Just to back you up on one point. I currently have my 360 hooked up to an older tube TV. Yes, really. The text in Dragon Age is so unbearable that I've made the jump and bought a new LCD HDTV.
Funny you mention this. I've been debating creating a site like this for a personal project. Like a general match-making system for any type of game or games. I question how well it would actually work, but it's interesting that someone else has had the same idea.
We have at least two dozen of the lower end (50, 60) Fortigates deployed to a majority of our clients. We love them! Support from Fortinet is top notch (if you're paying for the 8x5 or 24x7). We've had to replace a few units, but some of our clients are in, shall we say, less-than-ideal environments. Though, in those cases we get very prompt service, usually overnight of a new unit to put back into place.
The configuration can be done via web, or command prompt which is nice, and of course fully remote admin capable. We also use them to create secure VPN tunnels between the units themselves to tie networks together that are in multiple states. They work very well for that.
If you pay for the catagory filtering, they offer a very comprehensive database of catagorized websites for you to allow/deny to the network. The products themselves are able to log almost any activity across the network, though they get you here because to retain and properly analyze the logs you need to purchase another piece of hardware. Still, the logging is quite nice.
If you have a smaller business, like you say, perhaps going with the Fortigate 60 might be a good choice. $650 for the unit, and about $200 for the "Pro Protect" service, if I recall properly.
I hope this helps. I don't work for Fortinet, and I'm not affiliated with them. We've been using their product almost since inception and they've come quite a ways. We've loved them from the get go.
It's about time they decided to upgrade to a live patching system. As another poster mentioned, the need for hours of patch time every week seems questionable. It seems they've taken a page from Guild Wars, whose live update system is one of the nicest features of the game (imo). There are no maintenance days, and rarely is there any downtime. The patches are downloaded live by the client and installed on the fly, which is the way it should be. We'll see if the new Blizzard devs can get it right or if it will be a disaster.
So I'm more likely to get more political phone calls if I vote? Well jeez, that's a really great incentive to vote isn't it? Do my civic duty and then get bothered more and more the coming years. With a country with as low of a voter turnout as ours (America), one would think that bothing those who DO vote is not a good plan.
I started playing WoW in January. I was playing Guild Wars prior to that, but they botched it with Factions, though, that's a totally different topic. My girlfriend (yes, really) play(s|ed) WoW, so she ultimately got me started. She lives 700 miles away from me, so we use it as time together when we can't be together physically. That's the main reason I play.
I don't rush through anything either. I'm not in a hurry to get awesome gear, high honor rankings, epic mounts, or any of that other stuff. Hell, my highest level character in 9 months is only level 40. I like playing with the different classes (and professions) across the different server types. My level 40 is on a PvE server and now I'm working on other characters on a PvP server.
There are days where I don't feel like questing, or doing PvP, so I'll just idle about and work on professions. If there are people asking questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Also, as sad as this is, I love fishing in WoW. It's a great time killer and strangely fun, for me anyway.
Because society has turned into a gigantic media whore. We're so engrossed in forms of entertainment, moreso than we've ever been before at least. The corporations don't help this, of course. They're out to make enormous amounts of money off our willingness to believe we need their products for a better life.
It all seems to boil down to getting people to stay pacified by moving picture boxes so we don't care about anything else. We may call this an addiction, but I'm sure from someone's eyes, it's plan gone far better than they thought possible. Call me paranoid, but I try to distance myself from anything TV / Radio related, not only because 99% of it is trash, but because I feel it just doesn't contribute anything healthy to one's life.
Obviously this isn't just related to games. It's all forms of media, really. I'm not saying it's all evil and bad, but people should step back and really analyze how they're living in the midst of it all. We used to own devices, the games, the tv programs, etc. Now, it seems, that they own us. That doesn't sound like such a good place to be.
From the article: Concerned parents argue that our society has become increasingly tolerant of pornography and socially questionable material, and many of them blame the Internet for the degradation of traditional American values.
As an American, may I ask what's wrong with tolerance of people being naked and having consensual sex? What is the PROBLEM with this material? What are "traditional American values"? Do they mean prudish puritanical values? I wouldn't consider those to be American values. I would argue that having the right to express ourselves in any way we see fit (as long as it isn't infringing on their rights, which pornography certainly isn't) is an American value. If I want to watch, direct, or participate in pornography with other adults, I should damn well have the right to do so without some government agency telling me what I'm doing is considered indecent by them. If I want to be tied up, beat on, or whatever by my girlfriend (or her by me) and then post the pictures on the internet, I should be able to. We'll assume that we both consent to the posting. No one's forcing you to look, I'm not shoving these images into your brain!
