The paper-clip guy - I would like to smash his head in.
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When I'm using variables in a document (ie i) and it makes them uppercase.
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When it tries to format lists for me, but always does it wrong
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When it stops responding for 4-5 minutes while it talks to NT 'bout something
Sounds like you have more serious problems. Occasionally Word will take advantage of the "auto save" feature to avoid lost data (trivial to disable). That's the only thing I can imagine that it would be doing. A four to five minute lock-up is an indication of a much more serious problem. I would consider checking the disk surface of your drive for errors and running some generic system health tests. Naturally, a decent-speed CPU and a good amount of RAM would be the first thing I'd check. If you're using an application with anything below the recommended system specifications, you're asking for problems like this. You might also try closing any other major applications that you may have open, because each one uses its own share of memory, as I'm sure you're aware. Of course, I'm assuming you're not exaggarating by your 4-5 minute delay. I've never seen that before.
When it tries to autocorrect my spelling as I type
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
In general, anytime it tries to think for me
In general, most of Word's "intuitive" features are trivially disabled.
Don't bash a product because you lack the competance to configure it correctly. I mean come on, it's a Windows app. Point and click. It's not like you're having to edit a.mswordrc file.
More accurately, the amount of time invested in using one product can be considered an advantage of that product when comparing it to something new. If the new product is overwhelmingly better, people will switch.
This is true, but do you know of any Office suites that can truthfully be classified as "overwhelmingly better" than MS Office? I can't. I've used 'em all, and nothing beats Word or Excel for the tasks they're designed for. And what about Powerpoint? Is there even a Linux alternative for that, much less an "overwhelmingly better" one?
The loud, uneducated majority (IRC script kiddies, high school Unix admin wananbes, college Unix admin wannabes and the mentally disturbed), or more affectionately, the "slashdot sheep", are all about killing the big-bad, evil (insert noun of the day here, ex. Microsoft), castrating those that oppose the (insert noun of the day here, ex. GPL), and touting (insert noun of the day here, ex. Linux) as the complete, should-be-used-everywhere-by-all-people-at-all-tim es solution for all the world's problems, along with its O Holy Creator, (insert name of the day here, ex. Linus).
The relatively silent, educated minority, affectionately referred to as the Real People with Real Jobs doing Real Things that actually Make A Difference, know that it all boils down to using the best tool for the task.
Let me say that again:
It all boils down to using the best tool for the task.
For my Unix, WWW, CGI, SQL, etc. development, I will work on my Linux box using my vi text editor, Apache web server and copy of mySQL. Why? Because I'm familiar with those tools and they are ideally suited for my work environment and habits. For my graphics, work e-mail, XML and stylesheet development, I use my NT system, Photoshop, Outlook and Internet Explorer. Yes, I have to reboot my NT machine every week or two. Yes, applications occasionally crash. My lost productivity there more than makes up for the productivity I've gained by taking advantage of these Microsoft products to get my job done. There are no suitable equivalents available under Linux. (And for every Linux alternative you mention, I'm going to offer you several reasons why it's inferior, not as productive as its MS counterpart, or why the MS version is better suited to my needs or work environment.)
The bottom line: All you sheep looking for a cause to fight for, stop thinking with your single uneducated, paranoid, immature collective virtual "brain" and start thinking with the gooey one between your ears. A hear a lot of, "You're a Microsoft guy. Open your mind up a little bit to other alternatives," when you OS bigots are guilty of exactly the same thing: closed-mindedness. It's not about what's cool and "making a stand". It's about using the best tools for the task at hand. Grow up.
No more worries about pirated software- nothing can hide from the megaserver!
This is bad?
Guess where your web cache is stored kiddies? "The better to taylor banner ads, um i mean content for you."
Of course, you're making the assumption that temporary files like browser caches (assuming they even exist) will exist on the server-side. Wouldn't a simple proxy be more efficient? A web cache is designed to be super-fast (pulling from the local disk). A server lookup wouldn't be any more of a gain than any proxy would.
Also, don't judge an idea based upon what an evil mind MIGHT be able to do if it were POSSIBLE that he were allowed to do it. It's possible for credit card companies to monitor your purchases and sell your name and address to targeted vendors for junk mail. It's possible for your ISP to monitor which newsgroups you read and send the information about your porn tastes to various X-rated junk mail firms. It's possible to do a great many things in the world today but you don't see it happening. Why? Because it's not in the company's best interests to do so. The resulting PR mess and the number of customers who would switch to a competitor would make the prospects seem very bad for a company trying to abuse information it has access to. Microsoft is no difference, except they seem a bit bolder. Don't judge them for something they haven't done yet.
