I have not laughed that hard in a while, thanks for the stories....so many memories.
I for one have no doubt about that story, having worked in a major telecom and have seen my share of weirdness.
Obviously the last guy was the MASTER, the guy who just knows stuff. As he cut it, removed it after giving it some thought and then rebooted the PC. He did not bother debating what happened, just knew logically what should...cut the thing out and rebooted the PC, which continued to run fine....lol...great story thanks for posting.
I would love a picture of that switch, even if it is just a light switch, even better would be a picture of the thing still wired to the PC, before the Expert cut the wire.
A MASTER or Expert if you will, when asked a question, only stops to think about the answer when considering one of the many options, parameters to go with their answer...
While I am advanced with many, different things, I am a true Master of NONE. Just advanced...but no Expert. I have worked and been in awe of quite of few, but while I worked in 10 different job titles, my choice, they typically performed and mastered that one area in technology, thus they are a true Expert or Master if you will.
Any company that is lucky enough to have one, will not hesitate to pay them the six figure salary they have earned and are very much worth!
Now I found from long ago the concept of PC BIOS annoying. The BIOS vendors, like Phoenix, American Magatrends, Award, have a lot of collusions with the motherboard vendors in terms of getting all the secret register-poking needed to get things going. There is a lot of black magic, legacy code and the like, but it works.
They definitely collude that is very much true. And the reason we need Coreboot ! I do NOT agree with your comment and suggestion of mystery, darkness, black magic as this comes across to me as FUD! Perhaps making it seem hard, difficult or almost impossible so that the average person might be relunctant to improve their lives and move to an open source solution such as Coreboot!
While the Coreboot open source group is publicly stating that it is NOT ready for prime time yet, there are already numerous (read hundreds of...) motherboards and devicessupported. So many in fact that you can, today, check their supported list and if the mother board, adapter card or other device is NOT listed as supported, you can avoid allot of hassles. Just buy ONLY Coreboot supported hardware, you will thank me and yourself in the mirror later.
It will be very hard for a non-Pheonx-AMI-Intel vendor to come up with a new BIOS for the ages. The LinuxBIOS (coreboot) project, last I checked, and very poor support and no major vendor (e.g. Dell or HP) has looked into it seriously.
I disagree completely. I would not be surprised to learn that there are developers from some of the major motherboard hardware companies working with the Coreboot group officially or unofficially. This is very common with open source projects that are overcoming the collusion you mentioned above and overcoming the vendor lock-in that ONLY hurts us all and stifles innovation. They can make it harder to innovate, but thanks to open source it is NO LONGER POSSIBLE for anyone to make it impossible. In fact it gets easier and easier every year, every month and every day. Today if you want to avoid proprietary hardware and software you can do it in every vertical market. And today there are so few compromises. The only exception I can think of is one or two Microsoft specific games...hardly surprising there, right.
Additional, if no major vendor is in there fouling up the Coreboot code and group, than I would see that as a HUGE PLUS and not a bad thing at all. It is more likely that some of the coders and engineers have the blessing of their hardware and software company to support Coreboot. These companies are smart and they understand that developing additional markets for their hardware products, especially in this economy, is just plain SMART!
After all I remember reading about a gamer that was frustrated that his fans were not turning off and on correctly, thus his machine was overheating and the operating system shutting down. Through reverse engineering, he discovered that for his operating system (non Microsoft) the fans were not being turned on and off correctly. (Whether this was due to collusion, who knows, it could as easily just been poor testing on the part of the BIOS and hardware motherboard companies who history shows have a pro Microsoft
W95.CIH [symantec.com]? Back in the Windows 95 days, this mean son of a bitch could nuke your BIOS from orbit. And we're talking over a decade ago.
Thanks for posting the link, I had forgotten that one of the payloads hit the BIOS as well..
The second payload tries to cause permanent damage to the computer. This payload attacks the Flash BIOS (a part of your computer that initializes and manages the relationships and data flow between the system devices, including the hard drive, serial and parallel ports, and the keyboard) and tries to corrupt the data stored there. As a result, nothing may be displayed when you start the computer. A computer technician would need to fix this
I had mistakenly remembered and thought that the damage was limited to a memory resident payload and a payload that corrupted the Master Boot Record (MBR), which are both after the BIOS in the boot process for a PC. Aww the memories....
I thought this part of the Official information is telling...meaning no matter what solution you use, suggest and / or invest in, nothing will protect a user that does not want to think, does not want to learn, just wants it to work and thinks that it should work without them having to think....
Train employees not to open attachments unless they are expecting them. Also, do not execute software that is downloaded from the Internet unless it has been scanned for viruses. Simply visiting a compromised Web site can cause infection if certain browser vulnerabilities are not patched
I would add in train users to look at ALL updates before blindly auto installing anything, as no one can 100% guarantee that a cracker will not be able to add an obfuscated payload to either an application and/or security update.
I will accept that it would be unlikely, however it is unacceptable for anyone to state in fact that it CAN NOT happen. As that is anything but FACTUAL. It is FUD.
As history has shown us with all operating systems, attempts have been made, though usually they have been discovered before release and prevented. I say usually because I am sure there are a few examples where something has slipped through (an educated guess and playing long odds), I just do NOT have the URLs available as proof. I do know that there have been multiple slashdot articles on payloads that were introduced and made it into the wild and bricked computers of users. So far I believe most have been discovered prior to release into the updates and patches.
There have been numerous slashdot posts on updates and releases from a software or hardware vendor that, while not intended as a virus, due to the company s desire and goal of vendor lock-in, bricked the computers. I know this has happened in the Apple world and in the Microsoft world, and figure that odds are it has happened in the Linux and Unix worlds as well...though admittedly with the open source versions of Linux and Unix a user would have a chance to examine the code, figure out what is going on and develop a solution to the problem. Something a proprietary software / hardware vendor will never allow due to their vendor lock in objectives and goals.
Who wants to wait until 2014 to have speeds slower than what our Telecoms should have been providing by the year 2000?
As of these years: these speeds should have been available as others in the world were offering them; thanks to government intervention that is to break the Telcom Monopoly / Oligopoly practices:
2000: 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps ($55.00 per month)
2008: 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps (less than $55.00 per month)
if you did not already know this, you are not alone, now please tell everyone that you know about it so they will stop accepting the industry FUD and excuses on the issue.
This is even more insulting once you realize that the American companies have been taking BILLIONS (of tax payer money) since the early 1990s with promises of offering High Speed Internet. Even getting our legislative officials to accept a pathetic excuses, pass laws accepting a very, very low speed definition as acceptable High Speed Internet, its insulting.
Instead of building out their networks with Fiber as they promised, they did what the Financial and Banking industry is doing today, bought up competitors and limited competition while spreading FUD why they could not build out their networks.
LMAO, When they give us true high speed bandwidth / Internet at around $55.00 per month, I will give them a chance.
I am so sick of being behind the Japanese in potential for innovation due to sllllooooooowwwww high speed Internet speeds. They have had 100MB / 100MB since 2000 and are now rolling out 1 GB / 1 Gb for less than $55.00 per month.
How can they offer these speeds you ask?
Because they cut the crap, the government intervened and forced them to de-criminalize their telephone monopoly (as the US should have in 1996 had the Telecom lobbyist not succeeded) and offer their fiber for competition.
Normally I am for less government, not more, however the Telecom, Cable, Cellular, etc... industries have shown their unwillingness to offer reasonable services at reasonable and affordable prices, considering their monopoly for sooooooo long, the only solution is Government intervention.
Worse than that, they have taken our tax dollars, government subsidies and gotten additional fees approved by our elected officials stating that one of the primary reasons is to deliver High Speed Internet. These promises, since the 1990s have not been fulfilled...to heck with them. Get in there government and force the issue.
No more BS excuses....
Had they invested in fiber back in the 1990s as they should have, we would all have somewhere between 100Mbps / 100Mpbs and 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps already. In fact we would have had those speeds as early as 2000.
Yet another decade is about to go by without fulfillment of the promises they made and took money for...enough already.....
I hope someone from the Democratic party reads this and forwards the many posts here on slashdot about the lack of High Speed Internet, the lies we have all been told for multiple decades (and that we are still told) even when evidence exists to disprove their FUD.
Nothing short of government intervention will open up the Internet for innovative Americans, creating jobs, creating opportunity and insuring net neutrality.
The definition of high speed Internet circa 2000 IS 100Mbps / 100 Mbps (anything less is FUD); the definition of high speed Internet circa 2008 is 1 Gpbs / 1 Gpbs (anything less is FUD). Anything less should be considered CRIMINAL. And since others can offer these speeds for under $55 per month and make millions, billions in profit; American corporations have NO EXCUSES.
Eventually a competitor will offer Americans true High Speed Internet, when that day comes I hope every American votes with the feet, dollars and churn and NEVER GO BACK TO the American companies that have cheated, stolen, and spread FUD since before 1996 on this issue.
FIOS IS NOT THE ANSWER. What is its max speed, like 10 Mbps or 20 Mbps and that is ONLY down not up....enough FUD.
FIOS will be considered High Speed Internet when it offers 100MB / 100MB for less than $55.00 per month. That is the circa 2000 benchmark for success...FIOS is already 9 more years behind....
Please stop spreading the telcom FUD! Anyone with half a brain is no longer accepting or buying this FUD!
... and 99$ for applying to the app store as a developer....
I always find it interesting that people will spend hundreds, even thousands for the device, but insist on the apps being no more than.99 cents, because obviously $5.00 is just too expensive. That is funny and sad. If you truly have a superior product, market and advertise it as such and you will be surprised at what you can sell it for, perhaps $9.99, lol, ($50 would be better for something truly superior) just make sure the reality lives up to the marketing hype if you want your company to have a future in the marketplace.
