So the idea here is to see a few dozen thoughtful opposing views, though possibly token devil's advocate positions by most slashdotters. Then hundreds of rebuttals, espounsing the virtues of open source (which I whole-heartedly agree with), will billow forth in response to each one.
How nifty!:-)
Man, that would write several papers from both angles!
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Description:
No Slashdot story for Mozilla 0.8.1 release
It seems like there was another more recent one about not being able to release 0.9.something until Slashdot was ready and working properly, but i can't seem to find it... Maybe it was just the 0.8 one above.
I'm always surprised that we don't have more multidisciplinary hackers here on/. that are also capable of mech hacking. It's a different, but very similar art.
Reminds me of a funny quote I ran across awhile back. This is exactly how I feel about life:
A human being should be able to change a
diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a
building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a well, set a
bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate,
act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch
manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -- Robert Heinlein.
So I can't do some of those things, but I wouldn't mind learning! That's probably what sets us geeks apart from a lot of other people: we like to learn as much about everything as we can.:)
That sounds very interesting. Is there anyway this could be applied to other types of vehicles? I know turbo's on cars work off of the exhaust in cars, but it's not the same thing.
If I understand turbo correctly, all it does is take some of the pressure from the exhaust gas and uses that to force more air into the intake, consuming more fuel but also providing more power.
Isn't this probably the exact same thing that's been done on diesel submarines for the last half a century?
No, not actually. Submarines (the non-nuclear variety) run on diesel engines while surfaced, but on battery power while submersed. Your typical garden-variety WWII sub could stay underwater for about a day before it had to surface to recharge its batteries. This made German U-boats (and other subs too, I'd imagine) quite vulderable to attack (the surfacing was to the tune of several hours) until a snorkel was developed to allow oxygen to be breathed into the motor without surfacing the whole ship.
So no, though there is probably a small amount of reuse of some exhaust gasses, previous diesel subs still need to breath air and operate on battery power while under water.
Seems like putting a small self install guide in all the dorm rooms might be a start...
We do it that way. Once someone applies for and receives his account information, we send them to their floor's RA who has a couple of instruction packet to lend out. The packet walks them through installing basic Windows networking services, then they login with a generic "newuser" account, which automatically upgrades their Novell client to a modern version. We then use Novell's Application Launcher to install Netscape and McAfee virus protection--one click install for each. Netscape settings are downloaded from the login script; DHCP provides IP configuration; and we give them basic email account configuration instructions.
We leave it up to the user to get their network card installed. Some of them have their friends do it, some do it themselves, and others pay us during our off-time. For those who either can't figure out the packet, or have problems with the procedure, we schedule a time to visit and get things working for them. We update our instructions periodically as we discover common problems and solutions to those issues. I suppose the toughest part--anywhere--is the fact that we're dealing with all sorts of different computer models. Some certainly present interesting quirks.
We're a fairly small school, and not everybody has computers, so it goes pretty well. There's only a couple of us to handle it all. Word gets around and users help each other out quite a bit. We keep as much as we can centralized and generic, and automate settings and such through login scripts and such.
We avoid a lot of issues but not officially supporting them, like file sharing and network gaming. People do it, and we don't have any reason to stop it, but they have to help each other out. We don't let them call up and get our help for things like that. "Research only" is the official policy.
If a document is top secret, it shouldnt be stored on a networked computer. If it is stored on a networked computer, then it should be encrypted. problem solved. encrypting important documents should be as important as backing them up.
You shouldn't set your email program to automatically execute attachments...
You shouldn't open attachments from someone you don't know...
Oh wait, you might get the virus from someone you DO know, but you shouldn't open attachments unless you know what they are and were expecting them...
Always use BCC:
Keep your virus definitions up to date...
Keep your programs/operating system/server up to date with the latest patches...
Always backup your data...
You shouldn't be superuser-equivalent unless you need it briefly to change something...
You should choose a password that is not easy to guess...
You should change your password regularly...
You shouldn't use the same password on different systems...
Do not feed the bears...
