It's not a silver bullet but it's good enough...
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TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I have started using TrueCrypt a few months back after my laptop got stolen. I keep two encrypted files on my laptop, one contains my personal stuff like passport scan, bank information etc. and the other the work related important documents such as internal&confidential documents, client information etc. I have buried those files in the system folder and given them name that could pass for system temp files.
I keep a copy of both on a USB key drive and on an external hard drive which never leave my home. As well as a non-encrypted copy because I'm still wondering what happens to that encrypted file if I happen to have a fucked up cluster on the drive at some point.
The rational for using encryption is not that I am afraid of the local authorities, there is nothing on my computer that would cause me any long lasting trouble, despite the fact that I live and work in a limited freedom area (Middle East), but simply to avoid opportunity theft.
For example I can't recall how many time one of my clients or partner handed me a usb key drive containing all his companies financial statement, bank account number, internal price list with profit margin, internal memo, personal info and the wifey's naked picture so that I could copy them a few documents and then forgot about the keydrive because we kept chatting.
Sometime I too need to get some files from them and I don't want to look like I'm watching them while they dig around my keydrive. I now know that everything a casual observer should not see is encrypted so I don't mind throwing my key drive over the table to someone I don't know.
I don't understand the paranoid people here who believes in plausible deniability, decoy drive and other such thing. I also wonder if the same people only use their computers in safe room with controlled EM environment and bullet proof shade. I didn't know either that so many people carried state secrets around international airports. To those I will say that if the NSA/FSB/Interpol/MI4/Mossad/Mafia or even the local police wants the content of your drive they will get it. period. It doesn't matter what you do. Unless of course you also work for one of the aforementioned in which case you might have been trained to accept that your life is worth less than the content of said drive.
I have never been subjected to physical or psychological torture (aside from clients and some ex-gf of course) but I am not Jack Bauer and I would "come clean" very quickly. I would give the real password, not the decoy, because I believe consequences would certainly worsen my situation if my interrogators were not convinced.
I am also pretty sure that the simple sentence: "The accused has so far always refused to give his encrypted drive password." would certainly help convincing a jury beyond "reasonable doubt" (In countries where such thing even exists).
Some people here should start to seriously look at themselves and wonder if what they are trying to hide is really worth it or if it's just about mommy not finding their downloadable girlfriend picture collection.
Well, I was talking about small to medium size companies, not the company who can afford a full time IT Admin.
Managing an email server is not cheap. Sure the cost of material isn't very impressive to add a little server with a little qmail or what have you running in a corner. When you start talking about reliability, availability, security, multiple access point and cost of actually supporting that and fixing issues for your users it gets very expensive.
My company is currently very happy to have outsourced its email, telephony and CRM solution. We're a small unit and we cannot (do not want to) afford the upfront cost of setting up a decent infrastructure and we certainly can do much more useful thing with the money we save not having to pay for a competent IT admin.
I'd rather spend $3k every month to buy some add space than pay you. Sorry but the ROI is much more interesting for me like that at the moment.:)
No one is asking you to use the gmail.com domain for your professional emails.
Google App is a free mail hosting for companies domain (up to 100 email) using their gmail technology. And yes you can replace the gmail logo with your company logo and choose your favorite colors.
I recently decided to get rid of our internally hosted and managed email server to use google free services and as a part time sysadmin I am delighted. It hassle free. Took all of five minutes to set-up including sending an email to my ISP asking them to redirect our MX server.
It gives our employees POP, IMAP and a state of the art Web access and it runs on a distributed server farm with 99.99999% reliability. My boss is paying $0 for it and is very happy about that.
I didn't even bother looking into the other features but apparently we also have our own company branded google calendar, google chat, google docs and google sites.
There currently isn't any interesting "Google App Engine" based application but from the look of the admin dashboard it seems that I will be able to add the one I like to my domain. If the Google App Engine picks up that will mean free company branded - server farm hosted - applications like forum, image gallery and even maybe CRM application...
An small to medium sized company would be really stupid not to take advantage of that kind of offer and dreamhost advice is actually making sense. Want to host your own PHP pages? use DreamHost. Want a professionally run email server? Go see google/hotmail/yahoo.
From a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense. Running an email server is a much more complicated matter than stacking a few servers together and providing AC, UPS, fire extinguisher and fat pipes. I am pretty sure it provides them and their customers with little added value for the cost of running it. Especially with the current barely manageable spam levels.
When the iMac came out I was working in a tech support hotline for a big reseller and if I can tell you one thing it's that for a lot of people the first iMac didn't "just work". It barely worked.
The operating system was a really bad joke, absolutely not resilient and so very prone to extension conflicts. (multiple quicktime version anyone?). If people here think Vista is bad, they should have played more with MacOS 9. Amongst the oddity you had to set yourself the memory allowed to each program BEFORE running it (including the virtual one) and that memory would not be available to any other running software even if it was not really used by the application.