In addition to them taking 30% of each sale, what a non surprise. At.99 per copy you would need to sell how many copies just to recover the $99.00 application fee,
.99 -.29 =.70; (app store taking 30% of each sale)
$99 /.70 = 142 copies to recover the $99 app store fee.
I would rather go out on my own, put up a website and advertise my product for sale....
Oh thats right, Apple will not let you do that will they. Guess that is the price you pay.
I had a problem with paying royalties to a larger company to develop software for their platform. If you were lucky to become remotely successful, they simply come out with their own product to replace yours effectively putting you out of business. And they do NOT have to innovate, just steal your idea, admittedly changing a couple of things so that they can call it their own original work...
The very thing that made the PC platform so successful was that it was open and anyone with a little knowledge could develop products for it. Not so with closed source or proprietary platforms. You think they would learn, but they do not, just look at all the cellular companies still locking down their proprietary hand held platforms...pathetic. Fortunately for those willing to raise their heads up and look around there are plenty of options, here is one.
With Apple, you had no choice but to pay whatever Royalty they required in order to release a product for their platform. Of course that is after purchasing development tools from them in order to develop for their platform.
Way back in the day with the first Apple computer I decided that I did NOT want to go down that road. Loved the computers, but would not consider developing for them. Even if you can muster the fees for the tools and the Royalties, you still have to get your product to market and that can be tough as some friends of mine found out when they created a MacIntosh Works package, back in the day...best of breed with 9 full blown modules (no limitations like you find in Microsoft Works, that require you to pay another fee to upgrade your Spreadsheet and another fee to upgrade your Wordprocessor, and another fee for PowerPoint,(granted those are all in Office today, but not back in the day) etc...; 9 full blown modules: WordProcessor, Spreadsheet, Graphics, Draw, Modem connection; Slideshow; Database; and two others that escape me at the moment. But try to get the distributor to ignore pressure from Microsoft and carry your product when over 40% of their profit is from Microsoft. Yea, good luck with that. The developers of Great Works simply did not have the cash to push it to market around the already established distribution channels who were unwilling to carry them for fear of offending the 800 lb gorilla; thus they sold out to a bigger company. Granted they sold for multi-millions, but would have made so much more if they would have been able to get their product to the market where it was very much in demand based on the buzz in all the Mac publications.
So many companies develop something that is truly revolutionary and unique, however fail miserably in their
Also remember that you can use the foldable Blue Tooth keyboard with the Nokias (I know you can with the N800 and assume that you can with the N810).
Do not forget about the FM chip in the N800, that plus it was more than $200 cheaper than the N810 were the deciding factors for me.
Having two memory slots is great, right now I have two 4 GB Micro SD-in Adapter cards, plan to put in two 16 GB SD-in Adapter cards for a total of 32 GB of storage in my Linux PIM.
While a little off topic, when traveling, I take the Most important about handhelds to me is WiFi access being MORE important then Cellular. With WiFi, I have no additional monthly charges when using VoIP. If I am not online, people can leave a telephone message for me. TCO for 1 year with Skype VoIP is only $100. A heck of allot better than the most reasonable Cellular plan.
With my savings each year I can buy another handheld or netbook running Linux if I want, thus no forced obsolescence by anyone.
The million dollar question, If I do NOT use Internet Explorer and I do NOT use Adobe Reader (or any software product that uses Adobes PDF implementation, thus allowing the problems to occur), will I still have this problem or not? (Perhaps someone could post the link to an example corrupted file on one of the security websites so that we can test it with the browser we use)
If you are a web developer, make an alternative PDF formatted file available, if that even makes sense to do. Can you implement the PDF standard without implementing this feature that Adobe has added and Internet Explorer will NOT let you prevent?
For the open source developers who are developing PDF solutions, this might be a feature best NOT to implement, what do you think? As any software that implements this feature (which is really NOT necessary) is inferior by design.
Personally I would prefer that no solution that introduces proprietary bloat (whether registry BS, additional memory, additional resource usage on your system, active-anything that-I-can-not-turn-off, etc...) as most likely an open source alternative exists. And if it does not exist, creating an open source alternative that uses less memory, less system resources would be superior anyway.
...Open source implementations also got it wrong, it isn't just Adobe. See for example problems in poppler here [vupen.com]....
Good post. I am assuming that your research is true as that is not the reason I am posting, rather I had another thought.
How open source developers often choose to implement open source applications, widgets, plug-ins, etc....
Too often they choose to implement a new feature in the way that Windows does it...huge mistake. Why adopt an inferior implementation from an inferior product that runs on an inferior platform on an inferior operating system that bloats out your system, denies you the ability to control JACK on your system and results in this kind of activity happening to you. All could be avoided by not using the junk and adopting a superior open source solution.
Assuming your assumption is correct, I am not going to bother to check as my point goes to other open source apps and NOT just popular. Anyway, could this problem with poppler specifically, be because they are attempting to implement a feature in an open source application / widget / plug-in etc... that works LIKE WINDOWS works?
While it is nice to be able to do some things in Linux with Windows applications (nod to NdisWrapper and Wine as two that come readily to mind); Why bog down a superior operating system that runs faster, more efficiently with less memory and fewer system resources by forking into it Windows (or other proprietary vendor: ie. Oracle, Adobe, Nvidia) bloat.
Why not force the vendors to give you their product in a format that works out of the box with Linux, Mac OS and Unix. And if they refuse, fine, do NOT buy their products.
I do NOT want to work like Windows....geez. I want control, freedom and net neutrality.
About freedom, if your choice of freedom denies anyone else their freedom, you are wrong, stop it, wake up! Stop the FUD, FUD denies freedom!
Just find an open source only solution to the problem (Linux is my choice, yours may vary); thus the problems (too many to list) with Windows (in the case of this article, Internet Explorer NOT letting you control settings on what the browser does and does NOT do with the.PDF file) are minimized and most likely eliminated.
Either you are in control of your IT environment or YOU ARE NOT. To be FREE (some might say to be American, i.e. FREE as in Freedom that many have fought and died for...; you MUST be able to control your computer (PC, Cell Phone, Hand Held, net book, etc...), your Browser, your Router/Firewall, your Bandwidth (no throttling), all of it.) you must have CONTROL. You MUST have NET NEUTRALITY. You must have at least three or more choices, if you have less than three choices, you do NOT have a choice (nod to our pathetic two party political system here in the US, where neither party resembles what they use to represent, what they use to be, but people continue to ac
Personally I would not use any proprietary formatted content on any website I develop as I want my content to be available to everyone, regardless of which operating system, browser or other software package that they use.
For the record, I prefer Linux to Microsoft, my choice.
With that said, here are a list of issues and/or problems with Silverlight that I copied down from another website, I thought some might find it informative.
Personally I want a FREE and open source H.264 codec. Not only is the quality superior, you can actually compress content down to lesser resolutions that Microsoft Media Player uses (and other proprietary vendors are using right now).
Here are a list of problems, in no particular order, with Silverlight from either this site or this site or a link from one of those two sites...I did not document the exact link that day, sorry. I basically went through the comments or posts (about a month ago I believe, which is why I do not remember the exact website) and jotted down what people, who mostly like Silverlight, stated were problems they would like to see fixed in the next update. I remember believing at the time that I was on a Microsoft website or at least a person who preferred Silverlight to other solutions. Therefore I figured the gripes were from people hoping to influence the next release of Silverlight to be valid. Granted it would not surprise if one or two of them were wrong for reasons I would NOT know.
For me not having H.264 support is enough to NOT use Silverlight. And I am smart enough to know that when they implement a H.264 codec in Silverlight, they will use a proprietary H.264 CODEC rather than many of the open source and FREE H.264 CODECS. And we all know why. For this reason alone, if you are a web developer or have decision making power within your web development organization you should recommend an open source or FREE CODEC as choice NUMBER 1 and if desired a proprietary CODEC as number 2 for Microsoft, Adobe (80% of the FLASH market) and/or Apple. Is there anyone else, operating system wise that I am missing? My point is, if you use the FREE CODEC, (that all the Linux distros support, (top ten distros)), than everyone even the Microsoft and Apple operating system users will have access to your content. Thus you have net neutrality, should the proprietary player NOT be able to play the FREE video and/or audio CODEC; the user can download a plugin, web widget or software package that will play them...and they do NOT have to switch operating systems to get this functionality, they just need a better player than the one provided by the proprietary company. The reverse can NOT be said to be true can it, if the proprietary CODEC will NOT work with the FREE player, the proprietary company will NOT provide a way to play the content, except with their player. . That alone is enough of a reason NOT to use proprietary players. The fact that the FREE players use SUPERIOR Video and Audio CODECs is icing on your cake! While the new Windows Media player will play H.264, go back and verify the resolution and frame rate that it will play it at. A bit lower then the alternative FREE codecs...no surprise to me there. Consider that before Windows Media Player 8, they would tell people to take the VC-I codec and increase the frame rate by a minor amount in a lame attempt at generating what they called, laughingly,
I would not recommend the host that I left last year either. And I too agree that this is NOT the forum for mentioning specific companies by name. If people know what to search for online, they will discover the poor hosts easily enough.
Remember that the size of the company does not automatically guarantee you anything positive or negative. Do your homework and research.
With that said, I am glad you mentioned this, selecting the right web hosting company is absolutely critical. Here are a few things to WATCH OUT FOR if you plan buying a domain name and putting up a website.
Control your DOMAIN NAME: Your domain name is your LIFE online, research any potential hosting company and verify that they have NOT held someone else HOSTAGE by refusing to release the DOMAIN NAME for any reason. If they have EVER held anyone hostage, do not use them. I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough as people have literally been put out of business with this fact alone. And if you spend months or years building up a business, well its hard enough to do it, to have it stolen from you is just wrong and to be avoided at all costs.
