Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.
I don't know about that, downmodding can be suicide. I used to receive mod points almost every two weeks until I downmodded an obvious WP7 astroturf and got bitchslapped by the moderation system and haven't seen points in over a year. The moderation system may not be corrupt but it is badly broken.
It would be nice if smartphones were given the same level of respect that PCs get. Unlocked boot loaders, choice of operating systems, and more protection from illegal search and seizure from law enforcement.
Also if your server is capable and the load allows for it, delaying the SMTP greeting for 15-20 seconds can remove a huge slice of the spam pie even before doing any other checks. The SMTP RFC says servers should be configured to wait up to 5 minutes for this greeting. Things that usually happen during the delay: Spam bot tries to talk to your server before it actually receives a greeting. Reject and blacklist this IP. MTA's that do this do not belong on the internet. Spam bot doesn't want to wait for the greeting and gives up. Good. Misconfigured legitmate mail server doesn't want to wait. Add these (there will be very few) to your whitelist. Legitimate properly configured server waits the delay and delivers its mail. You can also add servers that you trust to your whitelist so they can avoid this somewhat costly delay.
The rare legitimate mail that gets rejected by this method is returned as undeliverable as it never made a sucessful connection in the first place. Sender will know that their message did not reach their recipeint.
With specialized equipment drives can be easily recovered when wiped by zeros. With even more sophisticated methods drives that have been written over several times can be recovered layer by layer. These recovery methods are likely very expensive and you don't need to worry about it now but who knows what will be available 10 years from now. Physical destruction is really the only way to be sure.
Be careful with some of the components if you are letting children have them or play with them. Some drive platters are glass instead of aluminum and it is very difficult to know the difference from handling them. My daughter dropped one on the floor and it shattered into very dangerous shards. I was shocked as I believed they were all aluminum. I think most IBM/Hitachi Deskstar drives are glass but there could be others. She really loves the rare earth magnets but learned real quick that the can pinch very easily. Also these are powerful enough to permanently destroy CRT based TVs if you still have them around. No amount of degaussing brought a Sony Wega back to normal.
Just download RockPlayer from the market. I've been using it over a year and it plays almost everything VLC does and it supports hardware acceleration if available. I use it mainly for SD divx TV shows and is perfect for these, plus it supports subtitles like VLC does. You don't need to buy it either, the unlimited trial version puts a small logo in the corner of the screen.
Just off the top of my head... RIM and Verizon release the Storm as an answer to the iPhone. It sucked horribly, three generations of horrible in comparison. Moto and Verizon come along a shakes the entire industry with the Droid. Samsung joins the party with the Galaxy, HTC with the Incredible and EVO. Moto, HTC and Sammy continue to iterate better performing products. Meanwhile RIM tries to answer this with the Torch in the same epic manner of fail as the Storm. Moto, Sammy, HTC, LG, hell even Huawei and Sanyo are iterating better performing product than RIM. Sanyo, seriously. How can you not hate them? I don't know about you but I'm done hoping something will happen when every bit of news from them it is just more monkeys and footballs every single time.
In addition to this you can setup m0n0wall or pfSense using captive portal where users are presented with the TOS and a login when they first connect. I think from a legal point of view this is very important. But IANAL so TIFWIW. The login can be a shared account that is changed how ever often the hotel staff feels is necessary (unusual traffic in the parking lot). Or they can issue vouchers that expire after a period of time. The latter will of course have more overhead.
I use a few m0n0wall captive portal setups for real estate market centers where hundreds of agents need their own credentials and clients need vouchers. It is incredibly simple, reliable, and free. I use this embedded pc and they work great with 100mb connections. If you want better reporting and and many more features look into pfSense. I find m0n0 to be sufficient for my needs, if you are look in for a good starting point this would be my first choice.
Customers want to get rid of their cable companies. They want their internet plans to allow unrestricted tethering so they can get internet they can use at home or anywhere else.
There is not enough wireless spectrum allocated for this to happen which is why unlimited plans are evaporating. Mobile broadband needs to stay restricted to the mobile device to keep consumption predictable and sustainable. As much as I hate that statement, I know it is currently the only way I will be able to use my smartphone with adequate bandwidth available when I need it. With the continued explosive growth of smartphones the carriers have very little choice.