If they control the server, then they can control the communications protocol
I agree that having an open standard and open protocols would definitely be a good thing. If they do keep everything proprietary, though, it won't be too difficult to figure out. After all, look at ICQ and the number of Linux clones. I don't believe they had much of a real standard to go upon until someone did a bit of packet snooping. Also, this "Megaserver" idea seems especially well-suited for multiple platforms. It would be a shame to limit their customers to only those that are running a PC with Windows or an appliance with WindowsCE.
Hopefully any initiative along these lines will be constructed a bit more reliably than your 20-year-old mainframe. We have the technology now to keep services running essentially continuously for years at a time so I don't see reliability as a major detraction assuming this is implemented correctly.
It'd certainly be nice to go over to a friend's house and have access to the same applications and information as I do at home or at work. Forget synchronization.
Though, of course I'm speaking about my Windows apps. I can already use an X server at work or at a friend's house to get at all of my apps and information on the Linux side of things, but this doesn't extend into my "real world" work (where I need access to NT apps/data).
http://slashdot.org/ is a static HTML page and will NOT be tailored to your tastes. If you've adjusted your page settings, you will need to make your new Slashdot start page http://slashdot.org/index.pl.
I know, right? You'd think these people would have keeled over in agony by now, but nope. They're still out there taking the time to actually go INTO the articles that are causing them so much misery and tell everyone about it.
because he'd LOVE an excuse to nuke us. That's the only point I'm trying to make here
The point I'm trying to make is that he can't nuke us. He doesn't have the delivery vehicles to launch a nuclear strike against anything US. Not all countries have the technology to make a military strike against any country in the world.
Something's fishy about this news story...
on
NSI Loses Records
·
· Score: 1
"Lost" means deleted. The domains were removed from the InterNIC database and left as undelegated. "Heaps" of e-mail were lost. If 18,000 domains were deleted, what do you think happens to all of the e-mail destined to addresses at those domains? The e-mail bounces. I think "heaps" is an accurate description.
Just because the NSI said they were "targeting" squatters doesn't mean that's what really happened. From what I've been able to gather, most (if not all) of the domains were being held by paying customers, and most (if not all) of the domains were due for (re?)payment in March. They may have been targeting squatters, but they hit quite a lot more. And you're right, the InterNIC shouldn't be able to just drop paid domains. That doesn't mean it can't happen by accident, or on purpose (but illegally).
Your "conclusion" is based upon the tiniest bit of information given to you in the article. I assure you there's quite a lot more to it than that.
It seems that, while InterNIC claims this was an attempt to prune the delinquant squatters, most of the domains dropped were those that were due up for payment (or repayment) during the month of March. Rumor has it that an additional 7k domains were lost the following monday night bringing the total to 25k.
To make matters worse, InterNIC seems to be telling people that they need to re-register their lost domains with WorldNIC instead of InterNIC (at $119 instead of $70). Can we say "motive"? I know of several people that have had their lost domains re-registered by someone *else*. Talk about a bad day...
From what I've been able to gather, the affected domains were all due up for renewal sometime in March. It has nothing to do with delinquent squatters.
You may wish to consider limiting the number of users to something a bit more manageable. I'm downloading it now at a rate of about 600 bytes/second. Not good, considering I have dual ISDN.
Anyhow, I don't advocate this; In the case of docs that are just going to be turned in with no furter editing, PostScript's better.
This isn't always acceptable. If they're asking for it in Word format, they probably have a reason. Chances are, they're using a Word file viewer to browse through each document. When they come up to your Postscript file they're going to toss it in the trash can and give you an F for not following directions.
I'm not saying my specific (2 PC's) is appropriate or even desirable for everyone. I'm just saying you should let people use what they need to use. I don't recall hearing the original poster say he wished he could do all of his work under Linux, yet it was implied that he was foolish for doing his NT development under NT and experimental Linux alternatives were supplied.
Now, granted, my rant was more generic and was more or less against "everyone" that has this "Use Linux for Everything" attitude... Your post was just the one I broke down and chose to reply to. Nothing personal.
But then again, Iraq's got nukes, and we ain't exactly friends with them..... THEY are the ones I am worried about, not the Russians or, hell, even the Chinese.