It could go on and on. Your idea is fine. It represents one of the many things that *should* be done. But who is going to do it? The fact of the matter remains, people won't follow good security practices because it's inconvenient, they don't want to, they don't know about them, or their Aunt Ruth has a beard.
The point of the question above is that when someone receives something confidental, accidentally, the ethical thing to do is to delete it. Who's responsible? Well, the virus writer, if the file was spread as a result of a virus. Sure, the user should have kept his document secure, but he didn't. Are users guilty of violating any of the above policies? Sure. Are sysadmins? Yep. We do it too.
Of course, we need to educate our users and enforce security policies. Saying "this will work; problem solved" isn't sufficient. Proactive education, policies, and enforcement are the answer. Now I've got to get back to work and do it!
If I have to use my email address to register some software, I started using a little trick to track where my mail comes from. It's simple: you can add name+extension@example.com to your address.
That way, when I get mail to me+realplayer@example.com, I know that I gave that address out when I downloaded realplayer. If email to that address starts getting out of hand, it's simple to just block to that specific address.
YMMV, as I don't know if all mailing software supports it, but for our Sendmail+Cyrus setup it works fine.
In my experience, spam could be delved out a few other ways as well.
First, I have a hotmail account. When I get mail in my box that is addressed to every variant before and after my name, alphabetically, I figure that's just a buckshot approach to hitting a few addresses that might work. 'Course, I have no scientific way to demonstrate this except the suspiciousness of such CC: headers.
Second, what about email forwards? My mother-in-law is big on forwarding cutesy stories and inspirational things, as well as those fake virus warnings (when some guy was first telling me about Melissa, before he said he saw it on TV, I thought that was another one of those) and "email tracking for money/candy/cure for cancer/etc" messages. We all know someone who constantly sends stuff like that, likely. While some people even consider that borderline spam, I think the larger problem is the long list of headers, containing addresses, that end up in nefarious hands at some point or another. Again, I have no proof, but I'd bet that this kind of thing is a good way for spammers to get email addresses, when my name has been included in a long string of names on somebody's chain letter.
The problem with the second method could be greatly alleviated if people would a) clean up messages they forward; b) learn not to forward the obvious junk (a nice story or good joke occasionally is ok); and c) use BCC: instead.
For example, why did this story disappear? Was it technical? Was it editorial?
I have a feeling it was just a simple re-classification of the article. I noticed this too, and thought it was quite odd. So I did some poking around before (at the time) just shrugging and bookmarking the story.
The article first showed up on the front page, but disappeared sometime while I was reading the comments. However, the topic "slashdot" icon was still on the top of the screen. Strange, but I don't know how the site works in that regard. I thought maybe they reclassified the site and thought it wasn't good enough for the front page. Turns out, that wasn't too far from the truth.
I searched around in some of the different sections but didn't find the article. I even manually searched for the article itself, but still didn't find it. Oh well, I thought, and I went on with my day.
Low and behold, an hour or two later, the article is back, but now it is contained in the "Features" section. I had checked there before, but didn't see it. Also, I think the "Features" label didn't appear in front of the story title initially (probably because it hadn't yet been assigned to that section).
Simply put, I think the disappearance and reappearance, was just a side effect of reassigning the story to a new section. Short story made long, I know, but I thought it was kind of interesting, too.
...but I don't want to click there because it would make me lose my train of thought
That's easy: right-click, open in new window, and finish reading your article. When you close the article you're reading, the advertisement you've clicked through is waiting. Of course, that leans back towards the original idea of getting an idea in your head but doing something about it later, albeit not much.
However, I do this all the time when I come across a link I want to follow but first want to finish what I'm in the middle of. For some practice, just start browsing through some of JWZ's site--you have to keep track of yourself or you'll get lost there!
In other domains, no one judges the success of print ads by the number of people who stop reading the magazine and rush to the phones, they judge success by the overall increase in business. Likewise, no one judges the success of billboards by how many cars veer off the freeway and head towards the advertiser's business, nor TV advertisement by how many people shut off the TV and run to the mall. However, that is exactly what is used to judge the viability of banner ads - it is expected to provide instant business, and advertisers are loathe to pay for online ad campaigns that don't have a next-click success.