And even windows 98 was out of the cooperative multitasking by the time.
The internal modem was so fragile that it would just fry itself at the mention of the word "storm". On a good day I would send 10 to 15 back to the store. Oh and most of the time the provided phone cable was DOA anyway and the SOP for a "no dialtone" error was to mail them a replacement cable no questions asked.
Oh and of course the default settings of the provided fax application would keep the modem busy for the PPP control panel. I don't see where it "just worked" for the thousands of users I had to guide over the phone through the arcane parameter of a modem init string.
Then came along the first USB peripheral "designed" for the iMac which were rushed out version and crappy product with barely working drivers. For a long while our customers had a grand choice of exactly one printer and one scanner. Both two terrible piece of crap that would crash the system or just stop working for unknown reason.
Then came the massive amount of disgruntled clients who discovered a little late that their perfectly working but non-usb printer/scanner/zip drive/etc would not work on the shiny light bulb.
Every other day a firmware update would be made available that would pitifully try to fix some of the inherent issues of the design.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to apply a firmware update on an original iMac for a normal user? Pushing the reset button, which is hidden inside the cable hole, with a paperclip while booting the mac and releasing the button after the first chime but not after the second or something awful would happen.
And I am not talking about the PRAM reset because this aberration was already there on the previous macs.
Then came along the slot loading which destroyed more cd than I can count. When it did not destroy itself by allowing the user to put two disc at once in it.
NO FLOPPY for even's sake. How it that something that "just work" when NOTHING ELSE was available for backup. USB flash disk did not exist when the first iMac came out. In fac USB-anything did not exist.
To me the iMac is the proof that a piece of turd with a shiny ribbon will always work better than an actually good product. Or maybe it the distortion field.
We have this law in my country where if you can help someone who is in danger without risking to harm yourself you may get legal trouble.
I am pretty sure that a good lawyer could twist it enough to sue those researcher because they DID not kill the botnet while they could. Instead they published a report explaining to the botnet creator how to plug the hole. Next time they should just ask for a subversion comiter account a fix it themselves.
I can almost see how the patriot act could apply here. I think those guy could be arrested for helping the terrorist(tm) by the friendly bunch at homeland security.
If you can kill the botnet please do it. Me million other will drop a donation in your paypal account to cover your legal fees.
Enough with ads, they have the whole page to display ad, and an insert at the beginning "sponsored by..." should be enough without them having trying to rape the content.
I come from a country where TV station are limited by law to one ad break per movie/tv show and where they don't pollute the screen with overlays of next weeks programming. Tv stations still make plenty of money don't worry. The difference is that our talk show host don't need to tell you they'll be right back every 8 minutes. It might be that they don't earn enough to buy back South Africa like Oprah but probably more than the majority of us here.
I find US tv simply unwatchable and if it is anything like the futur of googletube you can be sure that I'll be amongst the first to install "video ad block" or whatever the name will be. The cost of hosting video produced by other's can't be anywhere near the cost of producing a decent TV show so I don't see why they would need such an ad stream revenue to be profitable.
Not dived enough into the industry? Are you sure?
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Reading Comics
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· Score: 1
I've never dived deep enough into the industry to form a strong opinion of it one way or the other
But you read books about comic and you know the name of other "famous" comic analyst. I wonder how deep is enough:)
The funny thing is that the chinese source code looks cleaner than the original. If I had to choose a company by looking at those two samples I'd probably go for outsourcing in china.
You'll pay more or less close to list depending on who you are. Most of the time you'll buy through a distributor who will make between 10 to 30% and Cisco will make at least as much. So yes no one is paying list but "list" price is just there to give you the feeling your getting a discount. A little bit like raising the price just before a clearance sale.
Just to be clear, this is not a cisco issue, but a standard industry practice.
Or it is exactly the same transistor but they don't need nor try to make as much margin as cisco.. after all they don't have any R&D or marketing cost. Anyway, if Cisco gear was not priced at 80% gross margin at list price we might see less of that kind of stuff happening.
I can't believe I had to try. It works fine "as fast as I can hit ctrl-t" on both FF2 and IE7. The only difference I could find is that FF honors the key repeat while IE does not. IMHO on that particular usage scenario FF is the winner as it is much easier to keep the key down than to have to hit it a thousand time.
Now I have to wonder if is this is really the feature that is going to win the browser war.;)
Actually that was a very interesting read (http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm). I noted the following paragraph which seems to summarize the issue quite well. Thanks for the info.
[19] It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme." Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 589 (dissenting opinion). It is, rather, "the essence of copyright," ibid., and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, 8, cl. 8. Accord Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975). To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original [p*350] expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. Harper & Row, supra, at 556-557. This principle, known as the idea-expression or fact-expression dichotomy, applies to all works of authorship. As applied to a factual compilation, assuming the absence of original written expression, only the compiler's selection and arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.
I just looked at the page explaining how to contribute and I am perplex.