You forget that while a country may or may not have weapons of mass-destruction, they also need the delivery vehicle to bring that weapon to its enemy. Iraq does not have the missile technology to hit us or most anyplace in Europe.
But my other point is that even though I am trying to be optimistic, I am quite the survivalist and will be heading for the hills - and I am heading up the Y2K section of my consulting firm right now!!!!
That's pretty sad.. What's even sadder is that you'll end up convincing your friends and family of their impending Y2k-related doom and they'll do the same thing, tell their friends, etc.
If there does end up being a meltdown of the government or financial institutions, it's going to be due to attitudes like yours and not any direct result of a Y2k-related bug.
They don't have to follow up on it (or even track it for that matter). Just knowing that the capability is there cows corporate customers into diligently keeping their licenses current.
And this is bad?
Firstly, I don't know about the types of places you work, but the corporation I work for has valid licences for every piece of software on every system. If unfounded fear (paranoid stupidity) in the minds of managers and administrators is really a factor here, while I'm laughing my asses off at these people, I don't see it as a bad thing at all.
Secondly, saying this whole PR mess is a plot by Microsoft to instill fear in the big corporations who are allegedly pirating thousands of dollars in Microsoft products is just silly. It really disturbs me that so many people actually think along these lines. I guess maybe when you end up with a real job in the real world and deal with real companies and real tactics and real technologies to solve real problems, you'll start seeing what's really going on.
The reason there's so much unreadable Perl code out there is because it *is* so easy to learn, so you get a LOT of novices/inexperienced coders writing Perl scripts without any clear understanding of how to write good clean code.
You usually find that someone with a lot of good, clean coding experience (doesn't matter what language) tends to write good, clean Perl code as well.
Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about here?
The only reason for this is so that Microsoft has hard evidence of piracy of their software.
How in the WORLD can this be used as evidence of piracy? Do you have any idea how many people and organizations buy 3 or 5 or 50 copies of software and just use the same CD/key to install it on every machine? To my knowledge this is perfectly kosher. What about someone installing Win98 on their PC, selling that copy of Win98 to someone else, and having that person install it on *their* PC? There are a million examples like this that totally shoot down the idea of this GUID being able to identify software pirates. If Microsoft were really tracking this information in some sort of piracy database, they would have to spend a LOT more time investigating the discrepancy than you'd think, and in most cases, it simply wouldn't be worth it.
Your argument is basically the same as the one dealing with Intel's CPU ID mechanism and software piracy. The whole idea is totally absurd and impractical.
If you're right, Micros~1 is criminally negligent in allowing this privacy bug to slip out the door.
They broke no laws here. Your entire argument is flawed. I really feel like a dirty bastard having to defend Microsoft here. I don't care for them any more than most of you do, but when people don't seem to care that they don't know SQUAT about the issues at hand, and only want to jump on the "Microsoft is evil" bandwagon and start badmouthing them, I feel I need to step up.
The GUID is only sent to Microsoft as part of the online Win98 registration. If this applies to you, then you've ALREADY given MS your name, address, etc. along with your IP address. The addition of a GUID perhaps allowing identification of your MAC address (which is all but useless to MS) and generally just being a unique ID doesn't necessarily degrade your privacy any way.
Yes, it does seem suspicious and odd that this information would be required and stored in Word documents among others, but you should at least open yourself up to the possibility that there IS a logical explanation for why it's there, and I sincerely doubt that explanation has anything to do with violating your privacy or tracking you down.
Stop being an uneducated paranoid slashdot sheep and think about this for a while.
I noticed Microsoft is suing a lot of companies these days for pirating their software... how do they know?
Because someone tipped them off, they did some investigation, and then filed a lawsuit.
Anyone that thinks that Microsoft somehow used this GUID information to determine who has registered software and who doesn't, and who to go suing is just an easily-frightened, paranoid sheep. What about those organizations that buy 10 copies of Windows but only use one CD/key to install on their workstations? To my knowledge there's nothing really wrong with this, yet your alleged GUID abuse would point to these guys as being evil, yes?
Think about it. The ID was only sent as part of the online Win98 registration process. The odds that you are even affected by this are remote.
Stop believing everything you read in the media (or on Slashdot) and learn to think for yourself. Get educated about the facts behind this matter before you go off spouting nonsense.
Btw, what is it you folks do using NT at work? Development? You could try developing your Windows apps with winelib (unless they make you use VB... ugh!) and be able to ensure that your company's product'll run under linux while getting your work done.