Maybe instant business is not the key, but arguably web pages create an environment where it's a lot easier to say, "Hey! I've been looking for one of those!" [click]. It'd be pretty difficult to stop and buy something advertised on the latest billboard if you're on your way to work, but web pages make that quite a bit more convenient--heck, you can do it while you're AT work.
Moreover, just as easy as it is to click on banner ads and buy something right away, they're also tons easier to ignore. So they fail to create the branding impression in their viewers that TV commercials and billboards are a little more effective at. Sure, you can change the channel, hit the mute button, look away, but if you ask me, banner ads are even more ignored than that. At least, I don't pay much attention to them.
So while you have a valid point, I don't think the comparision can be complete, as the Internet is a different beast than the traditional media of the past.
I realize that this doesn't really answer the question, but from my experience, I'll have to echo Cliff's comments. Sometimes we need to help the less-knowledgable understand that sometimes it isn't worth the trouble to hang onto these old computers.
Naturally this occurs on two sides: those who are giving and those who are receiving. Companies that can afford to upgrade their equipment probably want to offload their old equipment for a tax write-off. Heck, they probably take a write-off for what they originally paid for the equipment. They need to realize that, depending on the age of the equipment, they really aren't doing the receiving institution any favors by sending them equipment. Sure, a graphics design company might not have much use for last year's P-III 450s, but 486s, early pentiums, Mac classics, and older might prove to be too much trouble for exactly the reason brought up in this question.
The other people that need to be educated are the people accepting the equipment. I can't think of how many times we have had to explain to the administration around here that those old computers just weren't worth it, and that we couldn't make them good for anything. If they *could* be upgraded, and we were going to try, our money would be a lot better spent on purchasing newer machines.
Also, those who donate equipment, as this article mentions, need to donate it right away. In the given example, I wonder how many companies had computers sitting in back rooms and closets for over a year? I realize that donation can't always happen right after they upgrade to new eqipment, but all too often, stuff probably just gets forgotten about and then a year later it's even less worth the upgrade. At least the eqipment might be old when they donate it a little earlier, but it might still be viably (is that a word?) useful for someone, and there still may be some old accessories and software available.
Ok, maybe I should throw in some suggestions for use, too, if people really do want to hang onto this old stuff. I have seen smaller computer stores (not Best Buy or Wal-mart, mind you) and especially salvage parts suppliers carry older hardware and software that perhaps these old machines can use. If it's a school or other non-profit institution, and one copy of an older, useful application could be obtained, I bet if they'd write the software company, they could get permission to install older software. The software company could even consider it a donation, and it wouldn't even cost them anything. Also, older programs might be available via online auctions as well. Or even those reverse auctions where you mention what you want. I imagine there's tons of people out there that have old stuff sitting around in their basements, they just don't know anybody wants it.
Let me explain some of our situation in connectiong the few Macintoshes we have left to our NetWare network. First, the details: we have a small NDS tree including a NetWare 5 fileserver running ProSoft Engineering's NetWare 5 Services for Appleshare, which (in theory, and in the past for us) allows Mac users to access the fileserver and its volumes through the chooser. We also have a NetWare 5 server running BorderManager 3.0 as our firewall/proxy.
Sometime around service pack 5, ProSoft's product stopped working for us. We really didn't notice too much because our Macs are not that active, so we were slow to respond to their reports of it not working. By the time we got service pack 6 loaded, Novell made some key changes which convinces me it's not GOING to work until ProSoft releases some more patches. Long story short, we don't have that working any more. It's been a nightmare. There is a separate IPX client, however, requiring a separate login, also from ProSoft. In the *past* it has worked fine for us, but our Mac people insisted on being able to use the chooser, so we haven't pursued it that much. But for someone that's willing to be reeducated a little, there's nothing wrong the the native Mac client.