Does your hosting company protect you or themselves? Will they protect you and your identity? When you have your own name servers, you MUST list a contact person. Some hosting companies will keep this information secret for you. So that you only need to keep in contact with them and NO ONE ELSE. With privacy being critical online and scammers, phishers and crackers looking for information they can use to steal from people be careful who is listed.
Creditors/Collection Companies, your Privacy and Social Engineering: Is your credit okay? If NOT, bear in mind that collection / credit companies will use your online information to further harass you. Does anyone doubt the incentive of credit reporting and financial entities to ding your credit at every turn as it earns them higher fees via higher interest rates? Once you have your own Domain Name and/or Name Servers you will have to be available to your hosting company, they will need to be able to contact you. This is fine and to be expected. What is NOT fine, is to have your information publicly released on a whim. There are many fake things that you can be accused of by collection companies in a social engineering (here are eight common tactics) attempt at getting your contact information? (Hopefully no one reading this doubts the zeal with which a collection company will harass a person, nor should anyone reading this doubt that you can be put into collections through fraud, identity theft, etc... and it can takes months or even years to fix your credit and your reputation. One of my friends that experienced identity theft, said it took him two years to get everything removed from his credit reports (none of it legitimate), all the while he, his family and his friends were harassed via cell phone and email. He estimated that he spent over $2,000 of his own money to fix his credit and believes he got off cheap - sad we have come to this.) Most hosting companies will protect your contact information for an additional fee ($4.95 or less is typical) per month, by making it private.. Will the hosting company pr
8+ - Ethernet ports for multi wan (load balancing and fail over)
8+ - port USB so I can attach everything
Different size distribution so we can choose what to install and a nice auto-update to support all the devices.
Good idea and I agree with you!
For those who are not aware, you can get this very cheaply with DD-WRT + multiple router / firewalls or a router/firewall + network hubs.
Just combine a typical 4 port firewall/router that supports and will run DD-WRT, use VLANS and either a second router or a Gigabyte hub...thus port 2 + VLAN1 could be one 8 port gigabyte hub; port 3 + VLAN2 + second 8 port gigabyte hub; assign port 4 + 3rd 8 port gigabyte hub + VLANs. Since VLANs normally start at zero VLAN0, assign that port to a computer and or segregated network for monitoring of the hub and put all your WiFi traffic on this port to the Internet service provider. Thus you segregate your local area network from the WiFi part, thus you can have your port free and open, even charge if you want and make some money, although most just leave it open. And no you do NOT advertise this fact to your ISP.
VLAN0 - All Wifi + Internet (throttled by you as you see fit, so that your usage always gets priority over any other user that does not live in your household) + Quality of Service (QoS) + separate LAN address and PC to monitor everything, pushing this traffic off the LAN and if setup correctly can monitor for Trojan horses installed thanks to buggy browsers, applications and operating systems from proprietary vendors.
VLAN1 - 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (with priority given to this LAN segment over VLAN0, QoS so that your VoIP gets priority over anything else...thus your phone calls are always clear without interruption
VLAN2 - second 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (also priority over VLAN0
VLAN3 - third 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (priority over VLAN0
With that setup you would have 25 ports through that one 4 port hub....doubt you would need that many. The best thing is that you can offer FREE WiFi and prevent users of this FREE WiFi from seeing the rest of your Local Area Network by segmenting the VLANS.
By segregating your Local Area Network, you can offer FREE WiFi without concerns from crackers, phishers and scammers. By definition, hackers will DO NO HARM.
Encourage everyone to open up their WiFi and stop the FUD by those that ONLY want to offer us less than what we already pay for....
The telcos have accepted billions of our tax dollars to build out fiber to our homes, but give us excuses instead. Many other countries have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps since 2000. Japan is starting to implement 1 Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $55 per month NOW. How much are you paying for less than 2 Mbps? Even FIOS will NOT give us more than 45 Mbps and its 2009, is that really a solution?
While the typical router and firewall routers do not have more than 4 ports, you can use VLANs to separate out those four ports. Considering that the lowest priced DD-WRT router is around $35 - $65; you could just extend from 4 to more by chaining + VLAN with additional Router / Firewalls instead of network hubs.
IMPORTANT NOTE about LINKSYS routers: The new ones coming on the shelves since December 2008 DO NOT allow you to use the DD-WRT software. Make sure you ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router!
I'm not convinced that allowing JavaScript is a bad thing, if it enriches the experience. It needs to be sandboxed by the PDF Reader, as occurs in the web browser. Now in this case the reader was at fault, so they need to revisit their security model.
Its true that using JavaScript securely to enhance the user experience can be a plus. The problem comes with different coders definition of secure. Not to mention having additional security holes thrust upon you by an automatic updates that you have no control over.
Often times a simple solution, that might not be as elegant, will accomplish the objective fine without opening up additional security holes. Especially when the security holes only exist with JavaScript, (in or out of Adobe Reader PDF files) or Active X. or so many others for that matter.
Sandboxing will be great when it arrives, however at this time I believe only the Chrome browser is implementing this. Both I.E. and Firefox have talked about it and I am honestly unsure of Opera, Safari and Konqueror. And that is only a very small fraction of the browsers that are available to us to use to surf the Internet. Thank goodness there are many, many browser options available so that when one browser platform attempts to thrust JavaScript, Java, Active X or some other buggy layer on us we will have plenty of options to switch too. (Implement if you will, but give individual users the ability to TURN IT OFF for their user. If I can NOT turn it off, I will simply stop using it, as I have with any applications and desktop platforms.)
To be secure each user MUST have 100% control over their desktop and all the applications running on it.
While I.E. might have advertised that it is going to implement sandboxing, they are too far behind the standards curve to take seriously, perhaps in three or four years of good behavior they might regain enough TRUST to try again. Besides that based on their actions over the last decade and a half, any solution coming out of Redmond is suspect as having ulterior motives. For instance are they honestly interested in protecting the user or are they more interested in how they can manipulate the sandbag and/or plugin, spreading FUD, and implying the problem is with another software package, operating system or other vendor's hardware instead. This is their history and current track record.
Until we can sandbox them effectively, it might be a wise decision NOT to use them. It has the added advantage of avoiding allot of incompatibility issues by keeping it simple and not using them.
Any sandboxing that protects us, our privacy, while maintaining net neutrality and helping to protect us without censoring us is a huge plus.
Here is my point: Make a workaround, "pre-patch", or apology available as quickly as possible so that _I_ can make the decision about the risk. We will test your patch in our environment, determine the best course of action for our company, and keep paying you for your product. If I don't test it in my environment and it hobbles my 8,000 machines, then it's my own damn fault for deploying it.
Where are the moderator points when you need them. Great post and you should be modded up!
Too many system administrators just accept as gospel that this patch today and that patch yesterday and the patch tomorrow will not cause problems and blindly accept them. No wonder the company will never give them time to test the patches, updates, etc... for potential problems in their specific IT environment and infrastructure. Especially when a company throws out crap to make money and continually patches it; instead of getting it right to begin with.
A good Systems Administrator checks the patch for problems on a system prior to rolling it out to the rest of the company. Of course watching for rootkits, viruses, injection schemes, etc...
A great Systems Administrator subnets the test environment, isolates it from the corporate intranet and monitors the packets to/from this test environment looking for more than just Trojan horses.
Guess which one of those has the experience, authority and respect of their supervisor to push back and state No we will not just randomly roll out updates as they come to us from company X and assume that they work without problems. Yes we will take time to test the update or patch before rolling it out.
Guess which one makes over 6 figures per year and which one is paid less than $50,000 per year.
Most of the others are somewhere in between $50K and 100K working for companies that know that they need System Admins, but not really giving them the time and/or the authority to do things right.
Just take a look at the typical duties of a System Administrator. Most Systems Administrator do NOT have enough time to do all those tasks as carefully as they need to be performed in order to secure the companies network and servers.
Other alternatives:
Document Viewer 2.24.1; granted its a GNOME specific version, however I have loaded it on a KDE desktop. Nice that KDE and GNOME can pretty much run the same applications. While I do NOT have a preference, it is interesting to note that KDE works with over 60 languages and can be run in any of the following operating systems: Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X. (This is at least superior to MS Windows, try to run it in Linux, Unix or Solaris, much less Mac OS X; not that you would want to do that.)
Alternatives to Adobe Reader, many superior without the JavaScript problems. Many will even work in cough, cough Microsoft Windows.
If you only edit it once a year, that is a lot of money to be paying Adobe just to use their software a single time annually.
Word and/or Office cost allot of money to do something once per year. Geez.
Create a form, validate input, and let users use their current login via their internal intranet and you do NOT need to pay anything beyond one person's time to create one form. Data output, if using open source, can be any format your company needs, even Microsoft Word format...not that I would recommend that.
When did paying in excess of $400 per desktop for a software package that is ONLY used once per year become a good idea? (Okay its cheaper if you update, now multiply that by the number of desktops / licenses you have to buy and we can talk...)
So that is what they are calling it these days....lol, I know that was a bit tongue in cheek. Its just that when I read this I remembered all too well how Sprint made a business decision to remove a span of IP addresses from being reached by any sprint users of their DNS service. Effectively censoring any and all users of Sprint DNS.
I do not have the article handy, perhaps someone could post a couple of links to the news stories where Sprint was blocking IP address ranges. While I do NOT remember the year, it was pre 2003, possibly before 2000?
A suggestion to business owners and CEOs at the end of this post:
If this is even half true, then Microsoft just quit the game. For keeps.
Boy so many people are sooooo late to the party. Too many sheeple (link 1 ; link 2) will just roll over and accept it as they have time and time and time again. Microsoft is literally banking on this as they have in the past..