This "everyone MUST use Linux for EVERYTHING" attitude is really starting to bug me. If I'm developing projects that are meant to be deployed on NT systems, you'd better damn well bet I'm going to be developing and testing these things on NT. It's significantly easier and more productive for me if I use existing established tools under NT to do this task than to resort to using experimental, support-less OSS tools under Linux.
And despite what you may think, SO's RTF/Word format is not always perfect. I've come across quite a few inaccuracies when viewing a document cross-platform. This means he will be required to write his document in SO, reboot to Windows, "test view" it in Word to be sure it's right, make any corrections, and only then send it.
Or, you can reduce this time-consuming document creation steps to just two: Write it in Word for Windows, and then send it.
Let's face it, folks: Linux is useful for a myriad of tasks, but when you're working in a Windows environment or need Windowscentric documents, it's a WHOLE LOT more convenient and efficient to just do it in Windows. I myself have two computers at home, one Linux and one Win98. Since I do a great deal of stylesheet work on an Intranet, I use IE as my web browser (since Netscape's handling of stylesheets is far inferior, and ngLayout is not ready for real use), Word as my word processor, and Photoshop5 as my graphics app. I run an X server under Windows where my Linux apps appear, and occasionally I'll move my graphics over to the GIMP since the GIMP is easier to use for a few types of effects. I use IRC in an rxvt window, Windows ICQ, mutt for my e-mail, Outlook Express for newsgroups, etc.
All in all, I think I have it easy. I get to use the real productivity workhorses from Linux alongside the good Windows apps. Yes, I effectively have to reboot once a week or so, but I think that more than makes up for the amount of time I've saved.
Using a 100% Linux environment in many cases can be JUST as time-draining and inefficient as working in a 100% Windows environment. Educated people know to use the best tools for the job, and don't get involved in all of these stupid "everything MS is bad, everything linux is superior" arguments.
While you certainly have that option, it's not going to make the PIII go away, which means it'll still be used with Linux, which means Linux will still need a way to control it.
The CPU ID's could actually serve a useful purpose in a NOC or privileged network where each and every machine needs to be accounted for and identified. Since Linux is popular in these settings, it only makes sense to have the ID available for use.
1. Never run untrusted programs as root. PGP signatures and the like are there for a reason. If you're habitually downloading and running stuff as root without any clear idea where the program came from or who wrote it, you're just asking for trouble.
2. Any program that is discovered to exhibit this sort of behavior will be treated like any other trojan horse. The application will be reported to the various security lists and it will be removed from download.
It seems like everyone is pointing out these "new" threats about how people can write malicious programs to retrieve your CPU ID, but really folks, this is nothing more than a trojan. One could just as easily write in a little bit of code that retrieves your e-mail address, passwords, etc. and mails them to a collection address. The threat of having a CPU ID is negligible when compared to this.
Trust me, if you end up running trojaned software, the CPU ID will NOT be a primary target. Think about it, folks.
Why not have it to where a user-level program (or a/proc interface) with ROOT PRIVILEGES can make the adjustment as needed? If you're running untrusted programs or installing untrusted kernel modules as root, you're a moron and deserve what you get. Perhaps have the kernel print a line to the klog saying the ID mechanism was (en|dis)abled by program ____ user ____ so that it can NOT be done secretly?
RPM, while designed and implemented by RedHat, is hardly proprietary. You can install rpm on any Linux system and be able to use.rpm files just fine.
To my knowledge, there is no set "standard" for "script or info file"s in.tar.gz packages. If you wanted to upgrade an existing.tar.gz package, there's no easy way to do it short of duplicating the installation procedure, overwriting what's already there. This can end up leaving orphaned files (no longer used by the new version) and overwriting existing configuration files. I'm not saying RPM is the only format that supports some of these cases, but it certainly does a better job of managing your applications than.tar.gz,.zip and.shar packages.
Isn't the source code available for the RPM utils? Doesn't that, by definition, make it not proprietary?
And, for the record, the only time I've ever had trouble with RedHat (5.0 *or* 5.2) is when I tried to install it over an existing Slackware installation. Obviously this is kind of a dumb thing to do. Since then I've never had problems on any system I've installed 5.[02]. Now, I'll admit that some people do have problems, but those people (like you) should be able to at least admit it's possible that your specific configuration or administration "habits" might be the source of your problems, not some inherent flaw in the distribution.
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The paper-clip guy - I would like to smash his head in.
.mswordrc file.
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When I'm using variables in a document (ie i) and it makes them uppercase.