Kerio Connect. Can be free if you become a partner and have less than 5 users or $540 which is still a great deal IMO due to the ease of administration and being able to set it up in mere minutes with very little effort. You very well could spend many times this in effort trying to do it yourself with a free product.
100% configurable via intuitive web GUI Multi-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac, VMWare) Very good multiple anti-spam features Full featured webmail, very near parity with MS Outlook. ActiveSync support for Andorid, WinMo, iOS (Push mail, contacts, calendar) Optional Blackberry connector. Multi-domain support Near instant phone support with actual engineers (if licensed) Very active development with easy to apply updates Tons of other features.
Download the fully functional free trial and give it a spin. I don't mean to sound like an advertisement but I have been using this product for 5 years and it has been the easiest mail server I have ever managed.
I got locked in my self-storage lot after staying past closing time (11 PM). There were no staff to let me out and I was trapped inside with only a keypad to open the gate which happily told me the lot was closed. After inspecting the gate I saw a what amounted to a key switch on a pole high enough for someone on a fire truck to access from the outside. I followed the conduit from that key switch to an electrical box near the gate motor. This small box was secured with one flat head screw, Armed with a paperclip I removed the screw and shorted the two wires coming from the key switch and the gate opened.
I don't know if I would have thought to do that if I wasn't inspired by the movies. It sure beat camping there for the night,
This also applies to corporate use. I service about 70 computers for a few small businesses and found no compelling reason to upgrade most of them other than 'It's the new thing.' I use 7 at home and I admit for my use it has more pluses than negatives but these pluses do not increase the utility of my customer's computers. They run some industry specific applications that are fully supported under XP. There is absolutely nothing in the newer versions that will help them use their computers any better for their business. One of them asked me to quote them what it would cost to upgrade their entire network to 7 and Office 2010 because a new marketing consultant they hired couldn't stand working with Office 2000 and XP. Even though this company is able to fully utilize this older software. I submitted the $5000+ quote and asked them what they were expecting to gain from it? Many computers would now run slower, maintenance costs will increase, legacy Office templates and Access databases will need revamped or recreated from the ground up, productivity would grind to very low levels as employees reorient themselves to the new nonsensical UI 'improvements.' From a business point of view it doesn't make a lot of sense to upgrade. Perhaps small business anyway. I would gladly take the extra work but just wanted to give my honest opinion first. Just because something is newer doesn't necessarily mean the older still fully functional and supported capital investments should be tossed out. Microsoft screwed up when they release XP. Their track record prior to it was horrible so upgrading to the latest OS made a lot of sense back then. But with the much improved reliability that need is no longer the case.
Airplane analogy instead of the typical car: Southwest airlines doesn't just junk their decades old 737's just because the newer ones are nicer. Instead they get the maximum ROI possible as long as it meets their business needs. Is it any wonder that this is about the only airline in the industry that performs better financially and with such a high safety track record?
Let people believe what they want to believe. It is the first amendment of the constitution after all. It is also the right of the state not the federal government what Texas is doing. I don't fully agree with what they are doing but it is their right. If there are Texans that don't like it they can fight it, attend a private/charter school or move closer to the East or West coast. The majority there probably don't care. I would much rather live in a country that defends this basic right than one that forced beliefs from the top down.
I am a religious Christian, some of the more radical Christians would not agree with me that God's power and creation is based on laws and science. What is taught in schools today as science does not conflict with my beliefs. But if a school tried to tell my daughter that God doesn't exist because science proves it then I have a problem. Likewise if a school taught that good theories such as evolution are garbage and should not be considered I also have a problem. God and science are one and the same, one cannot exist without the other.
I was thinking the same thing. I remember watching a documentary about the switchover from magnetic wire to flash memory sometime in the 90s. If the silicon under the epoxy survives, the data should be retrievable.
...they never claimed it actually ran out of charge during testing (which is what tesla is disputing). They showed a simulation of it running out of charge, but they could have easily just run it down! Who would say that they couldn't? That's not the point they were making. The visuals are for dramatic effect.
