...I can't think of any Microsoft product on the Mac that was making a decent amount of money and axed...
I axed somebody, an' dey done said you was right on, mah man!
Where's my "-1, incredibly stupid" moderation option? Oh, right, it's in the never-to-be-released patch... you know, the same one where we get the "-1, facts are wrong" moderation option?
You do know that Linux has security issues too? Don't you?
I am aware that a few Linux security issues exist, but I haven't seen anything even remotely like the Windows exploits' proliferation. Can you point me at a website or other documentation that shows some in-the-wild exploits for Linux-based systems? I swear I'm not trolling, I just really don't see the parallel.
To be honest, I read something along the lines of "Tens of thousands of new Windows malwares (virus, trojan, adware/spyware, etc) in the wild every day, 25 proven exploits of Linux in the last 15 years (only 2 of which were ever in the wild)", but I can't recall where I read it. I would welcome some information that contradicts that. No, really.
Again: This is not a troll, this is a serious inquiry.
They sell a product called Cisco NAC, formerly known as "Clean Access," which requires a host to prove it has Antivirus installed and running and the latest patches.
How does it handle a Linux client? Will it accept ClamAV and some sort of indication of my kernel version?
How about we just tell the new internet version of the SS to go fly a kite?
whichever AV and PKI vendors are selected naturally benefit
Hmm... like, for example, Microsoft Live OneCare? Sounds like roll-your-own will be MSFT's way to go.
Yeah, I know, OneCare's discontinued... but if this flies, how long do you think it will be before some other AV solution is rolled out by MSFT, and touted as the "best" way to maintain your internet connection?
IE is, itself, north of 85% of the online business - no matter what is reported about overall market share.
This is because the majority of business sites (banking, etc) *require* IE to access. I have seen offices where the "big blue e" on the desktop is referred to as "the software", because any surfing takes place in a separate browser, and IE is only used to access their web-based software to do their jobs.
Regardless of market-share, MSFT has been successful at changing the "de facto" web standards; now that all the big boys have learned to make their web pages so they only break in "non-standard" (ie, not IE) browsers, why should they change their coding practices again, just because the standard actually says they're doing it wrong? They may be wrong; at least they're all doing it in the same (wrong) way.
Why in the devil do you have ssh available to the world?
I almost automatically moderated this up, but decided instead to respond.
ssh is Secure Shell. It is supposed to be a secure method of accessing a system (remote or otherwise). It does this job well.
So well, in fact, that there are computers out there whose job it is to bounce username/password combos off machines, slowly, in order to attempt to compromise them. Some (most?) of these machines are simply poorly secured systems that have been previously compromised, and are now doing the bidding of an outside force. Many of these "compromised hosts" can act in concert, spreading the attacks out not only over time, but also over IPs, making them difficult to detect and/or block.
One solution is to watch vigilantly for these attacks, and block the IP addresses of those machines from your ssh port, or (as is more common) to block them from touching your network at all. Those machines will get lonely, eventually...
Another solution is to implement some other form of security, either replacing the default security (using ssh keys instead of passwords, for example), or augmenting (read: hiding) it (using port-knocking, non-standard ssh ports, etc). These methods can be combined, to make an even more secure system.
Unfortunately for all of these methods, the average user is unable or unwilling to perform them, due to complexity. Unfortunately for all of us, the moment it becomes simple enough for the average user to figure out (and thus use) these methods, there will be an exploit that attacks the newly-simplified access method.
In short, having sshd open to the world, on the standard port, is probably an indication that a system can be broken into more easily than one which does not appear to be running sshd on the standard port. This really says not much about the security of the system itself, and the only reason to secure your ssh more than the default configuration already is (valid username/password required) is to keep from having huge log files full of failed attempts to crack into your system.
Personally, I use a combination of several of the ideas I offered above, because I am lazy and hate reading logfiles, especially when it seems critical that I must do so (30 attempts to crack my ssh key in an hour? bad monkey, no cheeto!) It is much easier, less stressful, and not time-consuming in the slightest to have my firewall simply drop all packets destined for port 22.
Having something complicate your life is a valid reason not do that something.. not doing something because it doesn't improve your life sounds ridiculous. I'm currently snorting a line of coke, I almost sure this is not improving my life, in fact it my result in the opposite, but man I enjoy a line of coke from time to time.. I don't care that it's not productive, that it doesn't improve my life, and that it doesn't contribute to me saving kittens and puppies in my spare time... Why anyone refuses to TRY heroin is beyond me. If you try it and find it unsatisfying; stop. But to not try at all and then have any opinion on it is completely retarded.
I think that about says it all.
Re:Might not be the West...
on
Stuxnet Worms On
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I estimate a budget of one million dollar to create this thing
[citation needed]
If I were to pull a number out of my ass on what it would take to create any virus-like program, I would set the budget at: (1) extremely dedicated individual with internet access and some time on his/her hands.
The information required for attacking practically anything is available online. Yes, looking for the information might raise some red flags, and accessing it could most certainly do so, but if the person perpetrating said attack is clever and careful (and maybe lucky, as well), there won't be anything pointing at a specific person for accessing that information (Public access (libraries, netcafes), wardriving, etc can all be used for misdirection).