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When it tries to format lists for me, but always does it wrong
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
When it stops responding for 4-5 minutes while it talks to NT 'bout something
Sounds like you have more serious problems. Occasionally Word will take advantage of the "auto save" feature to avoid lost data (trivial to disable). That's the only thing I can imagine that it would be doing. A four to five minute lock-up is an indication of a much more serious problem. I would consider checking the disk surface of your drive for errors and running some generic system health tests. Naturally, a decent-speed CPU and a good amount of RAM would be the first thing I'd check. If you're using an application with anything below the recommended system specifications, you're asking for problems like this. You might also try closing any other major applications that you may have open, because each one uses its own share of memory, as I'm sure you're aware. Of course, I'm assuming you're not exaggarating by your 4-5 minute delay. I've never seen that before.
When it tries to autocorrect my spelling as I type
It's pretty trivial to disable this.
In general, anytime it tries to think for me
In general, most of Word's "intuitive" features are trivially disabled.
Don't bash a product because you lack the competance to configure it correctly. I mean come on, it's a Windows app. Point and click. It's not like you're having to edit a
More accurately, the amount of time invested in using one product can be considered an advantage of that product when comparing it to something new. If the new product is overwhelmingly better, people will switch.
This is true, but do you know of any Office suites that can truthfully be classified as "overwhelmingly better" than MS Office? I can't. I've used 'em all, and nothing beats Word or Excel for the tasks they're designed for. And what about Powerpoint? Is there even a Linux alternative for that, much less an "overwhelmingly better" one?
I am SOOO sick of the OS bigots on Slashdot.
m es solution for all the world's problems, along with its O Holy Creator, (insert name of the day here, ex. Linus).
The loud, uneducated majority (IRC script kiddies, high school Unix admin wananbes, college Unix admin wannabes and the mentally disturbed), or more affectionately, the "slashdot sheep", are all about killing the big-bad, evil (insert noun of the day here, ex. Microsoft), castrating those that oppose the (insert noun of the day here, ex. GPL), and touting (insert noun of the day here, ex. Linux) as the complete, should-be-used-everywhere-by-all-people-at-all-ti
The relatively silent, educated minority, affectionately referred to as the Real People with Real Jobs doing Real Things that actually Make A Difference, know that it all boils down to using the best tool for the task.
Let me say that again:
It all boils down to using the best tool for the task.
For my Unix, WWW, CGI, SQL, etc. development, I will work on my Linux box using my vi text editor, Apache web server and copy of mySQL. Why? Because I'm familiar with those tools and they are ideally suited for my work environment and habits. For my graphics, work e-mail, XML and stylesheet development, I use my NT system, Photoshop, Outlook and Internet Explorer. Yes, I have to reboot my NT machine every week or two. Yes, applications occasionally crash. My lost productivity there more than makes up for the productivity I've gained by taking advantage of these Microsoft products to get my job done. There are no suitable equivalents available under Linux. (And for every Linux alternative you mention, I'm going to offer you several reasons why it's inferior, not as productive as its MS counterpart, or why the MS version is better suited to my needs or work environment.)
The bottom line: All you sheep looking for a cause to fight for, stop thinking with your single uneducated, paranoid, immature collective virtual "brain" and start thinking with the gooey one between your ears. A hear a lot of, "You're a Microsoft guy. Open your mind up a little bit to other alternatives," when you OS bigots are guilty of exactly the same thing: closed-mindedness. It's not about what's cool and "making a stand". It's about using the best tools for the task at hand. Grow up.
No more worries about pirated software- nothing can hide from the megaserver!
This is bad?
Guess where your web cache is stored kiddies? "The better to taylor banner ads, um i mean content for you."
Of course, you're making the assumption that temporary files like browser caches (assuming they even exist) will exist on the server-side. Wouldn't a simple proxy be more efficient? A web cache is designed to be super-fast (pulling from the local disk). A server lookup wouldn't be any more of a gain than any proxy would.
Also, don't judge an idea based upon what an evil mind MIGHT be able to do if it were POSSIBLE that he were allowed to do it. It's possible for credit card companies to monitor your purchases and sell your name and address to targeted vendors for junk mail. It's possible for your ISP to monitor which newsgroups you read and send the information about your porn tastes to various X-rated junk mail firms. It's possible to do a great many things in the world today but you don't see it happening. Why? Because it's not in the company's best interests to do so. The resulting PR mess and the number of customers who would switch to a competitor would make the prospects seem very bad for a company trying to abuse information it has access to. Microsoft is no difference, except they seem a bit bolder. Don't judge them for something they haven't done yet.
