Last time I booted into Windows (dual boot) was when I had to fill in the tax form (yup, in the Netherlands it's just as bad as in the States). This was before the Sasser worm broke out.
So naturally, my Windows-install was not updated when the following sequence of events occured:
I read about the outbreak of Sasser on Bugtraq on a Friday (or so I believe), but couldn't care less as I did not ever boot into windows anyway
Went home to my parents during the weekend it broke out.
A roommate booted my computer into Windows to watch a movie or play some music in the livingroom or whatever.
Go Sasser!
Needless to say, that Windows partition is now history. Some extra storage space always comes in handy.
Anyway, what keeps me away from Windows at this moment (the most important reasons, anyway):
Spyware/malware. You think this only happens to n00bs who install KaZaa? Not so. Even recent Mouseware driver software from Logitech installs some kind of spyware program. So does the Kodak Easyshare software (or so I believe...it might not be spyware, but it is an annoying always-running automagic-update engine nonetheless).
Virusses and worms. Need I say more?
Last but not least: I hardly have time to play games, so I don't need Windows. Linux does everything I want, and often does it better then Windows (IMHO, ofcourse).
It takes too much time to admin even just my own personal Windows system to keep it 'safe enough' to even have it on the internet: I'd need a firewall (Windows firewalls, even commercial ones, often have security problems themselves, read Bugtraq!), Antivirus-software (which costs $$$, takes huge amounts of CPU power/memory, slows down even a P4 to a drag, etc.), Spyware scanners such as Ad-aware and/or hijackthis, run Windows Update automatically or at least regularly and generally spend at least a day freaking around after a fresh install, turning off services (in Linux they are off by default), running Windows Update and installing all the crap mentioned above.
Then, to sum it all up: in Windows, I would not use IE and OE, because - oh well, I don't have to explain why if you have read the above.
So I would end up using Firefox, Thunderbird mail and OpenOffice just like I would do in Linux. So why would I bother to run those apps on Windows anyway? That software runs great in Linux, too...
One of the most stupid assumptions Petreley makes (not the only one, I am sure the Gnome fans can point out that many of his remarks regarding Gnome are incorrect as well) is that he seems to assume that 'Linux desktop == Gnome'.
Let me quote:
I've decided that the only way to explain the regression of GNOME over the years is that Microsoft and/or SCO moles have infiltrated the GNOME leadership in a covert effort to destroy any possibility that
Linux could compete with Windows on the desktop.
Well, if he'd said "any possibility that the Gnome Desktop could compete with Windows" that would be something, but uhmm...well... KDE seems to be running just great on my Linux Desktop, and I'd certainly hope that it can compete with Windows. Even if it can't, obviously "Gnome on the desktop sucks" is absolutely not equivalent to "Linux on the desktop sucks".
It's just one of the many logical flaws I found in this rant (why even call it a 'review'? It's obviously just a rant..), but to the many KDE/Linux users it is an important one.
Re:If We Use a Simple Syllogism...
on
A Taste of Qt 4
·
· Score: 4, Funny
a. More controversial is the introduction of a new and elegant foreach construct. b. VB has a foreach construct. c. Therefore, VB is elegant ?
Yeah, and using the same type of logic:
a. Human beings have hair b. Cats have hair c. Therefore, cats are human beings.
See, I knew it! Your cat owns you, and not the other way round! (or is that only the case in Soviet Russia?)
Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?
From best solution to workaround:
1. Don't use a Microsoft E-mail client 2. Use a virus-scanner that catches it before it is opened 3. You do not *have* to view an e-mail in order te delete it, if you close the preview pane you can delete it without viewing (even in Outlook Express). This is not exactly what I'd call convenient, though.
Why is it everyone gets the hang-ups over a freakin' FILE SELECTOR?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but when you're using your computer a lot you'll see this freakin' FILE SELECTOR maybe a 100 times a day. Which means its sucky behavior gets in your way *every* time you see it - I don't know about you, but when the same things irritate me like 100 times a day, they *really* start annoying me. So even if the rest of Gnome would be perfect, I'm still inclined to think it sucks just for this reason.
I know this should not be the case, but it's just how people work. You can't change how people work - however you _can_ fix a File Selector dialog, so I'm glad this is finally happening.
Doesn't the fact that a new Linux file selector dialog box becomes headline news really illustrate the state of the Linux GUI?