TL;DR: Once you have the plans for the death star, it just takes a bit of time to figure out where the reactor core is, and noticing the exhaust vent that goes straight to it.
Pointing fingers should be reserved until after some facts have been found. -- No, I didn't read the article; I still I believe my logic is sound.
We also provide download links for security software right from our tech support portal, and a complimentary CD with the same software with every new subscriber.
McAfee is not security software. Try again, this time with something that doesn't delete critical Windows system files because it thinks they might be infected. A: Quarantine is a better solution. B: McAfee has *repeatedly* "accidentally" sent out updates with this issue.
Similarly, using MS Live OneCare is not an option for all subscribers.
In other words, unless you're going to come to my house and virus-scan my PC for me every time I ask, you can stay out of my traffic and just carry it like you're paid to.
you can't just tack Vista's numbers onto Windows 7's and then use that to claim that Win 7 isn't doing well
The parent to your post was doing nothing of the sort. What they actually said was
Vista was released on Jan 2006, more than 4 1/2 years ago, and still Vista + 7 combined don't best XP's installed base.
... which indicates to me that Vista and 7 combined are still not beating XP's install base. This is not the fault of 7, might be the fault of Vista, but is more likely that people just don't see any need to upgrade an operating system that appears to do its job perfectly well, and "it's shiny" just isn't a good enough reason to move to a user-hostile OS.
I, myself, decided to learn Ubuntu's interface instead of Windows 7's interface... and I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional.
Yes, I'll be linking a system that sells for $329 at best buy in a moment... comes with Windows 7 Home Premium x64
its an integrated memory unaccelerated graphics card,
actually, a lot of the integrated cards nowadays are nVidia or ATI. The one in the system I mention in the next paragraph is an nVidia 6150 (nothing to write home about, but it'll play some games - gets "decent" frame rates in WoW if you turn the sparklies down). Might not be the uber-awesome gamer card of the year, but it is accelerated, in direct contradiction of your claim. In addition, there's an available PCI-Express x16 port if you absolutely have to get a better card. A Geforce 240 GT with a half-gig of RAM can be had for about $120. I'm running one in my current system, and I pull 60s in Dalaran. If you don't know what that means, don't worry - it just means you're not a WoW addict. To those for whom the metric means something: Best $120 I ever spent, gaming-experience-wise, other than my 23" 1920x1080 LCD.
the above-mentioned compaq comes with a 500GB 7200 RPM SATA drive.
all the fans are little 1 inch diameter things running at 40k rpm and sound like a small learjet starting up,
standard 80mm case fans, 2. quite quiet, actually.
one available USB port...
try 6(2 front, 4 rear)... and you don't know how to use a $10 4-port USB hub?
And running linux, I tend to buy from the list of things that works on linux, not "whatever the big box mfgr could buy at the cheapest price"
A surprisingly large number of "cheap" (even on-board) components are directly supported by the latest distros (or kernel, or whatever it is that makes the latest linux "just work"), and function "out of the box" in most cases. I say this as someone who runs Ubuntu on several desktops, and has several servers pushing various domain services in my home networks (yes, plural).
Your off-the-cuff quote displays an ignorance of the current offerings at the big-box stores, and brings the question to my mind of just how out-of-touch you might be with the rest of the market. You haven't a clue what you're talking about. In short, do your research before you open your mouth and spew lies (intentional or not).
Well...yes, at least on most modern cars unless it's a 1-2v trickle, otherwise you're likely to turn around and nuke the computer(s) from orbit, even though they're on a protected circuit. But I'm guessing you haven't seen the size of the average battery pack on a ev car. They weigh around 450lbs, and a 6v mini-cell doesn't have the amperage to get you going anywhere.
A very good point - if, on the other hand, the vehicle is set up for it ahead of time, it wouldn't necessarily need to be on the same circuit as the onboard computer(s).
Also, the vehicle could be programmed to have a much less "aggressive" motion when running off the smaller (able to be easily carried by a single person) "emergency" battery. It doesn't need to achieve highway speeds, necessarily, just get you to the nearest service station (next exit ramp, in most interstate cases).
... and yeah, my size scale may be a bit off. My point was more that it wouldn't need to be anywhere near as large as the main battery, since it would only be used to get you off the highway and to the nearest service station; similar to how a 1-gallon gas can can get you off the side of the highway to the gas station.
The Leaf battery pack is supposed to be rated at 24 kwh. So a full charge will cost me at least $4.00 (assuming 100% charging efficiency) and at 75-80 mph highway speed will only get me about 60 miles of range. That's about 6.7 cents per mile.
Ok, so ignoring that you're breaking traffic laws with your speed, let's go crazy and call it 7 cents per mile.
Compare that to a 2000-2006 Honda Insight, which should get at least 50 mpg even at 75-80 mph. 50 mpg at $2.50 per gallon is only about 5 cents per mile.
$2.50 per gallon? Where are you buying your gas? It's $3.19 per gallon, where I live. Gasoline is expected to be $5.00 per gallon in the next two years. That'll double your nice little figure, there.
