Hey, you -- yeah, you. Wanna buy a cluster? I know you'd like some UltraSPARC IVs. No? Come on. I've got great deals on last year's hardware, too. For the low, low price of $757,825, you, too, can own a piece of precision equipment from the Sun Fire line. OK, OK, fine! Go to that guy across the street. But make sure you come back here before you decide, because I've been authorized to toss in some incentives.
You'll be back, believe me. You'll be back in no time.
Most of the highly-scored comments point out corrections to the Chronicle article, but here are a couple more they seem to have missed:
There was no password-guessing program. All passwords that were guessed were entered by hand, AFAIK.
The search process went as follows: An employee of Computing Services looked at the Network Neighborhood window in list view and checked 2 or 3 of the machines in the bottom 5 rows for illegal content (MP3's as well as movies). They checked folders that were public or had suspicious names. By guessing passwords or looking at read me files, they found illegal content and pointers to other illegal machines, which they then checked out. So it was mostly a random sweep, but they followed obvious trails when they were laid out in read me files.
Most of the 70+ students showed up at the workshop and will probably have their network access back by the end of next week. I know; I was there to watch the goings-on (not one of the 71 students though).
I know of two cases where network access was given back on appeal. One was for someone sharing legal MP3's (live Dave Matthews), and the other was for someone who needed network access for their job (they work for CMU:-).
More information can be found in The Tartan, the student newspaper.
Overall, Computing Services probably was legal in its actions, but they were pushing it and they realize that. At the workshop, it was made clear that future crackdowns will be handled differently--students with illegal content will be given 48 hours' notice before being disconnected so they can appeal before being shut down. Subject to change, of course.
Actually, this is more an issue of Apple releasing beta DVD software than it is of hardware performance. DVD Player 2.0b2 ships with iMac DV models, and its lack of optimization shows when it drops syncronization after about 20 minutes. Apple has said that it will post a final release shortly to solve the sync problem. The G3/400 itself is able to play DVDs via software decoding without any problems, but only if nearly all system resources are used.
For those Mac users with hardware decoders, I believe DVD Player 2.0 will not be supported. Instead, Apple has released version 1.3 with Mac OS 9, which performs just as well, if not better, than 2.0 final will on the iMac DV's.
I don't know about VAIO, but according to Sony's site, "The first two letters of the word AIBO stand for Artificial Intelligence. AIBO is also a robot with eyes, so you can think of it as an eye-bo(t). Finally, AIBO is also named after the Japanese word for "pal," because AIBO is a great companion for people." A bit contrived, but at least it's not an arbitrary number sequence. Besides, it sounds like a pet's name--perfect for the people they are marketing to.
Microsoft hardware is very nice, but don't discount Logitech's offerings just yet. My MouseMan Wheel is wonderful, and the new cordless one is even better. I highly recommend you try one out at a local computer store.
On another note, I think the toolbar invasion is approaching ridiculous levels. There is a point where rolling infrequently-used commands up into a menu is a lot nicer (and more readable) than having to choose what command you want from a display of 80 to 100 tiny 4-bit icons. I'm all for customizability, but when the expectation is for the user to take up 1/3 of the screen with buttons, usability conventions are thrown out the door. The IntelliSensor Mouse with IntelliDirectEye will only promote this type of poor interface and will subsequently scare off the novice users that just want to type a letter.
In sum, this new hardware seems promising for experts, but looks to be the beginning of a disturbing trend to make future computer systems even harder to use than they are today.
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You'll be back, believe me. You'll be back in no time.
A nice Safari RSS screenshot, starring our favorite site.
I'm back.
Overall, Computing Services probably was legal in its actions, but they were pushing it and they realize that. At the workshop, it was made clear that future crackdowns will be handled differently--students with illegal content will be given 48 hours' notice before being disconnected so they can appeal before being shut down. Subject to change, of course.
For those Mac users with hardware decoders, I believe DVD Player 2.0 will not be supported. Instead, Apple has released version 1.3 with Mac OS 9, which performs just as well, if not better, than 2.0 final will on the iMac DV's.
I don't know about VAIO, but according to Sony's site, "The first two letters of the word AIBO stand for Artificial Intelligence. AIBO is also a robot with eyes, so you can think of it as an eye-bo(t). Finally, AIBO is also named after the Japanese word for "pal," because AIBO is a great companion for people." A bit contrived, but at least it's not an arbitrary number sequence. Besides, it sounds like a pet's name--perfect for the people they are marketing to.
On another note, I think the toolbar invasion is approaching ridiculous levels. There is a point where rolling infrequently-used commands up into a menu is a lot nicer (and more readable) than having to choose what command you want from a display of 80 to 100 tiny 4-bit icons. I'm all for customizability, but when the expectation is for the user to take up 1/3 of the screen with buttons, usability conventions are thrown out the door. The IntelliSensor Mouse with IntelliDirectEye will only promote this type of poor interface and will subsequently scare off the novice users that just want to type a letter.
In sum, this new hardware seems promising for experts, but looks to be the beginning of a disturbing trend to make future computer systems even harder to use than they are today.