Microsoft did this yesterday; Microsoft did this today; Microsoft will do this tomorrow.
Whether it is true or not, it is the way things are heading. And have been heading for well over a decade. If in fact half of this is true, than it has happened faster than many of us thought it would. Wake up.
The better question to ask, given the unpopularity of Vista; Why is Microsoft so emboldened or threatened such that they would risk this NOW?
They have NOT quit the game, they are playing the same FUD, delay adoptions of alternatives, extend, extinguish, FUD and repeat game they have been playing since before the OS/2 days, since 1985.
I know I was not the only one laughing when I heard that Microsoft was not reducing any of their support fees before the end of 2009, why should they.
Their FUD worked yesterday, their FUD works today and their FUD will work tomorrow, of course it will work now? And it will continue to work until enough people WAKE UP and move away from Microsoft to an alternative. (Ironically this will make Microsoft better for those that refuse to switch in the near term or until they can achieve complete LOCK IN.)
WAKE UP.
Bottom line: Do YOU control your PC or NOT?
The only acceptable answer is 100% control of what is and what is NOT loaded on your machine. Anything less is unacceptable and limits YOU.
Does your motherboard run on a BIOS that is not tweaked in favor of Microsoft? NO...all of us are losing here now. (Microsoft influences this...)
Does your sound and video, on board or on an adapter offer open source drivers that will exploit 100% of its capabilities NOW? NO...all of us are losing here now. Normally vendors that cater to Microsoft will not release drivers to the open source community until years after a product is released to the market. To release drivers right away risks retribution from Microsoft.(Microsoft influences this...)
Does your Operating System allow you to control 100% what is and what is NOT installed on your computer NOW? NO - If Microsoft (since midway through Windows 2000, it is impossible to turn OFF auto updates, worse it lets you click the box and ignores your decision, thus making it impossible to turn off - a violation of Banking Laws BTW.); Yes if Linux; Macintosh - I do not know and would be interested to learn.
No ball dropped, just optimized for your platform. Really now - that 300 MB of RAM apparently sets you back about $6 [pricewatch.com]. Is that exorbitant? Firefox USES that RAM to speed up performance, and this can be fairly easily tweaked [mozillazine.org] if the $6 is more than you can stomach.
Yea, that is what I thought too, got my additional RAM only to discover that the BIOS would not support it. And the BIOS company would not open their source so it could be fixed.
My next computer will have a motherboard that supports open source, period, or I will not buy it. And each and every component that I purchase will offer an open source option or I will NOT purchase it.
I want native open source support, no third party middle ware apps like ndiswrapper, wine, etc....
Hopefully someone will be able to point me to a link with more information on TCO, Total Cost of Ownership on some of these ERP solutions.
Hopefully a link or two will show how much per desktop; how much per server; number of servers per number of transactions and/or number of connected sessions, etc...
Even better would be some case studies that show the
original cost estimates pre ERP solution adoption VS
actual costs to purchase, implement and modify the solution post adoption
(and hidden costs).
Also interesting would be a case study of an ERP solution that meets 100% of a company's business needs without the need for future modification. Does such a beast even exist today, after all the first CMS system was created in 1990, 1991 and they have had almost 20 years to work out the bugs.
I will not be surprised if no such 100% completed solution that does not need modification â" thus continually costs more even exists.
And should I be surprised, and one actually exists,
What were the costs estimates before the solution was brought in house?
How much was spent in addition to the purchase price to get the system to work with the businesses existing systems?
Do the costs included actually include all the costs?
(To explain that last question, it is common practice in large IT shops NOT to include the cost of the mainframe, network and DASD storage costs, which should include support contracts and the company's own staff.)
My first experience with this many, many years ago, when I asked why the proposal did not include costs of the mainframe and DASD that were absolutely required for the solution to work. I was told that they do NOT count as those systems are already owned by the company. I even managed not to laugh, though I am sure I had a look of disbelief on my face so I am surprised that he did not laugh when he saw it.
Even though there were obviously yearly contractual and licensing costs to multiple vendors in addition to support contracts and staffing costs. At the time I was surprised as how on earth can you consider it a valid comparison if you do NOT include all costs? Yet for that company that was business as usual. Since I have seen the same practice at other IT shops, I now know that it was hardly an isolated incident. So it does not surprise me anymore. I look forward to being in upper management moving a shop out of proprietary lock in and to open source / FOSS solutions and get that kind of answer on a solution that involves a proprietary software and/or hardware solution. Where I will be in a position to raise those questions and give anyone who gives me such a stupid and ludicrous answer the hairy-eyeball-your-job-is-in-jeopardy-if you ever lie to me again gaze.
There are several really high quality open-source ERP systems that have been getting some real traction in the press lately.
I was NOT surprised to learn that there are hundreds of Content Management Systems (CMS) available. Some are FREE to start using, some have to be purchased and others make their money via support contracts. How many of them are ERP solutions specifically I have not bothered to determine, though I know there are quite a few.
In 2001, Forester estimated that a BASIC Content Management System would cost over $650,000 and a fancier solution much, much more. Obviously the 2009 costs will not be less for a proprietary solution.
Why not take a basic free solution built with the minimal basic coding languages and hire one expert in the $130K - $180K and a few less experienced programmers in the $80K - $150K range and make the CMS or ERP solution do what you want it to do. I am sure that in the long term, having 100% control and ability to do what your company needs to do will far outweigh the cost savings over a locked in solution that will NEVER meet the needs of your business. Yet you will still have those cost savings on top of doing what the company needs to do since you can modify the system.
I agree with Use the tools that are simple and cheapest.
As long as the software product can be modified with the most basic of languages, say PHP, C, SQL + scripting shell languages; you will rest easy at night knowing that you can always bring in other languages Ruby, C++, Python, add-your-favorite-open source coding language here, too many to name, etc... and get the software to do what your company needs it to do. However if you bring in a tool that is based on a more complex language and/or tool than the reverse is NOT always true.
If the CMS / ERP system can NOT be modified with basic programming languages designed for the web, than you substitute vendor / proprietary lock in for programming language and tool lock in. No point in getting rid of one ball and chain (that will drag your business down) just to replace it with another.
The fact that no vendor solution does everything that it is advertised to do just makes this choice seem all the more intelligent. So an upper level executive that will NOT consider an open source solution based on misguided interpretations of legalese (rhymes with sleaze) OR will only consider vendor lock in products (Microsoft,.NET, Oracle, WebSphere, etc...) should be reprimanded and possibly let go if they refuse to adapt. Especially given the current depressed economy, it will only get worse when we enter the depression due to stagflation.
There is no way they can justify the yearly / annual expenditures + licensing + customization fees + purchase price + capital expenditures to upgrade their IT infrastructure (hardware and software) as compared to an equivalent open source solution without FUD. Yet they do each and every fiscal year. And if you are HR or the company owner, are you paying them their salary to react out of FUD? Really, I think not. Is that what you based their bonus on? Yet for years and years this is exactly how IT has operated in large and most medium size companies. I am always amazed at how many company owners, investors and share holders simply do NOT bother to figure out how much of their equity is thrown away each and every quarter (and annually) because of these outdated and old school IT management philosophies and practices.
There is also nothing to base a purchase decision on:( If more info had been available beforehand we might not have overlooked a MAJOR shortcoming during demo.
Shame more companies do not refuse to purchase because there is NOT ENOUGH INFOrmation on the product IN the PUBLIC domain.
I would like to think that if enough people refused to purchase on those grounds alone, that these restrictive BS licenses and Terms Of Service might become less restrictive. I know, wishful thinking on my part. At least I can avoid them and just say No thank you.
I can NOT be the only person that just clicks through and in the back of my mind thinks, go ahead sue me and find out that this BS will NOT hold up in court, idiots.
You seem to be suggesting that at one point that Microsoft would 'force' (somehow) customers to apply the patch. This has never been the case and doesn't even make sense.
Allador, sorry, but that is exactly what happens with an update, patch, etc... I really do not care what moniker / pseudonym they put on it. If software, data, anything is pushed out on your system without giving you the ability to review and intelligently determine if you want it or not, than it is wrong.
It is not only wrong, it is also an abuse of TRUST. Once TRUST is lost, game over.
This was the reason I moved away from Microsoft. They abused my TRUST and lost it.
Mid way through Windows 2000, way before XP, Vista, Windows 7, and whatever else comes down the pipe in the future. You could set your system ONLY TO ALLOW UPDATES WITH YOUR APPROVAL.
Theoretically no updates should occur until I physically press the Y key and acknowledge a Yes. What could be simpler. And if I say NO, do not push it out without my approval, than they should not ignore my decision and do it anyway.
Well in Microsoft\'s infinite wisdom they must have decided that what I wanted simply did NOT matter and they went on and performed the update without my approval.
No chance for me to see what is being upgraded, updated, modified and to make an intelligent decision to decide if I want that update or not.
No choice...you are forced to take the update. Saying it does not happen, does not change the fact that it does.
I watched my wishes get ignored with Windows 2000 and again with Windows XP. This was an abuse of TRUST. No means no and I said No.
So yes it was FORCED on me.
The fact that they (and their shills) spread FUD does not make them look any better either.
I have been absolutely amazed at what you can watch via Hulu.com. Most TV Series keep the last 3 or 5 episodes on that site as well as their own website. The video codecs are as good on hulu as they are on Youtube, so the video usually streams without too many interruptions.
Thanks to Linux, one day I will have a DVD Recorder/Player on steroids and watch almost all my TV and movies via the Internet, that is the future and the ISPs know it.