I couldn't agree more, except that you're making a mistake - there is no such thing as 'the Linux GUI' (some people might think this is a problem as well, but OK).
My point is, this has not been a problem in QT (and hence, KDE) for years, so what you should have said is "..doesn't this really illustrate the state of the Gnome/GTK UI".
Obviously, Gnome/GTK is not Linux-specific either, so why do you only mention Linux, and act as if GTK is the only GUI toolkit that is used together with Linux? I mean, isn't the whole point of Linux to have more choice and freedom?
For you who hate Microsoft and hate the abuse of patents, do you know which side to take?
Microsoft's side, obviously.
Just because I hate their bussiness practices as much as the next guy, why should I want them to loose when they are on the 'right' side of things (those things happen sometimes)?
I don't hate Microsoft because they're Microsoft. I hate them because of what they're defining as 'bussiness as usual' *ahem cough*. When they are not doing such things, I don't see why I should still hate them for it...
You know, big companies are not like single persons. They can have many different faces - because there are many people working for them. So sometimes, they can be on the 'right' and 'wrong' side of different matters.
Yeah I know, reality is complicated and all that. Gotta live with it:)
SCO Germany has to pay a EUR 10,000 fine. This decision of the regional court of Munich I is based on [violation of] a provisional order of the enterprise Tarent and the LinuxTag against SCO. The order states SCO should cease making claims that Linux is violating SCO's Intellectual Property. It seems that SCO continued making such claims on their homepage, and therefore, in june Tarent asked the judge to impose a fine on them.
The court accused SCO of ignoring this order, because according to a report of Tarent, their homepage still contained statements such as "Linux end users can be held liable for infringement upon SCO's IP" - even after the provisional order was in effect.
Tarent's lawyer Till Jaeger is glad that the court has confirmed that SCO's expressions can be seen as "very damaging" to his company, especially because these claims have to do with very sensitive aspects of Linux development. "These totally unproven claims cost other companies a lot of money, because people tend to get afraid (FUD)."
SCO can not be reached to comment on this matter.
In june, Managing Director Hans Bayer of SCO Germany said in an interview by C't [a well known and respected IT magazine in Germany and the Netherlands] that "his company intended to do exactly as the order stated. The violation was a mistake, it did not happen deliberately".
Disclaimer: Neither English nor German is my native tongue (and it shows:P), so I hope there are not too many stupid mistakes in my translation.
Personally I think he's wrong, but he's not trying to deny the existance of other distros or anything.
Personally I think he's right (however, you have the right to disagree, obviously:), and indeed he is not saying anything 'wrong', even though the headline suggests he does.
Well, we all know about the/. journalistic standards (or lack thereof), so this is what you could expect:)
No, this is not meant as a flame, but I really wish some headlines could be a bit less suggestive, especially when there is really no reason why they should be.
Dunno in what country you are living, but where I live it is illegal to (try to) blackmail someone. If it can be proven you where the guy that tried to blackmail someone you're in big trouble, I'd guess (and rightly so)...
Now, I don't know where this guy lives, but my Private Pilot Certificate PP-ASEL cost me approx $8000 in the SF-Bay Area.
I guess the.nl domain name is a bit of a dead giveaway, ain't it:P
Chello is the ISP of one of the big cable providers in the Netherlands (UPC), known for its utterly bad service, unreachable helpdesk and administrative problems (their administration was a *mess* after a lot of mergers/buyouts of small local cable companies); although if it works, it's OK - as long as nothing breaks you get decent speed for a decent price.
The site is on his 'personal homepage' at the providers server. I'd guess he will have a nice message in his mailbox by now about bandwidth usage:P
That said, I have no clue what it costs to get a Private Pilot Certificate around here:P
It was not a bug in bzip, but in zlib IIRC. Apparently zlib is used by MS as well (statically linked in some apps), because the security flaw affected some MS products...
You should be able to find it yourself, there haven't been that many zlib bugs, so the latest one is probably the one you're looking for:P
I'd also love to have keyboard navigation between tabs (ok, it's probably there already, or at least in Phoenix, but I haven't found them yet..)
Try Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown.
Has been working for ages...we're talking pre-1.0 here (I guess since 0.9.something).
Apparently there should be better documentation for Mozilla, as it took me ages to find this out as well (thanks to the guy who posted it on slashdot sometime, that's when I discovered it..so now I'm keeping up the tradition:-)
AFAIK there is no quick way to see all the keyboard combinations, let alone the ability to change them to something else...