If they control the server, then they can control the communications protocol
I agree that having an open standard and open protocols would definitely be a good thing. If they do keep everything proprietary, though, it won't be too difficult to figure out. After all, look at ICQ and the number of Linux clones. I don't believe they had much of a real standard to go upon until someone did a bit of packet snooping. Also, this "Megaserver" idea seems especially well-suited for multiple platforms. It would be a shame to limit their customers to only those that are running a PC with Windows or an appliance with WindowsCE.
Hopefully any initiative along these lines will be constructed a bit more reliably than your 20-year-old mainframe. We have the technology now to keep services running essentially continuously for years at a time so I don't see reliability as a major detraction assuming this is implemented correctly.
It'd certainly be nice to go over to a friend's house and have access to the same applications and information as I do at home or at work. Forget synchronization.
Though, of course I'm speaking about my Windows apps. I can already use an X server at work or at a friend's house to get at all of my apps and information on the Linux side of things, but this doesn't extend into my "real world" work (where I need access to NT apps/data).
http://slashdot.org/ is a static HTML page and will NOT be tailored to your tastes. If you've adjusted your page settings, you will need to make your new Slashdot start page http://slashdot.org/index.pl.
I know, right? You'd think these people would have keeled over in agony by now, but nope. They're still out there taking the time to actually go INTO the articles that are causing them so much misery and tell everyone about it.
Pretty weird if you ask me.
because he'd LOVE an excuse to nuke us. That's the only point I'm trying to make here
The point I'm trying to make is that he can't nuke us. He doesn't have the delivery vehicles to launch a nuclear strike against anything US. Not all countries have the technology to make a military strike against any country in the world.
"Lost" means deleted. The domains were removed from the InterNIC database and left as undelegated. "Heaps" of e-mail were lost. If 18,000 domains were deleted, what do you think happens to all of the e-mail destined to addresses at those domains? The e-mail bounces. I think "heaps" is an accurate description.
Just because the NSI said they were "targeting" squatters doesn't mean that's what really happened. From what I've been able to gather, most (if not all) of the domains were being held by paying customers, and most (if not all) of the domains were due for (re?)payment in March. They may have been targeting squatters, but they hit quite a lot more. And you're right, the InterNIC shouldn't be able to just drop paid domains. That doesn't mean it can't happen by accident, or on purpose (but illegally).
Your "conclusion" is based upon the tiniest bit of information given to you in the article. I assure you there's quite a lot more to it than that.
It seems that, while InterNIC claims this was an attempt to prune the delinquant squatters, most of the domains dropped were those that were due up for payment (or repayment) during the month of March. Rumor has it that an additional 7k domains were lost the following monday night bringing the total to 25k.
To make matters worse, InterNIC seems to be telling people that they need to re-register their lost domains with WorldNIC instead of InterNIC (at $119 instead of $70). Can we say "motive"? I know of several people that have had their lost domains re-registered by someone *else*. Talk about a bad day...
Another interesting article.
From what I've been able to gather, the affected domains were all due up for renewal sometime in March. It has nothing to do with delinquent squatters.
You may wish to consider limiting the number of users to something a bit more manageable. I'm downloading it now at a rate of about 600 bytes/second. Not good, considering I have dual ISDN.
Anyhow, I don't advocate this; In the case of docs that are just going to be turned in with no furter editing, PostScript's better.
This isn't always acceptable. If they're asking for it in Word format, they probably have a reason. Chances are, they're using a Word file viewer to browse through each document. When they come up to your Postscript file they're going to toss it in the trash can and give you an F for not following directions.
I'm not saying my specific (2 PC's) is appropriate or even desirable for everyone. I'm just saying you should let people use what they need to use. I don't recall hearing the original poster say he wished he could do all of his work under Linux, yet it was implied that he was foolish for doing his NT development under NT and experimental Linux alternatives were supplied.
Now, granted, my rant was more generic and was more or less against "everyone" that has this "Use Linux for Everything" attitude... Your post was just the one I broke down and chose to reply to. Nothing personal.
But then again, Iraq's got nukes, and we ain't exactly friends with them..... THEY are the ones I am worried about, not the Russians or, hell, even the Chinese.
You forget that while a country may or may not have weapons of mass-destruction, they also need the delivery vehicle to bring that weapon to its enemy. Iraq does not have the missile technology to hit us or most anyplace in Europe.