All I want from my ISP is reliable available bandwidth (equivalent to what they have in other parts of the world... say 100MB / 100MB or 1Gbps / 1Gpbs for around $50 per month) with Net Neutrality, no throttling, censoring or forging of RST packets to stop my communications. Give me bandwidth or give me some other ISP.
In fact when it hiccups, I check the bandwidth logs via my DD-WRT software enabled router / firewall and I see that my ISP has throttled me back more severely than normal. In many cases lower than 200Kbps.
My ISP throttles every communication, every time, all day, 24/7...it is getting so old. Prior to them throttling, my Quality of Service (QoS) settings ALWAYS prevented my Skype VoIP software from being interrupted. Since they have started throttling, my Skype calls get interrupted a few times each month...about the same rate as my cell phones use to drop calls back in the day. For the last three - four years I have been cell phone and monthly fee to cellular companies FREE.
So even if Skype drops, which it never did in the past, pre throttle days, I will NOT switch from them. Rather I will look for a more reliable ISP and churn.
Slashdot Mirror
I have not laughed that hard in a while, thanks for the stories....so many memories.
I for one have no doubt about that story, having worked in a major telecom and have seen my share of weirdness.
Obviously the last guy was the MASTER, the guy who just knows stuff. As he cut it, removed it after giving it some thought and then rebooted the PC. He did not bother debating what happened, just knew logically what should...cut the thing out and rebooted the PC, which continued to run fine....lol...great story thanks for posting.
I would love a picture of that switch, even if it is just a light switch, even better would be a picture of the thing still wired to the PC, before the Expert cut the wire.
A MASTER or Expert if you will, when asked a question, only stops to think about the answer when considering one of the many options, parameters to go with their answer...
While I am advanced with many, different things, I am a true Master of NONE. Just advanced...but no Expert. I have worked and been in awe of quite of few, but while I worked in 10 different job titles, my choice, they typically performed and mastered that one area in technology, thus they are a true Expert or Master if you will.
Any company that is lucky enough to have one, will not hesitate to pay them the six figure salary they have earned and are very much worth!
Again, thank you for that story...it was GREAT!
Now I found from long ago the concept of PC BIOS annoying. The BIOS vendors, like Phoenix, American Magatrends, Award, have a lot of collusions with the motherboard vendors in terms of getting all the secret register-poking needed to get things going. There is a lot of black magic, legacy code and the like, but it works.
They definitely collude that is very much true. And the reason we need Coreboot ! I do NOT agree with your comment and suggestion of mystery, darkness, black magic as this comes across to me as FUD! Perhaps making it seem hard, difficult or almost impossible so that the average person might be relunctant to improve their lives and move to an open source solution such as Coreboot!
While the Coreboot open source group is publicly stating that it is NOT ready for prime time yet, there are already numerous (read hundreds of...) motherboards and devices supported. So many in fact that you can, today, check their supported list and if the mother board, adapter card or other device is NOT listed as supported, you can avoid allot of hassles. Just buy ONLY Coreboot supported hardware, you will thank me and yourself in the mirror later.
It will be very hard for a non-Pheonx-AMI-Intel vendor to come up with a new BIOS for the ages. The LinuxBIOS (coreboot) project, last I checked, and very poor support and no major vendor (e.g. Dell or HP) has looked into it seriously.
I disagree completely. I would not be surprised to learn that there are developers from some of the major motherboard hardware companies working with the Coreboot group officially or unofficially. This is very common with open source projects that are overcoming the collusion you mentioned above and overcoming the vendor lock-in that ONLY hurts us all and stifles innovation. They can make it harder to innovate, but thanks to open source it is NO LONGER POSSIBLE for anyone to make it impossible. In fact it gets easier and easier every year, every month and every day. Today if you want to avoid proprietary hardware and software you can do it in every vertical market. And today there are so few compromises. The only exception I can think of is one or two Microsoft specific games...hardly surprising there, right.
Additional, if no major vendor is in there fouling up the Coreboot code and group, than I would see that as a HUGE PLUS and not a bad thing at all. It is more likely that some of the coders and engineers have the blessing of their hardware and software company to support Coreboot. These companies are smart and they understand that developing additional markets for their hardware products, especially in this economy, is just plain SMART!
After all I remember reading about a gamer that was frustrated that his fans were not turning off and on correctly, thus his machine was overheating and the operating system shutting down. Through reverse engineering, he discovered that for his operating system (non Microsoft) the fans were not being turned on and off correctly. (Whether this was due to collusion, who knows, it could as easily just been poor testing on the part of the BIOS and hardware motherboard companies who history shows have a pro Microsoft
W95.CIH [symantec.com]? Back in the Windows 95 days, this mean son of a bitch could nuke your BIOS from orbit. And we're talking over a decade ago.
Thanks for posting the link, I had forgotten that one of the payloads hit the BIOS as well..
The second payload tries to cause permanent damage to the computer. This payload attacks the Flash BIOS (a part of your computer that initializes and manages the relationships and data flow between the system devices, including the hard drive, serial and parallel ports, and the keyboard) and tries to corrupt the data stored there. As a result, nothing may be displayed when you start the computer. A computer technician would need to fix this
I had mistakenly remembered and thought that the damage was limited to a memory resident payload and a payload that corrupted the Master Boot Record (MBR), which are both after the BIOS in the boot process for a PC. Aww the memories....
I thought this part of the Official information is telling...meaning no matter what solution you use, suggest and / or invest in, nothing will protect a user that does not want to think, does not want to learn, just wants it to work and thinks that it should work without them having to think....
From the detailed description on the W95.CIH Virus, a page referenced from the above link:
Train employees not to open attachments unless they are expecting them. Also, do not execute software that is downloaded from the Internet unless it has been scanned for viruses. Simply visiting a compromised Web site can cause infection if certain browser vulnerabilities are not patched
I would add in train users to look at ALL updates before blindly auto installing anything, as no one can 100% guarantee that a cracker will not be able to add an obfuscated payload to either an application and/or security update.
I will accept that it would be unlikely, however it is unacceptable for anyone to state in fact that it CAN NOT happen. As that is anything but FACTUAL. It is FUD.
As history has shown us with all operating systems, attempts have been made, though usually they have been discovered before release and prevented. I say usually because I am sure there are a few examples where something has slipped through (an educated guess and playing long odds), I just do NOT have the URLs available as proof. I do know that there have been multiple slashdot articles on payloads that were introduced and made it into the wild and bricked computers of users. So far I believe most have been discovered prior to release into the updates and patches.
There have been numerous slashdot posts on updates and releases from a software or hardware vendor that, while not intended as a virus, due to the company s desire and goal of vendor lock-in, bricked the computers. I know this has happened in the Apple world and in the Microsoft world, and figure that odds are it has happened in the Linux and Unix worlds as well...though admittedly with the open source versions of Linux and Unix a user would have a chance to examine the code, figure out what is going on and develop a solution to the problem. Something a proprietary software / hardware vendor will never allow due to their vendor lock in objectives and goals.
...2014 64mbs...
Who wants to wait until 2014 to have speeds slower than what our Telecoms should have been providing by the year 2000?
As of these years: these speeds should have been available as others in the world were offering them; thanks to government intervention that is to break the Telcom Monopoly / Oligopoly practices:
2000: 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps ($55.00 per month)
2008: 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps (less than $55.00 per month)
if you did not already know this, you are not alone, now please tell everyone that you know about it so they will stop accepting the industry FUD and excuses on the issue.
This is even more insulting once you realize that the American companies have been taking BILLIONS (of tax payer money) since the early 1990s with promises of offering High Speed Internet. Even getting our legislative officials to accept a pathetic excuses, pass laws accepting a very, very low speed definition as acceptable High Speed Internet, its insulting.
Instead of building out their networks with Fiber as they promised, they did what the Financial and Banking industry is doing today, bought up competitors and limited competition while spreading FUD why they could not build out their networks.
...go all the way to FTTH...
LMAO, When they give us true high speed bandwidth / Internet at around $55.00 per month, I will give them a chance.
I am so sick of being behind the Japanese in potential for innovation due to sllllooooooowwwww high speed Internet speeds. They have had 100MB / 100MB since 2000 and are now rolling out 1 GB / 1 Gb for less than $55.00 per month.
How can they offer these speeds you ask?
Because they cut the crap, the government intervened and forced them to de-criminalize their telephone monopoly (as the US should have in 1996 had the Telecom lobbyist not succeeded) and offer their fiber for competition.
Normally I am for less government, not more, however the Telecom, Cable, Cellular, etc... industries have shown their unwillingness to offer reasonable services at reasonable and affordable prices, considering their monopoly for sooooooo long, the only solution is Government intervention.
Worse than that, they have taken our tax dollars, government subsidies and gotten additional fees approved by our elected officials stating that one of the primary reasons is to deliver High Speed Internet. These promises, since the 1990s have not been fulfilled...to heck with them. Get in there government and force the issue.
No more BS excuses....
Had they invested in fiber back in the 1990s as they should have, we would all have somewhere between 100Mbps / 100Mpbs and 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps already. In fact we would have had those speeds as early as 2000.
Yet another decade is about to go by without fulfillment of the promises they made and took money for...enough already.....
I hope someone from the Democratic party reads this and forwards the many posts here on slashdot about the lack of High Speed Internet, the lies we have all been told for multiple decades (and that we are still told) even when evidence exists to disprove their FUD.
Nothing short of government intervention will open up the Internet for innovative Americans, creating jobs, creating opportunity and insuring net neutrality.
The definition of high speed Internet circa 2000 IS 100Mbps / 100 Mbps (anything less is FUD); the definition of high speed Internet circa 2008 is 1 Gpbs / 1 Gpbs (anything less is FUD). Anything less should be considered CRIMINAL. And since others can offer these speeds for under $55 per month and make millions, billions in profit; American corporations have NO EXCUSES.