I'm very sad to see that this is what the US is coming to. Where we have such a fear of sex, nudity, and expression of one's physical form, that we designate our tax dollars and members of a government agency to monitor what they consider decent content.
Aren't there better things to spend this time and money on?
Some people develop a bond with their animals. I'd spend whatever it took to help my cat. I, however, would never spend that type of money for another human being (relatives included). I'm sure some people would think I'm skewed in my perspective, but who are they to judge?
So, just like you'll never understand how I can spend so much on an animal, I'll never understand how you could spend so much on a person, if in fact you would do so.
You're right. I doubt he would have gone for it though. For some people, Macs just aren't the right option. Personally, I won't ever go back to Macs. I do fine on Windows and Linux. My Windows box never gets hit with garbage, it's fast, and it runs everything. Same situation for this guy. He got a sweet new laptop, he's keen on taking care of it, it's fast, and it runs everything. He also doesn't seem like the person to like the UI of the Mac (just my opinion). For some people Macs are a fantastic alternative, for others they're not, for whatever the reasons may be.
This past visit to the guy's house was the first in three years. He listens and learns well when we go over things with him. I doubt we'll have many problems in the near future. His new laptop should treat him pretty good.
I can definitely see where you're coming. I work for a small IT company here, and we charge $90/hour for work. Luckily we have mostly small business clients, so they A) Don't get infected as badly as home users and B) Can't afford to lose all their data on the machines. So, they end up paying for us to fix them. However, we also make it a point to try and teach them what caused the issues, and how to try and prevent it later.
Just last week I set up a new laptop for a home office. I had to move the data from the desktop to the new laptop and then do all of our typical standardizations (clean up XP). Not two days later was he infected with spyware. So, I came out again and did a full removal on the machine. Then spent some time with him. He's now a Firefox convert, as I taught him how to use that (and put in some nice extensions. He loves AdBlock and ForecastFox). He was also shown how to use SpyBot, Microsoft Antispyware, and a few other programs to at least check his PC periodically. A lot of times you can catch the problem early before the machine is totally buried. Doing so makes cleanup much easier and cost efficient.
As has been said so often here, the real problem is educating the end user. We'll keep trying to do our small part.
I've got a decent mid-tower case running right now. Two 80mm fans exhausting air out the rear, and one 80mm fan pushing air into the case from the front. Got 3 drives in it, a moderate GeForce FX card, and an Athlon64 3500+. Damn thing runs at 50C almost consistantly. The PSU also has 2 fans in it, one to lift air out of the case, and the 2nd to push it out the back. I'm not sure what I can do to cool it any more. There is no more room for fans in the case. There are no wires or cables obstructing the airflow, as they're kept quite tidy. I've been fighting trying to figure out a good solution for a bit now. Anyone here have a suggestion?
First and foremost, I have NOT looked in-depth to try and find a book that talks about overcoming typical security issues with database programming. I would like to know if such a book exists. I do small SQL projects on the web, nothing that should draw any attention whatsoever, but they're still exposed on the web.
I would love a book that could explain some of these things (SQL Injection, etc, etc) and, this is key, HOW TO PREVENT IT. It's flat out not good enough to say "That's vulnerable. You should fix it." Ok, great, how? There has got to be someplace to learn to do it properly, and that is what I'm interested in.
We don't just go in and do a job. We make sure that, even if we're called out on something small, we check the server(s), make sure everyone around the office is doing alright, and answer any additional questions people have. Clients just aren't clients to us, we try to make them more like friends. We've had quite a few of them for almost as long as our business. Hell, we'll even go drink a few beers with some of them on occasion.
Good customer service (and satisfaction) is really about showing them that you care and are indeed interested in fixing their problem, preventing problems, and teaching them what they can do to help. It's not enough just to go somewhere, fix whatever's broken, and leave. It's very important to be up front with the client, let them know what's going on and what you're doing to fix it. Then, when it's all said and done, if there's something they can do to help prevent the situation from getting this bad next time, teach them to do it. It could be as easy as checking to make sure your drive mirroring isn't broken.
Communication also plays a very important role, not matter what type of service you do. We do both onsite, and remote (desktop and phone) service. If a client calls, we're sure to respond to/return the call as soon as we can. It sucks waiting on the other end for someone to call you back. We try to do it within 5-10 minutes, if that. If we end up doing a phone support call, we never treat them like their stupid. It isn't their job to know the systems like we know them, so we walk them through and tell them what we want them to click on, look at, or type in. A lot of times this proves as a great learning experience for them, so if the same problem comes up they may not need to call us.
