I don't allow random systems to communicate with my database. It is only accessed directly from localhost. Any other system has to go through a predefined RPC function that sanitizes inputs and outputs and does a very specific task. Even that access is only granted to a few systems and never over the public network. I usually still use the built-in security too but I would consider removing it as I consider it almost useless.
It defaults to not being installed and running. Memcached is meant to be ran from one or more caching servers (not really on the web server itself). It isn't really meant to be ran on localhost under ideal usage.
The difference is that in this case a non-retarded admin can secure things. With Microsoft products it often takes an act of God to secure them (the best security feature of a Windows system is a blue screen of death). And memcached isn't meant to be a public service. It's very plainly described as not being secure. Completely different than a service that is meant to be public such as web or email not being secure.
I doubt most admins look and if memcached was open it's virtually a feast of access. You wouldn't necessarily find it easy to jump from memcached to the rest of the system but you could gather a lot of information and alter data going to users and internal systems. Depending how memcache is being used it could be a pretty big exploit. The hardest part would be finding the right data keys. All mine are md5 hashes of a per site secret token combined with the given key so pretty difficult but I'm sure the kind of developer that leaves the service open to the public might be bright enough to name something 'password'.
I'm hardly an expert but it seems pretty obvious. Unless the developer is pretty idiotic it's probably not a problem but if they are then maybe it's a big problem.
My memcached server is on the private network only accessible to other servers and is firewalled to everything but the servers that need access. Not exactly rocket science.
I don't see what people could be doing that is so embarrassing anyway. Unless you are taking photos of yourself dressing as a wolf and having sex with real sheep it's probably nothing that most the people around you aren't doing too. I really don't see the whole paranoid need for privacy. Who cares if everybody else knows that you're just like everybody else? It's probably healthy to stop worrying that you'll be found out.
That said, why not just use an encrypted disk image? Mac OS and Linux have built-in encrypted disks and Windows can get something like TrueCrypt. I often keep my work encrypted while still in-progress to keep people from trying to help (we have some none programmers that wish they were programmers in management).
And because it's what students want and students are paying for the service. We should stop letting schools and teachers get away with bad customer service. It's just bullshit that they shouldn't have to provide good service to their students because students should respect their elders/educators.
And they won't make economic sense until the research is done and the processes needed to manufacturer the components optimized for mass production. Everything must crawl before it can run. It's stupid to compare new technologies to current technologies. This is why we need basic research and early adopters.
It would be nice if the government would make new technology vehicles equivalent in price to old school vehicles for a time so normal people could choose to be early adopters. Not forever, but long enough to see if the technology can be made cheaper with mass production.
I'll have to agree that popularity doesn't equal quality.
I haven't actually tried a Zune since they first came out so I can't honestly say what they are like. I was an early adopter of MP3 players though (my first a 32MB Rio) and have seen that most are really badly made. iPod conquered an already busy market because of that difference. I didn't care for the original Zune but it may have improved.
Steve Jobs is a perfectionist whereas Gates/Ballmer are suits. Apple products that suck are the exception whereas Microsoft products that don't suck are the exception. Microsoft mostly stays in business because neither users nor programmers want to go through the work of switching platforms. Apple has pulled something of a slight of hand in this case though and instead of marketing iOS as an alternate PC platform it was the best mobile platform at the time when people wanted a good mobile platform. Now they've posed the iPad, essentially a competitor to the netbook (and maybe laptop) to use the existing iOS platform. And it's likely we'll be seeing a set top iOS based system in the near future too. It's only a matter of lining up all the dominos before they have pulled the rug out from under Windows as the dominate platform.
But you may be right that the Zune doesn't suck. If so they should fire Balmer and put the guy in charge of the Zune in charge of everything.
Microsoft cheated. They essentially changed the definition of netbook to mean 'cheap laptop'. They doubled the netbook in size and weight. It got hotter and battery life suffered. The Dell 'netbook' I have is almost as big as my Macbook, runs hotter, and the battery doesn't last as long. Nobody ever uses it either. The iTouches and iPad have been used to death though.
Microsoft killed the netbook concept. It worked for them but they won't have the same luck with the slate. Slapping together a stripped down version of Windows and some crappy underpowered hardware isn't going to challenge the iPad and when it comes to it Android is in a better position to take the lower half of the market. Microsoft is caught between the iPad and cheap Android devices. Doesn't leave a lot of room to find a strong market segment.
They'd be better off ignoring slates for a while and protecting their set-top / gaming niche. When Apple TV is revamped as an HD, cloud integrated, iOS powered device it is going to be threatening that market. All those iPhone/iPad apps suddenly brought into the living room.