Assuming it only goes up to $4.00 per gallon, that still throws your gasoline-powered Honda up to 8 cents per mile - and that's before you factor in oil changes (electrics don't need them), wear-and tear (electrics have fewer moving parts), etc.
Make the switch, man. It's just going to cost you in the end if you don't.
...also, don't forget that the impact of EVs on the environment hasn't been fully evaluated yet...
What is there to evaluate?
Batteries are bad for landfills, ok, yeah. Capacitors seem to be the way to go, which should minimize this, not to mention that petroleum-based vehicles create plenty of noxious things that are bad for the environment - used motor oil is a wonderful example of something we'll be ridding ourselves of by using electric vehicles instead of gas-powered ones. I'll call this one a tie.
Power plants create pollution, sure. So do refineries. So do oil spills. Seems to me that moving to cleaner electrical power is the way to go if we want to reduce the impact of power plants on the environment, and even with current technology we'll come out about even - with the new push for "greener power", this should quickly become a non-issue.
Even the usage of energy seems to be leaning in favor of electric vehicles, now. Electric vehicles aren't "running" when their motion has ceased - at a stop light, there's nothing moving except the fans in the climate control system.
Other than the factors listed above, I can't see any environmental concerns that aren't clear winners for electric vehicles. Less noise, less direct air pollution, less wasted energy... where's the downside?
To be honest, I give it less than 10 years before legislation banning the use of combustion engines is introduced - how quickly did it become illegal to "pollute" public places by smoking? Electric vehicles are quieter than combustion engine vehicles, they don't require/emit nasty fumes just by their existence (oh, you like the smell of gas, my bad); they're just better.
The average consumer is concerned about getting stranded because their vehicle runs out of fuel.
Another possible option: call a tow truck, have the tow-truck use its engine to recharge your battery to the point where you can make it to the nearest recharge station. Not really all that different from what a lot of people would do when their gas-powered car runs out of gas.
Alternatively, plug in a small (relatively speaking) battery pack to the cigarette lighter (what, power can only run one direction?) that will get you to the service station to charge or replace the vehicle's main battery. It could be something about the size of the 6-volt battery you used to power your last science project; it wouldn't even need to be as large as the standard 12-volt 6-cell in gas-powered vehicles.
Or you could just buy a better gas car for a hell of a lot less and fill up in 5 minutes at a gas station.
Define "better", please, because I'm not seeing any definition of "better" that fits that description. Electric vehicles have as much power as gasoline vehicles, they're much quieter, they're just as comfortable... Tell me how a loud, smelly thing is better than a quiet, clean one. Please.
...I would want to to hold a full day's drive, at least 1000 miles...
Good grief. 1,000 miles is a lot more than a full day's drive... For the sake of argument, we'll say you're doing circles on a highway in Texas, so you can actually get away with an average speed of 75 miles an hour... Do you realize you're casually throwing around nearly 14 hours' driving time, not accounting for stops for food/bathroom breaks? Never mind that (assuming a very generous 350 miles per tank of gas) you would need to stop at least 3 times, simply for gasoline. That's nearly double the amount of time that truckers are legally allowed to drive in a single day, for fatigue reasons. All of this is at high speed, with no stopping. Drop the average speed to something more reasonable, like 60mph, and you end up with a driving time of nearly 17 hours. I have personally managed an 1800 mile cross-country trip in three actual days (not "driving time" but "actual time elapsed"), and let me tell you, that was a brutal pace. A thousand miles is closer to two full days' reasonable driving time than to the "full day's drive" you claim. Having driven to remote locations as part of my job, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that a full day of "on the clock" driving is more like 400 miles per 8-hour day, assuming perfect weather/visibility and no construction.
To stay on the topic of "a full tank of gas", I get about 300 miles to the tank in my PT Cruiser. A full tank is approximately 15 gallons, but that probably isn't relevant information for this conversation. So let's call 300 miles "a tankful". Driving to the nearest town to the north of the one I live in is about 30 miles. I did this 5 times a week to get to my place of employment - and then drove back in the evenings. "Aha!" you shout, "that's a whole tank of gas right there!" To which I respond "Yes, it is. In a week, not a day."
Unless you are a commercial shipping company, or someone whose job it is to drive for hours on end every day, I simply cannot understand your argument.
Ignoring that 60km/h can be done on a moped, I'll assume you meant 60mph. Which, if you had done more than jump on the groupthink bandwagon, you would realize is easily doable (admittedly with "high-performance" electric vehicles, but still). Mass-production vehicles don't necessarily need to be all that speedy, although I don't think 60mph is outside the realm of "normal" unless you're some kind of anti-technology freak.
The biggest factor against electric vehicles is currently range, not speed. Tesla motors has had an electric drag racer for several years; you can easily find videos of their electric car absolutely smoking petroleum-based racers on the track. Power is actually *better* with an electric motor - the power (torque) curve is dramatically different in an electric motor as compared to a combustion engine, in that (in a basic sense) the power is all available regardless of the RPM of the motor, as opposed to a combustion engine requiring rotational energy before it can crank out decent numbers.