I have a garmin GPS with the maps for my area. I could help that project by uploading my route tracks but what if I use mapsource (garmin software) to look up the road name am I infringing on something? - I would think you can't copyright street name. But if not, then I would be allowed to just batch upload the whole Garmin data and give a tremendous boost to that project. Surely that can't be allowed and would probably be a cause for legal issue for the project. Anyway, great project, I hope some people have the courage to contribute the way they suggest: roaming around with a GPS on and writing the street name on a piece of paper (ouch).
Currently the software name is called Cylon, the main server is called "Resurrection ship" and the agent program is called "raider". You guess what I was watching on tv when I had to pick a name.:)
After my first laptop has been stolen, I have been looking seriously at professional (bloated / way too expensive) and open source (crappy or not windows friendly) remote backup program but I couldn't find anything I liked so as a good software engineer I felt obligated to do it myself. I had very simple requirement:
Must be invisible to the user, not require any attention/actions, not get in the way.
Limit as much as possible the bandwidth/CPU usage. Handle duplicate file and file move/deletion gracefully.
Server side storage must use the filesystem, no database, no meta information that cannot be rebuild from the files themselves. So that I can easily retrieve my file using a file share.
Client must not use any meta-information, files, databases aside from its tiny configuration file.
Client must be very aggressive/versatile in finding ways to connect to the server. (HTTP/S, TCP, good proxy support, etc..)
Sadly, It is currently a windows only C# program (both server and client), I have plan to release it before christmas unless I can find some other and better software to do that job. Before I can do that I need to clean it up and make it user friendly enough so that my mum can install it herself. And of course decide whether I want to go open source, commercial or mixed.:)
Before someone complains please note that I have tried open sourcing some of my work before but I ended up receiving more insulting and plaintive emails than coherent or constructive one. I grew tired to be told things like "You suck it doesn't work with my xyz, my dog can code better than you." so I opted out, gave full access to the cvs to some guy who asked for it, removed all trace of my name and email from the project and added a direct to trash filter to my email account.
Now I'm thinking that if I have to take the crap, I'll take the money that goes with it and handle it like a real job. Otherwise I could keep it a hobby under a license against contribution scheme where every person who contributes something (code, plugin, documentation, translation, marketing, good ideas, etc...) gets some free licenses. The other will have to pay some $ (or euros, because the USD.. well.. you know.. it sucks right now..)
I hope that answers your question (and more).
I am probably feeding a troll here but here we go.
If you have traveled for a few months with your backpack, on a shoe string budget, enjoying your freedom and lack of deadlines, mingled with the local, been invited to share meals. You've only seen one side of the place you're visiting.
If you've been traveling for business, stayed in posh hotels, dealt with swift local executive, and enjoyed the luxurious night-life, you've seen just one other side.
They are both true experiences and it would be foolish to pretend that one of those travelers has seen something more real than the other one. There are too many ways to experience a country or a place. I don't see why someone taking pictures or writing about his experiences would be less of a traveler than anyone else.
It's a good idea to ship in theory, but it's not practical for everyone. I do a lot of traveling, and by a lot I mean every other week I am crossing some international border. Most of those travel are overnight stay. Arrive as late as you can, check in, sleep, checkout, meeting next day at 9am sharp, take the next flight out to next destination, rince (shower?), repeat. No time to ship anything and I do need my laptop for those meetings as well as to get some work done in the plane and while waiting for it.
And finally there is no way you can be sure your package will clear custom in time (if at all), especially for private package, unless you can provide an invoice for the parcel, certificate of origin, proof of ownership, and in some case you'll be requested to pay duty fees.. (which you can eventually claim back when you leave, event though the time wasted doing it would probably prove not worth it.)
Once I forgot my carry on in a taxi, he brought it back to the hotel which shipped back to me(see my tip about maintaining excellent relationship with your taxi...and the doorbell guy). It took 6 weeks to clear the package and I had to go in person authenticate the package twice before it was cleared. And it contained only 2 suits, some underwear and shirts. I had an ipod in there also but I told the taxi driver to keep it as a thank you. (suits were worth more than that mind you.)
And finally most companies won't agree to such a "frivolous" expense as the bean counters will quickly calculate that your risk of losing your company sponsored equipment being x% per trip, it will be less expensive to buy new one when you get mugged than to pay for shipping every time you travel, especially if covered by corporate insurance. And no, bean counters will not take into account the loss of productivity due a) losing your documents, b) wasting time reconfiguring your work environment.
Oh and btw, even UPS refuses to ship personal items to and from some countries because it's just plain too complicated.
Everything you have when you travel can and will be lost (one day or another). I have had laptops, external hard-drives (including ipod), flash drives, cds seized without cause by customs official in some countries. Probably because they wanted to have it for themselves and there is NOTHING you can do about it unless you want to risk spending a couple of weeks in jail for a $100 HD. They might just be able to find some marijuana or cocaine on you if you won't let go and try to make a fuss.