Automator is actually pretty awesome. Yesterday fricken iTunes got stuck wanting me to hit 'Replace', for each of the 2000+ iOS apps I have, when cleaning up my library. No cancel button. No do for all button. (Doh. C'mon Apple iTunes is so beneath your standards.) I pulled up Automator and recorded clicking the button and told it to loop over it. In a couple seconds I had a script that kept pressing that damn button until it was done. So Apple sucks for iTunes but is awesome for Automator.
Most web designers don't know how to design a web page either. Explaining the many bad web sites.
I think it really depends if they want to learn and are capable of grasping the material. I'll agree that not everybody can learn programming, it really takes a certain way of thinking, but I wouldn't say that trying wouldn't be useful. Even for people that ultimately are not going to be able to be programmers it is good to have some understanding of what goes on. Maybe then we can stop getting clients/employers that think it's like pulling up a word processor and typing a few buttons.
I think it was Rudy Rucker that said programming is like building a house of cards with invisible cards. There is some truth to that idea.
You might start with something like Scratch to learn the concepts.
Then I'd dive into PHP or Python. PHP is good because you feel like you are really doing something since it shows up on the web. Python on the other hand produces faster programs and has a very clean syntax. HTML, Javascript, and CSS are good if you're learning PHP anyway but do yourself a favor and avoid mixing HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, and PHP together. Learn to separate your code right from the start. SQL is always useful to know and has the benefit of a different prospective on coding. Likewise I suggest learning LISP and Prolog as they'll widen your horizon and can give you some powerful tools that many programmers don't have.
Eventually you might want to look into C, C++, Objective C, Assembler, Postscript, and shell scripting to round out your experience. Also you want to read some books on data structures, algorithms, and design patterns. Knowing how to write code doesn't make you a programmer anymore than speaking English makes you a brilliant author.
The Wild West is fun but most people don't want to live there. Most people want the walled garden of safety. If anything I think Apple should be more aggressive in screening out offensive, dangerous, and just plain bad apps that don't add value for the customer.
On the flip side I think Apple should sell Xcode for iPad ($9.99 like iWork apps?) that lets you actually write iOS code including putting your iOS devices into a developer mode that will let you compile and install whatever you want with minimal interference. Not quite the same as jailbreaking in that I wouldn't remove all restrictions but you'd have freedom as far as apps were concerned and you wouldn't have to fight the warden with every new release. You still couldn't install stolen apps maybe but if you had source code then you could install. This is basically what signing up as a developer lets you do anyway but I'd flatten the cost to the app cost and only charge the $100/yr if you wanted to distribute your app in the App Store. And of course you could actually write code from the iPad which you can do anyway but it'd be nice to have actual Xcode and be able to compile and run directly on the device.
Did you see their crappy looking Windows tablet mock-up? That's pretty much everything right there. Microsoft has no idea how to make a stable, secure, easy-to-use, attractive product. If it runs standard Windows apps it's just a tiny hard to use PC. If it doesn't then you may as well go with the better made iPad with it's huge lead in apps or even an Android based device. Their only hope is to offer a cheap device for people to dumb to know the difference - it works on the PC.
We do use thin provisioning, and virtualization in general, but I agree that there is benefit to keeping utilization low. We try to keep more space than we could possibly need both because it can sometimes surprise you by growing quickly and because the drives are faster if the data is spread across multiple drives. Also SSD drives sometimes live longer if not fully utilized, because they can distribute the wear and tear, so we usually leave 20% unformatted.
Downtime and slow systems are much more expensive than wasted drive space.
Except it isn't circumventing anything. If you are dumb enough to install Flash on your computer then you've given your permission. Uninstall Flash if you're so paranoid. Gawd knows Flash is a lot more of a danger to your computer experience than cookies are.
A lot like the geeks that have to get themselves an easy to hack device as a status symbol because they aren't bright enough to hack anything that doesn't come with directions. All the Linux fanboys that wouldn't have a clue how to hack kernel internals but they somehow think they are elite because they can boot into Gnome.
It's mostly in what software you buy, or write, for it. The iPad has replaced 90% of my use of my laptop and iTouch and a surprising amount of use from my tv. I can VNC and SSH into my servers, write code, browse the web, email, chat, play games, review documents, and yesterday I even wrote a short story. It works very well for most uses.
