed to them by Micro$oft's advertizing people.
Well, $99 is less than the $120 that it costs for a non-upgrade install of Win98.(Not much, but still less.)
Both are at the most the equivalent to the differences between 98 and 95.
They hardly add anything new anymore, and force uses of the older machines to upgrade to use them.
Can't say I've got much experience with the differences between the various flavours of MacOS (I need three buttons, dammit!) but from the people I know who use it, none have complained that the more recent versions were any less stable than the older ones (Unlike Win95/8) so maybe there's even less difference?
Besides, I seem to recall seeing Win95 (temporarily) on several Mac machines, so there is a common market for both, even though the owners of those machines generally go back to MacOS rather quickly. (You have no Idea how upset some Win95 users get when they see '95 on a machine, but only one mouse button.) That means that (at least for some of their machines) Mac dosen't have a comercial monopoly after all.
Sorry, a hundred bucks isn't cheap. 40 is.
Ah! I see you've been looking at the Linux/FreeBSD CDs available in many bookstores. You can get the same CDs for less elsewhere, but the packaging isn't as pretty, and in some cases you get less commercial tech support. Other than that, or maybe Be, I'm not sure what OS you can get for your computer that costs that little. A pirated copy of Win98 on a burnable CD bought here in Canada? (99% of the cost is for the blank CD, the rest for the Jewel case, right? Ok, that's a bit exagerated. I'm still feeling bitter about that.)
Personally, I don't think either of Win98 or MacOS is that badly priced, but maybe that's because I had to go out and buy a copy of IRIX. *shudder* Now that is an OS with a large price tag.
Here in Windsor, University Students get the special discount of about 3% from the regular store price, for both OS, and Office Suite, more than twice the price of the competing Office Suite from Corel's normal edition, which is available for around $35 for students, with no time restrictions. Anyone wonder why Windsor switched it's intro to computers course over to teach Corel's suite instead of Micro$oft's?
It's more like comparing a Peterbuilt (or Mercedes truck) to a blow-molded plastic tricycle.
But when the tricycle crashes, how can the tech support tell you to close all of the windows, shut it down and restart it? Tricycles don't have windows! (Or is that option available in Tricycles Plus?)
Gee, my computers are almost never beige... Usually they wind up a kinda dull silvery-grey, with wires and parts hanging out the sides/sitting on boxes beside it, because they didn't all fit into the frame... :)
What I look for in a computer case is lots of room, and edges that won't slice my fingers open when I try to pick the thing up. (Not that I've bought a whole computer all from the same place in the last 6 years or anything, but I'm quite fussy about what cases I buy.
Well, there's a fair chunk of Doc's on e.themes.org, as well as a message board there (looks full of questions and answers to me) Plus, there's Hilarion's (slightly outdated, but still valid) doc's over on enlightenment.org that might even get updated now that exams are over (hint hint!), and of course, if you've installed correctly (ie: installed imlib, gtk+, glib, and all that, in the correct order) then clicking on the little '?' button at the bottom right of the screen (between the dustpan and the swirly arrows) will pop up 'dox', the Enlightenment help program. If the buttons in the upper right area aren't doing anything, it's because you don't have the associated programs installed. The best one to start with is the 'web' button - the left mouse button starts Netscape. If you don't have Eterm installed, don't use the left button on the little computer, use the right button instead, since it gives you an Xterm. Plus, if you're using a current CVS, there's bubble help (ok, cloud help) that pops up when you leave your mouse over a button for a few seconds. Personally, I'm not sure what other Documentation you could want, execpt maybe an O'Reily 'in a Nutshell' book, which will have to wait for version 1.0. :)
Yup, just pronounce 'cynics' with a funny accent. :)
There are Cynux in every crowd...
Really? I had a 486 chugging away as a web server for about 8 months on 2.0.0 with no upgrades, patches, reboots or anything... it would have lasted longer, but one of my University's Generators exploded, and they shut the power down to fix it...
I guess I just got lucky on the setup for that one... all cheap stuff that for the most part Win95 refused to associate with.