I have a synchronization software that run on my laptop and send every updated file back "Home" (over ssl) as soon as it detects an internet connection. So if my laptop gets "borrowed" I'll only lose the value of the hardware and not the actual work.
Encrypted drive can be fun but might also get you into more trouble than they are worth.
Last time a custom official asked for my windows account password I was in a locked room, he had stored my passport in his drawer and was carrying a gun. Again, not worth it.
Just make sure that there is as little sensitive information on your laptop as possible.
I travel in some rough countries, some of them under embargo by the US (I am not a US citizen), some of them on the "axis of evil", some of them just plainly plagued by corruption. (And some of them quite nice and relaxing but they aren't funny to talk about)
If you do the same, keep some spare change for bribes (at least fifty $1 bill), convert part of your cash to traveler's check, keep you credit card separate from your wallet.
Do not trust safe in hotel, even if you can "choose" the code, management has the master key anyway.
Oh and don't go to the local brothel even if the taxi driver tells you his nice brother run the place.:)
About taxi driver when you find a "good" one, always give him a large tip and keep his number that will create an strong incentive for him to come pick you up very quickly and to "protect" you during your stay (otherwise he'll lose his good tipper).
But we're not talking about technology here so I guess I'm out of scope.
- PHONE: Get a Nokia e61i/SonyE P1, they have a real keyboard and gsm, grps, edge, 3g, wifi, should get your mail mostly everywhere. I also have a crackberry subscription with intl roaming works on both phone with some added software and I use the gmail phone app when I need to search through my old emails. (it also work with exchange push mail, depending on what your company is using.)
- GPS: Get a real GPS. I suggest the Garmin 60Csx. It has a lot of memory, a sirf3 receiver, is rugged and waterproof. Otherwise you can get the GPS module from nokia for the e61i. I would never go for a GPS that doesn't use AA battery but that's just because I use my GPS a lot while going through no-mans-land and it would really suck to die in the desert because I can't find anywhere to plug my Nokia power adapter... Oh and it has relatively good map coverage, although not always up to date in some remote countries. And remember that almost no-one will be able to give you their GPS coordinate so unless you have the maps to look up addresses it's mostly useless.:)
Oh and the 60C* series will give you an adventurer look, and you know all the girl likes Indiana jones. j/k
- MUSIC: Get an mp3 player. If you travel for extended period of time, and can't live with your music get one that works on AA(A) batteries that you can replace, otherwise just get anything they are all the same anyway. I stopped using mine, I have some music on the phone's flash memory, I only carry headphones to use instead of the broken piece of junk they give you in planes.
- CAMERA: The e61i has a crappy camera but enough for snapping the white-board after a meeting. Imho Canon has very good products, last time I check you could find 7MP camera that will fit in your pocket very easily but still give you control over many settings. (iso, white balance, shutter speed, flash etc..)
- Get a good bag. Case logic has a wide selection of smartly designed laptop bag. There are other brand some with matching carry-on.
Don't forget the 7 in one plug adapter you can find in most airport. always useful.
If you have the stamina, an additional battery for the laptop is always handy.
I don't know what you wear but if you have to suit up, it good to have a special bag for suits as you can't always find a iron in the hotels.
Yep, there's me in the UAE but for some reason it's way faster than it was last week. Youtube is good, i'm remote desktoping to my client all over the world at the usual speed.
I'm not sure how all this cabling and ISP interco works but it seems good right now. Very strange.
I don't think there is any legitimate reason to block anything. It's too much of a slippery slope, once you start blocking things you can always find a way to legitimate blocking something else to "save the children" or the elderly.
One of our provider is blocking everything that doesn't match the "value of the UAE" and yesterday slashdot editors probably posted something VERY BAD for the children because it was blocked by the retards at the TRA in Abu Dhabi (you know who you are).
Iran is still on the grid, as is all of the ME. I am still in Dubai (where the 3rd cable has been cut). I received a communication from our ISP (DU/ aka DIC Telecom) telling us about this new cut and that they had to reroute us again. I couldn't notice more slow down in web browsing but bittorrent traffic seems to have been blocked. Could it be a preemptive measure? We live behind a big firewall similar to the one in china here. I would be surprised if they decided not to plead like the Egyptians and just block some of the crap we download to save the bandwidth.
There is redundancy and the fact that I am posting this message from the United Arab Emirates and that I just exchanged email with my business partner in India, Syria, Saudi and Egypt is a proof of that.
A few cables cut did not make us "lose Internet" (alarmist article, which I didn't read), but the fact that most of the traffic is now redirected through other cable / satellite / smoke signal cause some bandwidth issue and it is much slower than usual.
For example it takes about twice as long as it usually does to log-in my gmail account, watching video on youtube is not realtime anymore. Doing a google search or accessing a local website is fast of course. Slashdot loads a bit more slowly than usual but it reminds me of my 56k modem and it's still faster than my 3g phone. I read about the issue for the first time on bloomberg's website. So saying that the "Middle East" doesn't have internet anymore is pure Yellow Journalism.