I remember NBC installing incendiary devices in pickup trucks for 'dramatic effect' while reporting on the dangers of certain GM trucks exploding in a crash. They could have crashed 100s of trucks but they didn't.
I guess it really boils down to how the public perceives their reviews. Much like how the public perceives the news from NBC vs Comedy Central. There seems to be many shades of gray between the two nowadays.
Sadly though it would never be implemented. The current design was intentional, right down to the glitchy UI that makes accidental purchases of virtual items deplete your supply of precious 'berries, gems, etc' much faster. There is way too much pure profit to be lost by implementing common sense purchasing methods.
Best practice is to turn off in app purchasing from system preferences or don't play the 'game' at all. Doing so will only encourage the sleezbaggery of these devs further.
Devs are intentionally using poor UI design to trap you in to using up the precious 'gems' that you paid real money for. Team Lava and Strom8 are notorious for this. Team Lava for its new Farmville clone and other themes do not give any confirmation when you accidentally tap the wrong part of the screen. Their policies are to never refund anything. I hope the FTC throws the book at them.
Also make sure you have a firewall policy in place that prevents your users from bypassing your mail server. All it takes is for one spam sending malware infected PC on your network to pretty much permanently ban your IP address. Yes, you can try to get unblocked from spamhaus, SORBS(spawn of Satan), and others. But once your reputation is damaged it spreads fast to places like barracuda, sonic, Symantec, and many dozens more firewalls and spam filters that do not whitelist you for a really long time if ever.
So. Your firewall policy should be something like this: Allow FROM (IP of mail sever) TCP 25 TO * Allow FROM (IP range of DHCP pool) TCP 25 TO (Allowed SMTP Smart-hosts, ISP SMTP server) Block FROM * TCP 25 TO *
The order/syntax will depend on your firewall. But it is crucial that no host on your network be allowed to send anything through port 25 to any host outside of your control or knowledge except your mail server.
When google releases the source to a given release it is for a reference for manufactureres to build off of. Each manufacturer chooses different hardware that they think will work best, CPU, gpu, camera, radios, display, touch, accelerometers, etc etc etc and write drivers and recompile custom kernels to make it work. You can't possibly expect google to maintain drivers for every possible configuration. Just like you can't expect Microsoft to maintain drivers for every possible PC (although they do try) I think it is a misconception that customizations such as Sense, Blur, etc are to reason for the delays. Sure they might contribute some but I think the primary cause for delay are all the custom drivers/kernel modules. Contrast with Apple, Palm or other monolithic OS. Their hardware is limited to one manufacturer, as such pushing updates from the OS vendor is much easier. They will always have this advantage.
It would be nice if Google would require manufactures/carriers to offer AOSP version as a choice, even if they charged a nominal fee. But this does not solve the issue with the various drivers needed for each manufacturer and each device and the development and testing on new Android dessert releases. And there would still be delays while all this happens. Not to mention the need to keep shifting their talent to higher priority tasks such as developing newer handsets to stay competitive. Google also said that by forcing manufacturers to do this would nullify the openess of Android. Yes it is a sad state of affairs, but i think the blame rests with the carriers, manufacturers, and the red hot smartphone market.
The reason your more accurate hiking GPS doesn't get a lock indoors is due to it lacking AGPS tech found in cell phones. AGPS allows GPS to gain near instantaneous locks and also to help it deal with degraded signals such as tall buildings or being indoors. In addition to AGPS some Andorid (others probably do this to but I have a Droid) will scan for MAC addresses of any nearby WiFi WAP and query Google for it's gelocation. This data was most likely obtained by their street view vans. Probably is being updated by the millions of droids out there now.
Anyhow, to prove this install the GPS Status app from the Android Market. It will show you all AGPS and GPS data. Put the phone in airplane mode and watch it become just as useful as your hiking GPS indoors. Interestingly enough if I take my droid outside and get a GPS lock, it will stay locked inside even with AGPS turned off. But accuracy suffers greatly.
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Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.
I don't know about that, downmodding can be suicide. I used to receive mod points almost every two weeks until I downmodded an obvious WP7 astroturf and got bitchslapped by the moderation system and haven't seen points in over a year. The moderation system may not be corrupt but it is badly broken.