I've heard some absolutely ridiculous arguments against electric motor ranges, by the way - someone actually commented that traffic would obliterate the supposed fuel-efficiency numbers of any EV... without stopping to think that when the vehicle is not in motion, the motor isn't doing anything. If you are at a red light, the only things taking electrical power are your radio and the vehicle's climate-control system - unlike a combustion engine, which keeps a massive flywheel turning as long as the vehicle is "running". This can be unsettling in a hybrid; it takes some getting used to when your car appears to stall and die every time you come to a complete stop.
Energy storage technology is improving at a rapid pace, both on the size/mass end of things (how big/heavy is it), and on the capacity end of things (how long does a single charge last). A recent development in the field (were one to inquire) would be a battery that can be printed using an ink-jet printer, on normal paper (special ink, of course). This should make capacitor technology achieve things previously thought of as outside the realm of possibility, and quite soon.
On the "consumer-ready" side of the equation, a Swedish company recently received a prize for designing and building a vehicle they believe will cost approximately US$20,000 per unit for mass production. It's a 4-seater that achieves highway speeds, and it actually resembles a car (as opposed to the "concept vehicles" that have been being trumpeted as the latest and greatest but which no one in their right mind would be caught actually driving).
I don't mean to get all ad-hominem on you, but did you bother to do a simple web query before responding, or was this more of an off-the-cuff knee-jerk type of thing?
Take a trip to Montreal, QC, Canada... you will find your roads to be pristine and mint conditions...
Or perhaps Louisiana, where it is easy to tell when you've crossed the line from another state into Louisiana, because where you were doing just fine driving the speed limit a few miles ago, now you need to drop 15 miles an hour from your velocity just to maintain control of your vehicle... Ah, Louisiana...
This is the same place that doesn't seem to have an issue with spending billions to rebuild a city with an average of elevation of several feet below sea level after it flooded (surprise!), but then doesn't even acknowledge that there was a hurricane on the other side of the state that was, by all accounts, a worse storm that arguably caused more damage, if not (thankfully) more deaths... Rita was a stronger storm than Katrina, but no one seems to notice. There was Federal assistance available (in states on the other side of the country from where the "disaster" occurred) 5 years after the event, if you could prove you resided in an area affected by Katrina during that particular event. I don't mean just public assistance, I mean "free money" and job placement and housing assistance and all sorts of other things - handouts for having lived there at that time, regardless of whether you were actually affected by the storm. I don't mean to downplay the plight of those caught in the sixth-strongest storm in recorded history, but please read on.
Most people don't even know that Rita happened - in the same state, in the same year, and actually the fourth-strongest storm in recorded history. There was discussion of changing the classification systems, which would make Rita a Category 6 Hurricane; Katrina would still have been a Category 5 Hurricane. There were mandatory evacuations; the police came to my house to make sure I had evacuated. Driving away from my home, it took nearly 10 hours to go 38 miles, due to traffic (and the police stopping everyone to tell them not to go east because all the shelters were already full - we had arrangements to stay with friends in that direction, but whatever). They closed the borders of my city and I was nearly arrested for coming back two weeks later, once the "all-clear" had been sounded - the issue being that I was on the road after dark and my truck was full of stuff (I was returning from Baton Rouge for the second time that day, after ascertaining that our pets would be safe coming back with us (3 hours in a vehicle containing 6 cats is *so* much fun)). They were still recommending people stay away, but part of my job was to make sure the local governments could operate - I was the technician for a company specializing in software solutions for municipalities, and so could claim I was part of the "relief efforts".
Rita didn't drown a "cultural center", it just washed away entire towns. A governmental office I worked in had 3 feet of water in it, and not only is it on the second floor, it's easily an hour's drive from the coast. My neighbor had a tree that was easily ten feet in circumference blown through his house. People still have "blue roofs" (tarps instead of shingles) in some locations in south-west Louisiana.
There was no federal assistance available for having survived Rita. No handouts, no free jobs, no relocation assistance, no compensation for having been forcibly removed from our homes. All of the things that Katrina victims got handed to them just for asking (or in some cases, without even asking), Rita victims asked for and were refused. Even the damage numbers were skewed, because somehow New Orleans properties are more valuable than the rest of the state. Maybe it's because not as many people died (due largely to the fact that we got out of the way, and our homes were above sea level, instead of below it).
Katrina only got all the hype because people were too stupid to leave when given a week's notice, and it's a "cultural center", whatev
Slashdot Mirror
...I can't think of any Microsoft product on the Mac that was making a decent amount of money and axed...
I axed somebody, an' dey done said you was right on, mah man!
Where's my "-1, incredibly stupid" moderation option? Oh, right, it's in the never-to-be-released patch... you know, the same one where we get the "-1, facts are wrong" moderation option?
iDesign is trademarked, heavily.
... and interestingly enough, not by Apple. How long do you think that will last?
Photoshop is a drop in the bucket compared to Office, and there's still a Mac version for that.
But switching to GIMP from Photoshop is absolutely nothing like switching to OpenOffice from MS Office. Quite a different learning curve.