Calling europe is a bit of a pain, it's difficult to get through due to network congestion and require at least a couple of redial. Skype calls are too choppy to be useful during peak hours. (It was fine last night when the businesses were closed).
It does have a real impact on some of my customer who relies on internet bandwith (outsourced call center using VoIP for eample), but for everyone else it's business as usual, just a little bit slower.
And honestly, the telecom's operator suck so badly in this area that it doesn't change much from any other "slow internet and shitty phone line" day.
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I have started using TrueCrypt a few months back after my laptop got stolen. I keep two encrypted files on my laptop, one contains my personal stuff like passport scan, bank information etc. and the other the work related important documents such as internal&confidential documents, client information etc. I have buried those files in the system folder and given them name that could pass for system temp files.
I keep a copy of both on a USB key drive and on an external hard drive which never leave my home. As well as a non-encrypted copy because I'm still wondering what happens to that encrypted file if I happen to have a fucked up cluster on the drive at some point.
The rational for using encryption is not that I am afraid of the local authorities, there is nothing on my computer that would cause me any long lasting trouble, despite the fact that I live and work in a limited freedom area (Middle East), but simply to avoid opportunity theft.
For example I can't recall how many time one of my clients or partner handed me a usb key drive containing all his companies financial statement, bank account number, internal price list with profit margin, internal memo, personal info and the wifey's naked picture so that I could copy them a few documents and then forgot about the keydrive because we kept chatting.
Sometime I too need to get some files from them and I don't want to look like I'm watching them while they dig around my keydrive. I now know that everything a casual observer should not see is encrypted so I don't mind throwing my key drive over the table to someone I don't know.
I don't understand the paranoid people here who believes in plausible deniability, decoy drive and other such thing. I also wonder if the same people only use their computers in safe room with controlled EM environment and bullet proof shade.
I didn't know either that so many people carried state secrets around international airports. To those I will say that if the NSA/FSB/Interpol/MI4/Mossad/Mafia or even the local police wants the content of your drive they will get it. period. It doesn't matter what you do. Unless of course you also work for one of the aforementioned in which case you might have been trained to accept that your life is worth less than the content of said drive.
I have never been subjected to physical or psychological torture (aside from clients and some ex-gf of course) but I am not Jack Bauer and I would "come clean" very quickly. I would give the real password, not the decoy, because I believe consequences would certainly worsen my situation if my interrogators were not convinced.
I am also pretty sure that the simple sentence: "The accused has so far always refused to give his encrypted drive password." would certainly help convincing a jury beyond "reasonable doubt" (In countries where such thing even exists).
Some people here should start to seriously look at themselves and wonder if what they are trying to hide is really worth it or if it's just about mommy not finding their downloadable girlfriend picture collection.
Well, I was talking about small to medium size companies, not the company who can afford a full time IT Admin.
:)
Managing an email server is not cheap. Sure the cost of material isn't very impressive to add a little server with a little qmail or what have you running in a corner. When you start talking about reliability, availability, security, multiple access point and cost of actually supporting that and fixing issues for your users it gets very expensive.
My company is currently very happy to have outsourced its email, telephony and CRM solution. We're a small unit and we cannot (do not want to) afford the upfront cost of setting up a decent infrastructure and we certainly can do much more useful thing with the money we save not having to pay for a competent IT admin.
I'd rather spend $3k every month to buy some add space than pay you. Sorry but the ROI is much more interesting for me like that at the moment.
No one is asking you to use the gmail.com domain for your professional emails.
Google App is a free mail hosting for companies domain (up to 100 email) using their gmail technology. And yes you can replace the gmail logo with your company logo and choose your favorite colors.
I recently decided to get rid of our internally hosted and managed email server to use google free services and as a part time sysadmin I am delighted. It hassle free. Took all of five minutes to set-up including sending an email to my ISP asking them to redirect our MX server.
It gives our employees POP, IMAP and a state of the art Web access and it runs on a distributed server farm with 99.99999% reliability. My boss is paying $0 for it and is very happy about that.
I didn't even bother looking into the other features but apparently we also have our own company branded google calendar, google chat, google docs and google sites.
There currently isn't any interesting "Google App Engine" based application but from the look of the admin dashboard it seems that I will be able to add the one I like to my domain. If the Google App Engine picks up that will mean free company branded - server farm hosted - applications like forum, image gallery and even maybe CRM application...
An small to medium sized company would be really stupid not to take advantage of that kind of offer and dreamhost advice is actually making sense. Want to host your own PHP pages? use DreamHost. Want a professionally run email server? Go see google/hotmail/yahoo.
From a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense. Running an email server is a much more complicated matter than stacking a few servers together and providing AC, UPS, fire extinguisher and fat pipes. I am pretty sure it provides them and their customers with little added value for the cost of running it. Especially with the current barely manageable spam levels.