It would be nice if smartphones were given the same level of respect that PCs get.
Unlocked boot loaders, choice of operating systems, and more protection from illegal search and seizure from law enforcement.
Also if your server is capable and the load allows for it, delaying the SMTP greeting for 15-20 seconds can remove a huge slice of the spam pie even before doing any other checks. The SMTP RFC says servers should be configured to wait up to 5 minutes for this greeting.
Things that usually happen during the delay:
Spam bot tries to talk to your server before it actually receives a greeting. Reject and blacklist this IP. MTA's that do this do not belong on the internet.
Spam bot doesn't want to wait for the greeting and gives up. Good.
Misconfigured legitmate mail server doesn't want to wait. Add these (there will be very few) to your whitelist.
Legitimate properly configured server waits the delay and delivers its mail.
You can also add servers that you trust to your whitelist so they can avoid this somewhat costly delay.
The rare legitimate mail that gets rejected by this method is returned as undeliverable as it never made a sucessful connection in the first place. Sender will know that their message did not reach their recipeint.
With specialized equipment drives can be easily recovered when wiped by zeros. With even more sophisticated methods drives that have been written over several times can be recovered layer by layer. These recovery methods are likely very expensive and you don't need to worry about it now but who knows what will be available 10 years from now.
Physical destruction is really the only way to be sure.
Be careful with some of the components if you are letting children have them or play with them.
Some drive platters are glass instead of aluminum and it is very difficult to know the difference from handling them. My daughter dropped one on the floor and it shattered into very dangerous shards. I was shocked as I believed they were all aluminum. I think most IBM/Hitachi Deskstar drives are glass but there could be others.
She really loves the rare earth magnets but learned real quick that the can pinch very easily. Also these are powerful enough to permanently destroy CRT based TVs if you still have them around. No amount of degaussing brought a Sony Wega back to normal.
Just download RockPlayer from the market. I've been using it over a year and it plays almost everything VLC does and it supports hardware acceleration if available. I use it mainly for SD divx TV shows and is perfect for these, plus it supports subtitles like VLC does. You don't need to buy it either, the unlimited trial version puts a small logo in the corner of the screen.
Just off the top of my head...
RIM and Verizon release the Storm as an answer to the iPhone. It sucked horribly, three generations of horrible in comparison.
Moto and Verizon come along a shakes the entire industry with the Droid.
Samsung joins the party with the Galaxy, HTC with the Incredible and EVO. Moto, HTC and Sammy continue to iterate better performing products.
Meanwhile RIM tries to answer this with the Torch in the same epic manner of fail as the Storm.
Moto, Sammy, HTC, LG, hell even Huawei and Sanyo are iterating better performing product than RIM. Sanyo, seriously.
How can you not hate them?
I don't know about you but I'm done hoping something will happen when every bit of news from them it is just more monkeys and footballs every single time.
In addition to this you can setup m0n0wall or pfSense using captive portal where users are presented with the TOS and a login when they first connect. I think from a legal point of view this is very important. But IANAL so TIFWIW.
The login can be a shared account that is changed how ever often the hotel staff feels is necessary (unusual traffic in the parking lot). Or they can issue vouchers that expire after a period of time. The latter will of course have more overhead.
I use a few m0n0wall captive portal setups for real estate market centers where hundreds of agents need their own credentials and clients need vouchers. It is incredibly simple, reliable, and free. I use this embedded pc and they work great with 100mb connections.
If you want better reporting and and many more features look into pfSense. I find m0n0 to be sufficient for my needs, if you are look in for a good starting point this would be my first choice.
Customers want to get rid of their cable companies. They want their internet plans to allow unrestricted tethering so they can get internet they can use at home or anywhere else.
There is not enough wireless spectrum allocated for this to happen which is why unlimited plans are evaporating. Mobile broadband needs to stay restricted to the mobile device to keep consumption predictable and sustainable. As much as I hate that statement, I know it is currently the only way I will be able to use my smartphone with adequate bandwidth available when I need it. With the continued explosive growth of smartphones the carriers have very little choice.