A few things it doesn't do such as ripping DVDs or running Windows-only software (although VNC into a Windows machine works) but most of these issues are niche issues and can be fixed if people care to release the needed hardware or software. A couple issues are related to the device and iOS but again most of these are easy fixes and I suspect a fix is on the way but being delayed while they work to get it right. IOS 4 will add multitasking which will help in some cases. Printing and network file access are the two big issues still left. Both these things just suck on the PC (any OS) so I hope they are working to make things better. The tablet is giving us a chance to reinvent the wheel so we may as well do so instead of just rushing to add crap functionality as quickly as possible.
The iPad isn't a PC and that is probably it's biggest selling point.
The way I see it the iPad/Phone/Apple in general is like a very large, beautiful prison cell. Sure, WE might walk far enough to reach the walls and be unhappy about it, but to the average consumer (who doesn't walk far and never reaches the walls), it feels like beautiful freedom. It's like the restrictions don't exists.
I have the same problem with my refrigerator. To the average consumer it probably would seem like a great refrigerator but because I wanted to put 200 lbs of meat on one shelf it cracked. It will also only hold a large pizza box and not the extra extra large death in a box i like to get. How unfairly limiting.
Seriously, there are a few limitations to the iDevices but only if you are to lazy or stupid to either jailbreak the device or become a developer. The only real restraint is that you can't install your crap on other people's iDevices unless they are also willing to throw safety to the wind.
This study is stupid. The iPad is still new so most of the people who have one are early adopters. Early adopters tend to be people with the money to blow on new gadgets. Practically everyone I know has an iPod of some kind and many have iPod Touches or iPhones. I was an early adopter of both but now they are common. Everyone that has seen my iPad wants one. At a recent family event (death) a couple dozen kids were waiting around for days at a time. We had two iPads there and they worked wonders keeping those kids entertained and then adults appreciated being able to check their e-mail. At the store people come up and ask to look at the iPad and every single person has wanted one.
I am very altruistic and I am certainly not rich. I'm only an early adopter because I'm a geek and have learned that first gen Apple products are non-suck enough to be worth spending money on. Now if I could just pry my iPad out of my two year olds hands now and then. I guess I'll have to buy myself one too.
I wonder how doing this compares to implementing storage tanks and canals or pipes and such. Sounds like a lot of repetition of hard/boring work to me but it may have benefits that make it worth while.. causing other glaciers to naturally appear for example.
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I don't allow random systems to communicate with my database. It is only accessed directly from localhost. Any other system has to go through a predefined RPC function that sanitizes inputs and outputs and does a very specific task. Even that access is only granted to a few systems and never over the public network. I usually still use the built-in security too but I would consider removing it as I consider it almost useless.
It defaults to not being installed and running. Memcached is meant to be ran from one or more caching servers (not really on the web server itself). It isn't really meant to be ran on localhost under ideal usage.
The difference is that in this case a non-retarded admin can secure things. With Microsoft products it often takes an act of God to secure them (the best security feature of a Windows system is a blue screen of death). And memcached isn't meant to be a public service. It's very plainly described as not being secure. Completely different than a service that is meant to be public such as web or email not being secure.
I doubt most admins look and if memcached was open it's virtually a feast of access. You wouldn't necessarily find it easy to jump from memcached to the rest of the system but you could gather a lot of information and alter data going to users and internal systems. Depending how memcache is being used it could be a pretty big exploit. The hardest part would be finding the right data keys. All mine are md5 hashes of a per site secret token combined with the given key so pretty difficult but I'm sure the kind of developer that leaves the service open to the public might be bright enough to name something 'password'.
I'm hardly an expert but it seems pretty obvious. Unless the developer is pretty idiotic it's probably not a problem but if they are then maybe it's a big problem.
My memcached server is on the private network only accessible to other servers and is firewalled to everything but the servers that need access. Not exactly rocket science.
I don't see what people could be doing that is so embarrassing anyway. Unless you are taking photos of yourself dressing as a wolf and having sex with real sheep it's probably nothing that most the people around you aren't doing too. I really don't see the whole paranoid need for privacy. Who cares if everybody else knows that you're just like everybody else? It's probably healthy to stop worrying that you'll be found out.
That said, why not just use an encrypted disk image? Mac OS and Linux have built-in encrypted disks and Windows can get something like TrueCrypt. I often keep my work encrypted while still in-progress to keep people from trying to help (we have some none programmers that wish they were programmers in management).
And because it's what students want and students are paying for the service. We should stop letting schools and teachers get away with bad customer service. It's just bullshit that they shouldn't have to provide good service to their students because students should respect their elders/educators.
And they won't make economic sense until the research is done and the processes needed to manufacturer the components optimized for mass production. Everything must crawl before it can run. It's stupid to compare new technologies to current technologies. This is why we need basic research and early adopters.