When the iMac came out I was working in a tech support hotline for a big reseller and if I can tell you one thing it's that for a lot of people the first iMac didn't "just work". It barely worked.
The operating system was a really bad joke, absolutely not resilient and so very prone to extension conflicts. (multiple quicktime version anyone?). If people here think Vista is bad, they should have played more with MacOS 9. Amongst the oddity you had to set yourself the memory allowed to each program BEFORE running it (including the virtual one) and that memory would not be available to any other running software even if it was not really used by the application. And even windows 98 was out of the cooperative multitasking by the time.
The internal modem was so fragile that it would just fry itself at the mention of the word "storm". On a good day I would send 10 to 15 back to the store. Oh and most of the time the provided phone cable was DOA anyway and the SOP for a "no dialtone" error was to mail them a replacement cable no questions asked.
Oh and of course the default settings of the provided fax application would keep the modem busy for the PPP control panel. I don't see where it "just worked" for the thousands of users I had to guide over the phone through the arcane parameter of a modem init string.
Then came along the first USB peripheral "designed" for the iMac which were rushed out version and crappy product with barely working drivers. For a long while our customers had a grand choice of exactly one printer and one scanner. Both two terrible piece of crap that would crash the system or just stop working for unknown reason.
Then came the massive amount of disgruntled clients who discovered a little late that their perfectly working but non-usb printer/scanner/zip drive/etc would not work on the shiny light bulb.
Every other day a firmware update would be made available that would pitifully try to fix some of the inherent issues of the design.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to apply a firmware update on an original iMac for a normal user? Pushing the reset button, which is hidden inside the cable hole, with a paperclip while booting the mac and releasing the button after the first chime but not after the second or something awful would happen. And I am not talking about the PRAM reset because this aberration was already there on the previous macs.
Then came along the slot loading which destroyed more cd than I can count. When it did not destroy itself by allowing the user to put two disc at once in it.
NO FLOPPY for even's sake. How it that something that "just work" when NOTHING ELSE was available for backup. USB flash disk did not exist when the first iMac came out. In fac USB-anything did not exist.
To me the iMac is the proof that a piece of turd with a shiny ribbon will always work better than an actually good product. Or maybe it the distortion field.
We have this law in my country where if you can help someone who is in danger without risking to harm yourself you may get legal trouble.
I am pretty sure that a good lawyer could twist it enough to sue those researcher because they DID not kill the botnet while they could. Instead they published a report explaining to the botnet creator how to plug the hole. Next time they should just ask for a subversion comiter account a fix it themselves.
I can almost see how the patriot act could apply here. I think those guy could be arrested for helping the terrorist(tm) by the friendly bunch at homeland security.
If you can kill the botnet please do it. Me million other will drop a donation in your paypal account to cover your legal fees.
A European country that specialize in cheese and wine :)
Enough with ads, they have the whole page to display ad, and an insert at the beginning "sponsored by..." should be enough without them having trying to rape the content.
I come from a country where TV station are limited by law to one ad break per movie/tv show and where they don't pollute the screen with overlays of next weeks programming. Tv stations still make plenty of money don't worry. The difference is that our talk show host don't need to tell you they'll be right back every 8 minutes. It might be that they don't earn enough to buy back South Africa like Oprah but probably more than the majority of us here.
I find US tv simply unwatchable and if it is anything like the futur of googletube you can be sure that I'll be amongst the first to install "video ad block" or whatever the name will be. The cost of hosting video produced by other's can't be anywhere near the cost of producing a decent TV show so I don't see why they would need such an ad stream revenue to be profitable.
But you read books about comic and you know the name of other "famous" comic analyst. I wonder how deep is enough
The funny thing is that the chinese source code looks cleaner than the original. If I had to choose a company by looking at those two samples I'd probably go for outsourcing in china.
:)
Smells like trouble for the US job market
You'll pay more or less close to list depending on who you are. Most of the time you'll buy through a distributor who will make between 10 to 30% and Cisco will make at least as much. So yes no one is paying list but "list" price is just there to give you the feeling your getting a discount. A little bit like raising the price just before a clearance sale.
Just to be clear, this is not a cisco issue, but a standard industry practice.
Or it is exactly the same transistor but they don't need nor try to make as much margin as cisco.. after all they don't have any R&D or marketing cost. Anyway, if Cisco gear was not priced at 80% gross margin at list price we might see less of that kind of stuff happening.
I can't believe I had to try. It works fine "as fast as I can hit ctrl-t" on both FF2 and IE7. The only difference I could find is that FF honors the key repeat while IE does not. IMHO on that particular usage scenario FF is the winner as it is much easier to keep the key down than to have to hit it a thousand time.
;)
Now I have to wonder if is this is really the feature that is going to win the browser war.
I just looked at the page explaining how to contribute and I am perplex.
I have a garmin GPS with the maps for my area. I could help that project by uploading my route tracks but what if I use mapsource (garmin software) to look up the road name am I infringing on something? - I would think you can't copyright street name. But if not, then I would be allowed to just batch upload the whole Garmin data and give a tremendous boost to that project. Surely that can't be allowed and would probably be a cause for legal issue for the project.