Kerio Connect. Can be free if you become a partner and have less than 5 users or $540 which is still a great deal IMO due to the ease of administration and being able to set it up in mere minutes with very little effort. You very well could spend many times this in effort trying to do it yourself with a free product.
100% configurable via intuitive web GUI
Multi-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac, VMWare)
Very good multiple anti-spam features
Full featured webmail, very near parity with MS Outlook.
ActiveSync support for Andorid, WinMo, iOS (Push mail, contacts, calendar) Optional Blackberry connector.
Multi-domain support
Near instant phone support with actual engineers (if licensed)
Very active development with easy to apply updates
Tons of other features.
Download the fully functional free trial and give it a spin.
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement but I have been using this product for 5 years and it has been the easiest mail server I have ever managed.
I got locked in my self-storage lot after staying past closing time (11 PM). There were no staff to let me out and I was trapped inside with only a keypad to open the gate which happily told me the lot was closed. After inspecting the gate I saw a what amounted to a key switch on a pole high enough for someone on a fire truck to access from the outside. I followed the conduit from that key switch to an electrical box near the gate motor. This small box was secured with one flat head screw, Armed with a paperclip I removed the screw and shorted the two wires coming from the key switch and the gate opened.
I don't know if I would have thought to do that if I wasn't inspired by the movies. It sure beat camping there for the night,
This also applies to corporate use.
I service about 70 computers for a few small businesses and found no compelling reason to upgrade most of them other than 'It's the new thing.'
I use 7 at home and I admit for my use it has more pluses than negatives but these pluses do not increase the utility of my customer's computers. They run some industry specific applications that are fully supported under XP. There is absolutely nothing in the newer versions that will help them use their computers any better for their business.
One of them asked me to quote them what it would cost to upgrade their entire network to 7 and Office 2010 because a new marketing consultant they hired couldn't stand working with Office 2000 and XP. Even though this company is able to fully utilize this older software. I submitted the $5000+ quote and asked them what they were expecting to gain from it? Many computers would now run slower, maintenance costs will increase, legacy Office templates and Access databases will need revamped or recreated from the ground up, productivity would grind to very low levels as employees reorient themselves to the new nonsensical UI 'improvements.' From a business point of view it doesn't make a lot of sense to upgrade. Perhaps small business anyway. I would gladly take the extra work but just wanted to give my honest opinion first.
Just because something is newer doesn't necessarily mean the older still fully functional and supported capital investments should be tossed out. Microsoft screwed up when they release XP. Their track record prior to it was horrible so upgrading to the latest OS made a lot of sense back then. But with the much improved reliability that need is no longer the case.
Airplane analogy instead of the typical car:
Southwest airlines doesn't just junk their decades old 737's just because the newer ones are nicer. Instead they get the maximum ROI possible as long as it meets their business needs. Is it any wonder that this is about the only airline in the industry that performs better financially and with such a high safety track record?
Just checked the AZ Secretary of State business and tradnames site and wouldn't you know the only filing for iCloud is last month. I'm no Apple fan but this really does seem the work of trolls.
Let people believe what they want to believe. It is the first amendment of the constitution after all. It is also the right of the state not the federal government what Texas is doing. I don't fully agree with what they are doing but it is their right. If there are Texans that don't like it they can fight it, attend a private/charter school or move closer to the East or West coast. The majority there probably don't care.
I would much rather live in a country that defends this basic right than one that forced beliefs from the top down.
I am a religious Christian, some of the more radical Christians would not agree with me that God's power and creation is based on laws and science. What is taught in schools today as science does not conflict with my beliefs. But if a school tried to tell my daughter that God doesn't exist because science proves it then I have a problem. Likewise if a school taught that good theories such as evolution are garbage and should not be considered I also have a problem. God and science are one and the same, one cannot exist without the other.
I was thinking the same thing.
I remember watching a documentary about the switchover from magnetic wire to flash memory sometime in the 90s. If the silicon under the epoxy survives, the data should be retrievable.
Wish there was a way to promote this post to the top of the page.
...they never claimed it actually ran out of charge during testing (which is what tesla is disputing). They showed a simulation of it running out of charge, but they could have easily just run it down! Who would say that they couldn't? That's not the point they were making. The visuals are for dramatic effect.