Maybe you're not interested in accessing files on any of those servers (and from the sound of it, the state network is not about to load a 3rd party product). But if you want Internet access, that works well, most of the time. Now depending on how they have their firewall and proxy configured, there's not much more to it to get a Mac connected other than get an IP address and configure your browser for the proxy server, if there is one (you can pretty much duplicate the settings from Netscape for Windows). YMMV, but here's the quick rundown on how we have our Internet access configured. We use a proxy server and block quite a bit via our firewall (both incoming and outgoing), and track proxy/web usage via NDS username. Thus, when we configure a browser to use the BorderManager proxy server, it tries to figure out who is requesting access. With Windows, there is a nice little utility that works in conjunction with Client32, clntrust.exe, that will tell the proxy server who the logged-in user is. If that isn't loaded--it's not available for Mac--it brings the user to a secure web page and asks them to enter their NDS username and password. That's all there is to it, and it works fine. Any trouble we have is usually NDS, not Macintosh related.
Now as for the stories you get about why the powers that be don't want you to hook your Macs up: (I assume you don't have them networked at ALL?) I admit I'm no Mac expert but this is what I've heard and experienced. Appletalk is a chatty protocol, but it doesn't bring our network to a halt. I wouldn't say it's any more chatty than SAP and other IPX related traffic, so if they still use IPX, who cares? Plus, if you're speaking of a multi-site WAN, aren't there firewalls and routers that would filter some of this out? If you're using TCP/IP from the Mac exclusively to get on the Internet, the rest of the WAN won't see the Appletalk traffic.
As for MacOS being unstable or hackable, well, I find it kind of unstable too sometimes, but so is Windoze. It's really the user's concern if his machine crashes while he's using it. I *don't* think it's all that prone to being broken into. Windows machines are probably worse off in that arena. And again, so what? Don't they have firewalls from the outside world preventing this kind of thing?
As for them having a personal vendetta against Macs, well, my department and I have the same vendetta against the remaining Macs we have on campus.:-) But I bet if you have enough control to get some IP addresses (we use DHCP, which helps) and configure the machines, they probably won't even notice. Your Macs will function safely, securely, and unnoticably on their network, even if Novell is involved (not that that even makes a difference). I don't have any sort of research to prove it, but I do have similar experience to share.
Check out this recent submission I made. I was looking for help-desk software with the ability for our department to track our work through workorders. While we have not implemented it full-time yet, we will most likely go with DCL at our campus. It may do most of what you are looking for, is pretty configurable, and is continually being developed. I believe you can give customers accounts so they can see progress of their work. Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but I recommend you have a look and see what it'll do.
The US nuclear arsenal is less than 3,000 megatons of explosive yield. Russia's nuclear arsenal has been estimated to have a comparable yield.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but do you really think they'd admit just how much firepower we have? One of the prime issues in the missle defense system is not the threat of a superpower like Russia, but rogue states like Iraq, India, or even China developing long range weapons capable of reaching and causing mass-destruction in the U.S. Never mind the merits of that, but in light of the potential threats of such nations, do you really think the *real* answer as to how much firepower we have is just going to be right there available to everyone in the world? "Hey, guys, come and get us, this is all we've got!"
Sure, "all we've got," according to those numbers is still quite a bit; I just doubt, in the interest of national security, that the actual figure is anywhere near that.
I suppose this comes as no surprise to most of us who are used to this, but my local news report just reported this offer by Napster. They proceeded to describe Napster as a service that "allows users to download the songs for free through its web site."
I learned a little bit about HLT with an encounter I had with a former ISP. This was about four years ago, and like any good ISP, they offered me a shell account on one of their Linux servers with the service. I had just discovered distributed.net and their encryption-breaking efforts, so I jumped on the bandwagon to find as many machines as possible to do as much cracking as I could. One of those machines, I got the bright idea of, could be the ISP's shell server!
Not a day after I began running the rc5crack program on their system (I think that's what it was back then), I got a nice nasty-gram from one of the sysadmins about it. He told me that it was a violation of policy, blah-blah-blah, and was using up their CPU time and keeping the OS from executing the HLT instruction, which made the CPU run hotter, and used more power.