Eventually a competitor will offer Americans true High Speed Internet, when that day comes I hope every American votes with the feet, dollars and churn and NEVER GO BACK TO the American companies that have cheated, stolen, and spread FUD since before 1996 on this issue.
FIOS IS NOT THE ANSWER. What is its max speed, like 10 Mbps or 20 Mbps and that is ONLY down not up....enough FUD.
FIOS will be considered High Speed Internet when it offers 100MB / 100MB for less than $55.00 per month. That is the circa 2000 benchmark for success...FIOS is already 9 more years behind....
Please stop spreading the telcom FUD! Anyone with half a brain is no longer accepting or buying this FUD!
... and 99$ for applying to the app store as a developer. ...
I always find it interesting that people will spend hundreds, even thousands for the device, but insist on the apps being no more than .99 cents, because obviously $5.00 is just too expensive. That is funny and sad. If you truly have a superior product, market and advertise it as such and you will be surprised at what you can sell it for, perhaps $9.99, lol, ($50 would be better for something truly superior) just make sure the reality lives up to the marketing hype if you want your company to have a future in the marketplace.
In addition to them taking 30% of each sale, what a non surprise. At .99 per copy you would need to sell how many copies just to recover the $99.00 application fee,
.99 - .29 = .70; (app store taking 30% of each sale)
$99 / .70 = 142 copies to recover the $99 app store fee.
I would rather go out on my own, put up a website and advertise my product for sale....
Oh thats right, Apple will not let you do that will they. Guess that is the price you pay.
I had a problem with paying royalties to a larger company to develop software for their platform. If you were lucky to become remotely successful, they simply come out with their own product to replace yours effectively putting you out of business. And they do NOT have to innovate, just steal your idea, admittedly changing a couple of things so that they can call it their own original work...
The very thing that made the PC platform so successful was that it was open and anyone with a little knowledge could develop products for it. Not so with closed source or proprietary platforms. You think they would learn, but they do not, just look at all the cellular companies still locking down their proprietary hand held platforms...pathetic. Fortunately for those willing to raise their heads up and look around there are plenty of options, here is one.
With Apple, you had no choice but to pay whatever Royalty they required in order to release a product for their platform. Of course that is after purchasing development tools from them in order to develop for their platform.
Way back in the day with the first Apple computer I decided that I did NOT want to go down that road. Loved the computers, but would not consider developing for them. Even if you can muster the fees for the tools and the Royalties, you still have to get your product to market and that can be tough as some friends of mine found out when they created a MacIntosh Works package, back in the day...best of breed with 9 full blown modules (no limitations like you find in Microsoft Works, that require you to pay another fee to upgrade your Spreadsheet and another fee to upgrade your Wordprocessor, and another fee for PowerPoint,(granted those are all in Office today, but not back in the day) etc...; 9 full blown modules: WordProcessor, Spreadsheet, Graphics, Draw, Modem connection; Slideshow; Database; and two others that escape me at the moment. But try to get the distributor to ignore pressure from Microsoft and carry your product when over 40% of their profit is from Microsoft. Yea, good luck with that. The developers of Great Works simply did not have the cash to push it to market around the already established distribution channels who were unwilling to carry them for fear of offending the 800 lb gorilla; thus they sold out to a bigger company. Granted they sold for multi-millions, but would have made so much more if they would have been able to get their product to the market where it was very much in demand based on the buzz in all the Mac publications.
So many companies develop something that is truly revolutionary and unique, however fail miserably in their
Also remember that you can use the foldable Blue Tooth keyboard with the Nokias (I know you can with the N800 and assume that you can with the N810).
Do not forget about the FM chip in the N800, that plus it was more than $200 cheaper than the N810 were the deciding factors for me.
Having two memory slots is great, right now I have two 4 GB Micro SD-in Adapter cards, plan to put in two 16 GB SD-in Adapter cards for a total of 32 GB of storage in my Linux PIM.
While a little off topic, when traveling, I take the Most important about handhelds to me is WiFi access being MORE important then Cellular. With WiFi, I have no additional monthly charges when using VoIP. If I am not online, people can leave a telephone message for me. TCO for 1 year with Skype VoIP is only $100. A heck of allot better than the most reasonable Cellular plan.
With my savings each year I can buy another handheld or netbook running Linux if I want, thus no forced obsolescence by anyone.
The million dollar question, If I do NOT use Internet Explorer and I do NOT use Adobe Reader (or any software product that uses Adobes PDF implementation, thus allowing the problems to occur), will I still have this problem or not? (Perhaps someone could post the link to an example corrupted file on one of the security websites so that we can test it with the browser we use)
If you are a web developer, make an alternative PDF formatted file available, if that even makes sense to do. Can you implement the PDF standard without implementing this feature that Adobe has added and Internet Explorer will NOT let you prevent?
For the open source developers who are developing PDF solutions, this might be a feature best NOT to implement, what do you think? As any software that implements this feature (which is really NOT necessary) is inferior by design.
Personally I would prefer that no solution that introduces proprietary bloat (whether registry BS, additional memory, additional resource usage on your system, active-anything that-I-can-not-turn-off, etc...) as most likely an open source alternative exists. And if it does not exist, creating an open source alternative that uses less memory, less system resources would be superior anyway.
...Open source implementations also got it wrong, it isn't just Adobe. See for example problems in poppler here [vupen.com]. ...
Good post. I am assuming that your research is true as that is not the reason I am posting, rather I had another thought.
How open source developers often choose to implement open source applications, widgets, plug-ins, etc....
Too often they choose to implement a new feature in the way that Windows does it...huge mistake. Why adopt an inferior implementation from an inferior product that runs on an inferior platform on an inferior operating system that bloats out your system, denies you the ability to control JACK on your system and results in this kind of activity happening to you. All could be avoided by not using the junk and adopting a superior open source solution.
Assuming your assumption is correct, I am not going to bother to check as my point goes to other open source apps and NOT just popular. Anyway, could this problem with poppler specifically, be because they are attempting to implement a feature in an open source application / widget / plug-in etc... that works LIKE WINDOWS works?
While it is nice to be able to do some things in Linux with Windows applications (nod to NdisWrapper and Wine as two that come readily to mind); Why bog down a superior operating system that runs faster, more efficiently with less memory and fewer system resources by forking into it Windows (or other proprietary vendor: ie. Oracle, Adobe, Nvidia) bloat.
Why not force the vendors to give you their product in a format that works out of the box with Linux, Mac OS and Unix. And if they refuse, fine, do NOT buy their products.
I do NOT want to work like Windows....geez. I want control, freedom and net neutrality.
About freedom, if your choice of freedom denies anyone else their freedom, you are wrong, stop it, wake up! Stop the FUD, FUD denies freedom!
Just find an open source only solution to the problem (Linux is my choice, yours may vary); thus the problems (too many to list) with Windows (in the case of this article, Internet Explorer NOT letting you control settings on what the browser does and does NOT do with the .PDF file) are minimized and most likely eliminated.
Either you are in control of your IT environment or YOU ARE NOT. To be FREE (some might say to be American, i.e. FREE as in Freedom that many have fought and died for...; you MUST be able to control your computer (PC, Cell Phone, Hand Held, net book, etc...), your Browser, your Router/Firewall, your Bandwidth (no throttling), all of it.) you must have CONTROL. You MUST have NET NEUTRALITY. You must have at least three or more choices, if you have less than three choices, you do NOT have a choice (nod to our pathetic two party political system here in the US, where neither party resembles what they use to represent, what they use to be, but people continue to ac
Personally I would not use any proprietary formatted content on any website I develop as I want my content to be available to everyone, regardless of which operating system, browser or other software package that they use.
For the record, I prefer Linux to Microsoft, my choice.
With that said, here are a list of issues and/or problems with Silverlight that I copied down from another website, I thought some might find it informative.
Personally I want a FREE and open source H.264 codec. Not only is the quality superior, you can actually compress content down to lesser resolutions that Microsoft Media Player uses (and other proprietary vendors are using right now).
Here are a list of problems, in no particular order, with Silverlight from either this site or this site or a link from one of those two sites...I did not document the exact link that day, sorry. I basically went through the comments or posts (about a month ago I believe, which is why I do not remember the exact website) and jotted down what people, who mostly like Silverlight, stated were problems they would like to see fixed in the next update. I remember believing at the time that I was on a Microsoft website or at least a person who preferred Silverlight to other solutions. Therefore I figured the gripes were from people hoping to influence the next release of Silverlight to be valid. Granted it would not surprise if one or two of them were wrong for reasons I would NOT know.
For me not having H.264 support is enough to NOT use Silverlight. And I am smart enough to know that when they implement a H.264 codec in Silverlight, they will use a proprietary H.264 CODEC rather than many of the open source and FREE H.264 CODECS. And we all know why. For this reason alone, if you are a web developer or have decision making power within your web development organization you should recommend an open source or FREE CODEC as choice NUMBER 1 and if desired a proprietary CODEC as number 2 for Microsoft, Adobe (80% of the FLASH market) and/or Apple. Is there anyone else, operating system wise that I am missing? My point is, if you use the FREE CODEC, (that all the Linux distros support, (top ten distros)), than everyone even the Microsoft and Apple operating system users will have access to your content. Thus you have net neutrality, should the proprietary player NOT be able to play the FREE video and/or audio CODEC; the user can download a plugin, web widget or software package that will play them...and they do NOT have to switch operating systems to get this functionality, they just need a better player than the one provided by the proprietary company. The reverse can NOT be said to be true can it, if the proprietary CODEC will NOT work with the FREE player, the proprietary company will NOT provide a way to play the content, except with their player. . That alone is enough of a reason NOT to use proprietary players. The fact that the FREE players use SUPERIOR Video and Audio CODECs is icing on your cake! While the new Windows Media player will play H.264, go back and verify the resolution and frame rate that it will play it at. A bit lower then the alternative FREE codecs...no surprise to me there. Consider that before Windows Media Player 8, they would tell people to take the VC-I codec and increase the frame rate by a minor amount in a lame attempt at generating what they called, laughingly,
I wouldn't recommend my present web host.
