I have to agree. I've had some pretty bad experiences with Creative... they've been among the worst companies I've dealt with in terms of posting drivers on the web, and their tech support people just don't seem to care.
I also tried a one of the first and second generation hard drive Nomads and they had terrible problems (miniscule battery life, awful buggy software that crashed constantly while storing music on them) that Creative never addressed.
It would take a lot for me to decide to give them another shot.
Yes, I think most all code has a lot of cursing in it.
Someone in the group I used to be in at MIT's Lab for Computer Science used to grep out all the fucks and shits before she'd do a release of our TCP for V6 UNIX.
I started using Gator because Ebates suggested it... I like Ebates a lot and they were suggesting (not even pushing) Gator because of its form-management and password remembering functions, which weren't commonly available in browsers at that point. At that time, Gator was more of a helpful tool than a malignant advertising injector.
As Gator has evolved it's become more and more malicious; popping up ads when I'm browsing is the most annoying, but also it's started placing its own ads over banner ads on web pages - that doesn't annoy me any more than the banner ads would but I think it's a pretty evil practice and I don't want to support it.
The only reason I've kept using Gator is that I have a large investment in terms of the passwords I have stored in it, but there are other, better ways to take care of that problem.
At this point I run Gator with it completely blocked by firewall software, so it can't update itself and it can't download ads or offers. If you delete everything in C:\PROGRAM FILES\COMMON FILES\GMT\BANNERS you'll get rid of the ads it's already downloaded.
Part of John's complaint was that Verio was filtering mail to their customers based on the RBL, and that John couldn't send mail to his own ISP because of this.
I largely agree with what you said, but I think part of John's complaint which you missed is that Verio is making the decision for their customers as to whether or not to accept email from John's open relay, and not allowing their customers to make that decision themselves.
On the one hand, I believe he's saying that the ISP should not make the choice for its customers as to what mail it accepts and what mail it doesn't accept. I have to agree with this, it's a slippery slope and easily abused. However I believe a lot of customers are happy to have their ISP try to reduce the amount of spam they receive.
Also, I believe John's attitude is that any spam-prevention mechanisms should not block valid mail from getting through. I have to agree with this.
And, having been (incorrectly) attacked by anti-spammers a few times I have to say that often the anti-spammers are worse than the spammers.
On the other hand, I think John's insistence on running open relays is just plain a bad idea, and that using technological means such as SMTP Authentication could completely remove the need for having open relays.
if you're not too conferned about cost, you might want to check out Creative's new Soundblaster Audigy - the Ex version has a box similar to the "LiveDrive" of the SB Live but it's external with a thick cable to connect it to the SB Audigy card. The card does 24 bit 5.1 channel audio and also provides a firewire port and all the digital I/O that the high end SB Live cards had. I found the drive bay box on the SB Live Platinum to be a pain in the butt too, I never managed to get it mounted securely in a Dell box, but this external box is great.
I'd love it if Replay actually ships what they're claiming to, but I'm dubious. When they shipped their first product, it had a firewire port on the back and their marketing literature advertised the fact that it was expandable via firewire. Never happened. They never made it work. After a while they just stopped answering questions about when it would work, then they denied that they'd ever said it would.
The features they advertise sound great. I hope they actually ship them.
There's also a very good Apache Perl module called Apache::MP3 that you can download from CPAN which provides something similar, though I don't think it necessarily supports shoutcast/icecast yet.
no, several words... "End-to-end encryption". If you're using security end-to-end (SSL, SSH, IPsec, documention encryption) the only privacy considerations you may have will be traffic analysis, and it won't matter what physical network you're running over. Sure, you can secure your local net all to hell but you still don't know what your packets will be traversing once you leave your network.
good sources in the US for overseas books
on
The Star Fraction
·
· Score: 1
I've used the Advanced Book Exchange several times to find sources in the US for books published overseas. They act as a front end for a lot of small booksellers who list their catalog.
You could also try Alibris - I have no experience with them myself...and, of course, you can always order through the link given above for Amazon.CO.UK.
I've enjoyed Ken McLeod's other books but haven't read Star Fraction yet.
I was able to get DirecPC to work with Linux. Unfortunately, I had to pay to license some drivers from Helius, but they're the only place I know of to get DirecPC drivers. Their code works with the ISA and PCI cards.
I was able to set up IP masquerading so that other machines could get high-speed downloads, too.
Some caveats -
1. you still need some kind of regular ISP for your outgoing packets 2. I had to "commission" my DirecPC card under Windows, then take the config file this generated and move it to Linux. 3. Hughes (who operate DirecPC) are infamous for their FAP (Fair Access Policy) under which they throttle you down to regular modem speeds if they decide you've transfered too much in too little time. In the past they haven't published how much is too much, so it was difficult to know when you were about to get into trouble. A recent class action suit against them might have changed that. 4. Until recently, Helius didn't even have 2.2 kernel support, though they seem to now (2.2.5). 5. Helius has a 30 day eval you can download for free. 6. Helius' licensing policy restricted the number of connections that you could have at once (ie: more connections == more money). This only worked eratically with me, I was usually able to do more simultaneous connections through ipmasq.