Hmm..I see a RFE coming..or does there already exist one, regarding this problem?
I want to be able to put my mail on a shared FAT32 drive, and have access to my email seamlessly whether I boot up in Windows or Linux
Take an old computer, put Linux/Apache/PHP on it, make it run a webmail package (horde/IMP or something), install an IMAP server (very easy), and you can open your mail from everywhere, even in places where you can't (or don't want to) use IMAP, such as on public computers or over a slow internet connection.
The downside of this is, obviously, that you got to have 2 computers running.
Obviously people shouldn't be allowed to really use that 100 MBit constantly (it's just the top speed, not the avg. throughput).
But...a 5 GB cap? We sometimes download that within a day using our slow 512/64 cable modem! Not all the time, ofcourse, but I think 500 MB - 1 GB on average a day (sharing the connection with a few people) is not extreme...is it?
Imagine having 100 MBit and then getting a DDoS, or just installing some new Linux distro from FTP...at 100 MBit, you can reach that monthly 5 GB limit in just over 8 minutes!
I think something like 100 GB/month would be a lot more reasonable (though still pretty much on the low side). 250 GB would be great...
The University of Twente (the Netherlands) has had a dualboot system between Linux and Win NT (now Win 2000) for years, even before I was a student there (we are talking 1996-1997 here).
And we're not talking 'a few' computers, all computers in the CS department (at least all the systems that students can use) have both Linux and Windows. Has been like this for over 6 years, maybe even longer.
I would have assumed that a lot of uni's in the States would have the same thing? Am I wrong in assuming this? You're kidding me....
You would have thought that if they are making a fresh start with a new so-called modern protocol, they would at least use a new and modern specification such as, let's say, PNG? Duh!!!!
Right, so this is exactly what they are doing, at least in the Netherlands: IPng (IP Next Generation)
Slashdot Mirror
Whoops, I forgot to clearly mention what actually led me to having a Windows partition in the first place:
- Games (when I still had time to play them)
- Tax software
That's it, basically. But as you can read in my previous post, that was not enough reason to keep Windows around on my disk.
So naturally, my Windows-install was not updated when the following sequence of events occured:
Needless to say, that Windows partition is now history. Some extra storage space always comes in handy.
Anyway, what keeps me away from Windows at this moment (the most important reasons, anyway):
It takes too much time to admin even just my own personal Windows system to keep it 'safe enough' to even have it on the internet: I'd need a firewall (Windows firewalls, even commercial ones, often have security problems themselves, read Bugtraq!), Antivirus-software (which costs $$$, takes huge amounts of CPU power/memory, slows down even a P4 to a drag, etc.), Spyware scanners such as Ad-aware and/or hijackthis, run Windows Update automatically or at least regularly and generally spend at least a day freaking around after a fresh install, turning off services (in Linux they are off by default), running Windows Update and installing all the crap mentioned above.
Then, to sum it all up: in Windows, I would not use IE and OE, because - oh well, I don't have to explain why if you have read the above.
So I would end up using Firefox, Thunderbird mail and OpenOffice just like I would do in Linux. So why would I bother to run those apps on Windows anyway? That software runs great in Linux, too...
They can easily do this, because 99.9999999999% of their users will never have more than, say, 1 MB of mail anyway.
:)
Even if you are reading several mailinglists you don't easily get over 1 GB of mail. Even my 2-3 year Bugtraq archive is just ~130 MB in size.
But still, the "cool" factor is what counts, obviously
It's just one of the many logical flaws I found in this rant (why even call it a 'review'? It's obviously just a rant..), but to the many KDE/Linux users it is an important one.
a. More controversial is the introduction of a new and elegant foreach construct.
b. VB has a foreach construct.
c. Therefore, VB is elegant ?
Yeah, and using the same type of logic:
a. Human beings have hair
b. Cats have hair
c. Therefore, cats are human beings.
See, I knew it! Your cat owns you, and not the other way round! (or is that only the case in Soviet Russia?)
Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?
From best solution to workaround:
1. Don't use a Microsoft E-mail client
2. Use a virus-scanner that catches it before it is opened
3. You do not *have* to view an e-mail in order te delete it, if you close the preview pane you can delete it without viewing (even in Outlook Express). This is not exactly what I'd call convenient, though.