I would not recommend the host that I left last year either. And I too agree that this is NOT the forum for mentioning specific companies by name. If people know what to search for online, they will discover the poor hosts easily enough.
Remember that the size of the company does not automatically guarantee you anything positive or negative. Do your homework and research.
With that said, I am glad you mentioned this, selecting the right web hosting company is absolutely critical. Here are a few things to WATCH OUT FOR if you plan buying a domain name and putting up a website.
I'd like to see an open-wrt router firmware with.
8+ - Ethernet ports for multi wan (load balancing and fail over) 8+ - port USB so I can attach everything
Different size distribution so we can choose what to install and a nice auto-update to support all the devices.
Good idea and I agree with you!
For those who are not aware, you can get this very cheaply with DD-WRT + multiple router / firewalls or a router/firewall + network hubs.
Just combine a typical 4 port firewall/router that supports and will run DD-WRT, use VLANS and either a second router or a Gigabyte hub...thus port 2 + VLAN1 could be one 8 port gigabyte hub; port 3 + VLAN2 + second 8 port gigabyte hub; assign port 4 + 3rd 8 port gigabyte hub + VLANs. Since VLANs normally start at zero VLAN0, assign that port to a computer and or segregated network for monitoring of the hub and put all your WiFi traffic on this port to the Internet service provider. Thus you segregate your local area network from the WiFi part, thus you can have your port free and open, even charge if you want and make some money, although most just leave it open. And no you do NOT advertise this fact to your ISP.
VLAN0 - All Wifi + Internet (throttled by you as you see fit, so that your usage always gets priority over any other user that does not live in your household) + Quality of Service (QoS) + separate LAN address and PC to monitor everything, pushing this traffic off the LAN and if setup correctly can monitor for Trojan horses installed thanks to buggy browsers, applications and operating systems from proprietary vendors.
VLAN1 - 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (with priority given to this LAN segment over VLAN0, QoS so that your VoIP gets priority over anything else...thus your phone calls are always clear without interruption
VLAN2 - second 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (also priority over VLAN0
VLAN3 - third 8 port gigabyte hub - Internet (priority over VLAN0
With that setup you would have 25 ports through that one 4 port hub....doubt you would need that many. The best thing is that you can offer FREE WiFi and prevent users of this FREE WiFi from seeing the rest of your Local Area Network by segmenting the VLANS.
By segregating your Local Area Network, you can offer FREE WiFi without concerns from crackers, phishers and scammers. By definition, hackers will DO NO HARM.
Encourage everyone to open up their WiFi and stop the FUD by those that ONLY want to offer us less than what we already pay for....
The telcos have accepted billions of our tax dollars to build out fiber to our homes, but give us excuses instead. Many other countries have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps since 2000. Japan is starting to implement 1 Gbps / 1Gbps for less than $55 per month NOW. How much are you paying for less than 2 Mbps? Even FIOS will NOT give us more than 45 Mbps and its 2009, is that really a solution?
While the typical router and firewall routers do not have more than 4 ports, you can use VLANs to separate out those four ports. Considering that the lowest priced DD-WRT router is around $35 - $65; you could just extend from 4 to more by chaining + VLAN with additional Router / Firewalls instead of network hubs.
IMPORTANT NOTE about LINKSYS routers: The new ones coming on the shelves since December 2008 DO NOT allow you to use the DD-WRT software. Make sure you ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router!
Here is the page showing which routers support DD-WRT; I recommend those reading this that you get one that will support t
I'm not convinced that allowing JavaScript is a bad thing, if it enriches the experience. It needs to be sandboxed by the PDF Reader, as occurs in the web browser. Now in this case the reader was at fault, so they need to revisit their security model.
Its true that using JavaScript securely to enhance the user experience can be a plus. The problem comes with different coders definition of secure. Not to mention having additional security holes thrust upon you by an automatic updates that you have no control over.
Often times a simple solution, that might not be as elegant, will accomplish the objective fine without opening up additional security holes. Especially when the security holes only exist with JavaScript, (in or out of Adobe Reader PDF files) or Active X. or so many others for that matter.
Sandboxing will be great when it arrives, however at this time I believe only the Chrome browser is implementing this. Both I.E. and Firefox have talked about it and I am honestly unsure of Opera, Safari and Konqueror. And that is only a very small fraction of the browsers that are available to us to use to surf the Internet. Thank goodness there are many, many browser options available so that when one browser platform attempts to thrust JavaScript, Java, Active X or some other buggy layer on us we will have plenty of options to switch too. (Implement if you will, but give individual users the ability to TURN IT OFF for their user. If I can NOT turn it off, I will simply stop using it, as I have with any applications and desktop platforms.)
To be secure each user MUST have 100% control over their desktop and all the applications running on it.
While I.E. might have advertised that it is going to implement sandboxing, they are too far behind the standards curve to take seriously, perhaps in three or four years of good behavior they might regain enough TRUST to try again. Besides that based on their actions over the last decade and a half, any solution coming out of Redmond is suspect as having ulterior motives. For instance are they honestly interested in protecting the user or are they more interested in how they can manipulate the sandbag and/or plugin, spreading FUD, and implying the problem is with another software package, operating system or other vendor's hardware instead. This is their history and current track record.
Until we can sandbox them effectively, it might be a wise decision NOT to use them. It has the added advantage of avoiding allot of incompatibility issues by keeping it simple and not using them.
Any sandboxing that protects us, our privacy, while maintaining net neutrality and helping to protect us without censoring us is a huge plus.
Here is my point: Make a workaround, "pre-patch", or apology available as quickly as possible so that _I_ can make the decision about the risk. We will test your patch in our environment, determine the best course of action for our company, and keep paying you for your product. If I don't test it in my environment and it hobbles my 8,000 machines, then it's my own damn fault for deploying it.
Where are the moderator points when you need them. Great post and you should be modded up!
Too many system administrators just accept as gospel that this patch today and that patch yesterday and the patch tomorrow will not cause problems and blindly accept them. No wonder the company will never give them time to test the patches, updates, etc... for potential problems in their specific IT environment and infrastructure. Especially when a company throws out crap to make money and continually patches it; instead of getting it right to begin with.
A good Systems Administrator checks the patch for problems on a system prior to rolling it out to the rest of the company. Of course watching for rootkits, viruses, injection schemes, etc...
A great Systems Administrator subnets the test environment, isolates it from the corporate intranet and monitors the packets to/from this test environment looking for more than just Trojan horses.
Guess which one of those has the experience, authority and respect of their supervisor to push back and state No we will not just randomly roll out updates as they come to us from company X and assume that they work without problems. Yes we will take time to test the update or patch before rolling it out.
Guess which one makes over 6 figures per year and which one is paid less than $50,000 per year.
Most of the others are somewhere in between $50K and 100K working for companies that know that they need System Admins, but not really giving them the time and/or the authority to do things right.
Just take a look at the typical duties of a System Administrator. Most Systems Administrator do NOT have enough time to do all those tasks as carefully as they need to be performed in order to secure the companies network and servers.
Other alternatives: Document Viewer 2.24.1; granted its a GNOME specific version, however I have loaded it on a KDE desktop. Nice that KDE and GNOME can pretty much run the same applications. While I do NOT have a preference, it is interesting to note that KDE works with over 60 languages and can be run in any of the following operating systems: Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X. (This is at least superior to MS Windows, try to run it in Linux, Unix or Solaris, much less Mac OS X; not that you would want to do that.)
Alternatives to Adobe Reader, many superior without the JavaScript problems. Many will even work in cough, cough Microsoft Windows.
Here the JavaScript may activate client-side validation or pop up contextual help.
You can do this WITHOUT JavaScript.
If you only edit it once a year, that is a lot of money to be paying Adobe just to use their software a single time annually.
Word and/or Office cost allot of money to do something once per year. Geez.
Create a form, validate input, and let users use their current login via their internal intranet and you do NOT need to pay anything beyond one person's time to create one form. Data output, if using open source, can be any format your company needs, even Microsoft Word format...not that I would recommend that.
When did paying in excess of $400 per desktop for a software package that is ONLY used once per year become a good idea? (Okay its cheaper if you update, now multiply that by the number of desktops / licenses you have to buy and we can talk...)
A bug by router vendor
So that is what they are calling it these days....lol, I know that was a bit tongue in cheek. Its just that when I read this I remembered all too well how Sprint made a business decision to remove a span of IP addresses from being reached by any sprint users of their DNS service. Effectively censoring any and all users of Sprint DNS.
I do not have the article handy, perhaps someone could post a couple of links to the news stories where Sprint was blocking IP address ranges. While I do NOT remember the year, it was pre 2003, possibly before 2000?
A suggestion to business owners and CEOs at the end of this post:
If this is even half true, then Microsoft just quit the game. For keeps.
Boy so many people are sooooo late to the party. Too many sheeple ( link 1 ; link 2 ) will just roll over and accept it as they have time and time and time again. Microsoft is literally banking on this as they have in the past..
Microsoft did this yesterday; Microsoft did this today; Microsoft will do this tomorrow.
Whether it is true or not, it is the way things are heading. And have been heading for well over a decade. If in fact half of this is true, than it has happened faster than many of us thought it would. Wake up.
The better question to ask, given the unpopularity of Vista; Why is Microsoft so emboldened or threatened such that they would risk this NOW?