I don't know what kind of a difference I was actually making, as the utilization didn't skyrocket (then again, that was only one process), but he sure griped me out for it.
So, naturally, slowing down the CPU with HLT is a good thing. I wonder, power-wise, maybe there's enough collective wasted resources with extra processes, particularly distributed applications like this and SETI, that the aliens we can't seem to find are laughing at us while they wait until CA's powergrid fails entirely and they can invade! Shut them all down!:-)
1. More support for Linux USB devices across the board if this grill, er applicance gets popular.
2. People will start to trust Linux. I think that is one of the main things holding Linux back.
3. More people in Linux users groups.
4. They may use this to push HDTV,
5. Finally we will be able to trade our favorite sitcom episodes.
6. Create jobs for Linux Gurus.
Do you really think so? I don't imagine people will even KNOW this thing is running Linux--so what's it to them? Just another box that does cool things. Depending on the interface, maybe it will look different that Windows, but heck, it's not a regular computer (to them). From the looks of the article, this isn't a box blazing the words "revolutionary operating system that blows Windows away that you probably haven't used before inside!" It's just a cheap way to play MP3s, get online, etc. Except for guys like us, who already are familiar with, understand the benefits of, and utilize Linux regularly, I don't think people will know any better.
Slashdot Mirror
How nifty! :-)
Man, that would write several papers from both angles!
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Here's a great way to make some money: how about selling karma!
we need preparation as well as a good place to have the biggest & coolest party ever!
These two Slashdot-related bugs amuse me:
Bug #68974
Description:
Mozilla 0.8 cannot be released until Slashdot is ready
Bug #73658
Description:
No Slashdot story for Mozilla 0.8.1 release
It seems like there was another more recent one about not being able to release 0.9.something until Slashdot was ready and working properly, but i can't seem to find it... Maybe it was just the 0.8 one above.
Reminds me of a funny quote I ran across awhile back. This is exactly how I feel about life:
So I can't do some of those things, but I wouldn't mind learning! That's probably what sets us geeks apart from a lot of other people: we like to learn as much about everything as we can.If I understand turbo correctly, all it does is take some of the pressure from the exhaust gas and uses that to force more air into the intake, consuming more fuel but also providing more power.
Isn't this probably the exact same thing that's been done on diesel submarines for the last half a century?
No, not actually. Submarines (the non-nuclear variety) run on diesel engines while surfaced, but on battery power while submersed. Your typical garden-variety WWII sub could stay underwater for about a day before it had to surface to recharge its batteries. This made German U-boats (and other subs too, I'd imagine) quite vulderable to attack (the surfacing was to the tune of several hours) until a snorkel was developed to allow oxygen to be breathed into the motor without surfacing the whole ship.
So no, though there is probably a small amount of reuse of some exhaust gasses, previous diesel subs still need to breath air and operate on battery power while under water.
We do it that way. Once someone applies for and receives his account information, we send them to their floor's RA who has a couple of instruction packet to lend out. The packet walks them through installing basic Windows networking services, then they login with a generic "newuser" account, which automatically upgrades their Novell client to a modern version. We then use Novell's Application Launcher to install Netscape and McAfee virus protection--one click install for each. Netscape settings are downloaded from the login script; DHCP provides IP configuration; and we give them basic email account configuration instructions.
We leave it up to the user to get their network card installed. Some of them have their friends do it, some do it themselves, and others pay us during our off-time. For those who either can't figure out the packet, or have problems with the procedure, we schedule a time to visit and get things working for them. We update our instructions periodically as we discover common problems and solutions to those issues. I suppose the toughest part--anywhere--is the fact that we're dealing with all sorts of different computer models. Some certainly present interesting quirks.
We're a fairly small school, and not everybody has computers, so it goes pretty well. There's only a couple of us to handle it all. Word gets around and users help each other out quite a bit. We keep as much as we can centralized and generic, and automate settings and such through login scripts and such.
We avoid a lot of issues but not officially supporting them, like file sharing and network gaming. People do it, and we don't have any reason to stop it, but they have to help each other out. We don't let them call up and get our help for things like that. "Research only" is the official policy.