It would be nice if the government would make new technology vehicles equivalent in price to old school vehicles for a time so normal people could choose to be early adopters. Not forever, but long enough to see if the technology can be made cheaper with mass production.
I'll have to agree that popularity doesn't equal quality.
I haven't actually tried a Zune since they first came out so I can't honestly say what they are like. I was an early adopter of MP3 players though (my first a 32MB Rio) and have seen that most are really badly made. iPod conquered an already busy market because of that difference. I didn't care for the original Zune but it may have improved.
Steve Jobs is a perfectionist whereas Gates/Ballmer are suits. Apple products that suck are the exception whereas Microsoft products that don't suck are the exception. Microsoft mostly stays in business because neither users nor programmers want to go through the work of switching platforms. Apple has pulled something of a slight of hand in this case though and instead of marketing iOS as an alternate PC platform it was the best mobile platform at the time when people wanted a good mobile platform. Now they've posed the iPad, essentially a competitor to the netbook (and maybe laptop) to use the existing iOS platform. And it's likely we'll be seeing a set top iOS based system in the near future too. It's only a matter of lining up all the dominos before they have pulled the rug out from under Windows as the dominate platform.
But you may be right that the Zune doesn't suck. If so they should fire Balmer and put the guy in charge of the Zune in charge of everything.
Microsoft cheated. They essentially changed the definition of netbook to mean 'cheap laptop'. They doubled the netbook in size and weight. It got hotter and battery life suffered. The Dell 'netbook' I have is almost as big as my Macbook, runs hotter, and the battery doesn't last as long. Nobody ever uses it either. The iTouches and iPad have been used to death though.
Microsoft killed the netbook concept. It worked for them but they won't have the same luck with the slate. Slapping together a stripped down version of Windows and some crappy underpowered hardware isn't going to challenge the iPad and when it comes to it Android is in a better position to take the lower half of the market. Microsoft is caught between the iPad and cheap Android devices. Doesn't leave a lot of room to find a strong market segment.
They'd be better off ignoring slates for a while and protecting their set-top / gaming niche. When Apple TV is revamped as an HD, cloud integrated, iOS powered device it is going to be threatening that market. All those iPhone/iPad apps suddenly brought into the living room.
And one ring to control them all? It sounds like the plot to a fantasy novel.
So what would happen if all seven people were eliminated?
Automator is actually pretty awesome. Yesterday fricken iTunes got stuck wanting me to hit 'Replace', for each of the 2000+ iOS apps I have, when cleaning up my library. No cancel button. No do for all button. (Doh. C'mon Apple iTunes is so beneath your standards.) I pulled up Automator and recorded clicking the button and told it to loop over it. In a couple seconds I had a script that kept pressing that damn button until it was done. So Apple sucks for iTunes but is awesome for Automator.
Most web designers don't know how to design a web page either. Explaining the many bad web sites.
I think it really depends if they want to learn and are capable of grasping the material. I'll agree that not everybody can learn programming, it really takes a certain way of thinking, but I wouldn't say that trying wouldn't be useful. Even for people that ultimately are not going to be able to be programmers it is good to have some understanding of what goes on. Maybe then we can stop getting clients/employers that think it's like pulling up a word processor and typing a few buttons.
I think it was Rudy Rucker that said programming is like building a house of cards with invisible cards. There is some truth to that idea.
You might start with something like Scratch to learn the concepts.
Then I'd dive into PHP or Python. PHP is good because you feel like you are really doing something since it shows up on the web. Python on the other hand produces faster programs and has a very clean syntax. HTML, Javascript, and CSS are good if you're learning PHP anyway but do yourself a favor and avoid mixing HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, and PHP together. Learn to separate your code right from the start. SQL is always useful to know and has the benefit of a different prospective on coding. Likewise I suggest learning LISP and Prolog as they'll widen your horizon and can give you some powerful tools that many programmers don't have.
Eventually you might want to look into C, C++, Objective C, Assembler, Postscript, and shell scripting to round out your experience. Also you want to read some books on data structures, algorithms, and design patterns. Knowing how to write code doesn't make you a programmer anymore than speaking English makes you a brilliant author.
It beats developing with BREW.
Are we talking with legs or with flippers?
The Wild West is fun but most people don't want to live there. Most people want the walled garden of safety. If anything I think Apple should be more aggressive in screening out offensive, dangerous, and just plain bad apps that don't add value for the customer.