They have NOT quit the game, they are playing the same FUD, delay adoptions of alternatives, extend, extinguish, FUD and repeat game they have been playing since before the OS/2 days, since 1985 .
I know I was not the only one laughing when I heard that Microsoft was not reducing any of their support fees before the end of 2009, why should they.
Their FUD worked yesterday, their FUD works today and their FUD will work tomorrow, of course it will work now? And it will continue to work until enough people WAKE UP and move away from Microsoft to an alternative. (Ironically this will make Microsoft better for those that refuse to switch in the near term or until they can achieve complete LOCK IN.)
WAKE UP.
Bottom line: Do YOU control your PC or NOT?
The only acceptable answer is 100% control of what is and what is NOT loaded on your machine. Anything less is unacceptable and limits YOU.
Does your motherboard run on a BIOS that is not tweaked in favor of Microsoft? NO...all of us are losing here now. (Microsoft influences this...)
Does your sound and video, on board or on an adapter offer open source drivers that will exploit 100% of its capabilities NOW? NO...all of us are losing here now. Normally vendors that cater to Microsoft will not release drivers to the open source community until years after a product is released to the market. To release drivers right away risks retribution from Microsoft.(Microsoft influences this...)
Does your Operating System allow you to control 100% what is and what is NOT installed on your computer NOW? NO - If Microsoft (since midway through Windows 2000, it is impossible to turn OFF auto updates, worse it lets you click the box and ignores your decision, thus making it impossible to turn off - a violation of Banking Laws BTW.); Yes if Linux; Macintosh - I do not know and would be interested to learn.
Obviously
No ball dropped, just optimized for your platform. Really now - that 300 MB of RAM apparently sets you back about $6 [pricewatch.com]. Is that exorbitant? Firefox USES that RAM to speed up performance, and this can be fairly easily tweaked [mozillazine.org] if the $6 is more than you can stomach.
Yea, that is what I thought too, got my additional RAM only to discover that the BIOS would not support it. And the BIOS company would not open their source so it could be fixed.
My next computer will have a motherboard that supports open source, period, or I will not buy it. And each and every component that I purchase will offer an open source option or I will NOT purchase it.
I want native open source support, no third party middle ware apps like ndiswrapper, wine, etc....
Hopefully someone will be able to point me to a link with more information on TCO, Total Cost of Ownership on some of these ERP solutions.
Hopefully a link or two will show how much per desktop; how much per server; number of servers per number of transactions and/or number of connected sessions, etc...
Even better would be some case studies that show the
Also interesting would be a case study of an ERP solution that meets 100% of a company's business needs without the need for future modification. Does such a beast even exist today, after all the first CMS system was created in 1990, 1991 and they have had almost 20 years to work out the bugs.
I will not be surprised if no such 100% completed solution that does not need modification â" thus continually costs more even exists.
And should I be surprised, and one actually exists,
(To explain that last question, it is common practice in large IT shops NOT to include the cost of the mainframe, network and DASD storage costs, which should include support contracts and the company's own staff.)
My first experience with this many, many years ago, when I asked why the proposal did not include costs of the mainframe and DASD that were absolutely required for the solution to work. I was told that they do NOT count as those systems are already owned by the company. I even managed not to laugh, though I am sure I had a look of disbelief on my face so I am surprised that he did not laugh when he saw it.
Even though there were obviously yearly contractual and licensing costs to multiple vendors in addition to support contracts and staffing costs. At the time I was surprised as how on earth can you consider it a valid comparison if you do NOT include all costs? Yet for that company that was business as usual. Since I have seen the same practice at other IT shops, I now know that it was hardly an isolated incident. So it does not surprise me anymore. I look forward to being in upper management moving a shop out of proprietary lock in and to open source / FOSS solutions and get that kind of answer on a solution that involves a proprietary software and/or hardware solution. Where I will be in a position to raise those questions and give anyone who gives me such a stupid and ludicrous answer the hairy-eyeball-your-job-is-in-jeopardy-if you ever lie to me again gaze.
There are several really high quality open-source ERP systems that have been getting some real traction in the press lately.
I was NOT surprised to learn that there are hundreds of Content Management Systems (CMS) available. Some are FREE to start using, some have to be purchased and others make their money via support contracts. How many of them are ERP solutions specifically I have not bothered to determine, though I know there are quite a few.
In 2001, Forester estimated that a BASIC Content Management System would cost over $650,000 and a fancier solution much, much more. Obviously the 2009 costs will not be less for a proprietary solution.
Why not take a basic free solution built with the minimal basic coding languages and hire one expert in the $130K - $180K and a few less experienced programmers in the $80K - $150K range and make the CMS or ERP solution do what you want it to do. I am sure that in the long term, having 100% control and ability to do what your company needs to do will far outweigh the cost savings over a locked in solution that will NEVER meet the needs of your business. Yet you will still have those cost savings on top of doing what the company needs to do since you can modify the system.
I agree with Use the tools that are simple and cheapest.
As long as the software product can be modified with the most basic of languages, say PHP, C, SQL + scripting shell languages; you will rest easy at night knowing that you can always bring in other languages Ruby, C++, Python, add-your-favorite-open source coding language here, too many to name, etc... and get the software to do what your company needs it to do. However if you bring in a tool that is based on a more complex language and/or tool than the reverse is NOT always true.
If the CMS / ERP system can NOT be modified with basic programming languages designed for the web, than you substitute vendor / proprietary lock in for programming language and tool lock in. No point in getting rid of one ball and chain (that will drag your business down) just to replace it with another.
High-end systems lack return on investment.
The fact that no vendor solution does everything that it is advertised to do just makes this choice seem all the more intelligent. So an upper level executive that will NOT consider an open source solution based on misguided interpretations of legalese (rhymes with sleaze) OR will only consider vendor lock in products (Microsoft, .NET, Oracle, WebSphere, etc...) should be reprimanded and possibly let go if they refuse to adapt. Especially given the current depressed economy, it will only get worse when we enter the depression due to stagflation.
There is no way they can justify the yearly / annual expenditures + licensing + customization fees + purchase price + capital expenditures to upgrade their IT infrastructure (hardware and software) as compared to an equivalent open source solution without FUD. Yet they do each and every fiscal year. And if you are HR or the company owner, are you paying them their salary to react out of FUD? Really, I think not. Is that what you based their bonus on? Yet for years and years this is exactly how IT has operated in large and most medium size companies. I am always amazed at how many company owners, investors and share holders simply do NOT bother to figure out how much of their equity is thrown away each and every quarter (and annually) because of these outdated and old school IT management philosophies and practices.
Is it still acceptable that they
There is also nothing to base a purchase decision on :( If more info had been available beforehand we might not have overlooked a MAJOR shortcoming during demo.
Shame more companies do not refuse to purchase because there is NOT ENOUGH INFOrmation on the product IN the PUBLIC domain.
I would like to think that if enough people refused to purchase on those grounds alone, that these restrictive BS licenses and Terms Of Service might become less restrictive. I know, wishful thinking on my part. At least I can avoid them and just say No thank you.
I can NOT be the only person that just clicks through and in the back of my mind thinks, go ahead sue me and find out that this BS will NOT hold up in court, idiots.
You seem to be suggesting that at one point that Microsoft would 'force' (somehow) customers to apply the patch. This has never been the case and doesn't even make sense.
Allador, sorry, but that is exactly what happens with an update, patch, etc... I really do not care what moniker / pseudonym they put on it. If software, data, anything is pushed out on your system without giving you the ability to review and intelligently determine if you want it or not, than it is wrong.
It is not only wrong, it is also an abuse of TRUST. Once TRUST is lost, game over.
This was the reason I moved away from Microsoft. They abused my TRUST and lost it.
Mid way through Windows 2000, way before XP, Vista, Windows 7, and whatever else comes down the pipe in the future. You could set your system ONLY TO ALLOW UPDATES WITH YOUR APPROVAL.
Theoretically no updates should occur until I physically press the Y key and acknowledge a Yes. What could be simpler. And if I say NO, do not push it out without my approval, than they should not ignore my decision and do it anyway.
Well in Microsoft\'s infinite wisdom they must have decided that what I wanted simply did NOT matter and they went on and performed the update without my approval.
No chance for me to see what is being upgraded, updated, modified and to make an intelligent decision to decide if I want that update or not.
No choice...you are forced to take the update. Saying it does not happen, does not change the fact that it does.
I watched my wishes get ignored with Windows 2000 and again with Windows XP. This was an abuse of TRUST. No means no and I said No.
So yes it was FORCED on me.
The fact that they (and their shills) spread FUD does not make them look any better either.
Thanks to Linux, one day I will have a DVD Recorder/Player on steroids and watch almost all my TV and movies via the Internet, that is the future and the ISPs know it.
All I want from my ISP is reliable available bandwidth (equivalent to what they have in other parts of the world... say 100MB / 100MB or 1Gbps / 1Gpbs for around $50 per month) with Net Neutrality, no throttling, censoring or forging of RST packets to stop my communications. Give me bandwidth or give me some other ISP.
In fact when it hiccups, I check the bandwidth logs via my DD-WRT software enabled router / firewall and I see that my ISP has throttled me back more severely than normal. In many cases lower than 200Kbps.
My ISP throttles every communication, every time, all day, 24/7...it is getting so old. Prior to them throttling, my Quality of Service (QoS) settings ALWAYS prevented my Skype VoIP software from being interrupted. Since they have started throttling, my Skype calls get interrupted a few times each month...about the same rate as my cell phones use to drop calls back in the day. For the last three - four years I have been cell phone and monthly fee to cellular companies FREE.
So even if Skype drops, which it never did in the past, pre throttle days, I will NOT switch from them. Rather I will look for a more reliable ISP and churn.