You shouldn't set your email program to automatically execute attachments...
You shouldn't open attachments from someone you don't know...
Oh wait, you might get the virus from someone you DO know, but you shouldn't open attachments unless you know what they are and were expecting them...
Always use BCC:
Keep your virus definitions up to date...
Keep your programs/operating system/server up to date with the latest patches...
Always backup your data...
You shouldn't be superuser-equivalent unless you need it briefly to change something...
You should choose a password that is not easy to guess...
You should change your password regularly...
You shouldn't use the same password on different systems...
Do not feed the bears...
It could go on and on. Your idea is fine. It represents one of the many things that *should* be done. But who is going to do it? The fact of the matter remains, people won't follow good security practices because it's inconvenient, they don't want to, they don't know about them, or their Aunt Ruth has a beard.
The point of the question above is that when someone receives something confidental, accidentally, the ethical thing to do is to delete it. Who's responsible? Well, the virus writer, if the file was spread as a result of a virus. Sure, the user should have kept his document secure, but he didn't. Are users guilty of violating any of the above policies? Sure. Are sysadmins? Yep. We do it too.
Of course, we need to educate our users and enforce security policies. Saying "this will work; problem solved" isn't sufficient. Proactive education, policies, and enforcement are the answer. Now I've got to get back to work and do it!
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
That way, when I get mail to me+realplayer@example.com, I know that I gave that address out when I downloaded realplayer. If email to that address starts getting out of hand, it's simple to just block to that specific address.
YMMV, as I don't know if all mailing software supports it, but for our Sendmail+Cyrus setup it works fine.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
First, I have a hotmail account. When I get mail in my box that is addressed to every variant before and after my name, alphabetically, I figure that's just a buckshot approach to hitting a few addresses that might work. 'Course, I have no scientific way to demonstrate this except the suspiciousness of such CC: headers.
Second, what about email forwards? My mother-in-law is big on forwarding cutesy stories and inspirational things, as well as those fake virus warnings (when some guy was first telling me about Melissa, before he said he saw it on TV, I thought that was another one of those) and "email tracking for money/candy/cure for cancer/etc" messages. We all know someone who constantly sends stuff like that, likely. While some people even consider that borderline spam, I think the larger problem is the long list of headers, containing addresses, that end up in nefarious hands at some point or another. Again, I have no proof, but I'd bet that this kind of thing is a good way for spammers to get email addresses, when my name has been included in a long string of names on somebody's chain letter.
The problem with the second method could be greatly alleviated if people would a) clean up messages they forward; b) learn not to forward the obvious junk (a nice story or good joke occasionally is ok); and c) use BCC: instead.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
I have a feeling it was just a simple re-classification of the article. I noticed this too, and thought it was quite odd. So I did some poking around before (at the time) just shrugging and bookmarking the story.
The article first showed up on the front page, but disappeared sometime while I was reading the comments. However, the topic "slashdot" icon was still on the top of the screen. Strange, but I don't know how the site works in that regard. I thought maybe they reclassified the site and thought it wasn't good enough for the front page. Turns out, that wasn't too far from the truth.
I searched around in some of the different sections but didn't find the article. I even manually searched for the article itself, but still didn't find it. Oh well, I thought, and I went on with my day.
Low and behold, an hour or two later, the article is back, but now it is contained in the "Features" section. I had checked there before, but didn't see it. Also, I think the "Features" label didn't appear in front of the story title initially (probably because it hadn't yet been assigned to that section).
Simply put, I think the disappearance and reappearance, was just a side effect of reassigning the story to a new section. Short story made long, I know, but I thought it was kind of interesting, too.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Of course, there's the old faithful procedure when you have a bad mouse: hold it up the same way, and ask if anybody smells anything...?
"Dead mouse."
(Groan)
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
That's easy: right-click, open in new window, and finish reading your article. When you close the article you're reading, the advertisement you've clicked through is waiting. Of course, that leans back towards the original idea of getting an idea in your head but doing something about it later, albeit not much.