On the flip side I think Apple should sell Xcode for iPad ($9.99 like iWork apps?) that lets you actually write iOS code including putting your iOS devices into a developer mode that will let you compile and install whatever you want with minimal interference. Not quite the same as jailbreaking in that I wouldn't remove all restrictions but you'd have freedom as far as apps were concerned and you wouldn't have to fight the warden with every new release. You still couldn't install stolen apps maybe but if you had source code then you could install. This is basically what signing up as a developer lets you do anyway but I'd flatten the cost to the app cost and only charge the $100/yr if you wanted to distribute your app in the App Store. And of course you could actually write code from the iPad which you can do anyway but it'd be nice to have actual Xcode and be able to compile and run directly on the device.
Yeah, both people that own one love them. I know dozens of people that own an iPod and I know nobody that owns a Zune.
Did you see their crappy looking Windows tablet mock-up? That's pretty much everything right there. Microsoft has no idea how to make a stable, secure, easy-to-use, attractive product. If it runs standard Windows apps it's just a tiny hard to use PC. If it doesn't then you may as well go with the better made iPad with it's huge lead in apps or even an Android based device. Their only hope is to offer a cheap device for people to dumb to know the difference - it works on the PC.
We do use thin provisioning, and virtualization in general, but I agree that there is benefit to keeping utilization low. We try to keep more space than we could possibly need both because it can sometimes surprise you by growing quickly and because the drives are faster if the data is spread across multiple drives. Also SSD drives sometimes live longer if not fully utilized, because they can distribute the wear and tear, so we usually leave 20% unformatted.
Downtime and slow systems are much more expensive than wasted drive space.
Except it isn't circumventing anything. If you are dumb enough to install Flash on your computer then you've given your permission. Uninstall Flash if you're so paranoid. Gawd knows Flash is a lot more of a danger to your computer experience than cookies are.
A lot like the geeks that have to get themselves an easy to hack device as a status symbol because they aren't bright enough to hack anything that doesn't come with directions. All the Linux fanboys that wouldn't have a clue how to hack kernel internals but they somehow think they are elite because they can boot into Gnome.
It's mostly in what software you buy, or write, for it. The iPad has replaced 90% of my use of my laptop and iTouch and a surprising amount of use from my tv. I can VNC and SSH into my servers, write code, browse the web, email, chat, play games, review documents, and yesterday I even wrote a short story. It works very well for most uses.
A few things it doesn't do such as ripping DVDs or running Windows-only software (although VNC into a Windows machine works) but most of these issues are niche issues and can be fixed if people care to release the needed hardware or software. A couple issues are related to the device and iOS but again most of these are easy fixes and I suspect a fix is on the way but being delayed while they work to get it right. IOS 4 will add multitasking which will help in some cases. Printing and network file access are the two big issues still left. Both these things just suck on the PC (any OS) so I hope they are working to make things better. The tablet is giving us a chance to reinvent the wheel so we may as well do so instead of just rushing to add crap functionality as quickly as possible.
The iPad isn't a PC and that is probably it's biggest selling point.
The way I see it the iPad/Phone/Apple in general is like a very large, beautiful prison cell. Sure, WE might walk far enough to reach the walls and be unhappy about it, but to the average consumer (who doesn't walk far and never reaches the walls), it feels like beautiful freedom. It's like the restrictions don't exists.
I have the same problem with my refrigerator. To the average consumer it probably would seem like a great refrigerator but because I wanted to put 200 lbs of meat on one shelf it cracked. It will also only hold a large pizza box and not the extra extra large death in a box i like to get. How unfairly limiting.
Seriously, there are a few limitations to the iDevices but only if you are to lazy or stupid to either jailbreak the device or become a developer. The only real restraint is that you can't install your crap on other people's iDevices unless they are also willing to throw safety to the wind.
This study is stupid. The iPad is still new so most of the people who have one are early adopters. Early adopters tend to be people with the money to blow on new gadgets. Practically everyone I know has an iPod of some kind and many have iPod Touches or iPhones. I was an early adopter of both but now they are common. Everyone that has seen my iPad wants one. At a recent family event (death) a couple dozen kids were waiting around for days at a time. We had two iPads there and they worked wonders keeping those kids entertained and then adults appreciated being able to check their e-mail. At the store people come up and ask to look at the iPad and every single person has wanted one.
I am very altruistic and I am certainly not rich. I'm only an early adopter because I'm a geek and have learned that first gen Apple products are non-suck enough to be worth spending money on. Now if I could just pry my iPad out of my two year olds hands now and then. I guess I'll have to buy myself one too.
I wonder how doing this compares to implementing storage tanks and canals or pipes and such. Sounds like a lot of repetition of hard/boring work to me but it may have benefits that make it worth while.. causing other glaciers to naturally appear for example.