Anyway, great project, I hope some people have the courage to contribute the way they suggest: roaming around with a GPS on and writing the street name on a piece of paper (ouch).
After my first laptop has been stolen, I have been looking seriously at professional (bloated / way too expensive) and open source (crappy or not windows friendly) remote backup program but I couldn't find anything I liked so as a good software engineer I felt obligated to do it myself. I had very simple requirement:
Sadly, It is currently a windows only C# program (both server and client), I have plan to release it before christmas unless I can find some other and better software to do that job. Before I can do that I need to clean it up and make it user friendly enough so that my mum can install it herself. And of course decide whether I want to go open source, commercial or mixed.
Before someone complains please note that I have tried open sourcing some of my work before but I ended up receiving more insulting and plaintive emails than coherent or constructive one. I grew tired to be told things like "You suck it doesn't work with my xyz, my dog can code better than you." so I opted out, gave full access to the cvs to some guy who asked for it, removed all trace of my name and email from the project and added a direct to trash filter to my email account.
Now I'm thinking that if I have to take the crap, I'll take the money that goes with it and handle it like a real job. Otherwise I could keep it a hobby under a license against contribution scheme where every person who contributes something (code, plugin, documentation, translation, marketing, good ideas, etc...) gets some free licenses. The other will have to pay some $ (or euros, because the USD.. well.. you know.. it sucks right now..) I hope that answers your question (and more).
I am probably feeding a troll here but here we go.
If you have traveled for a few months with your backpack, on a shoe string budget, enjoying your freedom and lack of deadlines, mingled with the local, been invited to share meals. You've only seen one side of the place you're visiting.
If you've been traveling for business, stayed in posh hotels, dealt with swift local executive, and enjoyed the luxurious night-life, you've seen just one other side.
They are both true experiences and it would be foolish to pretend that one of those travelers has seen something more real than the other one. There are too many ways to experience a country or a place. I don't see why someone taking pictures or writing about his experiences would be less of a traveler than anyone else.
It's a good idea to ship in theory, but it's not practical for everyone. I do a lot of traveling, and by a lot I mean every other week I am crossing some international border. Most of those travel are overnight stay. Arrive as late as you can, check in, sleep, checkout, meeting next day at 9am sharp, take the next flight out to next destination, rince (shower?), repeat. No time to ship anything and I do need my laptop for those meetings as well as to get some work done in the plane and while waiting for it.
And finally there is no way you can be sure your package will clear custom in time (if at all), especially for private package, unless you can provide an invoice for the parcel, certificate of origin, proof of ownership, and in some case you'll be requested to pay duty fees.. (which you can eventually claim back when you leave, event though the time wasted doing it would probably prove not worth it.)
Once I forgot my carry on in a taxi, he brought it back to the hotel which shipped back to me(see my tip about maintaining excellent relationship with your taxi...and the doorbell guy). It took 6 weeks to clear the package and I had to go in person authenticate the package twice before it was cleared. And it contained only 2 suits, some underwear and shirts. I had an ipod in there also but I told the taxi driver to keep it as a thank you. (suits were worth more than that mind you.)
And finally most companies won't agree to such a "frivolous" expense as the bean counters will quickly calculate that your risk of losing your company sponsored equipment being x% per trip, it will be less expensive to buy new one when you get mugged than to pay for shipping every time you travel, especially if covered by corporate insurance. And no, bean counters will not take into account the loss of productivity due a) losing your documents, b) wasting time reconfiguring your work environment.
Oh and btw, even UPS refuses to ship personal items to and from some countries because it's just plain too complicated.
Out of curiosity, do they let you board the plane with a "swiss army card"? It does have a very dangerous nail clipper...
Mod the parent up.
:)
Everything you have when you travel can and will be lost (one day or another). I have had laptops, external hard-drives (including ipod), flash drives, cds seized without cause by customs official in some countries. Probably because they wanted to have it for themselves and there is NOTHING you can do about it unless you want to risk spending a couple of weeks in jail for a $100 HD. They might just be able to find some marijuana or cocaine on you if you won't let go and try to make a fuss.
I have a synchronization software that run on my laptop and send every updated file back "Home" (over ssl) as soon as it detects an internet connection. So if my laptop gets "borrowed" I'll only lose the value of the hardware and not the actual work.
Encrypted drive can be fun but might also get you into more trouble than they are worth. Last time a custom official asked for my windows account password I was in a locked room, he had stored my passport in his drawer and was carrying a gun. Again, not worth it. Just make sure that there is as little sensitive information on your laptop as possible.
I travel in some rough countries, some of them under embargo by the US (I am not a US citizen), some of them on the "axis of evil", some of them just plainly plagued by corruption. (And some of them quite nice and relaxing but they aren't funny to talk about)
If you do the same, keep some spare change for bribes (at least fifty $1 bill), convert part of your cash to traveler's check, keep you credit card separate from your wallet. Do not trust safe in hotel, even if you can "choose" the code, management has the master key anyway.