It does not convert in the sense of mapping all previous installed packages to the Debian counterparts [..]
/home on a different partition anyway, right?)
:)
This would be the only way this tool could be useful, but it's impossible.
[..] but installs a base system or tarball and cleans traces from the previous distribution."
I fail to see the difference between this and a fresh install (you have put your
However, I'll admit it's a nice practical joke
Why is it everyone gets the hang-ups over a freakin' FILE SELECTOR?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but when you're using your computer a lot you'll see this freakin' FILE SELECTOR maybe a 100 times a day. Which means its sucky behavior gets in your way *every* time you see it - I don't know about you, but when the same things irritate me like 100 times a day, they *really* start annoying me. So even if the rest of Gnome would be perfect, I'm still inclined to think it sucks just for this reason.
I know this should not be the case, but it's just how people work. You can't change how people work - however you _can_ fix a File Selector dialog, so I'm glad this is finally happening.
Doesn't the fact that a new Linux file selector dialog box becomes headline news really illustrate the state of the Linux GUI?
I couldn't agree more, except that you're making a mistake - there is no such thing as 'the Linux GUI' (some people might think this is a problem as well, but OK).
My point is, this has not been a problem in QT (and hence, KDE) for years, so what you should have said is "..doesn't this really illustrate the state of the Gnome/GTK UI".
Obviously, Gnome/GTK is not Linux-specific either, so why do you only mention Linux, and act as if GTK is the only GUI toolkit that is used together with Linux? I mean, isn't the whole point of Linux to have more choice and freedom?
I think it's related to the "firing" of Keith Packard from the core group, when he was one of the few people trying to move X11 into the 20th century.
You're either being really sarcastic, or did you by any chance actually mean the 21th century?
For you who hate Microsoft and hate the abuse of patents, do you know which side to take?
:)
Microsoft's side, obviously.
Just because I hate their bussiness practices as much as the next guy, why should I want them to loose when they are on the 'right' side of things (those things happen sometimes)?
I don't hate Microsoft because they're Microsoft. I hate them because of what they're defining as 'bussiness as usual' *ahem cough*. When they are not doing such things, I don't see why I should still hate them for it...
You know, big companies are not like single persons. They can have many different faces - because there are many people working for them. So sometimes, they can be on the 'right' and 'wrong' side of different matters.
Yeah I know, reality is complicated and all that. Gotta live with it
Translation by hand (mostly):
:P), so I hope there are not too many stupid mistakes in my translation.
SCO Germany has to pay a EUR 10,000 fine. This decision of the regional court of Munich I is based on [violation of] a provisional order of the enterprise Tarent and the LinuxTag against SCO. The order states SCO should cease making claims that Linux is violating SCO's Intellectual Property. It seems that SCO continued making such claims on their homepage, and therefore, in june Tarent asked the judge to impose a fine on them.
The court accused SCO of ignoring this order, because according to a report of Tarent, their homepage still contained statements such as "Linux end users can be held liable for infringement upon SCO's IP" - even after the provisional order was in effect.
Tarent's lawyer Till Jaeger is glad that the court has confirmed that SCO's expressions can be seen as "very damaging" to his company, especially because these claims have to do with very sensitive aspects of Linux development.
"These totally unproven claims cost other companies a lot of money, because people tend to get afraid (FUD)."
SCO can not be reached to comment on this matter.
In june, Managing Director Hans Bayer of SCO Germany said in an interview by C't [a well known and respected IT magazine in Germany and the Netherlands] that "his company intended to do exactly as the order stated. The violation was a mistake, it did not happen deliberately".
Disclaimer: Neither English nor German is my native tongue (and it shows
1 pound = 453.59237 grams, so at $9.50/pound a kilogram would cost over 20 bucks.
Holy shit...at such prices, that coffee'd better be damn good! I buy coffee for like $6 - $8 or something.
However, it's a nice publicity stunt, and hopefully a good way to earn some bucks for the Mozilla foundation.
Personally I think he's wrong, but he's not trying to deny the existance of other distros or anything.
:), and indeed he is not saying anything 'wrong', even though the headline suggests he does.
/. journalistic standards (or lack thereof), so this is what you could expect :)
Personally I think he's right (however, you have the right to disagree, obviously
Well, we all know about the
No, this is not meant as a flame, but I really wish some headlines could be a bit less suggestive, especially when there is really no reason why they should be.