However, I do this all the time when I come across a link I want to follow but first want to finish what I'm in the middle of. For some practice, just start browsing through some of JWZ's site--you have to keep track of yourself or you'll get lost there!
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Maybe instant business is not the key, but arguably web pages create an environment where it's a lot easier to say, "Hey! I've been looking for one of those!" [click]. It'd be pretty difficult to stop and buy something advertised on the latest billboard if you're on your way to work, but web pages make that quite a bit more convenient--heck, you can do it while you're AT work.
Moreover, just as easy as it is to click on banner ads and buy something right away, they're also tons easier to ignore. So they fail to create the branding impression in their viewers that TV commercials and billboards are a little more effective at. Sure, you can change the channel, hit the mute button, look away, but if you ask me, banner ads are even more ignored than that. At least, I don't pay much attention to them.
So while you have a valid point, I don't think the comparision can be complete, as the Internet is a different beast than the traditional media of the past.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Naturally this occurs on two sides: those who are giving and those who are receiving. Companies that can afford to upgrade their equipment probably want to offload their old equipment for a tax write-off. Heck, they probably take a write-off for what they originally paid for the equipment. They need to realize that, depending on the age of the equipment, they really aren't doing the receiving institution any favors by sending them equipment. Sure, a graphics design company might not have much use for last year's P-III 450s, but 486s, early pentiums, Mac classics, and older might prove to be too much trouble for exactly the reason brought up in this question.
The other people that need to be educated are the people accepting the equipment. I can't think of how many times we have had to explain to the administration around here that those old computers just weren't worth it, and that we couldn't make them good for anything. If they *could* be upgraded, and we were going to try, our money would be a lot better spent on purchasing newer machines.
Also, those who donate equipment, as this article mentions, need to donate it right away. In the given example, I wonder how many companies had computers sitting in back rooms and closets for over a year? I realize that donation can't always happen right after they upgrade to new eqipment, but all too often, stuff probably just gets forgotten about and then a year later it's even less worth the upgrade. At least the eqipment might be old when they donate it a little earlier, but it might still be viably (is that a word?) useful for someone, and there still may be some old accessories and software available.
Ok, maybe I should throw in some suggestions for use, too, if people really do want to hang onto this old stuff. I have seen smaller computer stores (not Best Buy or Wal-mart, mind you) and especially salvage parts suppliers carry older hardware and software that perhaps these old machines can use. If it's a school or other non-profit institution, and one copy of an older, useful application could be obtained, I bet if they'd write the software company, they could get permission to install older software. The software company could even consider it a donation, and it wouldn't even cost them anything. Also, older programs might be available via online auctions as well. Or even those reverse auctions where you mention what you want. I imagine there's tons of people out there that have old stuff sitting around in their basements, they just don't know anybody wants it.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
By gosh you're right--never actually checked the strip. (_Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat_, page 149) I corrected my .sig accordingly.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
http://political.adcritic.com/content/ nader-priceless.html
(watch the space after "content/")
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Is there a standard for standards document standards that these people should follow as standard? If not, maybe they need to standardize...
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Sometime around service pack 5, ProSoft's product stopped working for us. We really didn't notice too much because our Macs are not that active, so we were slow to respond to their reports of it not working. By the time we got service pack 6 loaded, Novell made some key changes which convinces me it's not GOING to work until ProSoft releases some more patches. Long story short, we don't have that working any more. It's been a nightmare. There is a separate IPX client, however, requiring a separate login, also from ProSoft. In the *past* it has worked fine for us, but our Mac people insisted on being able to use the chooser, so we haven't pursued it that much. But for someone that's willing to be reeducated a little, there's nothing wrong the the native Mac client.