You do know that Linux has security issues too? Don't you?
I am aware that a few Linux security issues exist, but I haven't seen anything even remotely like the Windows exploits' proliferation. Can you point me at a website or other documentation that shows some in-the-wild exploits for Linux-based systems? I swear I'm not trolling, I just really don't see the parallel.
To be honest, I read something along the lines of "Tens of thousands of new Windows malwares (virus, trojan, adware/spyware, etc) in the wild every day, 25 proven exploits of Linux in the last 15 years (only 2 of which were ever in the wild)", but I can't recall where I read it. I would welcome some information that contradicts that. No, really.
Again: This is not a troll, this is a serious inquiry.
They sell a product called Cisco NAC, formerly known as "Clean Access," which requires a host to prove it has Antivirus installed and running and the latest patches.
How does it handle a Linux client? Will it accept ClamAV and some sort of indication of my kernel version?
How about we just tell the new internet version of the SS to go fly a kite?
whichever AV and PKI vendors are selected naturally benefit
Hmm... like, for example, Microsoft Live OneCare? Sounds like roll-your-own will be MSFT's way to go.
Yeah, I know, OneCare's discontinued... but if this flies, how long do you think it will be before some other AV solution is rolled out by MSFT, and touted as the "best" way to maintain your internet connection?
Windows 7 isn't have "horrible uptake numbers" It is actually doing very well.
As long as your definition of "doing very well" allows for "failing to replace more than a third of your previous OS product after 3 years". Even if you don't count Vista in that metric, it's still a poor showing; especially when you can't buy a new computer without Windows 7 on it...
IE is, itself, north of 85% of the online business - no matter what is reported about overall market share.
This is because the majority of business sites (banking, etc) *require* IE to access. I have seen offices where the "big blue e" on the desktop is referred to as "the software", because any surfing takes place in a separate browser, and IE is only used to access their web-based software to do their jobs.
Regardless of market-share, MSFT has been successful at changing the "de facto" web standards; now that all the big boys have learned to make their web pages so they only break in "non-standard" (ie, not IE) browsers, why should they change their coding practices again, just because the standard actually says they're doing it wrong? They may be wrong; at least they're all doing it in the same (wrong) way.
I want your ISP. Who are they?
Why in the devil do you have ssh available to the world?
I almost automatically moderated this up, but decided instead to respond.
ssh is Secure Shell. It is supposed to be a secure method of accessing a system (remote or otherwise). It does this job well.
So well, in fact, that there are computers out there whose job it is to bounce username/password combos off machines, slowly, in order to attempt to compromise them. Some (most?) of these machines are simply poorly secured systems that have been previously compromised, and are now doing the bidding of an outside force. Many of these "compromised hosts" can act in concert, spreading the attacks out not only over time, but also over IPs, making them difficult to detect and/or block.
One solution is to watch vigilantly for these attacks, and block the IP addresses of those machines from your ssh port, or (as is more common) to block them from touching your network at all. Those machines will get lonely, eventually...
Another solution is to implement some other form of security, either replacing the default security (using ssh keys instead of passwords, for example), or augmenting (read: hiding) it (using port-knocking, non-standard ssh ports, etc). These methods can be combined, to make an even more secure system.
Unfortunately for all of these methods, the average user is unable or unwilling to perform them, due to complexity. Unfortunately for all of us, the moment it becomes simple enough for the average user to figure out (and thus use) these methods, there will be an exploit that attacks the newly-simplified access method.
In short, having sshd open to the world, on the standard port, is probably an indication that a system can be broken into more easily than one which does not appear to be running sshd on the standard port. This really says not much about the security of the system itself, and the only reason to secure your ssh more than the default configuration already is (valid username/password required) is to keep from having huge log files full of failed attempts to crack into your system.
Personally, I use a combination of several of the ideas I offered above, because I am lazy and hate reading logfiles, especially when it seems critical that I must do so (30 attempts to crack my ssh key in an hour? bad monkey, no cheeto!) It is much easier, less stressful, and not time-consuming in the slightest to have my firewall simply drop all packets destined for port 22.
Having something complicate your life is a valid reason not do that something.. not doing something because it doesn't improve your life sounds ridiculous. I'm currently snorting a line of coke, I almost sure this is not improving my life, in fact it my result in the opposite, but man I enjoy a line of coke from time to time.. I don't care that it's not productive, that it doesn't improve my life, and that it doesn't contribute to me saving kittens and puppies in my spare time... Why anyone refuses to TRY heroin is beyond me. If you try it and find it unsatisfying; stop. But to not try at all and then have any opinion on it is completely retarded.
I think that about says it all.
I estimate a budget of one million dollar to create this thing
[citation needed]
If I were to pull a number out of my ass on what it would take to create any virus-like program, I would set the budget at:
(1) extremely dedicated individual with internet access and some time on his/her hands.
The information required for attacking practically anything is available online. Yes, looking for the information might raise some red flags, and accessing it could most certainly do so, but if the person perpetrating said attack is clever and careful (and maybe lucky, as well), there won't be anything pointing at a specific person for accessing that information (Public access (libraries, netcafes), wardriving, etc can all be used for misdirection).