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Kids these days... sheesh.
I have to agree. I've had some pretty bad experiences with Creative... they've been among the worst companies I've dealt with in terms of posting drivers on the web, and their tech support people just don't seem to care.
I also tried a one of the first and second generation hard drive Nomads and they had terrible problems (miniscule battery life, awful buggy software that crashed constantly while storing music on them) that Creative never addressed.
It would take a lot for me to decide to give them another shot.
Yes, I think most all code has a lot of cursing in it.
Someone in the group I used to be in at MIT's Lab for Computer Science used to grep out all the fucks and shits before she'd do a release of our TCP for V6 UNIX.
I started using Gator because Ebates suggested it... I like Ebates a lot and they were suggesting (not even pushing) Gator because of its form-management and password remembering functions, which weren't commonly available in browsers at that point. At that time, Gator was more of a helpful tool than a malignant advertising injector.
As Gator has evolved it's become more and more malicious; popping up ads when I'm browsing is the most annoying, but also it's started placing its own ads over banner ads on web pages - that doesn't annoy me any more than the banner ads would but I think it's a pretty evil practice and I don't want to support it.
The only reason I've kept using Gator is that I have a large investment in terms of the passwords I have stored in it, but there are other, better ways to take care of that problem. At this point I run Gator with it completely blocked by firewall software, so it can't update itself and it can't download ads or offers. If you delete everything in C:\PROGRAM FILES\COMMON FILES\GMT\BANNERS you'll get rid of the ads it's already downloaded.
Part of John's complaint was that Verio was filtering mail to their customers based on the RBL, and that John couldn't send mail to his own ISP because of this.
I largely agree with what you said, but I think part of John's complaint which you missed is that Verio is making the decision for their customers as to whether or not to accept email from John's open relay, and not allowing their customers to make that decision themselves.
I've argued with John about this.
On the one hand, I believe he's saying that the ISP should not make the choice for its customers as to what mail it accepts and what mail it doesn't accept. I have to agree with this, it's a slippery slope and easily abused. However I believe a lot of customers are happy to have their ISP try to reduce the amount of spam they receive.
Also, I believe John's attitude is that any spam-prevention mechanisms should not block valid mail from getting through. I have to agree with this.
And, having been (incorrectly) attacked by anti-spammers a few times I have to say that often the anti-spammers are worse than the spammers.
On the other hand, I think John's insistence on running open relays is just plain a bad idea, and that using technological means such as SMTP Authentication could completely remove the need for having open relays.
if you're not too conferned about cost, you might want to check out Creative's new Soundblaster Audigy - the Ex version has a box similar to the "LiveDrive" of the SB Live but it's external with a thick cable to connect it to the SB Audigy card. The card does 24 bit 5.1 channel audio and also provides a firewire port and all the digital I/O that the high end SB Live cards had. I found the drive bay box on the SB Live Platinum to be a pain in the butt too, I never managed to get it mounted securely in a Dell box, but this external box is great.
I'd love it if Replay actually ships what they're claiming to, but I'm dubious. When they shipped their first product, it had a firewire port on the back and their marketing literature advertised the fact that it was expandable via firewire. Never happened. They never made it work. After a while they just stopped answering questions about when it would work, then they denied that they'd ever said it would.
The features they advertise sound great. I hope they actually ship them.
There's also a very good Apache Perl module called Apache::MP3 that you can download from CPAN which provides something similar, though I don't think it necessarily supports shoutcast/icecast yet.
no, several words... "End-to-end encryption". If you're using security end-to-end (SSL, SSH, IPsec, documention encryption) the only privacy considerations you may have will be traffic analysis, and it won't matter what physical network you're running over. Sure, you can secure your local net all to hell but you still don't know what your packets will be traversing once you leave your network.
You could also try Alibris - I have no experience with them myself...and, of course, you can always order through the link given above for Amazon.CO.UK.
I've enjoyed Ken McLeod's other books but haven't read Star Fraction yet.
I was able to set up IP masquerading so that other machines could get high-speed downloads, too.
Some caveats -
1. you still need some kind of regular ISP for your outgoing packets
2. I had to "commission" my DirecPC card under Windows, then take the config file this generated and move it to Linux.
3. Hughes (who operate DirecPC) are infamous for their FAP (Fair Access Policy) under which they throttle you down to regular modem speeds if they decide you've transfered too much in too little time. In the past they haven't published how much is too much, so it was difficult to know when you were about to get into trouble. A recent class action suit against them might have changed that.
4. Until recently, Helius didn't even have 2.2 kernel support, though they seem to now (2.2.5).
5. Helius has a 30 day eval you can download for free.
6. Helius' licensing policy restricted the number of connections that you could have at once (ie: more connections == more money). This only worked eratically with me, I was usually able to do more simultaneous connections through ipmasq.