Oh and don't go to the local brothel even if the taxi driver tells you his nice brother run the place.
About taxi driver when you find a "good" one, always give him a large tip and keep his number that will create an strong incentive for him to come pick you up very quickly and to "protect" you during your stay (otherwise he'll lose his good tipper). But we're not talking about technology here so I guess I'm out of scope.
- LAPTOP: Get one of the small Vaio.
:)
- PHONE: Get a Nokia e61i/SonyE P1, they have a real keyboard and gsm, grps, edge, 3g, wifi, should get your mail mostly everywhere. I also have a crackberry subscription with intl roaming works on both phone with some added software and I use the gmail phone app when I need to search through my old emails. (it also work with exchange push mail, depending on what your company is using.)
- GPS: Get a real GPS. I suggest the Garmin 60Csx. It has a lot of memory, a sirf3 receiver, is rugged and waterproof. Otherwise you can get the GPS module from nokia for the e61i. I would never go for a GPS that doesn't use AA battery but that's just because I use my GPS a lot while going through no-mans-land and it would really suck to die in the desert because I can't find anywhere to plug my Nokia power adapter... Oh and it has relatively good map coverage, although not always up to date in some remote countries. And remember that almost no-one will be able to give you their GPS coordinate so unless you have the maps to look up addresses it's mostly useless.
Oh and the 60C* series will give you an adventurer look, and you know all the girl likes Indiana jones. j/k
- MUSIC: Get an mp3 player. If you travel for extended period of time, and can't live with your music get one that works on AA(A) batteries that you can replace, otherwise just get anything they are all the same anyway. I stopped using mine, I have some music on the phone's flash memory, I only carry headphones to use instead of the broken piece of junk they give you in planes.
- CAMERA: The e61i has a crappy camera but enough for snapping the white-board after a meeting. Imho Canon has very good products, last time I check you could find 7MP camera that will fit in your pocket very easily but still give you control over many settings. (iso, white balance, shutter speed, flash etc..)
- Get a good bag. Case logic has a wide selection of smartly designed laptop bag. There are other brand some with matching carry-on.
Don't forget the 7 in one plug adapter you can find in most airport. always useful. If you have the stamina, an additional battery for the laptop is always handy. I don't know what you wear but if you have to suit up, it good to have a special bag for suits as you can't always find a iron in the hotels.
there.
Have fun traveling.
Yep, there's me in the UAE but for some reason it's way faster than it was last week. Youtube is good, i'm remote desktoping to my client all over the world at the usual speed. I'm not sure how all this cabling and ISP interco works but it seems good right now. Very strange.
I don't think there is any legitimate reason to block anything. It's too much of a slippery slope, once you start blocking things you can always find a way to legitimate blocking something else to "save the children" or the elderly.
One of our provider is blocking everything that doesn't match the "value of the UAE" and yesterday slashdot editors probably posted something VERY BAD for the children because it was blocked by the retards at the TRA in Abu Dhabi (you know who you are).
I have no idea about that, but if it is a conspiracy we will know soon enough. :)
Iran is still on the grid, as is all of the ME. I am still in Dubai (where the 3rd cable has been cut). I received a communication from our ISP (DU/ aka DIC Telecom) telling us about this new cut and that they had to reroute us again. I couldn't notice more slow down in web browsing but bittorrent traffic seems to have been blocked. Could it be a preemptive measure? We live behind a big firewall similar to the one in china here. I would be surprised if they decided not to plead like the Egyptians and just block some of the crap we download to save the bandwidth.
There is redundancy and the fact that I am posting this message from the United Arab Emirates and that I just exchanged email with my business partner in India, Syria, Saudi and Egypt is a proof of that.
A few cables cut did not make us "lose Internet" (alarmist article, which I didn't read), but the fact that most of the traffic is now redirected through other cable / satellite / smoke signal cause some bandwidth issue and it is much slower than usual.
For example it takes about twice as long as it usually does to log-in my gmail account, watching video on youtube is not realtime anymore. Doing a google search or accessing a local website is fast of course. Slashdot loads a bit more slowly than usual but it reminds me of my 56k modem and it's still faster than my 3g phone. I read about the issue for the first time on bloomberg's website. So saying that the "Middle East" doesn't have internet anymore is pure Yellow Journalism.
Calling europe is a bit of a pain, it's difficult to get through due to network congestion and require at least a couple of redial. Skype calls are too choppy to be useful during peak hours. (It was fine last night when the businesses were closed).
It does have a real impact on some of my customer who relies on internet bandwith (outsourced call center using VoIP for eample), but for everyone else it's business as usual, just a little bit slower.
And honestly, the telecom's operator suck so badly in this area that it doesn't change much from any other "slow internet and shitty phone line" day.