TL;DR: Once you have the plans for the death star, it just takes a bit of time to figure out where the reactor core is, and noticing the exhaust vent that goes straight to it.
Pointing fingers should be reserved until after some facts have been found.
--
No, I didn't read the article; I still I believe my logic is sound.
We also provide download links for security software right from our tech support portal, and a complimentary CD with the same software with every new subscriber.
McAfee is not security software. Try again, this time with something that doesn't delete critical Windows system files because it thinks they might be infected. A: Quarantine is a better solution. B: McAfee has *repeatedly* "accidentally" sent out updates with this issue.
Similarly, using MS Live OneCare is not an option for all subscribers.
In other words, unless you're going to come to my house and virus-scan my PC for me every time I ask, you can stay out of my traffic and just carry it like you're paid to.
you can't just tack Vista's numbers onto Windows 7's and then use that to claim that Win 7 isn't doing well
The parent to your post was doing nothing of the sort. What they actually said was
Vista was released on Jan 2006, more than 4 1/2 years ago, and still Vista + 7 combined don't best XP's installed base.
... which indicates to me that Vista and 7 combined are still not beating XP's install base. This is not the fault of 7, might be the fault of Vista, but is more likely that people just don't see any need to upgrade an operating system that appears to do its job perfectly well, and "it's shiny" just isn't a good enough reason to move to a user-hostile OS.
I, myself, decided to learn Ubuntu's interface instead of Windows 7's interface... and I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional.
rep doesn't really mean much if you have no profit. MSFT makes money off software, unlike apple. that's their bread and butter.
Ok, let's do the math...
$50 pricetag = sale.
$100 pricetag = no sale.
Which one has more profit, again?
Sure, it technically "runs windows" but
Yes, I'll be linking a system that sells for $329 at best buy in a moment... comes with Windows 7 Home Premium x64
its an integrated memory unaccelerated graphics card,
actually, a lot of the integrated cards nowadays are nVidia or ATI. The one in the system I mention in the next paragraph is an nVidia 6150 (nothing to write home about, but it'll play some games - gets "decent" frame rates in WoW if you turn the sparklies down). Might not be the uber-awesome gamer card of the year, but it is accelerated, in direct contradiction of your claim. In addition, there's an available PCI-Express x16 port if you absolutely have to get a better card. A Geforce 240 GT with a half-gig of RAM can be had for about $120. I'm running one in my current system, and I pull 60s in Dalaran. If you don't know what that means, don't worry - it just means you're not a WoW addict. To those for whom the metric means something: Best $120 I ever spent, gaming-experience-wise, other than my 23" 1920x1080 LCD.
with like 256 MB of memory,
This $329 compaq from bestbuy comes with 2GB, expandable to 4GB.
a[n] 80 gig 5400 rpm hard disk,
the above-mentioned compaq comes with a 500GB 7200 RPM SATA drive.
all the fans are little 1 inch diameter things running at 40k rpm and sound like a small learjet starting up,
standard 80mm case fans, 2. quite quiet, actually.
one available USB port...
try 6 (2 front, 4 rear)... and you don't know how to use a $10 4-port USB hub?
And running linux, I tend to buy from the list of things that works on linux, not "whatever the big box mfgr could buy at the cheapest price"
A surprisingly large number of "cheap" (even on-board) components are directly supported by the latest distros (or kernel, or whatever it is that makes the latest linux "just work"), and function "out of the box" in most cases. I say this as someone who runs Ubuntu on several desktops, and has several servers pushing various domain services in my home networks (yes, plural).
Your off-the-cuff quote displays an ignorance of the current offerings at the big-box stores, and brings the question to my mind of just how out-of-touch you might be with the rest of the market. You haven't a clue what you're talking about. In short, do your research before you open your mouth and spew lies (intentional or not).
--
Your low uid doesn't scare me.
(what, power can only run one direction?)
Well...yes, at least on most modern cars unless it's a 1-2v trickle, otherwise you're likely to turn around and nuke the computer(s) from orbit, even though they're on a protected circuit. But I'm guessing you haven't seen the size of the average battery pack on a ev car. They weigh around 450lbs, and a 6v mini-cell doesn't have the amperage to get you going anywhere.
A very good point - if, on the other hand, the vehicle is set up for it ahead of time, it wouldn't necessarily need to be on the same circuit as the onboard computer(s).
Also, the vehicle could be programmed to have a much less "aggressive" motion when running off the smaller (able to be easily carried by a single person) "emergency" battery. It doesn't need to achieve highway speeds, necessarily, just get you to the nearest service station (next exit ramp, in most interstate cases).
... and yeah, my size scale may be a bit off. My point was more that it wouldn't need to be anywhere near as large as the main battery, since it would only be used to get you off the highway and to the nearest service station; similar to how a 1-gallon gas can can get you off the side of the highway to the gas station.
The Leaf battery pack is supposed to be rated at 24 kwh. So a full charge will cost me at least $4.00 (assuming 100% charging efficiency) and at 75-80 mph highway speed will only get me about 60 miles of range. That's about 6.7 cents per mile.