I remember NBC installing incendiary devices in pickup trucks for 'dramatic effect' while reporting on the dangers of certain GM trucks exploding in a crash. They could have crashed 100s of trucks but they didn't.
I guess it really boils down to how the public perceives their reviews. Much like how the public perceives the news from NBC vs Comedy Central. There seems to be many shades of gray between the two nowadays.
Sadly though it would never be implemented. The current design was intentional, right down to the glitchy UI that makes accidental purchases of virtual items deplete your supply of precious 'berries, gems, etc' much faster.
There is way too much pure profit to be lost by implementing common sense purchasing methods.
Best practice is to turn off in app purchasing from system preferences or don't play the 'game' at all.
Doing so will only encourage the sleezbaggery of these devs further.
Hawaii then?
Devs are intentionally using poor UI design to trap you in to using up the precious 'gems' that you paid real money for.
Team Lava and Strom8 are notorious for this. Team Lava for its new Farmville clone and other themes do not give any confirmation when you accidentally tap the wrong part of the screen. Their policies are to never refund anything.
I hope the FTC throws the book at them.
Also make sure you have a firewall policy in place that prevents your users from bypassing your mail server.
All it takes is for one spam sending malware infected PC on your network to pretty much permanently ban your IP address.
Yes, you can try to get unblocked from spamhaus, SORBS(spawn of Satan), and others. But once your reputation is damaged it spreads fast to places like barracuda, sonic, Symantec, and many dozens more firewalls and spam filters that do not whitelist you for a really long time if ever.
So. Your firewall policy should be something like this:
Allow FROM (IP of mail sever) TCP 25 TO *
Allow FROM (IP range of DHCP pool) TCP 25 TO (Allowed SMTP Smart-hosts, ISP SMTP server)
Block FROM * TCP 25 TO *
The order/syntax will depend on your firewall. But it is crucial that no host on your network be allowed to send anything through port 25 to any host outside of your control or knowledge except your mail server.
That link is for the old project.
Here is a link to the new AndrOINC Project
When google releases the source to a given release it is for a reference for manufactureres to build off of.
Each manufacturer chooses different hardware that they think will work best, CPU, gpu, camera, radios, display, touch, accelerometers, etc etc etc and write drivers and recompile custom kernels to make it work. You can't possibly expect google to maintain drivers for every possible configuration. Just like you can't expect Microsoft to maintain drivers for every possible PC (although they do try)
I think it is a misconception that customizations such as Sense, Blur, etc are to reason for the delays. Sure they might contribute some but I think the primary cause for delay are all the custom drivers/kernel modules.
Contrast with Apple, Palm or other monolithic OS. Their hardware is limited to one manufacturer, as such pushing updates from the OS vendor is much easier. They will always have this advantage.
It would be nice if Google would require manufactures/carriers to offer AOSP version as a choice, even if they charged a nominal fee. But this does not solve the issue with the various drivers needed for each manufacturer and each device and the development and testing on new Android dessert releases. And there would still be delays while all this happens. Not to mention the need to keep shifting their talent to higher priority tasks such as developing newer handsets to stay competitive. Google also said that by forcing manufacturers to do this would nullify the openess of Android. Yes it is a sad state of affairs, but i think the blame rests with the carriers, manufacturers, and the red hot smartphone market.
Or a certain US Senator wants to remotely destroy your computer for downloading a MP3.
The reason your more accurate hiking GPS doesn't get a lock indoors is due to it lacking AGPS tech found in cell phones. AGPS allows GPS to gain near instantaneous locks and also to help it deal with degraded signals such as tall buildings or being indoors.
In addition to AGPS some Andorid (others probably do this to but I have a Droid) will scan for MAC addresses of any nearby WiFi WAP and query Google for it's gelocation. This data was most likely obtained by their street view vans. Probably is being updated by the millions of droids out there now.
Anyhow, to prove this install the GPS Status app from the Android Market. It will show you all AGPS and GPS data. Put the phone in airplane mode and watch it become just as useful as your hiking GPS indoors.
Interestingly enough if I take my droid outside and get a GPS lock, it will stay locked inside even with AGPS turned off. But accuracy suffers greatly.