We've run our business this way for seven years now, without one advertisement. All of our business has been word of mouth referrals. I'd say that we've been doing something right all these years.
Personally, I find Alien Loves Predator to be pretty funny most of the time. Even being funny "most of the time" is still good. I can't imagine how hard it would be trying to find comic filler for every day of the year. Some people do a fantastic job, and even if you only get a laugh from the material once in a while, it's still making you feel good. I hope these guys succeed at this.
I would say that the original DOOM would have to define FPS for me. I remember, and also played, Wolfenstein 3D, but seeing the levels in DOOM with the graphics and new weaponry was just fantastic. Even today, DOOM is still mentioned as one of the pioneering, and defining, games of the genre. The DOOM pack (DOOM, DOOM 2, and Ultimate DOOM) makes for quite a nice weekend every once in a while.
For people who live in Colorado, this page lists "Who can require my social security number" There are a few more institutions than the parent mentioned, but really not all that many.
Bit off topic, but I wouldn't say professional shoplifters use this technique. It's more of something an amateur would do, that they probably saw on TV or read on the internet. The professionals are the ones who get the managers to walk out with it and help them to their cars;).
This doesn't seem like a very constructive solution. Hiking up bandwidth costs of spammers will certainly not solve any portion of the problem, as we've seen how much these people rake in. Not to mention the questionable ethics in a process like this. Lycos would be better off trying to work with other companies to try and somehow blacklist or filter all this garbage traffic instead of adding to it. As it stands, this is just some pathetic pissing match. Nice going, Lycos.
Well, if the increase is so much after so little time, these sites must be successful. My father almost got taken by one before, but luckily the credit card company called him to verify the charge. The way I see it, the only way to curb the problem of these sites is to educate as many people as possible in what to look for and just how to be a little more paranoid. Trying to defeat the people making them seems like a definate waste of time, and no matter what kind of verification process companies come up with, user (stupidity | ignorance) will surely foil it. Perhaps we should fashion a few tin-foil hats this christmas;)
Slashdot Mirror
I believe Penny Arcade has a pretty good stance on spoilers.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/5/
Just to back you up on one point. I currently have my 360 hooked up to an older tube TV. Yes, really. The text in Dragon Age is so unbearable that I've made the jump and bought a new LCD HDTV.
Funny you mention this. I've been debating creating a site like this for a personal project. Like a general match-making system for any type of game or games. I question how well it would actually work, but it's interesting that someone else has had the same idea.
We have at least two dozen of the lower end (50, 60) Fortigates deployed to a majority of our clients. We love them! Support from Fortinet is top notch (if you're paying for the 8x5 or 24x7). We've had to replace a few units, but some of our clients are in, shall we say, less-than-ideal environments. Though, in those cases we get very prompt service, usually overnight of a new unit to put back into place.
The configuration can be done via web, or command prompt which is nice, and of course fully remote admin capable. We also use them to create secure VPN tunnels between the units themselves to tie networks together that are in multiple states. They work very well for that.
If you pay for the catagory filtering, they offer a very comprehensive database of catagorized websites for you to allow/deny to the network. The products themselves are able to log almost any activity across the network, though they get you here because to retain and properly analyze the logs you need to purchase another piece of hardware. Still, the logging is quite nice.
If you have a smaller business, like you say, perhaps going with the Fortigate 60 might be a good choice. $650 for the unit, and about $200 for the "Pro Protect" service, if I recall properly.
I hope this helps. I don't work for Fortinet, and I'm not affiliated with them. We've been using their product almost since inception and they've come quite a ways. We've loved them from the get go.
It's about time they decided to upgrade to a live patching system. As another poster mentioned, the need for hours of patch time every week seems questionable. It seems they've taken a page from Guild Wars, whose live update system is one of the nicest features of the game (imo). There are no maintenance days, and rarely is there any downtime. The patches are downloaded live by the client and installed on the fly, which is the way it should be. We'll see if the new Blizzard devs can get it right or if it will be a disaster.
Here's the information for Andrea. At the time of posting this, her voicemail box is already full.
Andrea: 1-888-581-1070 (Ext. 2234)
So I'm more likely to get more political phone calls if I vote? Well jeez, that's a really great incentive to vote isn't it? Do my civic duty and then get bothered more and more the coming years. With a country with as low of a voter turnout as ours (America), one would think that bothing those who DO vote is not a good plan.
I started playing WoW in January. I was playing Guild Wars prior to that, but they botched it with Factions, though, that's a totally different topic. My girlfriend (yes, really) play(s|ed) WoW, so she ultimately got me started. She lives 700 miles away from me, so we use it as time together when we can't be together physically. That's the main reason I play.