Ok, so ignoring that you're breaking traffic laws with your speed, let's go crazy and call it 7 cents per mile.
Compare that to a 2000-2006 Honda Insight, which should get at least 50 mpg even at 75-80 mph. 50 mpg at $2.50 per gallon is only about 5 cents per mile.
$2.50 per gallon? Where are you buying your gas? It's $3.19 per gallon, where I live. Gasoline is expected to be $5.00 per gallon in the next two years. That'll double your nice little figure, there.
Assuming it only goes up to $4.00 per gallon, that still throws your gasoline-powered Honda up to 8 cents per mile - and that's before you factor in oil changes (electrics don't need them), wear-and tear (electrics have fewer moving parts), etc.
Make the switch, man. It's just going to cost you in the end if you don't.
...also, don't forget that the impact of EVs on the environment hasn't been fully evaluated yet...
What is there to evaluate?
Batteries are bad for landfills, ok, yeah. Capacitors seem to be the way to go, which should minimize this, not to mention that petroleum-based vehicles create plenty of noxious things that are bad for the environment - used motor oil is a wonderful example of something we'll be ridding ourselves of by using electric vehicles instead of gas-powered ones. I'll call this one a tie.
Power plants create pollution, sure. So do refineries. So do oil spills. Seems to me that moving to cleaner electrical power is the way to go if we want to reduce the impact of power plants on the environment, and even with current technology we'll come out about even - with the new push for "greener power", this should quickly become a non-issue.
Even the usage of energy seems to be leaning in favor of electric vehicles, now. Electric vehicles aren't "running" when their motion has ceased - at a stop light, there's nothing moving except the fans in the climate control system.
Other than the factors listed above, I can't see any environmental concerns that aren't clear winners for electric vehicles. Less noise, less direct air pollution, less wasted energy... where's the downside?
To be honest, I give it less than 10 years before legislation banning the use of combustion engines is introduced - how quickly did it become illegal to "pollute" public places by smoking? Electric vehicles are quieter than combustion engine vehicles, they don't require/emit nasty fumes just by their existence (oh, you like the smell of gas, my bad); they're just better.
The average consumer is concerned about getting stranded because their vehicle runs out of fuel.
Another possible option: call a tow truck, have the tow-truck use its engine to recharge your battery to the point where you can make it to the nearest recharge station. Not really all that different from what a lot of people would do when their gas-powered car runs out of gas.
Alternatively, plug in a small (relatively speaking) battery pack to the cigarette lighter (what, power can only run one direction?) that will get you to the service station to charge or replace the vehicle's main battery.
It could be something about the size of the 6-volt battery you used to power your last science project; it wouldn't even need to be as large as the standard 12-volt 6-cell in gas-powered vehicles.
Or you could just buy a better gas car for a hell of a lot less and fill up in 5 minutes at a gas station.
Define "better", please, because I'm not seeing any definition of "better" that fits that description. Electric vehicles have as much power as gasoline vehicles, they're much quieter, they're just as comfortable... Tell me how a loud, smelly thing is better than a quiet, clean one. Please.
...I would want to to hold a full day's drive, at least 1000 miles...
Good grief. 1,000 miles is a lot more than a full day's drive... For the sake of argument, we'll say you're doing circles on a highway in Texas, so you can actually get away with an average speed of 75 miles an hour... Do you realize you're casually throwing around nearly 14 hours' driving time, not accounting for stops for food/bathroom breaks? Never mind that (assuming a very generous 350 miles per tank of gas) you would need to stop at least 3 times, simply for gasoline. That's nearly double the amount of time that truckers are legally allowed to drive in a single day, for fatigue reasons. All of this is at high speed, with no stopping. Drop the average speed to something more reasonable, like 60mph, and you end up with a driving time of nearly 17 hours. I have personally managed an 1800 mile cross-country trip in three actual days (not "driving time" but "actual time elapsed"), and let me tell you, that was a brutal pace. A thousand miles is closer to two full days' reasonable driving time than to the "full day's drive" you claim. Having driven to remote locations as part of my job, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that a full day of "on the clock" driving is more like 400 miles per 8-hour day, assuming perfect weather/visibility and no construction.
To stay on the topic of "a full tank of gas", I get about 300 miles to the tank in my PT Cruiser. A full tank is approximately 15 gallons, but that probably isn't relevant information for this conversation. So let's call 300 miles "a tankful". Driving to the nearest town to the north of the one I live in is about 30 miles. I did this 5 times a week to get to my place of employment - and then drove back in the evenings. "Aha!" you shout, "that's a whole tank of gas right there!" To which I respond "Yes, it is. In a week, not a day."
Unless you are a commercial shipping company, or someone whose job it is to drive for hours on end every day, I simply cannot understand your argument.
&& >= 60 km/h.
Ignoring that 60km/h can be done on a moped, I'll assume you meant 60mph. Which, if you had done more than jump on the groupthink bandwagon, you would realize is easily doable (admittedly with "high-performance" electric vehicles, but still). Mass-production vehicles don't necessarily need to be all that speedy, although I don't think 60mph is outside the realm of "normal" unless you're some kind of anti-technology freak.