But my other point is that even though I am trying to be optimistic, I am quite the survivalist and will be heading for the hills - and I am heading up the Y2K section of my consulting firm right now!!!!
That's pretty sad.. What's even sadder is that you'll end up convincing your friends and family of their impending Y2k-related doom and they'll do the same thing, tell their friends, etc.
If there does end up being a meltdown of the government or financial institutions, it's going to be due to attitudes like yours and not any direct result of a Y2k-related bug.
They don't have to follow up on it (or even track it for that matter). Just knowing that the capability is there cows corporate customers into diligently keeping their licenses current.
And this is bad?
Firstly, I don't know about the types of places you work, but the corporation I work for has valid licences for every piece of software on every system. If unfounded fear (paranoid stupidity) in the minds of managers and administrators is really a factor here, while I'm laughing my asses off at these people, I don't see it as a bad thing at all.
Secondly, saying this whole PR mess is a plot by Microsoft to instill fear in the big corporations who are allegedly pirating thousands of dollars in Microsoft products is just silly. It really disturbs me that so many people actually think along these lines. I guess maybe when you end up with a real job in the real world and deal with real companies and real tactics and real technologies to solve real problems, you'll start seeing what's really going on.
This is all paranoid silliness.
The reason there's so much unreadable Perl code out there is because it *is* so easy to learn, so you get a LOT of novices/inexperienced coders writing Perl scripts without any clear understanding of how to write good clean code.
You usually find that someone with a lot of good, clean coding experience (doesn't matter what language) tends to write good, clean Perl code as well.
Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about here?
The only reason for this is so that Microsoft has hard evidence of piracy of their software.
How in the WORLD can this be used as evidence of piracy? Do you have any idea how many people and organizations buy 3 or 5 or 50 copies of software and just use the same CD/key to install it on every machine? To my knowledge this is perfectly kosher. What about someone installing Win98 on their PC, selling that copy of Win98 to someone else, and having that person install it on *their* PC? There are a million examples like this that totally shoot down the idea of this GUID being able to identify software pirates. If Microsoft were really tracking this information in some sort of piracy database, they would have to spend a LOT more time investigating the discrepancy than you'd think, and in most cases, it simply wouldn't be worth it.
Your argument is basically the same as the one dealing with Intel's CPU ID mechanism and software piracy. The whole idea is totally absurd and impractical.
If you're right, Micros~1 is criminally negligent in allowing this privacy bug to slip out the door.
They broke no laws here. Your entire argument is flawed. I really feel like a dirty bastard having to defend Microsoft here. I don't care for them any more than most of you do, but when people don't seem to care that they don't know SQUAT about the issues at hand, and only want to jump on the "Microsoft is evil" bandwagon and start badmouthing them, I feel I need to step up.
The GUID is only sent to Microsoft as part of the online Win98 registration. If this applies to you, then you've ALREADY given MS your name, address, etc. along with your IP address. The addition of a GUID perhaps allowing identification of your MAC address (which is all but useless to MS) and generally just being a unique ID doesn't necessarily degrade your privacy any way.
Yes, it does seem suspicious and odd that this information would be required and stored in Word documents among others, but you should at least open yourself up to the possibility that there IS a logical explanation for why it's there, and I sincerely doubt that explanation has anything to do with violating your privacy or tracking you down.
Stop being an uneducated paranoid slashdot sheep and think about this for a while.
I noticed Microsoft is suing a lot of companies these days for pirating their software ... how do they know?
Because someone tipped them off, they did some investigation, and then filed a lawsuit.
Anyone that thinks that Microsoft somehow used this GUID information to determine who has registered software and who doesn't, and who to go suing is just an easily-frightened, paranoid sheep. What about those organizations that buy 10 copies of Windows but only use one CD/key to install on their workstations? To my knowledge there's nothing really wrong with this, yet your alleged GUID abuse would point to these guys as being evil, yes?
Think about it. The ID was only sent as part of the online Win98 registration process. The odds that you are even affected by this are remote.
Stop believing everything you read in the media (or on Slashdot) and learn to think for yourself. Get educated about the facts behind this matter before you go off spouting nonsense.
Btw, what is it you folks do using NT at work? Development? You could try developing your Windows apps with winelib (unless they make you use VB... ugh!) and be able to ensure that your company's product'll run under linux while getting your work done.