I don't rush through anything either. I'm not in a hurry to get awesome gear, high honor rankings, epic mounts, or any of that other stuff. Hell, my highest level character in 9 months is only level 40. I like playing with the different classes (and professions) across the different server types. My level 40 is on a PvE server and now I'm working on other characters on a PvP server.
There are days where I don't feel like questing, or doing PvP, so I'll just idle about and work on professions. If there are people asking questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Also, as sad as this is, I love fishing in WoW. It's a great time killer and strangely fun, for me anyway.
So there, that's why I play.
Because society has turned into a gigantic media whore. We're so engrossed in forms of entertainment, moreso than we've ever been before at least. The corporations don't help this, of course. They're out to make enormous amounts of money off our willingness to believe we need their products for a better life.
It all seems to boil down to getting people to stay pacified by moving picture boxes so we don't care about anything else. We may call this an addiction, but I'm sure from someone's eyes, it's plan gone far better than they thought possible. Call me paranoid, but I try to distance myself from anything TV / Radio related, not only because 99% of it is trash, but because I feel it just doesn't contribute anything healthy to one's life.
Obviously this isn't just related to games. It's all forms of media, really. I'm not saying it's all evil and bad, but people should step back and really analyze how they're living in the midst of it all. We used to own devices, the games, the tv programs, etc. Now, it seems, that they own us. That doesn't sound like such a good place to be.
Ah yes, the number one rule in any situation, including Zombie Self Defense. Don't Panic. Rule two is, of course, always have your towel!
From the article: Concerned parents argue that our society has become increasingly tolerant of pornography and socially questionable material, and many of them blame the Internet for the degradation of traditional American values.
As an American, may I ask what's wrong with tolerance of people being naked and having consensual sex? What is the PROBLEM with this material? What are "traditional American values"? Do they mean prudish puritanical values? I wouldn't consider those to be American values. I would argue that having the right to express ourselves in any way we see fit (as long as it isn't infringing on their rights, which pornography certainly isn't) is an American value. If I want to watch, direct, or participate in pornography with other adults, I should damn well have the right to do so without some government agency telling me what I'm doing is considered indecent by them. If I want to be tied up, beat on, or whatever by my girlfriend (or her by me) and then post the pictures on the internet, I should be able to. We'll assume that we both consent to the posting. No one's forcing you to look, I'm not shoving these images into your brain!
I'm very sad to see that this is what the US is coming to. Where we have such a fear of sex, nudity, and expression of one's physical form, that we designate our tax dollars and members of a government agency to monitor what they consider decent content.
Aren't there better things to spend this time and money on?
Some people develop a bond with their animals. I'd spend whatever it took to help my cat. I, however, would never spend that type of money for another human being (relatives included). I'm sure some people would think I'm skewed in my perspective, but who are they to judge?
So, just like you'll never understand how I can spend so much on an animal, I'll never understand how you could spend so much on a person, if in fact you would do so.
Get what's known as a DTN line. No dial tone, but still carries the DSL signal. It will have a phone number, but calling it says it's disconnected.
You're right. I doubt he would have gone for it though. For some people, Macs just aren't the right option. Personally, I won't ever go back to Macs. I do fine on Windows and Linux. My Windows box never gets hit with garbage, it's fast, and it runs everything. Same situation for this guy. He got a sweet new laptop, he's keen on taking care of it, it's fast, and it runs everything. He also doesn't seem like the person to like the UI of the Mac (just my opinion). For some people Macs are a fantastic alternative, for others they're not, for whatever the reasons may be.
This past visit to the guy's house was the first in three years. He listens and learns well when we go over things with him. I doubt we'll have many problems in the near future. His new laptop should treat him pretty good.
I can definitely see where you're coming. I work for a small IT company here, and we charge $90/hour for work. Luckily we have mostly small business clients, so they A) Don't get infected as badly as home users and B) Can't afford to lose all their data on the machines. So, they end up paying for us to fix them. However, we also make it a point to try and teach them what caused the issues, and how to try and prevent it later.
Just last week I set up a new laptop for a home office. I had to move the data from the desktop to the new laptop and then do all of our typical standardizations (clean up XP). Not two days later was he infected with spyware. So, I came out again and did a full removal on the machine. Then spent some time with him. He's now a Firefox convert, as I taught him how to use that (and put in some nice extensions. He loves AdBlock and ForecastFox). He was also shown how to use SpyBot, Microsoft Antispyware, and a few other programs to at least check his PC periodically. A lot of times you can catch the problem early before the machine is totally buried. Doing so makes cleanup much easier and cost efficient.
As has been said so often here, the real problem is educating the end user. We'll keep trying to do our small part.