The biggest factor against electric vehicles is currently range, not speed. Tesla motors has had an electric drag racer for several years; you can easily find videos of their electric car absolutely smoking petroleum-based racers on the track. Power is actually *better* with an electric motor - the power (torque) curve is dramatically different in an electric motor as compared to a combustion engine, in that (in a basic sense) the power is all available regardless of the RPM of the motor, as opposed to a combustion engine requiring rotational energy before it can crank out decent numbers.
I've heard some absolutely ridiculous arguments against electric motor ranges, by the way - someone actually commented that traffic would obliterate the supposed fuel-efficiency numbers of any EV... without stopping to think that when the vehicle is not in motion, the motor isn't doing anything. If you are at a red light, the only things taking electrical power are your radio and the vehicle's climate-control system - unlike a combustion engine, which keeps a massive flywheel turning as long as the vehicle is "running". This can be unsettling in a hybrid; it takes some getting used to when your car appears to stall and die every time you come to a complete stop.
Energy storage technology is improving at a rapid pace, both on the size/mass end of things (how big/heavy is it), and on the capacity end of things (how long does a single charge last). A recent development in the field (were one to inquire) would be a battery that can be printed using an ink-jet printer, on normal paper (special ink, of course). This should make capacitor technology achieve things previously thought of as outside the realm of possibility, and quite soon.
On the "consumer-ready" side of the equation, a Swedish company recently received a prize for designing and building a vehicle they believe will cost approximately US$20,000 per unit for mass production. It's a 4-seater that achieves highway speeds, and it actually resembles a car (as opposed to the "concept vehicles" that have been being trumpeted as the latest and greatest but which no one in their right mind would be caught actually driving).
I don't mean to get all ad-hominem on you, but did you bother to do a simple web query before responding, or was this more of an off-the-cuff knee-jerk type of thing?
Take a trip to Montreal, QC, Canada... you will find your roads to be pristine and mint conditions...
Or perhaps Louisiana, where it is easy to tell when you've crossed the line from another state into Louisiana, because where you were doing just fine driving the speed limit a few miles ago, now you need to drop 15 miles an hour from your velocity just to maintain control of your vehicle... Ah, Louisiana...
This is the same place that doesn't seem to have an issue with spending billions to rebuild a city with an average of elevation of several feet below sea level after it flooded (surprise!), but then doesn't even acknowledge that there was a hurricane on the other side of the state that was, by all accounts, a worse storm that arguably caused more damage, if not (thankfully) more deaths... Rita was a stronger storm than Katrina, but no one seems to notice. There was Federal assistance available (in states on the other side of the country from where the "disaster" occurred) 5 years after the event, if you could prove you resided in an area affected by Katrina during that particular event. I don't mean just public assistance, I mean "free money" and job placement and housing assistance and all sorts of other things - handouts for having lived there at that time, regardless of whether you were actually affected by the storm. I don't mean to downplay the plight of those caught in the sixth-strongest storm in recorded history, but please read on.
Most people don't even know that Rita happened - in the same state, in the same year, and actually the fourth-strongest storm in recorded history. There was discussion of changing the classification systems, which would make Rita a Category 6 Hurricane; Katrina would still have been a Category 5 Hurricane. There were mandatory evacuations; the police came to my house to make sure I had evacuated. Driving away from my home, it took nearly 10 hours to go 38 miles, due to traffic (and the police stopping everyone to tell them not to go east because all the shelters were already full - we had arrangements to stay with friends in that direction, but whatever). They closed the borders of my city and I was nearly arrested for coming back two weeks later, once the "all-clear" had been sounded - the issue being that I was on the road after dark and my truck was full of stuff (I was returning from Baton Rouge for the second time that day, after ascertaining that our pets would be safe coming back with us (3 hours in a vehicle containing 6 cats is *so* much fun)). They were still recommending people stay away, but part of my job was to make sure the local governments could operate - I was the technician for a company specializing in software solutions for municipalities, and so could claim I was part of the "relief efforts".
Rita didn't drown a "cultural center", it just washed away entire towns. A governmental office I worked in had 3 feet of water in it, and not only is it on the second floor, it's easily an hour's drive from the coast. My neighbor had a tree that was easily ten feet in circumference blown through his house. People still have "blue roofs" (tarps instead of shingles) in some locations in south-west Louisiana.
There was no federal assistance available for having survived Rita. No handouts, no free jobs, no relocation assistance, no compensation for having been forcibly removed from our homes. All of the things that Katrina victims got handed to them just for asking (or in some cases, without even asking), Rita victims asked for and were refused. Even the damage numbers were skewed, because somehow New Orleans properties are more valuable than the rest of the state. Maybe it's because not as many people died (due largely to the fact that we got out of the way, and our homes were above sea level, instead of below it).
Katrina only got all the hype because people were too stupid to leave when given a week's notice, and it's a "cultural center", whatev
MS has a reputation for being a pain in the ass to access with software they didn't develop recently.
With certain MS Office documents failing to open in MS Office, I'm not exactly sure how you meant that statement...