This "everyone MUST use Linux for EVERYTHING" attitude is really starting to bug me. If I'm developing projects that are meant to be deployed on NT systems, you'd better damn well bet I'm going to be developing and testing these things on NT. It's significantly easier and more productive for me if I use existing established tools under NT to do this task than to resort to using experimental, support-less OSS tools under Linux.
And despite what you may think, SO's RTF/Word format is not always perfect. I've come across quite a few inaccuracies when viewing a document cross-platform. This means he will be required to write his document in SO, reboot to Windows, "test view" it in Word to be sure it's right, make any corrections, and only then send it.
Or, you can reduce this time-consuming document creation steps to just two: Write it in Word for Windows, and then send it.
Let's face it, folks: Linux is useful for a myriad of tasks, but when you're working in a Windows environment or need Windowscentric documents, it's a WHOLE LOT more convenient and efficient to just do it in Windows. I myself have two computers at home, one Linux and one Win98. Since I do a great deal of stylesheet work on an Intranet, I use IE as my web browser (since Netscape's handling of stylesheets is far inferior, and ngLayout is not ready for real use), Word as my word processor, and Photoshop5 as my graphics app. I run an X server under Windows where my Linux apps appear, and occasionally I'll move my graphics over to the GIMP since the GIMP is easier to use for a few types of effects. I use IRC in an rxvt window, Windows ICQ, mutt for my e-mail, Outlook Express for newsgroups, etc.
All in all, I think I have it easy. I get to use the real productivity workhorses from Linux alongside the good Windows apps. Yes, I effectively have to reboot once a week or so, but I think that more than makes up for the amount of time I've saved.
Using a 100% Linux environment in many cases can be JUST as time-draining and inefficient as working in a 100% Windows environment. Educated people know to use the best tools for the job, and don't get involved in all of these stupid "everything MS is bad, everything linux is superior" arguments.
While you certainly have that option, it's not going to make the PIII go away, which means it'll still be used with Linux, which means Linux will still need a way to control it.
The CPU ID's could actually serve a useful purpose in a NOC or privileged network where each and every machine needs to be accounted for and identified. Since Linux is popular in these settings, it only makes sense to have the ID available for use.
Exactly.
1. Never run untrusted programs as root. PGP signatures and the like are there for a reason. If you're habitually downloading and running stuff as root without any clear idea where the program came from or who wrote it, you're just asking for trouble.
2. Any program that is discovered to exhibit this sort of behavior will be treated like any other trojan horse. The application will be reported to the various security lists and it will be removed from download.
It seems like everyone is pointing out these "new" threats about how people can write malicious programs to retrieve your CPU ID, but really folks, this is nothing more than a trojan. One could just as easily write in a little bit of code that retrieves your e-mail address, passwords, etc. and mails them to a collection address. The threat of having a CPU ID is negligible when compared to this.
Trust me, if you end up running trojaned software, the CPU ID will NOT be a primary target. Think about it, folks.
Why not have it to where a user-level program (or a /proc interface) with ROOT PRIVILEGES can make the adjustment as needed? If you're running untrusted programs or installing untrusted kernel modules as root, you're a moron and deserve what you get. Perhaps have the kernel print a line to the klog saying the ID mechanism was (en|dis)abled by program ____ user ____ so that it can NOT be done secretly?
RPM, while designed and implemented by RedHat, is hardly proprietary. You can install rpm on any Linux system and be able to use .rpm files just fine.
.tar.gz packages. If you wanted to upgrade an existing .tar.gz package, there's no easy way to do it short of duplicating the installation procedure, overwriting what's already there. This can end up leaving orphaned files (no longer used by the new version) and overwriting existing configuration files. I'm not saying RPM is the only format that supports some of these cases, but it certainly does a better job of managing your applications than .tar.gz, .zip and .shar packages.
To my knowledge, there is no set "standard" for "script or info file"s in
Isn't the source code available for the RPM utils? Doesn't that, by definition, make it not proprietary?
And, for the record, the only time I've ever had trouble with RedHat (5.0 *or* 5.2) is when I tried to install it over an existing Slackware installation. Obviously this is kind of a dumb thing to do. Since then I've never had problems on any system I've installed 5.[02]. Now, I'll admit that some people do have problems, but those people (like you) should be able to at least admit it's possible that your specific configuration or administration "habits" might be the source of your problems, not some inherent flaw in the distribution.
I don't understand..
I run Perl under NT as well and I understand where the original poster was coming from...
I don't understand your post.