Maybe you're not interested in accessing files on any of those servers (and from the sound of it, the state network is not about to load a 3rd party product). But if you want Internet access, that works well, most of the time. Now depending on how they have their firewall and proxy configured, there's not much more to it to get a Mac connected other than get an IP address and configure your browser for the proxy server, if there is one (you can pretty much duplicate the settings from Netscape for Windows). YMMV, but here's the quick rundown on how we have our Internet access configured. We use a proxy server and block quite a bit via our firewall (both incoming and outgoing), and track proxy/web usage via NDS username. Thus, when we configure a browser to use the BorderManager proxy server, it tries to figure out who is requesting access. With Windows, there is a nice little utility that works in conjunction with Client32, clntrust.exe, that will tell the proxy server who the logged-in user is. If that isn't loaded--it's not available for Mac--it brings the user to a secure web page and asks them to enter their NDS username and password. That's all there is to it, and it works fine. Any trouble we have is usually NDS, not Macintosh related.
Now as for the stories you get about why the powers that be don't want you to hook your Macs up: (I assume you don't have them networked at ALL?) I admit I'm no Mac expert but this is what I've heard and experienced. Appletalk is a chatty protocol, but it doesn't bring our network to a halt. I wouldn't say it's any more chatty than SAP and other IPX related traffic, so if they still use IPX, who cares? Plus, if you're speaking of a multi-site WAN, aren't there firewalls and routers that would filter some of this out? If you're using TCP/IP from the Mac exclusively to get on the Internet, the rest of the WAN won't see the Appletalk traffic.
As for MacOS being unstable or hackable, well, I find it kind of unstable too sometimes, but so is Windoze. It's really the user's concern if his machine crashes while he's using it. I *don't* think it's all that prone to being broken into. Windows machines are probably worse off in that arena. And again, so what? Don't they have firewalls from the outside world preventing this kind of thing?
As for them having a personal vendetta against Macs, well, my department and I have the same vendetta against the remaining Macs we have on campus. :-) But I bet if you have enough control to get some IP addresses (we use DHCP, which helps) and configure the machines, they probably won't even notice. Your Macs will function safely, securely, and unnoticably on their network, even if Novell is involved (not that that even makes a difference). I don't have any sort of research to prove it, but I do have similar experience to share.
Hope that helps.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
Check out this recent submission I made. I was looking for help-desk software with the ability for our department to track our work through workorders. While we have not implemented it full-time yet, we will most likely go with DCL at our campus. It may do most of what you are looking for, is pretty configurable, and is continually being developed. I believe you can give customers accounts so they can see progress of their work. Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but I recommend you have a look and see what it'll do.
"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but do you really think they'd admit just how much firepower we have? One of the prime issues in the missle defense system is not the threat of a superpower like Russia, but rogue states like Iraq, India, or even China developing long range weapons capable of reaching and causing mass-destruction in the U.S. Never mind the merits of that, but in light of the potential threats of such nations, do you really think the *real* answer as to how much firepower we have is just going to be right there available to everyone in the world? "Hey, guys, come and get us, this is all we've got!"
Sure, "all we've got," according to those numbers is still quite a bit; I just doubt, in the interest of national security, that the actual figure is anywhere near that.
"Someone set us up the sniffer."
Whatever!
Not a day after I began running the rc5crack program on their system (I think that's what it was back then), I got a nice nasty-gram from one of the sysadmins about it. He told me that it was a violation of policy, blah-blah-blah, and was using up their CPU time and keeping the OS from executing the HLT instruction, which made the CPU run hotter, and used more power.
I don't know what kind of a difference I was actually making, as the utilization didn't skyrocket (then again, that was only one process), but he sure griped me out for it.
So, naturally, slowing down the CPU with HLT is a good thing. I wonder, power-wise, maybe there's enough collective wasted resources with extra processes, particularly distributed applications like this and SETI, that the aliens we can't seem to find are laughing at us while they wait until CA's powergrid fails entirely and they can invade! Shut them all down! :-)
Do you really think so? I don't imagine people will even KNOW this thing is running Linux--so what's it to them? Just another box that does cool things. Depending on the interface, maybe it will look different that Windows, but heck, it's not a regular computer (to them). From the looks of the article, this isn't a box blazing the words "revolutionary operating system that blows Windows away that you probably haven't used before inside!" It's just a cheap way to play MP3s, get online, etc. Except for guys like us, who already are familiar with, understand the benefits of, and utilize Linux regularly, I don't think people will know any better.