Why hadn't you applied the patch before? It was released 7/16 and nothing has had this level of publicity before.
:)
Well, I could think of one reason: it's the holiday season, at least over here in Europe but I'd guess it's pretty much the same in the US.
I had missed it as well, because I was far from any internet connection at that time (and a few weeks afterwards).
Fortunately I don't run Windows so it doesn't really matter
(And yes, I did check wether there where any big Linux-related security things going on when I returned).
The meat product is called 'SPAM'. Unsolicited e-mail is called 'spam'.
:P
Yeah I know, only those weird people who use UNIX will probably see these are totally different words
Err, did they do anything actually illegal?
Dunno in what country you are living, but where I live it is illegal to (try to) blackmail someone. If it can be proven you where the guy that tried to blackmail someone you're in big trouble, I'd guess (and rightly so)...
Now, I don't know where this guy lives, but my Private Pilot Certificate PP-ASEL cost me approx $8000 in the SF-Bay Area.
.nl domain name is a bit of a dead giveaway, ain't it :P
:P
:P
I guess the
Chello is the ISP of one of the big cable providers in the Netherlands (UPC), known for its utterly bad service, unreachable helpdesk and administrative problems (their administration was a *mess* after a lot of mergers/buyouts of small local cable companies); although if it works, it's OK - as long as nothing breaks you get decent speed for a decent price.
The site is on his 'personal homepage' at the providers server. I'd guess he will have a nice message in his mailbox by now about bandwidth usage
That said, I have no clue what it costs to get a Private Pilot Certificate around here
It was not a bug in bzip, but in zlib IIRC. Apparently zlib is used by MS as well (statically linked in some apps), because the security flaw affected some MS products...
:P
You should be able to find it yourself, there haven't been that many zlib bugs, so the latest one is probably the one you're looking for
Am I the only one who can't help thinking about the Rat Things in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" when reading this?
:P
I'd watch out real close when near one of those...before you know it, there'll be UberRats that bite
I'd also love to have keyboard navigation between tabs (ok, it's probably there already, or at least in Phoenix, but I haven't found them yet..)
:-)
Try Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown.
Has been working for ages...we're talking pre-1.0 here (I guess since 0.9.something).
Apparently there should be better documentation for Mozilla, as it took me ages to find this out as well (thanks to the guy who posted it on slashdot sometime, that's when I discovered it..so now I'm keeping up the tradition
AFAIK there is no quick way to see all the keyboard combinations, let alone the ability to change them to something else...
Hmm..I see a RFE coming..or does there already exist one, regarding this problem?
I want to be able to put my mail on a shared FAT32 drive, and have access to my email seamlessly whether I boot up in Windows or Linux
Take an old computer, put Linux/Apache/PHP on it, make it run a webmail package (horde/IMP or something), install an IMAP server (very easy), and you can open your mail from everywhere, even in places where you can't (or don't want to) use IMAP, such as on public computers or over a slow internet connection.
The downside of this is, obviously, that you got to have 2 computers running.
Obviously people shouldn't be allowed to really use that 100 MBit constantly (it's just the top speed, not the avg. throughput).
But...a 5 GB cap? We sometimes download that within a day using our slow 512/64 cable modem! Not all the time, ofcourse, but I think 500 MB - 1 GB on average a day (sharing the connection with a few people) is not extreme...is it?
Imagine having 100 MBit and then getting a DDoS, or just installing some new Linux distro from FTP...at 100 MBit, you can reach that monthly 5 GB limit in just over 8 minutes!
I think something like 100 GB/month would be a lot more reasonable (though still pretty much on the low side). 250 GB would be great...
The University of Twente (the Netherlands) has had a dualboot system between Linux and Win NT (now Win 2000) for years, even before I was a student there (we are talking 1996-1997 here).
And we're not talking 'a few' computers, all computers in the CS department (at least all the systems that students can use) have both Linux and Windows. Has been like this for over 6 years, maybe even longer.
I would have assumed that a lot of uni's in the States would have the same thing? Am I wrong in assuming this? You're kidding me....
You would have thought that if they are making a fresh start with a new so-called modern protocol, they would at least use a new and modern specification such as, let's say, PNG? Duh!!!!
:P
Right, so this is exactly what they are doing, at least in the Netherlands: IPng (IP Next Generation)
Happy now?