I've got a decent mid-tower case running right now. Two 80mm fans exhausting air out the rear, and one 80mm fan pushing air into the case from the front. Got 3 drives in it, a moderate GeForce FX card, and an Athlon64 3500+. Damn thing runs at 50C almost consistantly. The PSU also has 2 fans in it, one to lift air out of the case, and the 2nd to push it out the back. I'm not sure what I can do to cool it any more. There is no more room for fans in the case. There are no wires or cables obstructing the airflow, as they're kept quite tidy. I've been fighting trying to figure out a good solution for a bit now. Anyone here have a suggestion?
First and foremost, I have NOT looked in-depth to try and find a book that talks about overcoming typical security issues with database programming. I would like to know if such a book exists. I do small SQL projects on the web, nothing that should draw any attention whatsoever, but they're still exposed on the web.
I would love a book that could explain some of these things (SQL Injection, etc, etc) and, this is key, HOW TO PREVENT IT. It's flat out not good enough to say "That's vulnerable. You should fix it." Ok, great, how? There has got to be someplace to learn to do it properly, and that is what I'm interested in.
We don't just go in and do a job. We make sure that, even if we're called out on something small, we check the server(s), make sure everyone around the office is doing alright, and answer any additional questions people have. Clients just aren't clients to us, we try to make them more like friends. We've had quite a few of them for almost as long as our business. Hell, we'll even go drink a few beers with some of them on occasion.
Good customer service (and satisfaction) is really about showing them that you care and are indeed interested in fixing their problem, preventing problems, and teaching them what they can do to help. It's not enough just to go somewhere, fix whatever's broken, and leave. It's very important to be up front with the client, let them know what's going on and what you're doing to fix it. Then, when it's all said and done, if there's something they can do to help prevent the situation from getting this bad next time, teach them to do it. It could be as easy as checking to make sure your drive mirroring isn't broken.
Communication also plays a very important role, not matter what type of service you do. We do both onsite, and remote (desktop and phone) service. If a client calls, we're sure to respond to/return the call as soon as we can. It sucks waiting on the other end for someone to call you back. We try to do it within 5-10 minutes, if that. If we end up doing a phone support call, we never treat them like their stupid. It isn't their job to know the systems like we know them, so we walk them through and tell them what we want them to click on, look at, or type in. A lot of times this proves as a great learning experience for them, so if the same problem comes up they may not need to call us.
We've run our business this way for seven years now, without one advertisement. All of our business has been word of mouth referrals. I'd say that we've been doing something right all these years.
Personally, I find Alien Loves Predator to be pretty funny most of the time. Even being funny "most of the time" is still good. I can't imagine how hard it would be trying to find comic filler for every day of the year. Some people do a fantastic job, and even if you only get a laugh from the material once in a while, it's still making you feel good. I hope these guys succeed at this.
I would say that the original DOOM would have to define FPS for me. I remember, and also played, Wolfenstein 3D, but seeing the levels in DOOM with the graphics and new weaponry was just fantastic. Even today, DOOM is still mentioned as one of the pioneering, and defining, games of the genre. The DOOM pack (DOOM, DOOM 2, and Ultimate DOOM) makes for quite a nice weekend every once in a while.
Just did some quick googling...
For people who live in Colorado, this page lists "Who can require my social security number"
There are a few more institutions than the parent mentioned, but really not all that many.
http://www.ago.state.co.us/idtheft/ssn.htm
Bit off topic, but I wouldn't say professional shoplifters use this technique. It's more of something an amateur would do, that they probably saw on TV or read on the internet. The professionals are the ones who get the managers to walk out with it and help them to their cars ;).
Hah, if this isn't sweet sweet irony I don't know what is. One could wonder if they are laughing at this too, or doing it just for spite.
This doesn't seem like a very constructive solution. Hiking up bandwidth costs of spammers will certainly not solve any portion of the problem, as we've seen how much these people rake in. Not to mention the questionable ethics in a process like this. Lycos would be better off trying to work with other companies to try and somehow blacklist or filter all this garbage traffic instead of adding to it. As it stands, this is just some pathetic pissing match. Nice going, Lycos.
Well, if the increase is so much after so little time, these sites must be successful. My father almost got taken by one before, but luckily the credit card company called him to verify the charge. The way I see it, the only way to curb the problem of these sites is to educate as many people as possible in what to look for and just how to be a little more paranoid. Trying to defeat the people making them seems like a definate waste of time, and no matter what kind of verification process companies come up with, user (stupidity | ignorance) will surely foil it. Perhaps we should fashion a few tin-foil hats this christmas ;)