I'd interview both, and take the one with a genuine interest in the job & ability to learn.
Degrees teach you to draw flowcharts (who uses them any more), how to program in ADA and Pascal, and absolutely zip about real-world problem solving... they really don't help (hell, they taught me 68000 machine code.. yeah really useful). Someone who's a genuine geek and able to take a problem and run with it is a much more valuable skill than a bit of paper.
I've always loved that argument... taken to extreme you could make *anything* legal..
Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people do (so let's scrap the non-proliferation treaties and start selling missiles in newsagents).
It's similar to the smoking lobby 'freedom to do what I want in a free country' argument. Yup, fine... I agree. Let's also legalize heroin for the same reason. And murder.
My question is what kind of moronic update system do that have that would even *try* an XP-only update on a Windows 2000 system? Shouldn't it have performed the most basic of sanity checks first?
Secondly, since these are critical systems, why couldn't they be told to rollback automatically on boot?
I caught one trying to install spyware the other day. It was DRM protected so you had to visit their site and install their spyware before the DRM would decrypt.
In Bruce Schneier's definitive introductory text "Applied Cryptography" (2nd ed., 1996, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-11709-9) he introduces a table of dramatis personae headed by Alice and Bob. Others include Carol (a participant in three- and four-party protocols), Dave (a participant in four-party protocols), Eve (an eavesdropper), Mallory (a malicious active attacker), Trent (a trusted arbitrator), Walter (a warden), Peggy (a prover) and Victor (a verifier). These names for roles are either already standard or, given the wide popularity of the book, may be expected to quickly become so.
As an aside it's illegal in the UK now to reveal to anyone that you've been asked by the authorities for confidential information - even to your employer.
I went back to wired mice because they're cheaper... I had a logitech one but its USB connector just fell apart after 3 months (and it wasn't even unplugged during that time... the first time I needed to unplug it it broke). £50 ($75) down the crapper because of a 1p connector.
Since then I've been using cheap wired opticals.. if/when they break it's no big deal to replace them.
XP Home is crippled and can't join a domain, doesn't have directory/file security, etc. No thanks.
Have you ever *seen* subpixel text rendering? I work on a laptop all day and there is *no way* I would leave that switched on - it gives me a headache to look at for 10 minutes let alone 8 hours.
Network bridging - useful only for the 0.1% of users who try to use XP as a switch. Everyone else uses a switch. (I don't get what you mean by 'moderately complex networks using XP'. XP is a *client* OS. It sits on the desktop. With one network card. You definately shouldn't be trying to build networks with it, except maybe for a bet).
IE6 SP2 - you even mentioned Firefox in your reply.. who needsit?
..except SP2 doesn't protect you from all spyware.
I've done this on more than one occasion: 1. Install XP from CD 2. Upgrade to SP2 from CD 3. Connect cable 4. Browse for wireless driver 5. Profit! err... Spyware!
And that's without knowingly download anyting except the downloader for the driver.. not even running it yet.
I've now burned Spybot onto a CD and install that (and install the anti-spyware protection) before even starting looking for the drivers.. that finds loads - even caught Slashdot trying to squirt one at me once.
The worst problem I've had was writing a commercial app that had a Java frontend. Because Sun kept making seemingly random changes to the API and not fixing bugs (or worse, breaking the bugs that they fixed on the last version) we were stuck with 1.3.1-05 almost right until the java code was abandoned (went to c# - we only supported Windows servers anyway).
One customer wanted a 1.4.0 release, which we duly did (required a special fork and about a month of developer time) - then rejected it because it wouldn't work through MS Proxy server (a java bug which has never been fixed to this day.. if first appeared in 1.3.1-02, was fixed in 1.3.1-05, broke again in 1.3.1-06 and never fixed since).
Where do you get this control panel? I presume it's a separate download now.
They used to ship it with the install in JRE 1.3.x but it hasn't been installed in any of my 1.4.x installs (ironically the 1.3.x one was almost entirely useless...)
That's one of the things that really annoys me about the JRE.
You have to uninstall it completely to install a new one, otherwise you end up with half the apps using the old one and half the apps using the new one... with the resultant breakage.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd interview both, and take the one with a genuine interest in the job & ability to learn.
Degrees teach you to draw flowcharts (who uses them any more), how to program in ADA and Pascal, and absolutely zip about real-world problem solving... they really don't help (hell, they taught me 68000 machine code.. yeah really useful). Someone who's a genuine geek and able to take a problem and run with it is a much more valuable skill than a bit of paper.
It won't stop spam though... probably won't even slow it down.
What it has the potential to do is throw a few of the scumbags in jail, which is worth doing.
It is illegal in many countries to use the resources of someone elses' computer without permission (a criminal offence in this country).
It is also illegal to incite someone to commit a crime - something lycos have already done.
(btw. it's also *trivial* to block this - I can think of quite a few ways off the top of my head - so spammers aren't going to be too worried).
Problem with that one... it resets the copyright bit :)
I've always loved that argument... taken to extreme you could make *anything* legal..
Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people do (so let's scrap the non-proliferation treaties and start selling missiles in newsagents).
It's similar to the smoking lobby 'freedom to do what I want in a free country' argument. Yup, fine... I agree. Let's also legalize heroin for the same reason. And murder.
I hope they're paying you well.
If they've ignored your advice 3 times the just tell them you won't be coming back because it's not worth your time.
Mine spends my money on FFXI (she claims she *really* needs 12 content IDs).
Still no sex though.
I'm still trying to work out what language the summary is written in.. it *looks* like english, but doesn't scan at all.
Next time some explanation of what the hell they're on about might be in order.
Captive is OK when it works, but it only works on a fairly limited set of ntfs.sys drivers (didn't actually work with any I had lying around, anyway).
It would be nice if they got it compatible with all of them... it'd be really useful then.
You could force an XPSP2 onto a 2k machine... would you still blame Microsoft for it?
Umm...yes.
If it is possible to do that then XPSP2 is fundamentally broken. It should check that it is at least on the right OS before upgrading.
If it had the potential to 'go wrong' on that scale then it was *not* a sandbox.
My question is what kind of moronic update system do that have that would even *try* an XP-only update on a Windows 2000 system? Shouldn't it have performed the most basic of sanity checks first?
Secondly, since these are critical systems, why couldn't they be told to rollback automatically on boot?
WMV files can already pop up a browser window.
I caught one trying to install spyware the other day. It was DRM protected so you had to visit their site and install their spyware before the DRM would decrypt.
I deleted it.
Quote from the jargon file:
In Bruce Schneier's definitive introductory text "Applied
Cryptography" (2nd ed., 1996, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-11709-9)
he introduces a table of dramatis personae headed by Alice and Bob.
Others include Carol (a participant in three- and four-party
protocols), Dave (a participant in four-party protocols), Eve (an
eavesdropper), Mallory (a malicious active attacker), Trent (a
trusted arbitrator), Walter (a warden), Peggy (a prover) and Victor
(a verifier). These names for roles are either already standard or,
given the wide popularity of the book, may be expected to quickly
become so.
As an aside it's illegal in the UK now to reveal to anyone that you've been asked by the authorities for confidential information - even to your employer.
You guys *move* it?
*mutter* just when you think you understand the yanks... *mutter*
I went back to wired mice because they're cheaper... I had a logitech one but its USB connector just fell apart after 3 months (and it wasn't even unplugged during that time... the first time I needed to unplug it it broke). £50 ($75) down the crapper because of a 1p connector.
Since then I've been using cheap wired opticals.. if/when they break it's no big deal to replace them.
XP Home is crippled and can't join a domain, doesn't have directory/file security, etc. No thanks.
Have you ever *seen* subpixel text rendering? I work on a laptop all day and there is *no way* I would leave that switched on - it gives me a headache to look at for 10 minutes let alone 8 hours.
Network bridging - useful only for the 0.1% of users who try to use XP as a switch. Everyone else uses a switch. (I don't get what you mean by 'moderately complex networks using XP'. XP is a *client* OS. It sits on the desktop. With one network card. You definately shouldn't be trying to build networks with it, except maybe for a bet).
IE6 SP2 - you even mentioned Firefox in your reply.. who needsit?
Same here... I was running Matrox Dual Head long before XP was released.
..except SP2 doesn't protect you from all spyware.
I've done this on more than one occasion:
1. Install XP from CD
2. Upgrade to SP2 from CD
3. Connect cable
4. Browse for wireless driver
5. Profit! err... Spyware!
And that's without knowingly download anyting except the downloader for the driver.. not even running it yet.
I've now burned Spybot onto a CD and install that (and install the anti-spyware protection) before even starting looking for the drivers.. that finds loads - even caught Slashdot trying to squirt one at me once.
But it is *not* on www.sun.com which is the main site that everyone uses to download java It's on an essentially hidden development site.
Apart from a few slashdot fanboys who has even heard of java 1.5?
Wow, that's worse than I've seen.
.. if first appeared in 1.3.1-02, was fixed in 1.3.1-05, broke again in 1.3.1-06 and never fixed since).
The worst problem I've had was writing a commercial app that had a Java frontend. Because Sun kept making seemingly random changes to the API and not fixing bugs (or worse, breaking the bugs that they fixed on the last version) we were stuck with 1.3.1-05 almost right until the java code was abandoned (went to c# - we only supported Windows servers anyway).
One customer wanted a 1.4.0 release, which we duly did (required a special fork and about a month of developer time) - then rejected it because it wouldn't work through MS Proxy server (a java bug which has never been fixed to this day
Where do you get this control panel? I presume it's a separate download now.
They used to ship it with the install in JRE 1.3.x but it hasn't been installed in any of my 1.4.x installs (ironically the 1.3.x one was almost entirely useless...)
That's one of the things that really annoys me about the JRE.
You have to uninstall it completely to install a new one, otherwise you end up with half the apps using the old one and half the apps using the new one... with the resultant breakage.
Have sun never heard of 'upgrade'?
I wouldn't employ someone who admitted that on a public forum...